{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Well, let me just give you a sample of my daily routine. At this moment, I am a housewife, and I have three children. My daily routine starts with Fajr prayer, being a Muslim, and some dhikr afterward, and then getting the kids ready for school — waking them up, helping them get ready, packing their lunch. That's the morning routine, and I drop them off at school; they have different timings. Then I come home, and I'm currently studying — I'm working on a certification, so I work on that. And obviously it's a lot of housework — nothing really important going on, just what a woman is expected to do: the cleaning, the house chores, I would say. Then prayer comes, and after prayer I definitely have time for reading the Quran and tafsir, learning about my faith. It's in my daily routine. Alhamdulillah, I've been maintaining that for quite a while now, and I'm kind of proud of that, before the kids come home. I work on that, and after the kids arrive we actually do have after-school programs for them — Quran classes at the mosque, two to four times a week, sometimes four times, and activities, sports they do go to. I try to keep them busy, keep myself busy, and at the same time maintain — being a woman — taking care of my own health and hygiene, working out, sports, anything that I can do for my health. Yeah, it's not a bad idea.\n\nIt's a lot — well, it sounds like a lot, but I mean, it is a lot. And then at the end of the day, sometimes I get a comment like, \"What did you do today?\" I'm like, sure, let me just start counting. Sometimes I do feel like a woman's work is 24-7, especially being a mom with three kids, and it's not as valuable — society doesn't really accept it as you doing something, you know what I mean? I get that from my own family members — they say, \"What did you do today? You've been home all day long.\" It's like, oh, okay, so I did nothing. It's amazing, but I'm still grateful. I have love for everything; I enjoy being able to provide for the kids, not just financially but spiritually — I can put them in classes; they have a morning Quran and an afternoon Quran. My goal is for them to start with the morning Quran and finish with Quran in the evening — the least I can give them. My goal is to teach them the Quran so the Quran can teach them everything in life, inshallah.\n\nAmeen, for all of us, but for all the Muslims, especially living in the West — a lot of the influences out here, the environment is not as ideal, right?"}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "You know, I was actually very lucky. My community is full of Muslims, alhamdulillah, and I like to surround myself with Muslims, even though my husband's side of the family are not Muslims — I like to keep myself close to our community more than any other, because I noticed in the past — before marriage and even after marriage, I'll be honest — I surrounded myself with non-Muslims, and without me wanting it, I saw their lifestyle and culture and was kind of trying to fit in, or maybe adapting to it somehow without knowing it. Like I said before, I wasn't a hijabi — I was very, I guess, modern, and everything you'd see in any other woman outside, non-Muslim or non-practicing, you could see I was one of them. I don't want to put anybody down, but what I mean is you wouldn't know that I was a practicing woman, even though I was praying and doing all the other pillars I'm supposed to be doing — fasting, giving zakat, everything — but I wasn't properly showing myself as a Muslim woman. It's not because I was embarrassed or anything, but that's just where I grew up, this is where we come from — being modest wasn't part of our culture, I guess. It was like the opposite.\n\nI grew up in Uzbekistan, and I grew up in Russia — I grew up in parts of Europe, because my father was around the world, so we moved around with him a lot. I never actually got exposed to modest Muslim women; everybody around me was Muslim, but at the same time everybody was like me, so I didn't really have modest Muslim women around me growing up. I wish it would have been different, but at the same time I'm really grateful it wasn't that way, because I don't take it for granted — I feel like I respect it more now than if I had been forced into it while growing up. I came to start wearing hijab and wearing more modest clothes by my own will; nobody forced me into it. I learned about it, and Allah guided me to do it — he gave me that option of choosing it. It's not like my parents or the society I grew up in forced me into it.\n\nI do appreciate that a lot, and I'm grateful for that as well. I just want to stress that enough. I've seen a lot of young women who unfortunately were forced into hijab, but then later on they took it off. I've met so many of them, but wallahu a'lam — it's not for me to talk about other people's reasons; people have their own decisions. But my experience of coming into being more modest, becoming a Muslim woman, came with my own decision through Allah's guidance.\n\nHow would I describe it? I would say that I think Muslim women are the freest women on earth. That's what I would say, because unfortunately non-Muslims don't have as much freedom as Muslim women do — at least in my case, in the case of my own family, the people that I know — because they think we're oppressed, they judge us by...\n\nWell, let me take that back — I would probably explain to non-Muslims that Muslim women have much more freedom than they think. Muslim women have much more choice than non-Muslims in terms of going to work or not going to work, cooking food or not cooking food, working and giving the money to the husband or not — you can own it. Even with breastfeeding — a lot of that is the woman's choice. I didn't know that a woman can even charge her husband for it. I grew a lot in the past five years, I would say. Before that I was, mashallah, in my la-la land — I was not a really good example for anybody. I'm still not a great example for a lot of the non-Muslim women out there, but I try. If they were to ask me one thing about Muslim women and if I had to describe them, I would describe them as faithful. They are pious, and at the same time they're very caring and responsible women."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "No, I didn't have it. I started seeing myself doing what I saw in my mom. Mashallah, she's very well educated, she's a teacher, and once she started having kids she gave up her career for them — she raised five kids. I remember growing up sometimes we'd say, \"Why do you do that? I don't want to do that,\" but I remember how she was handling us — it wasn't like, \"You've got to do it, I'm your mom.\" It wasn't like that. She was more understanding, giving us choices, and guiding us through it in a calm way.\n\nI see that in my mom — she was able to take care of everything without going to work. My father was the provider; she never had to work. All she did was take care of the family, the kids, the household — she even had to take care of the in-laws — giving her best to her kids. That's what I saw in my mom. And after having a kid myself, I started doing what she was doing — I don't know, maybe it's in the blood — and I saw, \"This is what I'm supposed to be doing.\" Nobody told me; at that point my husband wasn't even Muslim, but he supported me in a way — he didn't push me to go to work. I didn't hear that from him. Or maybe I trained him naturally — \"Hey, I'm a mom now, I have to stay home and take care of my kids, that's my priority.\" I remember those kinds of conversations too — my kids are my priority.\n\nHe supported it, so I just naturally did what I saw. I didn't realize it until very recently, looking back — \"Oh my gosh, this is exactly what my mom did, and this is what I'm doing too.\" Then I started thinking about whether I wanted to go all the way through like she did, because she never went back to work. Allah knows best — I'm trying to be a little different from her, because the timing is different, the environment is different, the place I'm living is different.\n\nI've been living here maybe close to thirty years — I've been back and forth between different countries, but yeah, it's been close to thirty years."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes, I do. If you asked me maybe three years ago, I didn't even know the Arabic letters — I didn't know how to read Quran. I'd never read Quran. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed of it either, because I was never exposed to it. It's not an excuse, but I never thought, \"We should be reading Quran daily\" — that came later, once I started listening to sheikhs online, on YouTube. You can increase your knowledge that way. I started learning about the religion because my husband started questioning me on a few things and I couldn't give him an answer — I said, \"I don't know, we were just told we should do it,\" but he didn't accept that as an answer. He said, \"That's not really an answer — that means you've been brainwashed.\" And I was like, \"Yeah, you're right, maybe so — I'm going to start learning.\" I told him I'm obviously not the right person for his questions, that I could connect him with the mosque imams or find some information so we could both read.\n\nHe would say things like, \"We don't do that, you should never let the kids—\" well, I guess I can share this too — we were telling the kids they should start praying, they should go to Sunday school, and my husband said, \"You cannot force your religion on the kids.\"\n\nAnd I said, \"Yes, I can, because they were born Muslim — this is what we intended, this is who they are, and they're going to have to start practicing and learning, just like we saw our parents doing it and started doing it naturally.\" But with them, they know they have a choice — they know they can celebrate Christmas and at the same time they can celebrate Eid. When they were asking, I said, well, because those aren't our holidays, we don't celebrate them — so we're going to have to learn our religion, our beliefs, what we can celebrate and why, why we don't celebrate other things. Those are things I started taking them to Sunday school for, and my husband would say, \"Why don't you guys celebrate this, what's the problem, why can't the kids do that?\" He'd ask the questions and I'd say, \"Well, that's a really great question, and I'm not the right person to answer it.\"\n\nBut I started seeking knowledge, because I could see he was right — I don't have the knowledge, I can't defend myself. When you have little to no knowledge about something, you're speechless. So I started educating myself online, learning, reading when I could. I started listening a lot to — I think he was really the one who saved me — Omar Suleiman; that's why I have such deep respect for that man. I started listening to him a lot, and to people good for beginners, like Mufti Menk — he's really easy to start with.\n\nI started seeking knowledge, I guess, and learning — \"Oh, that's why we don't do this, that's why—\" Once I started learning it, I started teaching it to my husband, sharing the knowledge with him, so he could learn for himself and so he'd never again have to tell me my kids should just choose their own religion. It started making sense for both of us. Before, I knew I shouldn't be doing certain things, but I didn't really know why — I would just obey because I knew we weren't supposed to do it, not because I understood it deeply. That's how I started — just doing it all. I still listen a lot online; that's where my resources for knowledge come from, I would say.\n\nBasically, I led my entire family toward becoming more intentional about why we do what we do. But honestly, I give all the credit to Allah, because he's the one who guided me — if he hadn't put that situation in front of my family, if my husband hadn't pushed me the way he did, I probably wouldn't have stayed firm on that point.\n\nIf I hadn't, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now — I would have lost it right there. Something inside me told me, \"No, you can't do that, you need to start educating yourself.\" It's the situations that guide you to the light. It wasn't a happy moment at the time, but now I look back and think, I'm glad that happened, because I wouldn't know a lot of things — my kids wouldn't know a lot of things, my kids wouldn't even be memorizing Quran. Small things led to bigger and bigger things."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "A lot of things changed after hijab. Before, like I said, for most of my life I was without the scarf, but I felt more, being in a Western country, like you feel connected, you feel like one of them — it's such an awkward feeling, but that's how you feel. Even though I didn't wear hijab, I never dressed too openly — I was still fairly modest in my clothing, wearing loose clothes, but I just wouldn't wear a scarf.\n\nHow did I come to the scarf? I always knew the time was going to come, because I started seeing a lot of Muslim women at the mosque and thought, maybe I should start putting that on. I honestly thought — and this shows how little knowledge I had — that the scarf was a cultural thing. I'd see it on women from Pakistan, women from Afghanistan, and what I saw in the media was that their husbands made them wear it, that the family, the brothers, forced them — that's how I thought, which is very strange coming from a Muslim woman, but that's how I saw it: that these women wore hijab because their husbands made them, maybe out of jealousy or control. That's what I thought, until I started learning and reading the Quran, and I started seeing the ayat — \"Oh, so I'm supposed to be wearing it too.\" It's not something somebody is telling me to do, it's my Creator telling me to wear it. That's how I came to it.\n\nIt was really a big decision for me, because I knew a lot of things were going to change around me — people were going to change around me. I couldn't do the same things I was doing before — you basically have to get rid of most of your closet, renew everything, adapt to a new look and to the people around you. It took me some time to work up to it, but once I decided, it didn't take long to actually put the hijab on — it was just one morning I woke up and said, \"That's it, I'm starting today,\" and I've been wearing it ever since. It was just the decision I made once I found out it wasn't a cultural thing.\n\nOh my gosh, tell me about it — I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I still think I'm discovering myself; I don't know about other women, but I still try to find myself, who I am and why I'm here. Those are the things I always try to discover — why things around me happen, what the reason is. I always have that in the back of my head.\n\nI don't regret putting the scarf on — I actually believe I earned more respect. Even before, in the Western countries, when you'd see a man, you'd shake his hand or give him a hug — it was very normal for me because I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that. I didn't know I shouldn't be hugging a man I wasn't related to — I thought that's just how you greet people, and it was very common where I come from too. Then, once I started learning, it was like, \"Okay, this isn't allowed, and here's why.\" I noticed that men in Western countries actually knew more than I did — when they see a woman in a scarf, they don't reach their hand out or try to hug her, they distance themselves respectfully, which I think is a great thing. They were more educated on that than I was. I think it's a matter of respect, because people I used to know stopped hugging me once I started wearing hijab — even family friends, people I know, they stopped doing that kind of thing.\n\nIt was great — I don't regret putting the scarf on, and I've seen it have a huge influence on my daughter. She's very young and goes to public school, and sometimes she comes to me and says she wants to wear a scarf to school. I say, \"Are you sure?\" and she says yes, so I say, \"Okay, go try it, experience it, why not.\" She comes back and says everybody told her it looked so cute. I don't want to force her, but I want her to do something out of her own will — I want my kids to have a better education about this than I had myself, I guess."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I don't know — what do you mean by that, the portrayal of Muslim women?\n\nThe feeling is one thing, of course — I know it's wrong, what they're saying is wrong, at least I understand that now. But how would I explain it to them? I try to connect with them, relate it to their own religion or belief — like, why are Muslim women held to a much higher standard, much more piety, than they are — relating it back to their own religion. If you look at Maryam, the pictures and scriptures of her, or the pious women in the church, the nuns — just look at your own belief, your own religion, how you were commanded, before you even judge me. People have judged me a lot, and I say, \"You go to church and put a scarf on too.\"\n\nMy own mother-in-law goes to church and has to have some kind of head covering on to pray, and I think, why is it okay for you to do that but not okay for me, a Muslim woman, to have my scarf on all the time? What's wrong with that? The Quran says that when you pray you should be covering — not just your head, but down to your arms, your form should be covered too. When you read that, and then — I don't want to sound like a hypocrite, because I was one of them, I wasn't wearing one either — I started relating it back to them, and then they lose the argument, because they know what they're saying is wrong.\n\nYes, everybody who goes to church wears something — it's not like us wearing a hijab, but they put a light veil on their head. It's a little tradition — I don't know if you've seen Jewish women, they just cover the back of the head. My mother-in-law wears a scarf like that, most of the time without it, but for church she wears it. So I say a more spiritual, more religious person would do it, because somebody who really knows their religion, who's well educated, would do it — you see that more in the older generation than the younger one. I don't know how the younger ones dress for church now, but they probably still have something like a uniform — they don't just go in whatever, they wear proper clothes because they know that's a place to pray, to glorify God, whatever they believe. They respect the prayer and the outfit, so — I respect my religion, I respect my faith, I respect my Creator, because he asked me to put it on. If that bothers you, that's your problem."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I don't think it's that they misunderstand — it's judging, like, \"Oh, she wears a scarf.\" A lot of people don't know my background — when they say things like, \"Why are you wearing a scarf,\" assuming it's my husband — my husband isn't even Muslim originally, he's a revert, and he would never in his life tell me to put a scarf on. He was actually the opposite — he believes women are beautiful and should show that beauty, that's how he grew up. So that whole idea — that it's your husband or a cultural thing — doesn't apply to me, because culturally I'm not from there, and I'm definitely not forced by anyone.\n\nIt's probably her own decision — if somebody judges another woman for wearing hijab, assuming her husband is behind it. If somebody has the nerve to say something to me about my scarf, I don't bother engaging with them much, but I make sure I defend women — not just myself. If I'm being judged, I know other women are getting judged too, so I don't just defend myself, I defend all women in hijab."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "It's a life challenge... Oh my gosh, I still struggle with that. I wish I was a better person to answer that question, but I still struggle with it — I still try to find the reason why things sometimes don't work out for me, even when I feel like I'm doing everything right. I'm not the right person, honestly — I still struggle a lot, I'm still working on that part of myself, trying to understand why things don't work out sometimes. But alhamdulillah, Allah has made it very clear to me, through a couple of situations in my life, why things didn't work out the way I wanted — by giving me a better solution.\n\nI have full trust in Allah, but when you're frustrated, facing a difficulty, it's really hard to fight against shaytan — the thoughts that come to my head. I do struggle with it, but I've found that dhikr helps me a lot. Every time those dark thoughts come — why is this happening to me, I'm doing everything right, getting impatient — I do dhikr, and that's really helped me calm myself and stop the questioning, honestly."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "It would feel bad — I'd feel bad for the person. I believe faith is something that should come to a woman by her own will. I've seen women who were forced into things — not hijab necessarily, but other things — and it goes in the wrong direction; they try to get out of the situation and it usually doesn't end well. So, like you said, it doesn't really relate to me — I've never been forced into anything in my life, alhamdulillah, though not everything I chose was correct. But mistakes are part of learning. As for a man who does that to women, I don't know if he's Muslim or not, whoever he is, I think they're mentally unwell — they should never impose something like that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__what_difficulties_have_you_faced_wearing_hijab_and", "question": "WHAT DIFFICULTIES HAVE YOU FACED WEARING HIJAB, AND HOW DID YOU RESOLVE THEM?", "answer": "No — like I said, alhamdulillah, after I started wearing hijab I actually started surrounding myself more with Muslims than non-Muslims, and I try not to pay attention to anybody. How you carry yourself matters too — people will usually bully you or say something to your face based on how you present yourself. I haven't had that, alhamdulillah, but may Allah always give me the strength to fight for it, for any woman. But I'm a fighter — if somebody says something, I say something back usually."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_did_your_family_respond_to_you_wearing", "question": "HOW DID YOUR FAMILY RESPOND TO YOU WEARING HIJAB?", "answer": "My father was shocked, because, like I said, none of my family members, including my sisters, wore hijab, and my mom only started wearing it after I did. She used to wear just a scarf covering the back of her head — we have this little tradition, I don't know if you've seen Jewish women do this, they just cover the back of the head. So she wore it that way, and mostly without a scarf otherwise. They didn't dislike it, exactly — they were shocked, in the sense of, \"You're still young, why are you doing that to yourself?\" — because we'd been, I guess, brainwashed by society, coming from a lack of knowledge. I like to share the knowledge with them; I tell them they should be wearing it too. It was good — after I started wearing it, my mother started wearing it, and then my sister-in-law, my brother's wife, started wearing it too. She thought, if you live in America, you're educated, you have everything you want, nobody's forcing you, and you started wearing it, then I should too — since she lives among Muslim countries, she felt she could start too."