“Muslims are always terrorists!” says comedian Omar Regan.
The cast of The Secret Life of Muslims would even be happy to see the bare minimum — a Muslim protagonist not as an action star but as a regular old human being. As long as the character isn’t a radical terrorist, persecuted woman, or religious radical, these Muslim Americans will be happy.
Comedian Negin Farsad imagines someone who’s “binge-watching television, who really loves doughnuts, who’s very bad at bowling,” while Wajahat Ali sees a Muslim character who is “eating chicken biryani and watching Game of Thrones.”
Is that so much to ask?
Religious scholar Reza Aslan says, “What we as Muslims have to do is learn to harness the power of pop culture as a means of reframing perceptions toward Muslims.”
]]>Muhammad did not claim that her detention was a result of President Donald Trump’s controversial visa and immigration ban, often referred to as a “Muslim ban.” Muhammad also did not specify where she had been traveling or the exact date of the incident.
“I can’t tell you why it happened to me, but I know that I’m Muslim. I have an Arabic name,” Muhammad told PopSugar, “and even though I represent Team USA and I have that Olympic hardware, it doesn’t change how you look and how people perceive you.”
But for Muhammad, this sense of isolation is not something new. When Muhammad played sports growing up, she always felt different. While her teammates wore tank tops and shorts, Muhammad covered up to follow her Muslim faith. Then she found fencing.
“It was the first time where I looked like my teammates,” says Ibtihaj Muhammad about wearing a fencing uniform. “And it was just this very gratifying experience for me.”
For someone who grew up idolizing American gold medalists Serena and Venus Williams, earning a place on the US Olympic team for the 2016 games in Rio was an incredible milestone for Muhammad, as well as for her country. She was the first American athlete to compete while wearing hijab.
“I wanted to challenge the narrative that Muslim women are meek and docile and oppressed,” she says. Her qualification landed her national news segments and interviews with the likes of Stephen Colbert and Ellen DeGeneres, not to mention a visit with President Barack Obama.
“I told her to bring home the gold,” President Obama said after meeting her.
For Muhammad, though, her hopes mirror those of the Williams sisters. “They never conformed to what the tennis community wanted them to be, and through their prowess they forced society to accept them as they were, and that is something that I wanted for myself within fencing.”
These days, Muhammad strives to be a role model herself, particularly in the climate of the new Trump Administration. “I’m one of those people who feels like I have to be strong for those people who may not be able to find that strength,” she told Pop Sugar. “I feel like I have to speak up for those people whose voices go unheard.”
]]>“The mainstream view is so misrepresentative of so many young Muslim Americans,” she says. “They were generally represented in one way, instead of an amalgamation of many identities.”
To young Muslim Americans like her who grew up without role models in the media, Shaikley says, “Nothing represents you right now, which is why you have to take control of our narrative and make something that represents you.”
So Shaikley got some friends together and filmed a video. “Somewhere in America #MIPSTERZ” shows her skating alongside her friends in the streets of New York City. Dressed in their mipster best, they vogue for the camera, ride motorcycles, and lounge on fire escape stairwells. US Olympiad Ibtihaj Muhammad pulls off her fencing mask, revealing her hijab underneath. In the background, Jay Z’s “Somewhere in America” plays. Two years — and one viral rise in popularity — later, Shaikley is at the forefront of a mipster cultural movement she helped create.
In the latest installment of Vox’s The Secret Life of Muslims, Layla Shaikley opens up about the surprising new places #MIPSTERZ life has taken her.
]]>Draped or folded, sheer or thick, neutral or colorful, hijabs are as diverse as the women who wear them. Reporter Dena Takruri, who wears a hijab while she prays, says, “There’s this Western stereotype that a Muslim woman who wears it did not have the choice to do so. It is seen as a symbol of oppression rather than a symbol of devotion.”
But when asked about the headscarves, these Muslim American women spoke of them as a matter of pride and personal expression.
“Hey, peeps, I’m a Muslim!” Shaikley says. “What’s up?”
In the latest installment of The Secret Life of Muslims, everyone weighs in, from US Olympiad Ibtihaj Muhammad, who wears her hijab under her fencing mask, to Women’s March on Washington co-chair Linda Sarsour.
]]>As head of the Arab American Association of New York, Sarsour helped end the NYPD’s practice of spying on Muslim American citizens and was instrumental in the effort for New York to close schools on two Muslim high holy holidays, a first for any big city in the US.
“Growing up as a New York City public school student, every time there was a Muslim high holy holiday, I had to choose between going to school and celebrating my faith,” she says.
Her relentless pursuit brought her up against the most powerful man in New York City. “I was in a meeting with Mayor Michael Bloomberg face to face, and he said, ‘Hell no, not on my watch.’”
In the country’s largest school system, changing the academic calendar is not easy. “I have three children that go to New York City public schools, and the last thing I wanted to do was turn around and tell my kids, ‘Guess what? We gave up.’”
In our latest installment of The Secret Life of Muslims video series, Sarsour explains how she was able to say to her children: “I did this for you.”
]]>Shortly after meeting Haydar, Robins decided to convert to Islam. “Islamophobia just wasn’t the thing that it is today,” he says. “I don’t know if I would’ve converted as readily or as publicly now as I did then.”