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "I push through it. I've had a lot of hardship, in different ways — relationships, finances, I've gone through all those roller coasters, alhamdulillah. I accept it as fate — I know it's temporary, I know it's going to pass, and I just keep working on it. I don't like to give up on anything. I know Allah doesn't give me any burden more than I can handle, so if he thinks I can handle it, I'm going to come out the other side.\n\nOf course nobody likes hardship, but you accept it and work on it. I don't say when it's going to end, but I try to make sure how it's going to end, you know — it's good."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "I feel responsible to my kids, their future, their education, how they form early in life — and my family, I think.\n\nI don't know — that's a very deep question. I've never thought about it.\n\nRight, right... It's part of it, because they were the main reason I actually went on that journey deeper — there were questions I couldn't answer, and I didn't feel good about that. I'm the kind of person that if I don't know something, I don't feel good — I want to know why I don't know what I don't know, and I want to know it. I don't want to sound ignorant or hypocritical about what I believe is right. I want to get my facts right so I can teach someone. So I believe my kids are the main reason, my family — my husband, my kids — because it was all around raising the kids, that's the main reason we went that route."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "In my household I'm a mom, and I know I should be responsible — I know my actions speak louder to my kids than what I'm saying. What I do in front of them is much more effective, so I take that responsibility very seriously, being a mom, a role model, and a good Muslim — I'm their first example. They see that in me and try to imitate it — my daughter, my kids, they know I pray at certain times, and they say, \"Okay, Mom, I'm going to go pray,\" without me even telling them. It might not sound like a big responsibility, but it is — that's how we pass our religion on to them, so they can continue the faith we believe in. I believe that's my responsibility. On the community level, unfortunately I'm not too involved in community events, just smaller-scale things — I encourage my neighbors. There's a lady across from me, from Pakistan, who was always very open about everything, and lately I've been encouraging her to start putting her scarf on, maybe twice a week to start, slowly, and I feel it's been working — though it's not because of me, exactly. Her mother recently passed away, and I sent her a video of a woman talking about why she started wearing hijab, after she saw, for the first time, a woman's body being washed and shrouded — she saw the woman's body covered in extra layers, her hair covered just like a hijab. Hearing that story, I sent it to my neighbor, and she came back to me and said, \"Oh my gosh, I saw that with my mom too — when they were shrouding her, only her face was open, but her head was covered just like hijab.\"\n\nI haven't seen how it's done for men, but the woman's experience was that after her body was gone, they still put a scarf on her. Sending that to her was a reminder for me too, and for her — she was actually more modest than me before, and it was the opposite by the time she moved here. I was the one wearing shorts and things I'm not supposed to be wearing, and then I turned around 180 degrees, and I started seeing her change too.\n\nI've been there — I know. It's not something somebody told me to do, I chose it, because I was on that side and it wasn't good — even though I was wearing certain things, I wasn't feeling good about it. I tell her she should be more modest. I see that as community-level work — sharing whatever knowledge I have with the people around me, on a smaller scale, but I want to slowly make a bigger impact in the community, inshallah. May Allah guide me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "Well, I haven't — no one has made me feel that way yet, I guess, but you can feel the pressure from how things are portrayed around the world, how the media, especially in Western countries, portrays Muslims. I don't think I'm a threat — they should think I'm a blessing to them. I think I'm a blessing to these communities, honestly, and I would defend that — if somebody dares to open their mouth, I will defend it.\n\nNo — in this small journey of wearing hijab and showing myself as a Muslim woman, alhamdulillah I haven't faced that. May Allah not let that happen to any Muslim woman who wears it. I believe where you live matters a lot — where I live is very diverse, people came from different cultural backgrounds, it's not a place where it's mostly one dominant group and I'm the only one who doesn't fit. It's much more diverse, so I haven't been in areas like that, though I've heard other women say they've faced situations where they were told to go back where they came from. Nobody's said that to me yet, but if they do, they'd better be ready for me to say something back — I'm not the accepting type. My face probably shows that too — I think people who say those things target women who look weak."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Oh, I've started thinking about this a lot lately, because everything we do has a hisab. I think about it a lot in everyday things — what I can do to make my Akhirah better than this life. I've started practicing things I never did much before — small things, extra dhikr, extra prayers, extra du'as, sending du'as — small things that we think are small but really aren't. I've started doing that, and I hope to continue, and, well, when I have the means, inshallah, I hope to do a bigger sadaqah jariyah, to leave something behind."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "All I know is, anything beyond my control is in somebody else's control, so I just leave it to him. I know God is in power — Allah is in control of everything."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "If she wants to go on that path, of course, I wish she does, but I want her to have deep knowledge, so that when she faces any challenge in her life — just being a Muslim woman and standing up for her faith — she's ready. Really, the only challenging part of being a Muslim woman is your hijab; the rest of it, people wouldn't know who you are unless you show them, and showing them could potentially work against you in the Western countries. But I want her to understand that if she has deeper knowledge and understanding of why she has to wear it, of being Muslim and standing up for herself, she'll be okay if she has that strong foundation, and I hope she does. Egypt helped a lot with that too — I think she was really influenced by it, because she wanted, at one point, to wear niqab.\n\nYou can experience it — she wanted to put the niqab on and go to the market, and I said sure. People were looking at me — I was actually in a Muslim country, not a non-Muslim one, and she was wearing niqab and I wasn't, and people would say to my face, \"You don't wear niqab, why are you letting your daughter wear it?\" They assumed I was telling her to wear it — they didn't understand that a child has her own mind about things. They couldn't accept it. I told them, \"You're missing the whole point, that's her choice and I respect it, and I let her do it.\"\n\nI said I hope she keeps that will in her — when she wants to do something, even if I say no, she keeps pursuing it in a good way.\n\nA lot of things — a lot of things — nothing really aligns with our beliefs here, so you have to really help them realign themselves with what we believe, make sense of everything they're doing. There are things they shouldn't be looking at or doing; they need to build enough tarbiyah of the nafs for themselves. I can only facilitate that through knowledge — I can't force them. I wish the West had the good morals that Muslim people have — unfortunately it doesn't, but I do appreciate that they have good manners here, they're at least kind to your face, and they have opportunity. So that's a good side, but there are other things that need to be taught — you have to guide them to make sure they know where they come from and who they are, and if we keep reinforcing that in them, I think they'll be okay."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Of course — when I wear the hijab, I know I have to do things that align with it; I can't be wearing hijab and doing things that don't make sense with that. I really respect — I think hijab is a big responsibility in my life, one I didn't touch on earlier. I believe wearing hijab, showing people that I'm Muslim, is one of the biggest responsibilities I have, and you have to live up to it — everything you do, you have to really be conscious of it.\n\nInward, of course — like, if I'm wearing hijab and the prayer time comes and I don't pray, what's the point of me wearing the outward things if I'm not doing what's important? So I try to align the two. My heart, I believe, has always been with Allah — even when I did something small that was wrong, I was always scared, thinking, \"Oh my gosh, forgive me, I know I did this wrong.\" I've always had that awareness that Allah is watching me, Allah is with me, that I need to seek forgiveness — that's always been with me in my heart. I didn't always show that outwardly, but inside, I believe it's something I was born with — I had a lot of opportunities to go in different directions, but something inside me was telling me not to do it, and I didn't do a lot of things that weren't good."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission, to me, is submitting to Allah with every decision you make, everything you do — praying, raising a family, working, the people around you — anything you do, you do for his ridha, so that he's pleased with you. That's submission to Allah. And believing in everything that happens in your life — even when something you wanted isn't given to you, or the person you wanted isn't with you — accepting that is submission to Allah too. It's hard, I'm not saying it's easy — for your research, whoever reads this should understand it's not easy. Submitting yourself to Allah fully is the hardest thing — I don't know for other people, but for me it's really hard. But I know if I push myself to it, it's going to be good for me in my heart. What keeps me submitting is hoping that one day he'll be pleased with me and grant me Jannah, grant my family Jannah, and the Muslims I know, and gather us all together — that's the one thing I know for sure if I submit myself. It keeps me going, though I know sometimes I'm off track, and I try to go back with istighfar, with tawbah, extra prayers — we're human at the end of the day."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberated — I don't know, that's a really good question, but I don't know the answer, I don't... know, sorry.\n\nYou see, I'm actually the opposite — alhamdulillah, I've never been restricted on anything, I've never been oppressed on anything. Alhamdulillah. What's liberating is being capable — like, okay, I want to do this, I can go do this, without asking anybody's permission. Alhamdulillah, I've been blessed with that kind of liberation — Allah facilitated a lot of things for me without much hardship. There was hardship, but not in the way of somebody telling me, \"No, you can't do it.\"\n\nI was allowed to do things, even though I faced small challenges here and there, but I was never told I couldn't do something. I've been blessed on that, may Allah bless everyone. I think going more deeply into my religion, I've been liberated — my husband too, I guess Allah made that happen. That was something I chose to go through — I made a niyyah, an intention, and set a goal: that's it, I'm going to go to Egypt, I'm going to learn about Islam, I'm going to teach my kids Quran, they're going to memorize the Quran. That was a huge decision — leaving my husband, everything behind. I left my house, my car, everything.\n\nIt was a huge move; my husband was shocked, because I told him, if you're going to keep saying my kids can choose everything, I'm going to take the kids and put them in an environment where they have to understand what's right for them.\n\nAnd somehow, that was Allah helping us — when you put your mind to something, Allah sends... look at this, it's amazing. He sent my husband to Kuwait after us — he was in the U.S. working at [GOVERNMENT SPACE AGENCY], and somehow he ended up going to Kuwait, to a military base. He made that happen for himself. We went to Egypt at the end of May, and he was there by September 1st. He'd had no intention of moving anywhere, no plan of going to the Middle East and working there, but he took the offer — he could have said no, but it was like Allah made that happen for him, and he understood, \"Okay, so what she's doing is probably right.\" He started supporting the Quran, everything — he's always been a supportive guy, but something struck him too.\n\nI think, not me — maybe he got liberated. He got exposed to something, or something opened up for him."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-001_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-001", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_become_more_intentional_practicing_islam", "question": "HOW DID YOU BECOME MORE INTENTIONAL PRACTICING ISLAM OUTSIDE A MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRY?", "answer": "Right, yeah. You see, something has to come with the foundation — our foundations, at least the seeds, were planted, so we knew who we were, we knew our identity, we knew we should pray, we knew we were Muslim. Even though we weren't practicing everything fully, we were doing the things we knew — we knew we should fast in Ramadan, we knew we should pay our zakat, we knew we shouldn't be bad to people, we knew we should respect our mom and dad. We'd been introduced properly, and that's super important for kids from a young age, I believe, because if kids are introduced to their faith early — they're already born Muslim, they're already born modest, in a way. I really noticed that raising my kids — when they think something is inappropriate, they start covering themselves, they start defending themselves automatically. If you're going through something and you cry, they cry too.\n\nThat's planted in the kids, but we need to nourish it more so they can grow with it. It's like when a child is very young, a toddler — I've noticed, sometimes when I'm helping her in the shower, with her hair, she starts covering the parts she should be covering, automatically. I never taught her that — I never thought to teach her that when she was younger — but she knows she should be covering that, like it's human, it's already planted in us from birth. It's just that society, without nurturing that education in kids, lets it start fading out. What I believe is that kids just need the right foundation fitted into them, small and small, when they're young — their religion, their faith — it shouldn't be a problem for them then.\n\nTo continue — and then letting that nourish itself and grow, like you help the kids until they can help themselves. Like our parents told us, \"You should pray, you should do this,\" but on a smaller scale, not forcefully. What I'm trying to say is, we knew what we should be doing, what's right, what's not right, except for the outward things, the hijab and so on — but the main five pillars, we knew we should be doing those. So if kids are educated rightly, I think they'll be fine — whatever they go through, they'll be fine, they'll start practicing, and even if they go off track, they'll go back to it, by Allah's will, and I'll always pray for them, that Allah guides them all the time. The parents' influence is much more important than anybody else's, because whatever they see in the house is what they're going to start doing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Well, I think how faith shows up every day would be through praying five times a day. Most importantly, starting my day with the Fajr prayer, before the sun rises — I get up, make an intention, do the wash that we do as Muslims, and pray to Allah, our Lord, our Creator. It's a time to talk to our Creator, to meditate, and it really starts the day in the Islamic faith. That's the start of the day, and then throughout the day, praying — I go to work and I pray at my job. There's a place where I can pray at my employment. At first I was doing it without anyone knowing, but then people would see me — I'm around people who aren't Muslim, so I had a little dialogue with everyone and explained how my day goes, that Muslims pray five times a day, and they would see me doing this. I got permission that it was okay for me to have a space to do so, and they were fine with it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I'm sorry, repeat that again?\n\nOkay, let's see — I'm thinking if I've had an incident with anyone who hasn't met a Muslim. Not to bombard a person, but if they ask me, or I'm just approaching them and letting them know — I think it's different if someone comes to you and asks; then it's more welcoming to freely talk in that type of situation.\n\nOkay, yeah, so I've had questions — someone would come up to me and say, \"Oh, I like your hijab,\" or maybe they don't know anything and say, \"I like what you have on, I like your scarf,\" and I tell them, yes, it's part of my Muslim identity as a woman — we cover our hair, we dress very modestly, we cover parts of our body, so it's an everyday look. Then I've gotten the question, \"So do you wear it at home too?\" and I say no, at home I don't have to wear it — I'm dressed very comfortably in my house clothes, and I don't have to cover around my husband, my son, uncles. So I think it depends on the questions, and that's how I would explain it. And then, especially around the holidays, people will tell me \"Merry Christmas,\" and I tell them I don't celebrate Christmas, and they say, \"Oh, okay, so what do you celebrate?\" So I can explain that we have two holidays throughout the year, and I give the details on the Eids we celebrate, and I tell people we don't celebrate Christmas because we don't believe Jesus is the son of God — we believe Jesus is a prophet. In Arabic his name is Isa. So it's a nice educational piece to share with people who aren't aware that some people don't celebrate Christmas.\n\nThey're very beneficial, because for people that don't know anything about Islam, or very little, it gives them some more in-depth insight that they wouldn't get otherwise. It breaks down assumptions and misconceptions when they stop and ask me instead of just seeing me and assuming. I really appreciate someone asking instead of assuming, so then I can clarify and break down whatever assumptions people may have, and then they can go into their community or their church and say, \"I met a Muslim lady, this is what I asked her and what she explained to me.\" It spreads education about Muslims, because I feel like day to day we interact with a lot of non-Muslims just in passing, but we don't have much dialogue. There are a lot of Muslims here in [STATE 1], and from everyday interactions — passing in grocery stores and other common places we meet — it's important to have dialogue with people."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I haven't personally gotten any negative feedback — I can't think of a specific time. My immediate family is Muslim, but that's it; my cousins, uncles, aunts are not Muslim. I have family members down south — when you go deeper down south, into [STATE 2], [STATE 3], I have family that practice Christianity, in church every day, having Bible study. Some of them said, years ago, \"What is this you're wearing on your head?\" I said, \"We call it a hijab, it's a covering, a form of modesty.\" And they said, \"Well, how are you going to get married if you're not showing your hair?\" I said, \"Well, we usually marry someone of our same faith.\" They understand that this is a passage of righteousness, to cover and to be modest — it's one of the marks of being Muslim. I told them, as a Christian, you also have a look of modesty that you follow — if you look back at the Old Testament, at old photos, Christian women used to cover, used to wear a type of hijab, long sleeves, a long gown. Over time it's gotten shorter and shorter, and now you don't even cover your hair at all, but at one time you also, as a Christian woman, covered.\n\nThen they said, well, if you don't take Jesus as your Lord, you're going to hellfire. I said, we believe we pray straight to the Creator — why don't you pray straight to the Creator? Why do you feel the need to go through a man to get to the Creator? It was a very long, complicated conversation, confusing coming from a Muslim, someone who has always practiced — I was never Christian, my parents didn't raise us Christian, so we never really studied it, but just knowing about the Trinity, three different people in one, is confusing to me. I didn't really get a good explanation from my family about what it was — it sounded as if they just practice it because it's stated to them, and certain things they couldn't clarify, why they do it, just that they do it because it's written. I know from the Quran and Hadith there are reasons why, as Muslims, we do things — the Quran states what is done, and the Hadith explains why it's done. It's very clear, in black and white, so for something not to be explained or clarified is confusing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "That's a good question, because I didn't always wear hijab growing up. I grew up in the Midwest — there weren't too many Muslims at my school. In high school, I was the only Muslim, I think. We did have a few people from Palestine, Pakistan, India, maybe a few West Africans, but not too many, not like here on the East Coast. My parents didn't encourage us to wear hijab — we couldn't wear shorts or short-sleeve shirts or tight pants, but we didn't have to cover. So I didn't really have a Muslim identity — you couldn't tell I was Muslim. I didn't get any questions in school about my faith unless I wanted to tell someone about it.\n\nWhen I started wearing hijab as an adult, I noticed I got approached differently — men didn't approach me anymore. I feel like I get a level of respect I didn't get before. Especially in the African American community — if I go into [CITY 1], people who aren't Muslim will say \"Salaam Alaikum\" to me, and even Muslims will say it, because in urban cities there's a predominantly large amount of African American Muslims. A lot of African Americans become Muslim — they weren't raised Muslim, but they convert — and they're already integrated in the community, so they have easy dialogue with each other. I get a lot of salaam alaikum, and people don't look at me a certain way because I'm not wearing tight clothes, not revealing my body — I get a more respectful look. It's a protection for me, wearing my hijab, for that reason — I'm in a safe space, traveling on my journey outside my home in a safe space.\n\nI actually started wearing hijab when I got married. My husband was an influence on me, a gentle one — he didn't tell me, \"You have to do this, you have to do that,\" it was more, \"You should try,\" a level of modesty that's part of our religion. When I started covering, I didn't cover my neck — I just took a scarf and tied it behind my head, and my neck was showing. Over time, as I studied more and learned more about the religion, it deepened my understanding of the importance of why Muslim women cover, so I felt the importance to cover more, and I started covering my neck and draping it down over my chest, as it's stated in our Holy Book."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Reading from the Quran and the Sunnah, and then my husband — he used to be an imam, he comes from a family of sheikhs — he teaches Arabic and translates to English, so he teaches people; he's a teacher himself. That was a big help, because I didn't have to go outside to a stranger."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Um, yeah... I think through praying, and praying over time, and having understanding — you can talk to Allah, and Allah will make your difficulties go away. I'm not a complainer; instead of complaining, I like to talk to Allah. So through prayer, it helps — asking Allah to guide me through difficult situations. There are certain du'as we say as Muslims. I don't know, I'm speaking in third person — is that okay?\n\nOkay, because I know I'm speaking to another Muslim, but I'm speaking as if non-Muslims will hear this.\n\nYeah, so memorizing certain du'as is helpful, knowing the meaning behind it. I like to study du'as in Arabic, but I also like to memorize them in English, because it touches the heart when I know what I'm saying — speaking in Arabic is good, but not knowing what you're saying doesn't reach your heart, you can't have an attachment to it. So that helps — certain du'as, and the kids memorize them, we memorize them together, and I teach them, while teaching myself, that patience and perseverance will get you through any situation, and staying calm. How do we learn that? Through prayer — because through prayer you have to be patient, you have to focus, you don't rush. That teaches you a level of patience to deal with any type of situation. Alhamdulillah, I thank Allah for being Muslim when I say that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Who do I feel most responsible to? My kids, my husband. It was my mother, when she was here, but she's not here anymore. And I feel a responsibility to my siblings as well, because everyone is spread out, living in different places — my sister's in [STATE 4], I have a brother here, and another brother in [STATE 5]. As the oldest of my family, I feel responsible for keeping the connection going — calling them, checking on them, seeing how they're doing. This is important because they're the only family I have that's Muslim.\n\nI think that's my first responsibility. My second responsibility is my passion for plants and teaching people the importance of growing food for themselves and their family, because I'm a health educator — it's very important to take care of your body."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I understand it to be very important for well-being — it connects our spiritual, our mental, and our physical health, to stay connected. I feel like it's part of our DNA — we have to help one another out. We live here in America, and it's isolating here, so how do we break that isolation? We have to keep the community, we have to keep connected to one another, encourage each other, check on each other, see how we're doing. It's very important — it's part of our deen, but it's also part of our mental health, our physical well-being. That's why, as a Muslim, if someone's sick, you go to visit them. It's important to care for one another — it's part of our religion."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "No, I don't feel my religion is a threat, to anybody or to my community. No.\n\nIt's hard to say, because I'm also African American. In a country that's so racist, and the world is so racist at times, depending where you go, sometimes I don't know if it's because of the color of my skin or because I'm wearing a hijab — some of the tension I'll feel, or the looks I'll get. But then, because I'm so optimistic, I try to give people — I think Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said to give people fifty or seventy excuses — so it may not even be the color of my skin or my hijab; someone may just be having a bad day and take it out on me, not caring about my skin color or my hijab. Sometimes people have had a death in the family that morning, and they still have to go to work and function. Giving people those kinds of excuses, and not taking it personally, kind of breaks barriers between people, because then you're able to deal with someone who's maybe having a difficult day or acting in a difficult manner.\n\nI never know what kind of response I'm going to get unless someone says something verbally abusive or aggressive — then I'd know how to deal with that. But I don't get backlash from people, alhamdulillah — I haven't had anyone come up to me and call me offensive names, I haven't had anyone pull on my hijab, like I've heard of certain incidents where some Muslim women are attacked or called certain names. I haven't personally had that, and I pray Allah continues to protect me in that way.\n\nThat hasn't been my experience, but I know of a situation with my sister — she used to wear niqab, and she lived in Canada for thirteen years, in [CITY 2]. She got a lot of harassment from white men because she was wearing the niqab, and she would go out with her kids without her husband, and men would approach her aggressively and say demeaning things to her — \"take that off, go back to your country\" — very offensive, negative words that they shouldn't be saying to a woman with children. So even though it's not my experience, I personally know my sister has experienced that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Okay, my awareness of the afterlife — it makes me very conscious about everything I do, what I say, how I walk, how I talk. I'm very conscious of that because of the world we live in — I think society is getting worse, generations are more — people act as if how they feel is more important, people want to do what they want to do. That makes me more conscious of my being and how I interact with people, what I do from day to day. I feel like it's more important to promote Islam, and I feel like, alone, women, as we cover, we're already promoting Islam by the way we cover — it's easier to start a conversation when you're covered. Alhamdulillah for that, and may it be a ticket to Jannah for all the women who wear hijab, because you have women who cover, who wear hijab, but you can't tell if their husband is Muslim or not — so a lot falls on the Muslim woman, I feel like, but in a good way."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I'm sorry, I'll say it again? Submitting to the will of Allah is putting my faith in Allah for everything that I do. Being God-conscious is the first act of my submission to Allah, and then following the five pillars of Islam is the submission to Allah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "The way I speak to people, my kindness, being easygoing — I feel like that's why I'm easygoing, through my faith too. It's made me a relaxed person, I don't stress about things easily. Even though I'm human, I do stress, but I'm kind to other people — I try to be, because I want people to be kind to me.\n\nBottom line, it's about getting blessings from Allah — I can't go to Jannah, I don't want to go to hellfire, so I ask myself, what do I need to do to prevent myself from going to hellfire? The acts I do intentionally, my intentions and how they're put into action, are all based on making my connection to Allah strong, so I can, inshallah, get to Jannah — and I'd like a special place in Jannah, with my favorite plants. So you ask Allah for it, and it makes you look forward to going to a better place than here — through doing good acts of kindness, and also thinking good thoughts, and inshallah my work pays off."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__who_gets_to_represent_muslim_women_in_research", "question": "WHO GETS TO REPRESENT MUSLIM WOMEN IN RESEARCH, MEDIA, OR AI?", "answer": "Let me think... I did a little bit of research — it's called large language models. I wasn't familiar with it; I'm not a big computer person, not too much into tech, but there's so much going on, so many changes, and I'm not a big fan of AI. I thought that was interesting — I could see some of the language being historically slanted toward one group over another, and a lot of misconceptions coming up.\n\nIs it like a male-dominated field?\n\nYeah, that's very important — representation matters, and everyone needs their own voice to speak their own story. I strongly believe that. And the way it's done doesn't have to be the way this society thinks it has to be — loud, aggressive, confrontational. You can speak your truth and advocate for yourself in a calm, reserved manner — it doesn't have to be boisterous or loud. I feel like that's how people think women should present themselves too, and it doesn't have to be like that — you can get your point across and speak your story in a respectful way and get respect back. I've noticed with the young generation, a lot of young girls are being taught that advocating for themselves means being aggressive, pushing people, it's all about \"what I want\" — and I don't think that's a good way to advocate for your needs. The way you present yourself is also important."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__where_does_your_approach_to_speaking_up_and", "question": "WHERE DOES YOUR APPROACH TO SPEAKING UP AND REPRESENTING YOURSELF COME FROM?", "answer": "Yeah, because I teach — I'm an art educator at a farm, with the homeschooling community, a co-op that runs for homeschoolers. I taught the middle schoolers this year. During the middle school years is a time when children are trying to find themselves, making friends, learning about themselves, wanting to socialize, but some of them aren't doing it in a positive direction, or aren't sure how. Common things — like when you come in, you should say hello to your teacher, ask how they're doing — these common things that help you socialize — when you don't have those skills, it's a struggle. I see that in the kids. One particular girl said she needs to advocate for herself and her rights, and the way she does it is by screaming and yelling, so I've been teaching her that you can speak calmly and address people with respect and get respect back — that entering a room expecting your presence alone to get what you need, in a dominating way, doesn't work, it doesn't create a peaceful environment. I try to teach the children that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-002_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-002", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Where in my life do I feel most liberated — where, meaning a particular place?\n\nThese are good questions, I never thought about this one. I feel like when I'm — actually, the work that I do — I feel most liberated when I'm teaching, because...\n\nI feel like I have a presence, as the only Muslim, and the way I teach, I can incorporate a little bit of Islam into it, which makes me feel liberated, because I feel like I'm giving a community something they wouldn't get anywhere else — the people I work with are all non-Muslim, and I don't think they'd have the opportunity to approach any other Muslim and ask the kinds of questions they ask me, since they know me on a personal level. I feel most liberated when I can teach, and teach the youth too — I've taught them about some Islamic values that I wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to share. Every morning, during our morning circle, I have seventeen kids, and I do a lot of social-emotional teaching, because I feel there's a need there — if they're lacking things based on how they act and what they say. I give a general concept, and then I'll say, \"As a Muslim, we do this.\" So I'm able to educate the young generation, and my hope is that they'll embrace Islam, or at least they can say, \"I had a Muslim teacher, and she taught us about Islam\" — that I didn't just come and teach academics or art, but gave them something of myself. I feel like that's important and needed with the young generation coming up — I see that they're very open, they're not stuck holding tightly to any particular values, their minds are very free. This is a good time to educate them about Islam.\n\nIt's a good place to be, to reflect and see how I can best serve the children as a Muslim woman and as an African American woman.\n\nYes, and I feel liberated doing that, because I'm giving them a piece of information and teaching them a little about myself and how I practice Islam. Otherwise they wouldn't know — like when we had the Eid celebration, I brought goodies for everybody and let them know we celebrate — we don't celebrate Christmas, but we have our own celebration, and I welcome and share it with everyone. I don't think they'd otherwise see that — even my colleagues didn't know what Eid was. I came in one day — it wasn't the actual day of Eid, because I never work on Eid day, but it was a few days after — and I brought some cookies, and they asked, \"What are the cookies for?\" I said, \"We're celebrating Eid,\" and they said, \"Oh, what is that?\" — people just don't know.\n\nI feel good to be able to teach people about Islam. That's my job."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "I'm a practicing Muslim, as long as I can remember, so faith is a big part of my day. I'm a mom — my kids are older now, so I decided to go back to school to finish my graduate studies. My day normally starts with prayer in the morning, before Fajr — that's been my time since I can remember, because I always had little kids; I got married early, so that used to be my time, waking up early before Fajr and spending some time praying. I do my Fajr, get my coffee, and then get my only daughter, who's younger, ready for school. I send her to school and then head to my own school — I have classes, I work in the lab, and then come back, pick her up, go back home. During the day, as a Muslim, I have to pray five times a day, so I do my prayers at school. I come back home with my daughter, get dinner ready, sometimes go to the gym, come back. I'm normally out of energy by around seven p.m., so I just wait until I do my last prayer, and the day ends for me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "Let's start with the self. Muslims in general, practicing Muslims, are very disciplined. First of all, knowing that God is overseeing everything gives a lot of discipline to your life — you know that not just every movement or action, but every thought, is monitored, so you work a lot on yourself to make sure you're doing everything pleasing to God, because we believe this life is temporary, that it's just a path to the next life, and it decides your life forever in the hereafter. So we're very disciplined people, in terms of our commitment to worship, to family, to community — we're responsible in every position we're in, not toward people but toward God, so you try your best to please God in every way.\n\nIn terms of community, this is something a lot of people don't know — since I've lived in the West for a long time, many people don't know that the Muslim community is very accepting, open-minded, and loving. Their discipline, their main goal, is to serve humanity and serve people locally. This is something I feel because of the media, because of the politics around us — a lot of people don't know that unless they actually engage with a Muslim or a Muslim community or community centers around them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I came here in 2000, so I've been here for twenty-six years. When I first came, it was actually a hard time, because September 11th happened a year after I arrived, so there was a huge campaign against Muslims. I came wearing my hijab, my full covering — I came young, I was twenty when I came, so I wanted to represent my faith in a good way to people here. It wasn't a good time when we came, because there was a lot of hate toward Muslims, a lot of misconceptions in the media, so it was a challenge, but I was pretty open about my faith, about my values. I remember a lot of times people would stop their car when I was outside and yell, \"Go back to your country, go back to the camels,\" and even in the mall people would stop me and yell things. I always took every opportunity to help people understand — I would explain to them what my faith is, how the media misrepresents Muslims. It was a hard time, but it was also a good time — a good opportunity for me personally to open dialogue with other people.\n\nI think age has a role. I had my kids here, after I came. I don't know if it's age, but I'm almost in my forties now, and I feel I'm not as strong as I used to be — I think it's because of age. I'm still open to answering questions, but I'm not fighting as hard as I used to, showing others the way I used to. I'm still trying to do my best, but I think I'm leaving that to the new generation now.\n\nFighting means fighting the mainstream idea that Muslims are violent, that Muslims are bad. I'm fighting those ideas, trying to show people what we're actually about, what Muslims are about, and how Muslims are misrepresented in the media. That's the fight I meant."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yeah, this is a blessing I always had. Wherever I moved — I've moved to many states here — I always had a good Muslim community, and I tried to always connect to other knowledge-seeking, Islamic-knowledge-seeking people. Nowadays I use YouTube a lot, always listening to new videos about Muslims, about Islam, more details on faith, explanations of the Quran. We also have a sisters' halaqa to study Quran — we've been doing it almost weekly for a long time now, something me and my friends established and worked on together."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Hijab, back in our culture, in my country, is of course an Islamic thing, but a lot of it is mostly culture — when you get to a specific age, you're kind of expected to wear it. I started my connection with my faith early, around sixth or seventh grade — we had a really good Islamic teacher, a woman who explained Islam in a way you could relate to, and even though I was younger than the age you'd typically wear hijab, I decided to fully wear it — I wore hijab and what we call a jilbab, a long dress. My parents at that time weren't very practicing — they were more into the culture than the religion — so they were actually against it, but I stood my ground and wore it, and I still do now. It was a challenge at that time, because back home there was also a lot of misconception against Islam and practicing Muslims, so it wasn't very acceptable in the family either. But I decided to wear it, me and my older sister, and I've always been seeking to learn more about my faith, because with Islam you always have to revisit certain concepts to reinforce them in your daily life, and I've been doing that for a long time — alhamdulillah, that helped me a lot with wearing the hijab and practicing everything.\n\nI remember when I first came here, a lot of friends would tell me, \"Oh, you're going to the US, that means you're going to take it off,\" and it was confusing — why would I take it off, if I wear it for God, when I come here? So I came here, and it was a big part of my identity — I always looked different from other people around me. I joined school a couple of years after I came here, and I was almost the only person wearing hijab in my classes. It was good, though, because I always achieved in my classes, so it was a good representation for Muslim women with hijab. Since then, it's been a big part of my life.\n\nWhen I grew up back in Palestine, Islam wasn't something you just grew up following — unfortunately, even in Muslim countries, there were a lot of campaigns to move people away from practicing the right Islam. Islam basically encourages you to think for yourself, to ask questions, and because of the dictatorships in many of these countries, they don't want people to think, they just want them to follow what the government wants. If you're a Muslim, a practicing Muslim, a Muslim who seeks knowledge, that's something they don't want, because to follow Islam properly you actually have to think about whether something is right or wrong, whether you're following what God wants or what people want, and they don't want that — they want you following what the government or the rulers want, because that's not always what's best for the people. There's no free will, no democracy, and the easy way to control people is by making them submit — especially when what the rulers want isn't what's best for the people, but what's best for themselves.\n\nWe weren't allowed — mosques now are open to young people, they're encouraged to ask questions, encouraged to think for themselves; that wasn't the case back then. You'd wear hijab just because it was the culture — you'd grow up, start going to college, and that's when you'd wear it. If you actually wanted to wear it because Islam wants you to, that wasn't encouraged — a lot of people viewed girls who wore hijab early as girls who were forced into it, not doing it for themselves. In my case, it was the opposite — I actually wanted to do it, but my parents didn't want people to think they were forcing me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Are you talking about here, or in the West, or back home?\n\nI still don't understand — what kind of woman?\n\nYeah.\n\nI actually love when I'm in a situation like this. I've been in many situations where people would tell me, \"Oh, we feel bad for you, you're forced to wear hijab, you're forced to listen to your husband, you're forced to—\" and I love these moments, because that's a good opportunity to explain, especially for people who know me or interact with me — I'm very kind and open-minded, easy to talk to. There's this idea that Muslim women always get married through arranged marriage, and I've been told many times, \"I feel bad for you, being forced to marry someone you don't know,\" and that's not the case at all. I love these questions, because it's a good opportunity to explain, since people don't know otherwise."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Yeah, this is — even at this time, with social media, people still don't know. I have a neighbor who, until recently, thought I was wearing hijab because I'm forced to, because my husband or my son are around — there was a situation where she told me, \"Oh, go inside, your husband, your son is coming,\" as if I'm only wearing it out of fear of my son or husband, which isn't the case. I love when people do that, because it's a good opportunity to explain — you don't explain randomly, you need people to ask you these questions or say these things to you. I remember another neighbor who asked, doesn't it feel bad that you're allowed to drive a car here in the West — which is funny, because we drive cars everywhere, I don't know why they think that's something we're not allowed to do as Muslims. Yeah, until now, unfortunately, there are misconceptions about Muslim women."