In recent years, Robins has noticed marked differences in his experiences when he’s alone, or with their son Safi, versus when he is with Haydar. “Going out with Mona, people are not shy about staring,” he says. Haydar adds, “Sebastian’s like, ‘Oh, this is my wife, Mona.’ People are like, ‘Oh. Nice to meet you, Muslim lady.’”
Following the rise of Islamophobic hate crimes in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, Robins and Haydar knew they had to act. “We felt like we had to do something to replace some of that trauma with love and connection. … ‘How do we get people to talk to us?’” Haydar says.
With the help of coffee, several dozen doughnuts, flowers, their son Safi, and their dog Ben-Ben, Robins and Haydar set up outside of the Cambridge Public Library in Massachusetts for a day with a large sign encouraging passersby to “Ask a Muslim.” Conversations ranged from what it’s like to be a Muslim in America today to tips on how to potty-train their son to the Boston Red Sox. “It was a lot of curiosity and a lot of joy,” says Haydar.
Shortly after, their gesture went viral on social media, spurring hundreds of “Ask a Muslim” pop-ups all over the country. “It’s that magic connection that I want to be the lasting thing from Ask a Muslim,” Haydar says.
]]>“I used to tell people I was Mexican. It was very important that we kept the whole Muslim-Iranian thing on the down-low.”
Now, as a best-selling author, religious scholar, and commentator, Aslan has appeared on numerous primetime shows and networks over the past decade, such as The Daily Show, Anderson Cooper 360, Hardball, and Fox News.
After a string of increasingly frustrating and misguided interviews where Aslan had to “tap down his astonishment,” he started to rethink his strategy.
“After about 10 years of being cable-news’ favorite Muslim, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t think it’s doing any good … bigotry is not a result of ignorance, it’s a result of fear. Fear is impervious to data,” says Aslan.
Aslan has set out to fight Islamophobia with stories told through pop culture, particularly film and television.
“Stories have the power to break through the walls that separate us into different ethnicities, different cultures, nationalities, races, and religions. They hit us at the human level.”
]]>In the past, when curious people asked comedian Zahra Noorbakhsh questions about “Muslimness,” as she puts it, she would say, “just Google it!” But later, as the internet evolved, her answer changed to: “Please don’t Google that. Just come to dinner with me and my family.”
Fellow comedian, Maz Jobrani echoes Noorbakhsh’s sentiment, “The internet was supposed to make us better and more intelligent,” Jobrani says, “but it’s just shown how stupid we are.”
So, what does one do in the face of hate tweets, accusations of terrorist sympathy, or just general threats? The cast of The Secret Life of Muslims shares some of their online experiences.
This episode of The Secret Life of Muslims features Aman Ali, Wajahat Ali, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, Reza Aslan, Negin Farsad, Mona Haydar, Maz Jobrani, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Zahra Noorbakhsh, Omar Regan, Sebastian Robins, Linda Sarsour, Layla Shaikley, Dena Takruri, and Iqbal Theba.
]]>“Newscasters at that time were predominantly all white,” says Takruri. “From a very young age, I grew up with sort of this cloak of insecurity. I would just see how demonized Muslims were and how demonized Arabs were.”
As presenter for AJ+, Takruri made it her mission to challenge power. From calling out Donald Trump on his view of Latino immigrants to shedding light on the conditions at the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance camp to speaking to refugees on the ground in Syria, Takruri does not back down.
“There was this narrative that you had these ominous herds of Arabs, you know, refugees infiltrating Europe and infiltrating the West, and I wanted to tell the story differently,” she says.
Takruri now receives messages from young Muslim Americans and Arab Americans who see her as a role model. “I’m proud to be a positive representation and a role model for those who are younger than me who could say, ‘I can grow up and be on camera,’ ‘I can grow up and ask a presidential candidate something,’” she says. “The sky’s the limit.”
]]>But after 9/11, al-Khatahtbeh’s childhood became “distinctly shaped” by bullying and Islamophobia.
Her family’s home was vandalized, her father’s beachfront business was threatened with eviction, and her classmates tormented her constantly. “I remember going straight to my guidance counselor and telling her, ‘Every single kid in my class is attacking me,’” al-Khatahtbeh recalls. “And my guidance counselor said, ‘Well, if everyone feels that way, then maybe you need to change.’”
The summer after elementary school, al-Khatahtbeh skipped the beach and taught herself HTML. She created MuslimGirl, a website for “other Muslim girls that were experiencing the same thing [she] was.” The site was a haven for young Muslim women to talk about not only their identities but every aspect of their lives. “One of the first blog posts on MuslimGirl was about your period,” al-Khatahtbeh says.
Today, al-Khatahtbeh has turned MuslimGirl into a thriving company. She’s partnered with Teen Vogue, spoken at the Cannes Lions festival, and been featured on Forbes’s 30 Under 30 List.
When al-Khatahtbeh met a Hindu mother who read MuslimGirl with her 14-year-old daughter every night as a self-esteem-building exercise, “I was just flooded with so much happiness … in that moment,” al-Khatahtbeh says, “because I was that 14-year-old girl. It made me realize what this is all about: making these girls believe that they can do whatever the hell they want.”
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