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "You know, life is very hard — you go through things you don't imagine you can go through. I have a few things in mind... Maybe one of the hardest times we went through was when the war in Gaza was happening — this most recent one. My family is in the West Bank, so they were going through things too, but we felt shy even talking about any struggle my family was going through in the West Bank compared to Gaza. Just seeing the genocide happening in front of our eyes, and not being able to do anything to stop it, that was one of the hardest things.\n\nWhat I've seen — it wasn't just me, I think it was a global feeling of helplessness, not being able to do anything. I always thought, how do people with no faith handle this? Because the only thing that made me, or anybody going through this, able to make sense of what was happening was faith — just knowing there is a judgment day, and everyone who committed any tyranny, any killing, any genocide, is going to stand in front of God and be asked. That gives a lot of peace of mind, knowing that God is just, that he's not going to let these people — the people who did the genocide, the people who supported it — go without being punished. Without faith, I don't know how people can handle these events."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I feel like I have a responsibility — I always feel a responsibility to fix, or at least to play some small role in changing people's perspective, people's ideas. These things, when you have a culture, ways that have been there for a long time, it doesn't take one step to change, one action — it has to go through a period of time and a lot of change from other people. Just knowing that a word from you, standing for what you believe, can have a small change — I think that's always been my approach, to use these opportunities to make a change, to talk to people, to open dialogue, to help people understand why something is not right or needs to change.\n\nAs a young person, when you believe in something, you try to stand your ground. I remember hearing a lot of things from family members, like, \"You're too young, why are you doing this to yourself, you're so beautiful, you shouldn't — you're eventually going to wear it anyway, why wear it this early?\" But that didn't make sense to me. When I was that young, in seventh grade, I wasn't able to handle it the way I learned to later, especially with older people — you still have to have respect for older people, so sometimes negotiating or debating with them isn't very helpful. What I did was just stand my ground — I didn't listen, and I tried to surround myself with people who would support me, that I could go back to for support. When I got a little older, it became easier to actually discuss any opinion other people had and bring actual support for my position, from Islam, from religion, from history — the more you listen, the more you learn, the more knowledge you gain, and the better you become at defending what you believe in."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Responsible for what?\n\nI believe, for choices, the best bond is your bond with God, because you can rely on people, but with experience and a lot of disappointment, you learn not to rely on them too much, so you won't get disappointed. But I believe the most important bond, I would say, is the mother bond — I don't know if I'm answering the right question.\n\nI believe this is the basic bond, that your bond with your mother shapes everything after that, and I was blessed to have one of the best moms. After that, also, as a woman, your relationship with your dad — as a woman, you need a male figure in your life, and if you don't have that with brothers, I had it with my dad. Just knowing there's a man who would always support you no matter what, love you no matter what, be proud of you — I think that mom and dad are the most important relationships, the ones that either fix or ruin everything after. Also, being a mother, your relationship with your kids — I think that's what makes life beautiful after that, gives you another perspective, another aim and goal, because once you become a mom, everything shifts, it becomes more about these lives, these souls, that you brought into the world."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "There are many aspects — family is very important, I'm talking about extended family, parents, brothers and sisters. After God, they're your backbone, and if you have their love and support, you're good to go.\n\nIn my family, at this age — maybe when you're younger, they're your backbone, your support, but once your mom and dad get older, it becomes your responsibility to take care of them. That's a very important role, and no matter how busy you are, you always have to make time to serve them, because that's in our culture and our religion — this is what brings blessing to your life, taking care of the souls that took care of you when you were young. As a mom, in my own family, your role changes — when the kids are young, you're basically everything for them, the support, the source of love, security, advice, and that starts fading as they grow up, but the responsibility doesn't go away — you're always going to support them and love them and be there for them, no matter how far or how old they get.\n\nI also believe I was more active in the community when I was younger than I am now — maybe I'm busier now. I use the community here to support myself, but maybe that's one of my shortcomings — I should have more of a role, support the community more. What I try to do is participate in many community events, but maybe I should do a little bit more."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "I think that happened after September 11th — a lot of people around us made us feel like we were a threat, that we didn't belong. It happened for a while. I lived at that time in an area where a lot of Muslims lived, and we had a lot of attacks on the masjids, on our apartment complex, on the street. We were told not to leave the house, because people tried, many times, to pull the hijab off some women's heads. It was a lot — that was one of the hardest times to be Muslim in the West."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Can you repeat that question again?\n\nI have many roles here — I'm a student, and I've been in the same school for a long time, so I feel like I belong there, I know a lot of professors and students, and having that support system makes you feel part of the belonging. A big part of feeling that I belong is the Muslim community here — we have a great Muslim community, and it's like home to me, especially because I don't have family around — they're my family, that's where I feel like I belong."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "It shapes everything — just knowing that this life doesn't end when you die, that it's just a gateway to the real, forever life. It shapes your perspective on everything. You know you're here as part of a test, here to be tested, to strengthen yourself, to get to know God, to build yourself in a way that helps you get to heaven, because we believe you have to work for it, you have to deserve it, and that takes a lot of energy, a lot of shaping in your life — every step you take, the way you think, interact with people, raise your kids, interact with your family, your community, people you don't know — everything is going to be judged, even your intentions, your thoughts. So it makes you work on every detail in your life — what you look at, what you listen to, how you talk to people, how you respond to others — everything is going to be judged, everything you're going to be asked about, so you have to try your best to deserve God's mercy."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "In the last two years I've been going through something that flipped my life — everything happened, and it was out of my control. I worked so hard for years to build something, and in the last two years it was destroyed. You don't question it exactly, but after something like that happens, you know that in this life, everything is in God's hands — it's not about how smart you are, how much money you have, how strong you are. The only thing that happens is what Allah wants, not what you want.\n\nWe know that this life is a test — we're not here just to have fun, live, eat, and enjoy. God will put you through things that bring out either the best or the worst in you, and that's how you get tested. It's like when you're in a class and you study — the professor, at the end of the semester, is going to test you, to see how deeply you know the material. It's the same way — God will put you through things that bring out what's actually inside you, and if you've worked hard on yourself, you'll be able to withstand any hardship, knowing that every pleasure here is temporary. Your kids are temporary, your health is temporary, it's all going to go eventually — you're going to lose your health, your kids won't stay with you forever, your wealth might go any minute. Even the simple blessings — your eyesight, your five senses, your ability to walk — these are all temporary. So this life is temporary, it's a test, and that's how you're able to withstand any difficulty, knowing that everything happens by God's will and for a reason."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "What I know is, everything is connected — whatever you listen to affects your understanding of things, your feelings. If you're surrounded by people who are very negative, always listening to negative comments, you're going to be affected, you're going to be down, you might end up like them. If you're surrounded by hardworking people, or if you go to the gym, it's going to boost you, because physical action does have an effect on the heart and mind. We believe that when your actions — remembrance of God, saying God's name repeatedly, reading Quran, praying — this always has a strong effect on the heart, it softens the heart somehow.\n\nThe number one intention, when you do any act of worship, should always be to please your Creator — just knowing that even if it has no other effect, you're pleasing the one who created you, the one who deserves to be worshipped. I think that's enough, but it also helps to know the reason behind an action you do. For example, wearing hijab — we wear it because God told us to, but it also has an effect on communities. I remember, back when I was doing my bachelor's, people would ask me, \"Why are you doing this to yourself?\" — but when people interact with a covered woman, they actually talk to her as a human being, not as a body. We know how visual men are, how affected they are by what they see. I always used to give this example: if you want to hire a secretary, and a beautiful girl, uncovered, showing all of her hair and skin, comes in, there's a big chance you're going to hire her because of how she looks, or talk to her because of how she looks, rather than what's actually going on inside her mind, whether she deserves the position. But as a Muslim, wherever we go, I feel like people judge us based on who we are as a human being, not as a body."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah has many aspects. One is obeying his commands, following the religion he sent, that he accepted for us, that he wanted us to follow. Submission also means accepting his decree — and I don't want that to sound negative. You try your best, and in a difficult situation you try to change anything you're not comfortable with, but sometimes things happen that are out of your hands, so at some point you have to know that everything God writes for you is for your own good, and you just have to look for the reason and accept it. I think that's a big part of being submitted to God."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "A big part of my liberation is being Muslim — that's actually the source of my liberation, because I know the only ultimate submission has to be to God. Even when you submit to rules here and there, you submit to them under God's submission too — for example, when you live in a country, you have to obey its rules, because in Islam we're taught that when you're in an area, you have to submit to the rulings of that area, as long as they don't interfere with God's rulings. A big part of liberation comes from the fact that the ultimate entity you're submitting to is God, so any injustice, anything else — because as a human, you're going to submit to something, even if it's not to God, you might be submitting to social pressure or something else — but your ultimate goal should be what pleases Allah, and everything else comes after. Liberation comes from knowing you don't have to follow what other people follow. I think that's a big part of my liberation, because at the end, most people follow the trend, follow what everybody else does, but as a Muslim you don't do that — you follow what your religion is telling you, what God is telling you, what makes sense to you, not blindly, because Islam tells you to always think, read, and increase your knowledge. You don't just follow because everybody follows. I think that's a big part of liberation, I guess."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "Number one, what matters most is doing it just for the sake of God — you're practicing not to show people or please people, your ultimate goal should always be to please God. But in addition, living as a Muslim in the West, you're not the majority, you're a minority, and unfortunately a minority that the media and a lot of people have misconceptions about, so you're a representation of the faith too — when you make a mistake, people won't say you did it as an individual, they'll blame the whole religion for it. So there's a lot of responsibility just living in the West, being on your best behavior, being a good practicing Muslim, showing what Islam is really about. I think this is a responsibility that people mostly in the West have as Muslims.\n\nRepresenting Islam in the best way, in a way people actually understand — being a good Muslim tells a lot of people here what Islam is about, because you might be the only Muslim that person ever interacts with, so you can be a good representation or a bad one. That's a big responsibility.\n\nThere's a lot of misconception, I would say a war against Muslims here — Western media tries to stain us with all kinds of wrong ideas, that we're violent, terrorists, all about killing, all about forcing people to do things. And that's not true."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-003_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-003", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_do_we_create_change_or_better_coexistence", "question": "HOW DO WE CREATE CHANGE OR BETTER COEXISTENCE?", "answer": "First of all, be a good model to other people. Show the reality of Muslims, show how Muslims care about communities and other people and want the best for them. Talk to people, use any opportunity to open a dialogue and get your thoughts across to people who don't know, because that might be their only chance to learn about Islam from you."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "So I am a mother of three, married for close to nineteen years now, and my day is a typical housewife's day. It starts with Salat al-Fajr, then we move on to making breakfast for the family. I'm a homeschooling mom, so we have schoolwork, then comes our second prayer of the day, Salat al-Dhuhr. My day basically revolves around our salah times — anything we plan, anything we do, is planned around salah times. If we have to go shopping, my day is planned accordingly. Right now it's summer, so the days are longer, and the time between the salahs is longer, so that's how my day is planned — between Salat al-Dhuhr and Salat al-Asr is my shopping time, my going-out time, and we have to be back by Maghrib, because the time between Asr and Maghrib is shorter. Then the day ends after Salat al-Isha."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would say we are a very welcoming community. The people I'm living with currently are an amazing group of people. I'll give you an example — this past Thanksgiving, over the Christmas break, the churches were busy, and we have a mosque, a church, a synagogue, a couple of churches near our mosque, and the welcome among these communities is so profound that they share parking spaces with each other, they share food with each other. For the recent Eid after Ramadan, the masjid organized events to welcome outsiders to come in and see how we celebrate our holidays. I've personally experienced that in our community, and I've noticed it with my neighbors too, because they get invitations and have been experiencing it for some time. When we moved in — it's no exaggeration — almost the whole block, because as soon as we moved in I made some gift boxes and put in a small letter introducing ourselves, telling them about my family, how many of us there were, and sent it out to the entire block. Most of them brought back gifts — some brought flowers, some brought cookies. They were very open and appreciative that we introduced ourselves, and we told them openly that we're a Muslim family and wanted to introduce ourselves. We got so much love from our neighborhood, because they're used to other Muslims in the community. It was so amazing — I was honestly in awe of how welcoming they were.\n\nNo, not on our block, at least — I think we have one Muslim family about fifteen houses down. Everyone else is different ethnicities — South American, Caucasian, African American. Our next-door neighbor's family has been in the same house for over ninety years — the mom is in rehab now, but she was born in that house, so you can imagine how long they've been here."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "As in this house, or in the U.S.?\n\nI've been here, well, roughly sixteen years. Honestly, I believe my iman has gone up in the U.S. compared to how it was, because I was born and raised in Pakistan, in [CITY 1], and I feel like I've been able to learn more about myself and my religion, and appreciate the blessing of being Muslim, more in this country than I ever did growing up.\n\nI've seen how — when I see these reverts, I've learned a lot from them, from their struggles, and how much love they give toward their religion, especially the struggle they go through with their families and communities when they come to Islam. I was so humbled by that, because I was born and raised in a Muslim family, and we do not appreciate our blessings enough as Muslims, because being born and raised Muslim, we weren't taught enough. I've learned more from these reverts, from people actually trying to understand our religion. In my sixteen years, I've experienced some of my husband's close acquaintances accept Islam, and I saw the love they came with toward the religion, and I was extremely humbled — that made me want to learn more, appreciate more.\n\nI've also become more confident. Coming from Pakistan, I wasn't born and raised here — I felt more conscious of myself growing up in Pakistan, because I was a hijabi and niqabi, wearing an abaya, and I was more conscious of the people around me, because I came from a relatively middle-class family attending expensive universities — that's the reason I'm able to speak English, because I went to an expensive school, an expensive university, and when you have elite people around you, you get self-conscious, at least that's how it was for me. Coming to the U.S., I've become more confident in myself, and I truly believe it's a blessing from my Lord, because I was able to truly accept who I am and be comfortable in my own skin.\n\nI'm into working with my hands — woodworking, gardening — and I'll go to a Home Depot or a Lowe's in my abaya, in my hijab, and buy tools, buy wood. There was one incident I'd like to share — I was in a black abaya and a black hijab; I usually wear colored clothing, but that day I was in a complete black outfit because that was what I could quickly grab. There was an African American son with his mom at the store — he was a middle-aged man, and his mom was older — and he pointed me out, \"Look, Mom, look at that person,\" and he showed so much appreciation for how I was dressed, in an aisle where you'd usually find construction workers. It made me so happy — it doesn't matter who you are, it's how confident you are in yourself. I've been able to become more confident in my own identity as a Muslim woman who can do whatever she wants within the limits my Lord has described."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Frequently. We've been to [ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTE 1], [ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTE 2], our Deobandi scholars — in this country, I've been exposed to all the madhahib, all kinds of masjids we attend, anything we can. As I've grown older, I've come to understand that the bias we have within our community toward other madhahib is very deep, I think. So you have to be more open-minded toward other ideologies within your own community and your own religion, and take whatever positive you can from anywhere — you don't have to change your own ideology, but you can take whatever is positive. So we might not follow [ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTE 1] ideologically, but we attend their programs, and we've benefited tremendously, because I think all these institutions are doing tremendous work. Like, we attend [MUSLIM ORGANIZATION 1], where I might not agree with them on some points — the intermingling of the opposite gender, you'll see men, girls, boys all hanging out — but mashallah, I see the positive there too, that all the girls are in hijabs and abayas, very strict about not sitting together, they're on opposite ends, and you'll find all the boys in thobes, most with beards, so there's a lot of positive going on too, and I think our youth needs that. So I'll take all the positives that come from anywhere. We attend anything we possibly can within our time, because we have time issues, but we attend what we can."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I grew up in Pakistan, so in the beginning it was mostly because it's part of the society you grew up in — a middle-class society in Pakistan is more conservative compared to some other communities. I don't want to sound offensive, but there's a gap — the more educated, the more westernized you become, the more respect you get, but in middle-class communities it's more conservative, so you kind of have to cover yourself when you go out. So it was part of our culture, I'll say it that way — my hijab was more cultural than anything else at first. If I attended weddings I wouldn't cover myself. But my story became more specific — I was honestly searching, around seventeen or eighteen years old. I came across the Barelvi sect in Pakistan, which is more open to welcoming women into their circles. As Maulana Rumi says — I don't know how to explain it in English — every being wants to go back to its origin, and our origin is going back toward our Lord, so it's like a spiral moving toward its center; every human being looks for that. The Barelvi sect in Pakistan is more welcoming toward women; the Deobandi sect is mostly for men — women are supposed to stay home. Pakistan is a patriarchal society. So when I was looking to find myself, I was introduced to this sect and started attending their programs, and that's how I became closer to deen. I started covering my face, started doing hijab and niqab, more for deen than culture. I did go to an extreme at some point — I started covering myself from all men, even my own cousins. I went very extreme, but then slowly calmed down, and I am where I am now. That's the short end of it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "It makes me feel sad, because I think we're an amazing group of people if we follow everything properly — Sharia has been given such a negative connotation in this world today, and it's the complete opposite. Just yesterday, something came up in conversation with my sister-in-law — one of my nieces' friends asked why it is that, in inheritance, men get double the share of women, and it was a valid question — like, if a father passes away, the son gets more than the daughter. It's not just Western society; I think even among us Muslims, the lack of education is affecting people so much. Yes, it is so because Sharia made it so, but Sharia also made it so that, even though a daughter gets half of what the son gets, the society is supposed to take care of the females — it was made so she's not left alone. Unfortunately, culture has taken over — nobody really follows Sharia the way it's supposed to be followed. All we see is how strict everything looks. It's not really strict — it was made so the whole society takes care of the weaker sex. We're not as strong as men, and that's okay — I'd still like to do what I want to do, even being weaker than them, that's fine, if I accept that and follow my dreams, I'm better equipped to do what I want. So the concept of equality in our society really hurts me — feminism should be more about equity than equality, because everybody has equity in the world we live in, nothing is equal, it shouldn't be equal. I believe in the idea of equity compared to equality.\n\nOkay.\n\nI'll be honest, I haven't experienced that on a personal level at all, from outsiders. I've experienced more prejudice from my own people, to be honest. I was at a gym once, an all-female gym, and I still wore my hijab, because even though it was an all-female gym, there were male instructors, guards, security. One of the ladies there, who also happened to be Muslim, told me, \"Why do you need that? Why do you do that to yourself? You don't need to do that, it's a female gym.\" I was taken aback — honestly, all I told her was that it's none of her business. That's kind of how I feel toward anybody who doesn't have a deeper understanding of how things are but still makes judgments — unfortunately we live in a world where judgments are abundant. So I haven't experienced any prejudice from any non-Muslim on a personal level, I'll be honest."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Do you mean a personal difficulty?\n\nIn terms of religious — in terms of my hijab and religion, is that how you'd mean it?\n\nI came across — I don't remember the scholar's name — this sounds like a generic response, like you say Alhamdulillah and move on, but in that moment it's hard to just say Alhamdulillah and move on. As a human being, it's very hard — it's like if I get a paper cut, my finger hurts, it's painful, and if somebody tells me I should be grateful because there are people without arms or legs — yes, and may Allah bless them all — but my paper cut still hurts right now. If somebody tells me I should be grateful, I will be, but I'm still in pain. So I've come to understand that it's okay to be in pain, okay to be angry, as long as you don't let it affect your iman. It's been a struggle for me, because life throws a lot at you — nothing in life is a straight path. As I've grown older, I've become more calm, but I'll say this, and it will probably go on record — I did go through a lot being in the United States, and because there's more awareness here, I had more opportunities to get help. There was a point I had to reach out to the [MUSLIM MENTAL HEALTH ORGANIZATION] — I won't give details of what those issues were — and I had to get therapy. It did help. At this point I'm on anxiety medicine, because it did get extremely difficult. So when it comes to understanding my deen, I've come to see it this way: if you have help available to you, see it as a blessing and make use of it. It's not wrong to do that — it's a blessing from your Lord that you have the means to get help. I truly feel that this has given me some peace, in terms of getting close to my Lord and finding peace inside — I've seen the things available to me as a blessing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__what_difficulties_have_you_faced_wearing_hijab_and", "question": "WHAT DIFFICULTIES HAVE YOU FACED WEARING HIJAB, AND HOW DID YOU RESOLVE THEM?", "answer": "Let me give a brief summary — it was very specific, to be honest. I was at a business school in Pakistan, one of the only three niqabis in the university. Looking back now, as an adult, I think I could have opted for being a hijabi instead of a niqabi — I was still a teenager, and I see it now as a teenage rebellious phase, but I was a niqabi. This was one of the top business schools in [CITY 1], with thousands of students, and I was one of only three niqabis in my year — that says something about how big the gap was. There were many hijabis, but even beyond that, most girls didn't wear hijab at all — just shirts and kurtas, no scarves. So that's how big the gap was, and I only had one friend who would stick by me. I was extremely conscious that most girls didn't want to hang out with me because I was a niqabi, because they felt I wasn't part of their circle. I came from a middle-class family, and a lot of these students were upper-middle-class, and in my heart I felt uncomfortable — it could have been my subconscious, I was biased against myself, I don't know the exact reasons, but I was kind of a pariah in my year. I didn't have many friends, just this one girl who was from Saudi Arabia, who'd moved to Pakistan for higher education — I guess she understood, maybe she'd had niqabi friends before. But within two semesters I got married, so I left, I didn't continue my higher education in Pakistan.\n\nIn my family, my mother's side has no segregation at all; my father's side has extreme segregation, so much that if the women are in one house, the men are in a different house altogether. My mother's side, everybody hangs out together. That was really confusing for me as a teenager, attending events in both families. That made me more conscious. Then I got married, and even my in-laws, though culturally religious, had these issues — they would cover their faces outside the house but not inside the house, from their own cousins and male family members. For them, covering was mostly about the people they didn't know, not the men in the family. So that was also confusing for me. Holding on to my hijab, my niqab, was hard, but all I did was keep moving on — that's all I could do. Eventually I stopped doing niqab and found a middle ground with just my hijab, but I didn't let go of my abaya, because that was something important to me. So even at family events, I'll have longer, looser clothing, and my hijab is just a part of me — like your arms and legs — so I just kept moving on despite all the confusion around me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "I don't understand — what do you mean?\n\nI think our whole lives are supposed to revolve around the boundaries Sharia defines. If I get into an argument with my dad, I have to be respectful — yes, there's some cultural aspect to it, but at the end of the day it's more about religion, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has ordered us to take care of our parents and not raise our voices against them. Keeping that in mind when I deal with my family members, based on those boundaries, I think that helps, because there are times you get into arguments with your husband and you just want nothing to do with them, but you have your boundaries to follow. Everything in my life, if I'm nice to anybody, sometimes as a human being I don't even want to look at certain individuals, but my Lord has given me boundaries to keep in mind, and holding on to that makes things easier — it helps bring your anger down, your frustration down. I'm close to forty now, thirty-nine this year — in all my years, I was more emotional when I was younger, but as I've grown older I've come to understand that no matter what, some things just are, because that's what your Lord wants, that's what the Sunnah explains. I've been able to deal with so much based on that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "My role is as a caretaker. As a female, everything in my life — like I said, I'm on anxiety medicine, and I've been studying and learning and understanding how my being can help me deal with things as a human being — I see myself as a caretaker. Even with woodworking, which I love, I've been able to find enjoyment while taking care of my family — I'll build outdoor furniture, not sheds, because that's too much work, but furniture that helps my husband save on expenses. I garden, which also helps my family save money. So it gives me happiness, and it helps my family — anything I do at this point, as I get older, is finding ways to make myself happy while helping my family as a caretaker.\n\nI don't know how to explain that — I'm an extreme introvert. If I can avoid people, I do, to the best of my ability. I'm not really friends, to be honest, more like acquaintances with my husband's friends' wives, because that's the connection I have. Overall I'm an extreme introvert — I don't participate in masjid events and things like that, because it gives me a physical reaction at this point, I get palpitations, so I avoid anything outside my comfort zone. I would have pushed myself at some age, but now, this is who I am, I'd rather do what I can. I interact with people through my homeschooling circles, because my daughter has classes, so I'll take her there and interact with those people for five or ten minutes, then go hide in the library — I don't even sit around. That's just who I am."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Respect. It's not just about the West — I think overall, belonging, whether to an individual or a community, is about how much respect you get for the choices you make, for who you are. If there's a group of people you've been close to for a long time and they don't respect who you are, you don't really belong to them at heart — you're around them because sometimes you don't have a choice. I feel like it's all about respect, and respect, in my opinion, usually comes from the heart — if you truly respect somebody, you accept them wholeheartedly."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "I think I'm more open with my choices, I have more freedom, to be honest. In Pakistan, we were there for two years when my sons were doing hifz, and I couldn't even walk down the street without male supervision, which was bizarre — I'm just going to the store — but here, nobody cares, to be honest. So I feel more comfortable with the freedoms of this country in terms of my religion and my identity.\n\nNo. Maybe because I'm an introvert, I keep my head down, say hello, and move on. I haven't experienced that on a personal level at all."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Everything revolves around it. Sometimes — my anxiety maybe stems from that too — at night I get these feelings, like I'm not doing enough, I'm not prepared, because death is a foregone conclusion, but I feel like I'm not doing enough. But again, that's just being human — you just keep moving forward and keep trying."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "As I grow older, I've learned to just let go. There's a saying in Urdu — if there's a street you're not heading toward, don't even ask for directions to it; if that's not your goal, why would you worry about the address to that location? That's how I see everything — if something doesn't concern me at all, if it's not going to affect me, I just let it go. And if it does affect me, and it's not in my control, if there's nothing I can do about it, I've learned to let it go. I've truly learned to let things go, but I think that's something that comes with age and experience."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I think we need a lot more for the youth. The problem, in my circles — my husband follows the Deobandi and Tablighi sects, though we're not extreme in that regard — is that there's a lot happening for the older generation, middle-aged people, more mature people, but not enough happening for young people. They're Western kids, they don't know Eastern society at all, it just doesn't work for them, so we need more for the younger girls and boys — they need to be able to connect, because right now I truly feel that deen and dunya are so separate. It shouldn't be that way — deen is the way of life, it should not be separate. But living in Western society — my son attends university, he has lots of non-Muslim friends, he attends a [RELIGIOUSLY AFFILIATED UNIVERSITY 1], because my husband works there and we get a tuition discount, which made sense given how expensive education is here. It's primarily white, non-Muslim students, and when he wants to go out with them — these are older boys, eighteen, nineteen — they do things that aren't appropriate for Muslim boys, and for him it's confusing, because it's not haram, but it's not appropriate, and it's hard for him to understand that doing something inappropriate, even if it's not haram, might lead to something haram. So we need to find a way to love who they are, living in the society they're living in, and help them hold on to their deen while living where they live."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "In the beginning it was harder, because I saw myself as different. At this point in life, it's become a part of me — I don't even go into the backyard without my hijab, I'm very conscious of that, because even though it's an enclosed space, there might be neighbors, someone looking out a window. I don't even give it a second thought anymore — anytime I leave the house, I have to be covered appropriately.\n\nI'd say it's for my identity as a Muslim woman, because those are the boundaries that were set, and I have to stay within them. It's how I see driving on the highway — there's a minimum and a maximum, but sometimes you're allowed to go a bit above the maximum, and on some highways people go even faster because no one's watching the road. Further out in [METRO REGION 1] I've driven ninety miles an hour because I knew there was no police nearby, but there's still a limit to how far I can go, and a limit to how low I can go. I just stay within those limits, and my intention is simply not to break the rules, not to step outside the boundaries set for me by Sharia — that's just what I do.\n\nFor me, Sharia is the rules and laws set by our Lord and explained by our Prophet, peace be upon him — it's not just a set of rules, it's the way you live. Everything the Prophet did teaches how to live as a human being until time ends on this planet. I don't know all the rules, obviously, but as I grow older I keep learning more, and I consciously try to learn more — if I don't know something, I'll ask. The way you get up from bed, the way you sleep, everything has been explained, and Sharia goes deeper into some rules and regulations, but for me it's just a way of life.\n\nI don't know how to explain this one, what I see...\n\nI'd say having clean intentions makes a big difference — I was taught at some point that your intentions have an effect on how other people vibe with you. Your intentions in your heart affect your atmosphere, so I've made a conscious decision to keep my intentions as clean as possible, and I always make du'a that Allah ta'ala helps me keep my intentions clean at all times. What I mean by clean intentions is not intending harm on anybody, not having avarice — if something happens that's out of my control, I ask for forgiveness, but I mean not intentionally intending evil or wrong. If I keep my intentions clean, I think people around me will see it — I truly believe Allah helps put good in other people's hearts if your intentions are pure.\n\nThat's a very deep question. It does make you feel good — I don't know how to explain this one. So, basically, you're asking how I would feel if somebody saw me feeding somebody.\n\nThere might have been a time when I was concerned, but as I've grown older I've seen how people will judge you if they have biases against you anyway, no matter what you do, so I've stopped worrying about what people think. I'll do what my gut tells me is the right thing to do without going out of my way to show the world that I'm a good person. I've stopped worrying about the fact that if somebody doesn't like me, they don't like me. At this point in my life I've genuinely stopped caring — yes, sometimes it hits you, sometimes it worries you, sometimes you get sad, like, I haven't done anybody any harm — but if they don't see my intentions, Allah knows my intentions, and I try my best to worry about what my Lord thinks, because as I get older, I don't have the energy to worry about human beings — we really don't have the time, they're just not nice sometimes.\n\nI just don't like people anymore, man. There are one or two people I click with. I've stopped caring about the rest — I'll see them once a year and get through it, that's it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "That's a deep question. What does submission to Allah mean for me? It's showing my love and being grateful, I guess — following the path of our Nabi, alayhi salatu wasalam, and having the hope that one day we'll get to see him."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Moving to the US gave me so many opportunities — I've been able to do what I like without worrying about people. When I started woodworking, I got a lot of pushback from some adults in the family — they called me names, essentially calling me manly for doing manly things, and for me it was very offensive, because I was inside my house, not going out, not hanging out — it was offensive that there are individuals in your own family who see it that way, just because it wasn't something women from their culture did, wasn't seen as the right thing to do. So I've been liberated in the sense that I've been able to do more with the financial freedom I have — being in the U.S. gave me more financial freedom than I had before, and I've been able to use that to pursue whatever hobbies I wanted, within the boundaries set by my Lord."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My husband, my kids, and my brothers, to be honest — my brothers have been amazing supporters. There was a point when I kind of gave up on everything, even my gardening. My husband, too, to some degree, though he has responsibilities toward his family and can't stand up to them, because that might backfire on him. But on the side, he kept supporting me — he's the one who supported me financially, and my sons have given me so much encouragement, my brothers too. I do appreciate these individuals immensely in my life.\n\nI'm very close to my brothers — there was a point my brother was having marriage issues, and I pushed him not to leave his wife, because I felt for her, in her place as a female, and I felt my brother was doing wrong. I'm close enough to him that he listened to me. With my sons too — my older one comes to me and opens up to me, my younger one is more of a shy kid, but my husband, too, I know I can talk to him openly. My relationships are close, alhamdulillah.\n\nYes, 100%. All my choices are made based on how my relationships are — the people I'm closest to, yes."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-004_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-004", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__is_it_your_country_or_your_culture_that", "question": "IS IT YOUR COUNTRY OR YOUR CULTURE THAT CONFLICTS WITH YOUR RELIGION?", "answer": "I'm middle-aged now, and my life experiences are vastly different from what younger kids are going through. My sister-in-law, who was born and raised in the U.S., traveled to Pakistan with her daughter, who was also born in the U.S. — she's a hijabi, mashallah, sixteen, turning seventeen soon, and a very strong hijabi, wore her hijab through public high school, was on the volleyball team, very strong in her identity as a Muslim hijabi teenager. But in Pakistan, when she visited, she actually faced backlash, because people there saw her as an extremist. I think if you want to look at hijabi women, you should include these teenagers — I can introduce you to my niece and some of her hijabi friends. I think that would give you a perspective on what western society, especially people from the subcontinent, are facing, because our culture, in my opinion, and our deen clash all the time. Culturally hijabi people are very different from people who actually hold on to their hijab as their Muslim identity.\n\nYeah, the question should be, is it in conflict with your culture? I guess — or, is your religion in conflict with your culture, because even though we live in the West, our culture influences us a lot. I think our culture affects our religion more, from my experience, than Western society does, because for individuals who have to go out into the world, surrounded by other ethnicities, non-Muslims, it's different — but for me, a homebody, I face culture more; my religion clashes with my culture more than with the society I live in. It varies personally, I think."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "As-salamu alaykum. Faith shows up multiple times, because our faith has different aspects. In terms of spirituality, of course, the morning starts with Fajr prayer — waking up and remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala first thing in the morning, regardless of how bad the night was due to a baby waking up or kids being sick. It's a requirement, and it also roots me to my faith. Throughout the day I find myself making silent du'as anytime something is disturbing me or difficult, just asking Allah for help, whether I'm stuck in traffic or in the pickup line at my kids' school. Faith shows up spiritually in my prayers throughout the day — Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha — and it shows up anytime I'm struggling with something; I have this constant remembrance of Allah. It also shows up in supermarkets, sometimes at the mall. I won't say every time I go out I meet somebody, but at least once a week I'll have someone complimenting my hijab or asking why I wear it, whether I'm taking my kids to swim classes or at the mall. Something I find interesting is especially when I'm shopping for makeup — there are different concepts people have about Muslim women, like whether we're able to go shopping by ourselves or spend money on certain things. Sometimes people have a very different perception about our religion, and that would be the third form where faith shows up: when people ask questions related to my faith."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "We are very welcoming and hospitable. I want to be transparent: the majority of my community, where I live, are open-minded people who will be warm and welcoming, who will share about their faith and answer your questions. That's what I would say about my community. Of course, my community is also very diverse, with different backgrounds and ethnicities — even the Muslims in my community differ in their religious background. Some are very religious, some are just learning their religion, some are Muslims by name, and some are practicing. As an individual, I would describe myself as confident and vocal, someone who is proud of her Muslim faith and understands that her Muslim faith can help her fit in anywhere and succeed in her life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I was born and raised in the United States. Over time, things definitely changed. In my elementary school years I never wore hijab, so people often thought I was Hispanic. Even then I was very vocal about my faith — when Ramadan came I would tell my classmates why I was taking off school for Eid, which wasn't very common back in the '90s. On Eid I would actually go to school and bring goodie bags and gifts for my classmates just to share my faith, and when they offered food to share for someone's birthday, I would openly say if it had gelatin in it I couldn't have it.\n\nI also didn't go to a diverse elementary school — I was the only Muslim girl in my entire school. Then in middle school and high school, 9/11 happened, and everybody had a perception of Muslims depending on what they'd watched or which news channel they followed. That's when I started wearing hijab. I remember being in a [GROCERY CHAIN 1] with my father just buying vegetables, and a very upset woman came up and asked me if I was Bin Laden's niece — it was a very straight question, no beating around the bush. Instead of getting scared, I explained to her that no, I wasn't, and that not every Muslim is related to or (is) a certain person. During that time I didn't meet many accepting people, and I was living in an area that wasn't diverse at all — we were the only Muslim family in our entire neighborhood, and the only brown family too. That's the kind of community I grew up in. Later I went to an Islamic boarding school, so at that point I was mostly around other Muslims. But when we would go out, during middle school and high school I saw the way people reacted to how I was dressed, or the things they would say, happening more and more. Then I started driving, and there were quite a few times I was at a red light — I wore hijab from a pretty young age, and my father is your typical elderly Muslim man with a long beard — where the car next to us, someone would say something to us with their hands, with their fingers. That happened quite a few times.\n\nLater, as I got older, I got married and had my children, and that's when it hit me that raising a child in the West who is proud of their Muslim identity is very difficult. You have to put in a lot of energy, you have to be strong, you have to have a lot of conversations with them — it's not just about giving them a Muslim name and expecting them to grow up (proud). That's when I realized how much effort our parents probably had to put in to make us proud of our religion and not fear what people would say to us. That gave me a completely different perspective. When I became a mother, it was more about how do I make my kids love my religion, love their faith, not just mine — especially in this world of social media, where people have more and more exposure and more and more perspectives depending on who they're following and what they're watching, and that's how people's mentality about Islam gets shaped. It's a really hard time to raise children. That's when I found myself doing a lot of research to make sure my kids love their faith and are proud to represent it, not scared of it — especially because that's also when Islamophobia started increasing, especially for women. A Muslim man can be walking on the street and you won't even know he's Muslim until you ask him and find out his name is Muhammad or something, but a practicing Muslim woman wearing hijab is automatically recognized as Muslim. So she's more prone to Islamophobic crimes than a Muslim man is. Raising girls in that environment made me look at my faith in a very different way and teach it in a very different way as well."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I went to [ISLAMIC BOARDING SCHOOL 1], an institution in [CITY 1], [STATE 1] — that's where I sought my religious knowledge. Currently, yes, I continue to receive religious knowledge. I'm a student, or in the mentorship, of Shaykh Akram Nadwi. I haven't taken consistent courses, but he's someone I speak to, and I follow some of the courses and classes he offers, even though I haven't taken any certification — that's someone I'm mentoring with at this point, and I'll continue to do so. Religious knowledge is never something you can say you've completed, like now I have a certificate and I'm done. Because the world is rapidly changing, having knowledge about contemporary Islamic rulings and fatwas, and how we can apply Islam at this point in time, is really important. That's why I think it's going to be a continuous journey throughout my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I'm from a cultural family, and nobody explained to me in the beginning why I should wear hijab — I was told I had to wear it. It was an honor thing for my mother, never really pushed by my father. My mother's family was very pro-hijab without the religious background behind it, so it was like, you wear hijab but only in front of servants, not in front of cousins — it was really confusing. I just knew you had to wear hijab when you left the house. I was the person who wore hijab and took it off at school, and who only wore hijab when my mom was around, because my father never pushed it — ironically he's more religious than my mother.\n\nThen I ended up at the Islamic institution in [CITY 1], where the uniform was niqab, not just hijab — if you left the madrasa for a field trip, the mall, or the airport, you wore an abaya, a hijab, and a niqab. I started wearing niqab there because I had to. Over time I accepted it, and then, as we studied Qur'an tafsir, I understood the point of hijab — that it's in the Qur'an, that there's a purpose behind it. I was one of those girls, even in the 2000s, who thought, why do girls wear it and boys don't — I actually had that mindset. But slowly, alhamdulillah, I came to realize the wisdom, the hikmah, behind it, and that you get to a point where you love Allah and realize there are certain commands from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that you don't sugarcoat — you just wear it.\n\nMy niqab journey is a bit different. We also have to understand that many of these madaris are culturally influenced — in the Indo-Pak subcontinent, most madrasas that stem from there hold that niqab is mandatory, because according to Imam Abu Hanifa niqab is wajib, especially in times of fitna. When I was in madrasa I started wearing niqab too, and since I'm not the type of person embarrassed to do or say anything in public, it wasn't hard for me to wear it outside. Over the years I got used to it, and it became my second skin — I couldn't live without it, and I did everything with my niqab on. All the milestones people find difficult to achieve with niqab — I got my license, I finished college, I got married — all of that happened while I wore niqab.\n\nThen, three years ago, I was teaching, and a student asked in my class, \"Is niqab an obligation?\" The room went silent, because that student and everybody in the class wore niqab because of how they'd been taught, and I wore niqab too. I don't know if she wanted my personal ruling or preference, but she asked, and I ended up saying no, niqab is not an obligation. When I said that, it became a big deal in my workplace and community — people started talking. That's when I started thinking: if this isn't fard, why am I wearing it myself? When you're twelve or thirteen and start at an Islamic school with a uniform, that makes sense, but over the years you get a mind of your own and need to do your own research and understand why you're wearing something. I have daughters, and I'm not the type of mother who forces her kids to wear niqab, so when I came home and shared that with my younger girls, they asked me why I wear it. That's when I went through this whole research process: why do we wear niqab, where does this ruling come from, why is it most prominent in certain schools of thought or cultures. Parenting really changed my perspective on how I was going to teach and learn my faith, and this was one of those moments — if I want my daughters to grow up knowing what is actually in their faith versus what is culturally influenced to the point where we call something mandatory in every situation and don't let girls ask questions, (that) was a real turning point in my journey.\n\nSo I actually removed my niqab. It was one of the toughest things I've done — I got bashed for it a lot. I removed it this year, though it took three years (after starting to question it) to actually take it off, and I did it cold turkey, just took it off one day. Honestly, after taking my niqab off, I've become closer to my deen. It sounds funny, but it's because at this point I feel like whatever I'm doing now is for Allah. When I was wearing niqab, I always felt like people assumed the stereotype of niqabis — that we're rigid and quiet — which is wrong; niqabis are some of the friendliest people in the world. But people would assume that because I wore niqab I must be so righteous and pious, and I'm not — it's just that with niqab, people assume it. So I felt like I was somebody I wasn't. Honestly, after taking it off, I really feel like someone who is actually following their deen.\n\nFor me, hijab makes me follow a command of Allah to get close to Him — that's the first thing. The second is that hijab, especially in the West, represents me as a Muslim woman, and maintaining my religious identity while living in a country that's a melting pot of religions is really important to me. The third is that it's a constant reminder, when I'm outside, that I'm doing everything for the sake of Allah, that I'm going to do everything He wants me to do. It just makes me get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The funny thing is I understood this only after all these years, as a mother — this isn't something I understood in my teenage years, how hijab makes you close to Allah. But now hijab is a constant reminder to me that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is with me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Honestly, it doesn't even make me feel bad anymore, because the portrayal is already wrong within the Islamic community before it ever gets to non-Muslims. I come from a South Asian background, and I feel South Asians have stripped Muslim women of their rights more than anybody. I come from a culture where if a woman marries by her own choice, she's considered to have committed the worst sin in the world. I come from a culture where women who memorize the Quran aren't allowed to recite it in public, because we've taken the ruling that \"a woman's voice is awrah\" to a whole other level. If you're outspoken, in politics, or whatever, people think you're not even religious anymore, and if you are religious, you're expected to be confined to your home. As someone who graduated as an alimah, when I started teaching at the local masjid and speaking at events, my own classmates and family considered me to be doing something wrong — and it's funny, because Arab Muslims don't think it's wrong, Muslims from the African continent don't think it's wrong, but for some reason in my culture it is.\n\nI don't even blame non-Muslims, because Muslims have ruined it for themselves. We've created a culture in our community where every single thing Muslim women were allowed to do in Islam, we twisted. For example, in the cultural Muslim community, the story of Aisha is taught to encourage girls to get married young — they'll mention that she got married young, but not how she never thanked the Prophet ﷺ after her father told her to, when the verse was revealed clearing her name of slander. That's so empowering — when her father told her to thank the Prophet ﷺ because the verse had been revealed and her name was cleared, she said no, I'm going to thank the One who sent the verse. In South Asian culture — and I'm sorry if I keep mentioning South Asian culture, but it's the culture I'm speaking from — we tell women that even if her husband is extremely abusive, well, he provides for you, so thank him. Even the way we teach Islam to our girls in South Asian culture, we make them start hating Islam most of the time, because we use Islam to tell them \"you can't do this, you can't do this, you have to be like this.\" We use sabr as a kind of trophy — if you're living in an abusive relationship, well, Islam says to have sabr.\n\nSo, like I said, when a non-Muslim says something bad, some perspective about a Muslim woman, it doesn't upset me because I already know that person is ignorant. What upsets me more is when Muslims say things about Muslim women that are completely out of line — someone born and raised Muslim, not even a convert, from an \"Islamic Republic\" of this or that, and they don't even know what their own religion says about women. So yes, it upsets me, but not as much, because I already expect that from a non-Muslim, not from a Muslim. Muslim men and women have set the bar so low for Islam and for women that I don't even get surprised anymore.\n\nHonestly, I think it's all about how someone was taught Islam. I know a few converts who became Muslim in a community that was prominently South Asian, and they actually think certain things are part of Islam that aren't, because culture and religion have mixed up over the years. South Asia, for example, was colonized for many years, and after that Hindus and Muslims lived together, and Muslims there ended up adopting a lot of Hindu customs without realizing none of it has a base in our religion. So people from those areas actually think they're doing something Islamic when they're not. It does depend on where somebody is from, and on who taught them and how they were taught.\n\nTo give the [ISLAMIC BOARDING SCHOOL 1] example — I remember being told that going to college is haram for girls. Why did that person say that? Because that's what they were told, and what they actually believed. We still have people in our community who say girls going to college is haram because of fitna, there being boys and men around. I'll say, well, isn't it haram for men too, then, since there are women there? And I'm told, no, men need an education to be providers. I say, well, they could run a burger stand — they don't need an education for that. So when I say \"who,\" I mean: were you taught by somebody who was brainwashed into thinking culture is their religion, who was never taught the difference and will teach you the exact same thing — and in certain Islamic schools you can't even ask why, because that's treated like the end of the world? Or did you learn from somebody who actually did their own research and was taught by somebody who wasn't culturally influenced, versus somebody who is culturally influenced and needs to make things a certain way because it fits their culture and appeases the men in their community? That's the \"who.\"\n\nThe \"how\" is also important, because of the way Islam is taught. Take the story of Aisha again — one person can teach it focusing only on the fact that she got married young, and another person can teach the same story and talk about how the Prophet ﷺ treated her, how she never lost herself, how she actually established an even stronger identity because she remained who she was — the fact that she'd knead dough and a goat would come and take it, because that's how relaxed she was; she wasn't walking on eggshells worrying about what she'd cooked before her husband got home. Now you have women in their fifties who panic because their husband is home and the food isn't cooked and he's going to yell at them. But that same story of Aisha, when I hear the elderly women in my family use it, is used to say things like, if a girl is twenty-two and says she's not getting married yet, \"oh my God, she should already be married at this age\" — that's the only lesson they take from it. So the \"how\" is: how do you teach Islam to your students so they understand that, as Muslim women, they have an identity."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Within my culture, definitely, people don't expect me to speak up. It's funny — when I used to wear niqab and started speaking about women's rights, somebody said to me that the way I dress and the way I talk are very different. In my culture, I'm expected — and this happened a year ago, I was doing a Hadith intensive and speaking about how the joint family system has no basis in Islam — an elderly, very educated lady came up to me afterward and said, \"stop saying stuff like this, you're going to ruin the lives of a lot of girls, they're going to demand separate houses.\" I looked at her and said, well, that's the hope. My culture expects that if I have Islamic knowledge and wear hijab, I'm probably going to be saying something like \"cook for your husband, that's going to get you to Jannah\" or \"don't go to college because it's haram.\" That's the perception within my culture.\n\nOutside my community, it's sometimes a shocker when I start speaking English without an accent — it's funny that even now, people's faces change when they hear me speaking, whether at a store, hospital, or bank; you can tell, \"oh, she's actually speaking English.\" A lot of people who aren't well versed about Muslim women just assume she's going to need an interpreter or won't be able to explain herself."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "I've had six miscarriages, and I think really understanding what Qadr was at that time really helped, especially with the first three, which happened after my first child. I didn't want to only have one child, for personal reasons, and when I went to the doctor they said I had unexplained infertility — they did everything and couldn't find anything, which is even worse, because there's no medicine, nothing they can do; everything is fine, so why is this happening? As a human being you just want a solution for everything. Alhamdulillah, Allah gave me three healthy children after that, but during those times it was about telling myself that Allah does whatever is best for you.\n\nI should throw this in too — I'm from South Asian culture, so I had three girls, and I loved them to pieces; my husband and I never thought our family wasn't complete, and we were done having children. But it was funny, because everywhere I went, if I seemed really happy or at an event or a da'wat, some auntie had to say, \"everything about your life is good, but they can't give you a boy\" — and people don't understand that that actually hurts. You've gone through an infertility journey, you have three beautiful, healthy daughters, you're so happy with your life because you thought you'd only have one child and then got more, and then suddenly you're made to feel incomplete.\n\nThen it was from Allah — I never in a million years thought I would have more children, and then I was expecting, and I didn't even care about the gender. I made du'a to Allah that He only give me a boy if I could raise him to be a good man — that was my only du'a; if I was going to raise a terrible man, give me a girl instead, just give me a healthy child, but a boy only if I could raise him to be a good man. During that pregnancy, things were showing up on the ultrasound — that he had fluid in his head and other issues — so it was like I was getting what I prayed for, because maybe Allah knew I could raise a good man, but now I was going through all these medical issues. Faith came in again: Allah does whatever He does for a reason, Allah will do whatever is good for you, Allah will give you whatever is in your Qadar.\n\nFrom my miscarriages, I think it all has to do with infertility — those were some of my darkest times, especially the consecutive miscarriages, and then the journey to having all my healthy children. For people who've had a miscarriage and then get pregnant again, that pregnancy is the longest year, the longest time of your life. I think that's when faith really helps: Allah will do whatever is good for me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "That makes me angry — if you want it in one word, it makes me angry, it makes me upset, because sometimes I think, how do you even say things like that? And the fact that it's often religious scholars backing it up just makes things worse, and it scares me for my own kids. It's funny — anytime I see stuff like that online it puts me in a spiral, so I sit my kids down and give a whole lecture, because I think that will help them. It makes me upset, but it also terrifies me, because especially with social media, it's so easy to influence and brainwash young children into thinking Muslim women should be a certain way.\n\nThis morning, for example, we had a conversation at the breakfast table about the word \"daraba\" in the Quran and how it has multiple meanings — I'll pick up any topic, but this one came up because one of my daughters asked why she can't just read the Quran translation by herself. That's something I don't allow my kids to do; they can't read the Quran translation on their own, only when I teach them or when they're with another teacher. My oldest doesn't ask that anymore because I've already taught her, but my youngest, who's nine, asked why she couldn't just pick it up and read it. I explained that translations, especially Urdu translations, often carry a lot of the translator's personal preferences, and you can't do justice to the Arabic language by just reading a translation of one ayah — you have to understand the complexity of the meanings, the nouns, and how certain words are used. So a lot of our conversations are pretty intellectual, and they usually come from something I see online that's out of line, or from the girls' own questions. One of my daughters has a classmate who's Syrian, and they're really good friends, so a lot of our conversations are about treating people with kindness and respect, while also understanding what our faith does and doesn't accept."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "At this point in life, and I'll sound selfish saying it, it's my children — though I don't think it's selfish, because whatever I want for my children, I want for other people's children too. Since I'm a face in the community, I never want to give advice to anyone's daughter or son that I wouldn't give to my own kids. For the past year or two especially, now that my oldest is sixteen, it's really important for me to do things right in terms of my faith, so my kids have that confidence, that structure and framework, and know who to look up to."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "For my community — this is going to sound terrible, but I've reached a point where I've realized certain people in my community are a lost cause. There's no point in me sitting down with someone much older than me and telling them they can't expect their daughter-in-law to cook for all their sons every single day; there's no point having that conversation, because they're well-rooted in their culture and to them I'm just being disrespectful. I did that with my own family for a while, and then I realized I was wasting my energy when I could use it to change the upcoming generation instead. So I stopped trying to fix what was already damaged and tried to salvage what was left — the upcoming generation, who might otherwise assume whatever our elders are doing is right. I put my focus on women my age, women younger than me, women getting into adulthood right now — for a while I worked with teenagers. That generation is something I can fix, or at least attempt to, so the upcoming generation has a good version of what deen, what Islam, really looks like. That's where I stand in my community. I respect the elders. I'll share a funny story — I was leading a halaqah with people of all ages, and someone asked about tarawih, saying she'd had a long day. I said, look, it's Ramadan, if you can't pray tarawih at the end of a long day, that's fine. Afterward, a very elderly, respected community member came up and told me I was the first person she'd heard say inside the masjid that you don't have to pray tarawih. I said it because the woman who asked has five children, all under six, and is living a tough life — what am I supposed to tell her, that she'll get sin for not praying tarawih at the end of a long day when her husband is at work all day and she's with the kids and fasting? I don't want to disrespect the elders, I don't want to change their ways, I can't change their ways, so I respect them, I always ask for their du'as, I respect their decisions because that's what they know and what they thought was best. But my focus in my community is on my age and younger, the youth.\n\nAs for my family — as a South Asian (woman), I don't really have a role. I'm a wife, a mother, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a niece. That's it. The one thing I have control over is my kids, and, surprisingly, whoever reads this one day will be shocked at how hard it is for a South Asian woman to actually have control over her own kids — even getting to the point of making decisions different from what my parents made for me is a battle. My mother thinks my kids should go to (the school in) [CITY 1]. According to my mother, I'm raising my kids all wrong — why does my daughter go to public school, why doesn't the younger one wear hijab yet like my oldest does. For a while I thought I was failing at parenting because of everything being said in my family, and then I reached a point where I didn't want my kids growing up thinking that being (a woman) means complete control over you, especially as a girl. So my role in my family is that I'm a mother — that's where my influence comes in, whatever religious changes I can make. Besides that, no."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "I was born and raised here — I belong here. This is home; you're born here, raised here. When somebody asks me where I'm from and I say I'm from America, and they push back with \"no, where are you really from,\" I ask them where they're from, because unless they're Native American, why are they asking me that? I'm born here, I'm raised here, I'm American — I'm a [STATE 2] native, born and raised. I never even left my state. Belonging means I should have the safety of practicing my religious identity, because that's what my country represents. As long as I can wear hijab here, which I should always be able to, and live my life according to my religion, I belong here, and I don't think anyone has the right to take that away from me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "No — I mean, I have been made to feel that, definitely, from that woman who asked if I was Bin Laden's niece, to things I hear about my community all the time from people who are supposedly highly educated, who hold certain roles in the community or government. When they say things about Muslims that are messed up, yes, it makes you feel upset. But then I always remind myself of what Allah says in the Quran — that when the ignorant address you, you say \"peace.\" There are ignorant people (everywhere)."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "That's why I'm nice to people, take my word for it. My relationship with Allah is like a friendship, it seems — maybe this is too private to share, but there's the ayah in the Quran that says Allah is closer to you than your jugular vein. I've never really said this openly, but I feel like Allah is always there — I mean, of course He's always there, but anytime I'm having a hard time I'll say, \"what's going on,\" and I feel peace in it. That's my relationship with Allah. As for the Akhirah, it makes me fear certain things — I fear having a full meal when the servants of Allah have nothing. That's the kind of thing the Akhirah shakes me over: what have I done to help those people? Sometimes I want to be really mean to somebody because I just don't like them, but then I won't be, because there's accountability, there's judgment, and maybe I'm just treating this person wrong for no reason. So the Akhirah shapes my hukm, the way I treat people."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "It's from Allah. It took me a while to get to that point, but my miscarriages are what got me there. I just tell myself it's from Allah, there's nothing I can do. There's a certain level of faith, a lot of struggle, you have to go through to get to that point, but once you get there, life becomes so peaceful."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "That my kids stay Muslim — I know that's controversial, because people will say, don't you care who they marry, how they dress? I care about all of that, but I've sat face to face with students who wear hijab and never take it off, yet say they're not Muslim. My most important thing is that my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids, are rooted in Islam: Allah is One, Muhammad is the last Prophet, we don't commit zina, we don't drink alcohol — all the major things that come with Islam. That they just stay Muslim — I make du'a for that. Of course I want them to be practicing too, but people don't realize that practicing doesn't equal belief, and belief comes first. That's so important — for them to stay Muslim, to love Islam.\n\nI make sure. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has always put me in situations where I learned — I was a middle school and high school Islamic studies teacher for eleven years, and it taught me so much. I always remember one student who came to my class and wouldn't talk to me for three days; she hated my class. One day I had a one-on-one with her and said, every other teacher says you're really good with them, why don't you like me? She said, I don't like Islam, and your class is Islamic studies. I asked why she didn't like Islam, and she said Islam doesn't let us do anything — her brother has a girlfriend, she can't have a boyfriend; her brother goes to prom, she wanted to go last year and couldn't, and now she's stuck in this Islamic school. I told her, look, your parents aren't raising your brother right — they can't control your brother, and that has nothing to do with Islam. They're typical Pakistani parents who believe boys are boys and can do whatever they want. She didn't believe me at first, but three weeks later her mom called, came in, and said I'd turned her daughter against her. I said I hadn't — if that's how you're raising your son, you can't tell your daughter that Islam doesn't allow her something while it allows him. That girl still reaches out to me — she's a nurse now, and she still thanks me. She told me that if I hadn't (talked to her), her plan was to leave that Islamic school, go to college, and leave Islam — she had no intention of ever staying Muslim once she left her parents' house. That's just one story, and I hear that kind of thing every single day.\n\nSo my role has been to let my daughters ask questions, to let them know how much Allah loves them, to let them know the \"why\" behind why they can't have boyfriends, why we don't do drugs, the wisdom behind all of it, why we have to cover. Alhamdulillah, I thank Allah every day that I was able to get to the point of telling them that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put things in the Quran for their own benefit, and I'm blessed that my kids have actually come to understand that — but it took a lot of work. A lot of Muslim parents use Islam for parenting — \"my kids can't have sleepovers\" — not because Islam says so, but because I tell them, your dad and I don't allow sleepovers. We don't use Islam as a tool to stop our kids from doing something, because I've heard the whole \"you can't sleep at so-and-so's house, it's haram\" — no, it's not haram, be a proper parent when you have to be a parent, don't use Islam to control your children when it's not necessary. That's the role I've played, and it's been a struggle, and it's still a struggle with my younger kids — talking to them every single day, helping them understand what is actually haram and what is just something I don't want them to do, so they don't think everything is haram."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Nothing is really going on consciously, but I can never leave the house without hijab — it's like a part of me. It's that Allah told me to do it, so I'm doing it, and I love Allah and Allah loves me.\n\nI come from a culture — again, am I the only one who talks about culture so much? — where log kya kahenge, \"what will people say,\" is a very big deal; you can ruin your entire life over it. Alhamdulillah, I actually thank my culture for being that intense about it, because I don't even care what people say at this point. I think it was pushed so much, for all the wrong reasons, that for me it ended up going into my heart instead. Taking the niqab off is one of the biggest examples — people said so much, they're still saying so much; somebody literally took a picture of me and sent it in a WhatsApp chat to ask if it was really me and why I'd taken it off. You get to a point where you think, I'm doing it for Allah, I don't care what people think."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Allah is my friend, and Allah is always there. He's closer to me than anything in the world, and He will resolve everything that I need."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-005_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-005", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "It's in my personality and my daily life. I wish people could actually peek into my heart and realize I really don't care, except for Allah. I'm at a point where — and this is going to sound disrespectful — I don't care what my parents say, and that's one of the most taboo things a South Asian woman can say. For me, if Allah is happy with me, that's what matters; it's in my daily life, my personality, the way I hold myself, the way I take care of all my daily affairs.\n\nMy mom is almost eighty, and she believes that if she takes her niqab off, she's going to Jahannam. She doesn't really know that I've taken mine off — when I visit her my niqab is off because I'm coming from the car, and outside she's not on social media so she doesn't see any flyers or posts. I've told her two or three times that I've taken it off; I don't think she realizes the depth of it, though one time she said, \"do whatever.\" My dad knows — I told him — and he said he'd always wondered why I wasn't (taking it off already).\n\nIt's not just about my parents, though, it's about anything. I feel liberated when I'm able to follow my deen without (worrying), knowing that, alhamdulillah, I'm a good Muslim — maybe I don't know how my salat or my fasting is being measured by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but I'm liberated because I don't need the definition of Islam from anybody — not my aunts, uncles, in-laws, spouse, children, parents, or the Muslim community. It's all because my connection with Allah is so strong that, alhamdulillah, I feel like I'm at a point in my journey with deen where I know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala — I don't want to say He's happy with me, because I don't know if He's happy with me or not."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "As a student, an ordinary day consists of waking up, studying, praying, studying, then getting ready for school or going to my next set of classes and completing assignments. Coming home, I either do more studying for school or occasionally attend a halaqa if my local university has one going on before I head home. Then I come home, eat dinner, and sleep.\n\nFaith shows up during the five daily prayers — whenever Dhuhr or Asr comes, I have to go pray; that's one place it comes into play. It also comes up generally when I'm interacting with non-Muslim colleagues — for example, if a guy extends his hand to shake mine, I have to say, actually, I don't do that, and if they're curious I explain why. It also shows up through the Muslim Student Association, or generally when I'm interacting with other Muslims. I also do some Islamic studies on the side — sometimes I go to my local masjid to study Quranic Arabic, and sometimes I go for hadith — so that's where it shows up as well."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would say the Muslim community is very open and very welcoming. At least from what I've seen, nobody has ever shunned anyone based on their faith, their identity, how they practice Islam, or how they don't practice it. Everybody has been pretty nice to everyone, generally. It's very open, especially on my campus — we've had so many converts, subhanAllah, that it's a very unique place to be, I think, compared to other universities. Generally it's a nice space to be, and I feel like when you're in a community where people share the same moral values and faith as you, it's easy to get along with them, communicate with them, and be a part of (it)."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've lived in the area I live in for the last, I want to say, fifteen years, and I definitely think it's shaped who I am as a Muslim. I was born in an area where there were a lot of Muslims, but I was raised here from the age of five, so I grew up around a lot of Muslims, whether Indian, Pakistani, Arab, or African — a bunch of different kinds of Muslims. I got to experience that, and I think it gave me a generalized sense of multiple perspectives and made me open to dialogue and conversation. For example, some people follow a certain madhhab and others follow different ones, and having open conversations about that without anyone being offended — I think being in a very diverse Muslim community has made me very open about these topics and very accepting of many different views."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes. I attend some classes — I've done hifz school, so I still do Qur'anic classes and review. I occasionally listen to lectures online; I think that's the main thing I do now that I'm in undergrad, because I have less time for a structured course. I sometimes try free online courses where you sit and listen to lecturers and take notes. Mostly I'll attend halaqas, or at my local masjid we sometimes have lectures or a scholar's seminar that comes through, so I'll go and attend those. That's generally how I seek my knowledge."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "That's a good question. My hijab story is pretty straightforward — I think it's the story that happens to many youth who have parents who wear hijab. When I was younger I saw my mom wearing hijab, so I decided I would do it too because I thought it was cool, and I started wearing it when I went places. I also wore it because I went to Islamic school when I was young, so it was part of our uniform anyway, but then there was a point where I wanted to wear it all the time, so I just ended up wearing it. So when it came time for it to become mandatory for me, it wasn't a huge shift — I was already doing it because I liked to, I thought it looked cool, so I ended up keeping it on. Of course I wasn't doing it for the right reasons at that time, but it kind of just became a natural thing for me.\n\nI mean, I think originally, when I was a kid, I just did it because I saw my mom do it — you're influenced by the people around you and you kind of just follow what you see. But as you grow older you get a better understanding — this is an actual commandment in the Quran, women are supposed to wear hijab, they're supposed to be modest in a certain way. Of course there were struggles with it — hijab isn't just the headscarf, it's also the way you carry yourself and the kinds of clothes you wear generally, so that was a struggle growing up, especially when I transitioned to college. I was a homeschooled kid, so my community at that time was just the Muslim people I saw at my masjid, so wearing an abaya and hijab was easy then. But when I went to college, everyone was wearing shirts and pants and those kinds of things, and I kind of wanted to mimic that — but then you have to realize you're breaking the codes of hijab if you wear tight pants or a tight shirt. So that was a struggle, but alhamdulillah I was able to maintain it — my mom used to dress-code me quite a bit, so it helped.\n\nIt definitely singles me out. In a lot of spaces I've been in, at least growing up — in high school and college — I was typically the only hijabi. In university I studied engineering, so a lot of times it was either a male-dominated room or a room full of people who weren't necessarily Muslim; in my graduating class in college, I was the only practicing Muslim. It's interesting when people come up and start asking, \"I've never seen you do this, why is that the case,\" or \"why aren't you coming to the bar with us.\" They also look at you kind of strangely — I think a lot of hijabis have experienced this, where people see a hijabi walking into a room and think, \"oh, that's a little different.\""}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I don't think they misunderstand anything per se — it's more their ignorance about it. I haven't had anyone make assumptions when they've walked up to me; it's more curiosity. A lot of them are just confused — I've been asked things like, \"are you Hindu or something, is that why you wear that?\" They just don't know what I'm wearing or what it means, so I have to explain it to them. They'll ask, \"do you ever take that off,\" and I'll say, yeah, I take it off at home — explaining these simple things to them, because they generally just don't know. I don't think they have any bad assumptions about it, at least from what I've seen."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Honestly, I think it's a mix — first it's like, oh, I didn't realize people don't know this, because growing up in a very heavily Muslim-dominated community, especially as a homeschooler, I kind of forget sometimes that people don't know what Muslims are. So first it's surprise that this is even a question people would have. But then it's also kind of nice, because I'm glad they're asking me instead of just going to Google and wondering, \"what's that thing she's wearing on her head?\" I find it kind of endearing, honestly — like, you're nice enough to be curious and take the step to ask me these questions. It makes me feel nice, I guess."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "I guess I can talk about difficulties with regard to academics. A lot of times you can put in as much effort as you want into your studies, or taking an exam, or applying to a certain program, but things don't necessarily end up the way you expect relative to the effort you put in — you can write the best essays and that won't necessarily translate into the outcome you're expecting. In those moments, the biggest thing I've embodied through undergrad is Qadara Allahu ma sha'a fa'al — whatever is best is going to occur, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best; I've tied my camel and left it up to Him. That's how I manage difficulty generally — realizing I'm not in control. I have to try my best in everything, that's something we have to do, but if things don't turn out the way I want, that's okay — Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees my efforts and knows what's best for me. You don't know if that job was the best for you or not."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Definitely. I think everyone has a different way of practicing Islam, and when somebody sees someone wearing hijab and an abaya instead of loose pants and a t-shirt, they automatically assume, \"oh, this girl is hyper-religious, she might be a hafidha, she might be like this or that\" — so they have these expectations of you when they interact with you. Even elders will have these expectations, but then when they actually talk to you for the first time they might be like, \"oh, she's just a normal person, just like us, another undergrad.\" Sometimes these expectations make me a little uncomfortable and make me feel like I don't belong in certain communities. I used to go to a school called [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1] in the [METRO REGION 1] area, and at one point I left that school. Whenever I go back to that community — I still keep in contact with my teachers and have a lot of friends there — sometimes I'll go pray salah there on my way home, and when I see certain teachers or students, I feel like they look at me like I no longer belong, just because they're wearing their full black abayas and hijabs and I'm not necessarily wearing a black abaya, I'm wearing a different long dress or something, and that might single me out to some degree. Or the way I carry myself nowadays — I've changed since I was young, I behave a little differently, I talk a little differently, I'm more outspoken about my opinions, and I've noticed that changes how people treat me. My friends and teachers who know me treat me the same way, but other people in the community treat me slightly differently, and that makes me a little uncomfortable sometimes. So I do think expectations are placed on people based on their perceptions of you, though that's not the case everywhere — I think it's a matter of exposure. You might have a perception of the Muslim ummah based on one community, but if you've been exposed to many different communities, you're more open-minded and don't have these preconceived notions about people.\n\nYes, I'd say I've had a lot of difficulties, internally and externally, with the way I dress. Externally, as I grew up through my four years of undergrad, my mom especially would talk me through it — I might come out of my bedroom about to leave the house wearing something I thought was modest, and she'd say, \"[INTERVIEWEE], I think this isn't a good idea, this part is see-through, I don't think that's good,\" and I'd be like, okay, but I really liked this outfit, why do I have to change right now — but then I'd go change. That was a little tough, but eventually I realized my mom was saying what's best for me, and it's better to be corrected by someone close to me than by some random auntie telling me, \"beta, that's not the right thing to do,\" so I appreciate that.\n\nInternally, I think the struggle — this might sound shallow — is that growing up, you're surrounded by so many pretty girls wearing really nice outfits, and if they believe that's the correct thing for them, they should do what they want. But if I believe that's not the correct way for me to dress, I should stay with my moral compass, stay with what I think is right — though it's tough, because sometimes you think, I also want to dress like that, but I can't. Eventually I got through it by shifting my style — I'm not necessarily wearing a black abaya, but it's still modest; I like wearing colors, so I worked out what colors to wear, going shopping with my mom and asking, \"do you think this is okay to wear to school?\" That's definitely helped."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "I think — not a person, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. As a hafidha, I have this thing lingering over my head all the time, that I'm a walking Quran, so I should be behaving and carrying myself in a way that's conducive to that. Whenever I read Quran translations, or go to halaqas, it's like it's speaking to me directly and correcting me on certain things, so I definitely feel responsible, as a person who has accumulated at least this amount of knowledge, to act upon it. On top of that, I feel responsible to my family — these are the people who raised me, I'm the youngest in my family, they shaped my moral standards, and if I can't even follow the basic things they've taught me, that's not good. I agree with everything my parents tell me — they're very learned people and know what they're saying, so I should follow them. The last group I feel responsible to is the next generation — I'm pretty active in my local masjid and in the MSA community, and a lot of times you'll meet freshmen, sophomores, or high schoolers and middle schoolers at the masjid who look up to you because you're a bit further along in life; they ask you for advice. Making sure the way I behave, talk, and give advice is aligned with the Quran and Sunnah, something I'd want to be told as a youth, not misguiding them in any way, and being a good role model for them — those are the three groups."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I think, family-wise, it's just a natural thing — I'm the youngest, I'm also the only daughter, and I live in a Desi household, so the role I play in my family is kind of natural. Growing up, my mom would show me, \"if this happens, make sure you do this, your job is to do this,\" those kinds of things, and also just watching my mom generally, I think I followed her footsteps — if I see something that needs to get done, I'll do it. I don't know too much about my role within my household beyond that; it's kind of just a natural thing I learned by watching. In terms of my community, my role is mostly as a member — I try not to take leadership roles because I don't like being the face of things, but if people need help with something, I'm always in the group chats, whether it's volunteer planning or anything else — \"we need an idea for this,\" \"could you help me out with this,\" \"we need someone to sub for this class because the teacher suddenly needs it\" — and I'll say, yeah, I can definitely help out if I'm free. So I kind of fill in the gaps where I can, and I'm also just a general student in my community — my local masjid holds a lot of Arabic classes and tafsir classes, so I go and attend, because it's my weekly slice of Islamic knowledge that I try to incorporate into my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "To me, real belonging is when you enter a space and you don't feel on edge — you know that when you get there, people won't treat you as different, as someone they don't know. When you walk into the room you can easily greet people, and even if they don't know you super well, they'll treat you like a friend. That's belonging to me — you're not shunned, you're immediately accepted, even if you don't hold the same values or you differ on a certain topic; you're all respectful of one another and treat each other well.\n\nI think so, yes, and in many of the spaces I'm a part of, I definitely feel that way."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "Honestly, I think I'm very lucky. The non-Muslim spaces I've been in — whether people are Black American, Hispanic, these kinds of things — they've all been very respectful of my differences in faith, and they've also taught me about their faiths. At my university, people who are Jewish would tell me they fast on certain days too, and I'd be like, wow, I didn't know that, tell me more, and they'd tell me everything about it. At least in my experience living in this country, I haven't faced discrimination from the communities I've been part of, whether undergrad or the workforce — people have been generally very accepting, very curious. I genuinely feel confident as a Muslim living here in the US. I know there are other countries where it's much harder, like India or Uzbekistan, but at least here, in the area I live in, everyone's been pretty open, and I feel confident being a Muslim. If I have to pray and I'm at, I don't know, a gym or something, I'm okay with just taking out my prayer mat in the parking lot and praying there — I don't expect anyone to jump me or anything, I'm confident enough to do that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I think that comes into play whenever I'm making decisions I'm a little wary of. When I think of the Akhirah, I think of judgment — how my actions are going to be weighed on the Day of Judgment. For example, a guy acquaintance at school might ask if I want to grab coffee, and even if it's platonic because he has a girlfriend and other joint acquaintances are coming, I personally try to avoid going out with a group if there isn't a higher girl-to-guy ratio — I just try to avoid it. Things like that I keep in mind, because you don't want to get close to even doing anything that might be sinful. Or it might be salah time and the window is closing while I'm in the middle of class, and I have to debate whether to leave the classroom — will the professor treat me differently if I leave? Technically I could just leave and he won't say anything, but he might have a skewed perception of me — but do I care about his perception of me, or the Lord's perception? So in those moments I have to think about whether to do it or not. Or saying no to certain invites — during graduation season, a lot of my acquaintances are guys, so they'll text me invites like, \"you should come to my grad party,\" and I have to say, sorry, I can't come, and make up an excuse, because I don't feel comfortable going to a guy's grad party, especially because he's a guy. So, things like that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "When something's beyond my control, it's the Qadr of Allah — everything happens for a reason, everything has been pre-written, and there are certain things you genuinely can't control. So you just have to acknowledge that and keep it in the back of your head: I do what I can, and if things happen a certain way, then that's okay. That's the main thing I hold onto."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I think making sure you still get down the basic things of being a Muslim without compromising, even if you live in the West — salah is a big thing, making sure you don't compromise on your salah, or fasting, even when, for instance, there's a lunch meeting and everybody's ordering food and you just have to sit in the back. Making sure you don't compromise on the fundamentals, and also remembering that being a Muslim isn't just praying, fasting, or reading Quran — it's also being a good person. I feel like a lot of people forget that Islam is peace; you should treat everyone well despite their moral standards, their perceptions of things, their religion. Being a Muslim in the West is a combination of keeping down your basics and also being a good person, following the Sunnah of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, treating everyone well — Islam is a way of life, and living that out as a Muslim the best that you can.\n\nMy friends say I'm a very level-headed person — I don't get upset, I don't show very strong emotions, and if I show any strong emotion it's mostly joy. They think I'm very calm and understanding, though I don't necessarily see that in myself, maybe because I have a different perception of myself at home. But usually when I'm outside, I'm calm, nice, and people think I'm extroverted even though I don't think I am. I do try, if I see someone who might not be included in a group, sitting on the side, to go introduce myself and try to make them feel more welcome, whether it's a Muslim or non-Muslim space. I think that's generally how I try to embody being a Muslim in outside spaces — and also not compromising. In undergrad it's come up a lot of times where I have to tell my teammates, in an in-person meeting or working on a prototype, \"hey, it's my prayer time, do you mind if I step out for five minutes,\" and I'll go to a corner of the building, pray, and come back — everybody's been super nice about it, nobody's ever said anything against it. So it's about being confident in your values, explaining it to people if they're curious, and just being a nice person.\n\nBefore, if you'd talked to me in my freshman year of undergrad, I might have been very hesitant to say these kinds of things and explain them to people. Maghrib time, for example, is a very small window — you have to pray within thirty to forty-five minutes — and sometimes I wouldn't even say anything to my friends, I'd just leave and come back and say, \"that was a long bathroom break.\" At that time I was a little shy about it, but over time I became more confident. The biggest thing that shifted my mindset was realizing — I'd been seeing this growing up but never actually acknowledged it — why are Christians so confident saying \"we love Jesus,\" coming to your doorstep, these missionaries, and why are Jewish people so confident about their holidays, throwing a party, being proud and confident about their religion — and why weren't we as proud and confident about ours? People understand the different holidays and practices these other groups have more than they understand Muslims, even though, at least at my university, we're almost the same size, a very large Muslim community. Realizing that made me ask, why am I not confident in my own religion, why am I not educating people? Nobody treats conservative Christians or practicing Jewish people badly for it, so they shouldn't treat a Muslim person badly either. So I started doing that — of course it was a little hesitant at first. My friends actually think I'm insane — in the engineering department we have these giant workspaces, basically a bunch of lab benches, and if Maghrib is coming in while I'm working on something I can't walk away from, I'll just pray right there, and my Muslim friends look at me like, \"[INTERVIEWEE], why do you do this?\" And I'm like, nobody's going to do anything, why should I be afraid? So I think in the beginning it was hard, but over time, acknowledging that people just generally don't care — they really don't care, and if they do care, it's mostly out of curiosity. I haven't met a \"Karen,\" so to speak, who has called me out for my Muslim practices, alhamdulillah.\n\nNot really — if anything has happened to me, it was more of a passing situation. I did an internship in a certain area of the US that was known for its drug and poverty issues, and sometimes walking from the train station to my workplace and back, there'd be people who'd say strange racial slurs and Islamophobic slurs, but it was just a thing of passing — I'd walk past them and not give them too much mind. In professional spaces, academic spaces, or fun spaces like the gym, nobody's ever said anything."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "Before I went to undergrad, I was always surrounded by Muslims, always surrounded by girls — I wasn't really doing anything besides being at home, going to a masjid, going to Islamic school or hifz school, so my community was very — I'd say sheltered, if that's the right word — everyone was the same, nobody was challenging any of my moral standards, nobody was thinking anything differently from what I already knew. Coming into undergrad was the first time I was in a space where — this might sound strange, but it was my first time being in a class where everybody was my age, because I attended community college and did homeschooling, so I either didn't have classmates or the people were much older and didn't really talk to me. So coming into undergrad was the first time I had people my age, the first time seeing Muslims who practiced Islam differently from me, the first time meeting people of different religions. I learned a lot about different people's ideas of religion, identity, and moral standards, but I also learned what I value, because growing up I had this perception of what my moral standards were, but after experiencing more you get a more open mind, you learn to shift your ideas on certain topics based on what you've learned. My ideas on certain topics have definitely shifted quite a bit — religion is a big one, and also how I treat people; my perception of the LGBTQ community has shifted quite a bit, my perception of people generally, growing up with \"stranger danger\" (thinking).\n\nMy biggest growth was going from an introvert to more of an ambivert or extrovert — being nice to people, being proactive in spaces, being open-minded. I grew a lot; I just don't know how to explain it fully.\n\nI think it's a mix of both. Growing up, faith was always described to me as Islam, Quran, salah, tafsir, studying Arabic — these kinds of things — and not necessarily as, how do you embody Islam in your character, how do you embody Islam through your reactions in certain situations. That's something I learned in undergrad. So I think faith has driven a bit of that, but also just my personal curiosity — I'm a generally curious person, I like getting to know people and learning about different topics — but I do think faith has definitely shaped my attitudes toward things as well."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah, to me, is remembering that nothing is in my control — everything is a ni'mah, even taking this breath, speaking this word, nothing comes without His permission. Just understanding that — I don't want to say it like this, but — you're kind of just a pawn in this larger game of life, and your movements are partially determined by your decisions, but the end result of the whole game is already predetermined, and you're just living through it without much control over it. Your goal as a pawn in this game is for everything you do to be to please Him, because before we came onto this earth, Allah said, you're going to be human, you're going to have your own decisions to make, your own society, your own nation, you're going to be judged on the Day of Judgment — are you ready to do this? And we said yes, back then. So you have to be the best person you can be and hope that whatever you do, as long as you do it with the best intention and believe it's the correct thing to do, then inshallah you'll do your best to enter Jannah — but in the end it's only up to His mercy that that happens. So submission, for me, is realizing that I'm a pawn in this larger game of life, and my job is to do my best, and whatever the result is going to be is up to Him."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I think I mentioned this before, but awareness of the Akhirah, knowing I'm going to be judged at the end of the day — even Islamically, learning through the stories and hadiths we know, like what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saw happen to people who lied, or the punishment tied to committing zina — knowing these things guides you toward what you should and shouldn't do, and that's awareness of the Akhirah. Knowing these hints, these really scary things that could happen to you for doing things that our modern society might think is normal but that are Islamically forbidden, major sins — it definitely shapes the way you act in certain situations, at least for me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-006_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-006", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "For me, I feel most liberated when I'm with my closest friends doing something we enjoy — but also something my parents approve of, and that we know Islamically is something that benefits us. One of my favorite things to do, and the thing I feel most free about, because my parents are also very approving of it, is going with my friend to a weekly halaqa we really enjoy. My mom is kind of strict and doesn't let me go hang out with friends very often, so when I ask, \"Mom, can I go with so-and-so to this halaqa,\" and she says yes, that's fine — I'm like, wow, you really don't let me go do anything else, but you let me go drive solo with her to this one thing. That's a moment when I feel liberated, because I have my parents' trust, and I'm able to hang out with someone I genuinely feel I can be myself with, have real conversations with, and we're doing something we both enjoy, whether it's the halaqa, or going to a cafe, or going for a hike. I feel most liberated when I'm doing things I enjoy, that my parents approve of, and that I hope Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't think is incorrect, and when I'm spending time with people who genuinely get me, who are open-minded, people I grew up with and am comfortable around."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "An ordinary day — I am a teacher, a middle school teacher. Right now I'm on summer break, but typically during the school year I would wake up around 4, 4:30, get ready as far as praying Fajr and all of that, prep my work for the upcoming day and go over everything, then leave the house around 5:30, six o'clock. I work in [STATE 2], so I have a bit of a drive. I start my job around 7:10, usually come home around 4, 4:30, spend time with family, then prepare work for the next day, and start the cycle all over again.\n\nI'm really lucky because, obviously, I'm Muslim, and one of the benefits of salah is that we pray five times a day, which gives us the opportunity to constantly recenter ourselves — I'm so grateful for that. Salah is an important time in the day because it helps you recenter what's important and remember that, honestly, all the stresses you feel day to day are not important. I think that influences how I view my job and my work, especially working at the school I do — it's not a very diverse school, and for that reason I think I have a different outlook than a lot of my coworkers, who are very stressed on a day-to-day basis. One of the things I really like about myself — and I do attribute a lot of this to salah, to constantly recentering myself — is not getting too stressed out during the workday, because as a teacher you're kind of working throughout the day. I also mentioned I work in [STATE 2], so I have a bit of a drive — I really force myself to use that time to listen to Quran, make dhikr, or listen to a YouTube lecture. I've come to enjoy my drive; it's actually my favorite time of the day. I think because I'm so busy during the day I can find myself not fitting in dhikr or Quran, so I use the time on my commute — an hour there, an hour back. On the hour there, I don't allow myself to listen to any news or a podcast; I always put on an Islamic-related video. On the way back, I allow myself to listen to a podcast or the news."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "To be honest, I don't really think of myself as different, so I think I would struggle to answer that question directly. If I had to describe myself, or my community, in a couple of words, I would say that I live in a very close-knit community. I have a very small circle, and I like it that way — I feel like my circle and my community are very supportive and very inspiring. I feel like we're all striving to be better, to better ourselves.\n\nIf they expressed interest in coming to my community, I would be a hundred percent for that. I think I would describe it as a place where they may encounter things that are different from their normal life, but I think there's still beauty in that. I also think my community is unique in that there are so many different cultures you can notice when you're visiting the masjid — it's a melting pot, everyone's from different places, but everyone sees past that because the number one unifier is that we're all Muslim, which I think is very similar to other places of worship. So I think they would see things they resonate with, and I think they would also see things that shock them, that are different to them.\n\nIn terms of rituals — and in terms of places of worship. I've visited churches and synagogues before, and I'd say mosques are kind of the closest in terms of... I think it comes down to cultural practices, but there's a lot of hugs, a lot of kissing on the cheeks, that kind of thing. I think that would be one small thing that would shock them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I think there's definitely a range. With social media, I feel like people are able to see — and it's tough, because with social media there are accounts that reaffirm what you already think a Muslim woman is like, and then there are accounts that may surprise you. I would say that in the area I live, [CITY 1, STATE 1], it's so diverse that I don't tend to think much about how other people view me — I feel like people have an accurate view of what a Muslim woman is because they interact with Muslims so much day to day. But in the area where I work — I work in [CITY 2, STATE 2], which is a very rural area, and I am one hundred percent the only Muslim on the staff. They have a diversity issue across the board — basically the entire staff is Caucasian. I know for a fact that a lot of the kids I teach, I am the first Muslim woman they've met. This is my sixth year teaching here, and I feel like it's gotten better, but my first year was a very interesting experience, because when the kids would walk in on the first day, a lot of them would do double takes. A lot of the kids have told me, you're the first woman in a scarf I've seen in person. I think with that comes a lot of responsibility.\n\nDuring, I'd say, around October, whenever they're doing their unit on Islam in social studies, they ask things like, have you ever been to Mecca, why do you wear your scarf, why do you wear long sleeves and long pants. To be honest, I'm glad they're asking, because sometimes I can tell some of the kids have a question but don't ask it. The kids who do ask will ask things like, what does your hair look like, how long is your hair. Whenever someone does ask, it gets really quiet around me because everyone's waiting to hear what I'll say.\n\nNot as much as you would think, with the adults. I don't know if it's because nowadays you can Google any question you have, or if it's culturally, in American culture, considered rude to ask certain questions. I've gotten a couple of questions, but I could count on one hand the number my colleagues have asked me. I think it's honestly just because you can Google whatever you're curious about.\n\nTo be honest, I don't know how they see me. They were a very welcoming group. I think at points I view myself as different, but at points I don't — my mom is American, I grew up here, so there are points where I feel different, and points where I feel like I'm American — I don't know, my mom's from [STATE 3]. I feel like I can fit in, but then there are points where I stand out. When I was younger I did mind that I stood out, that I was different — I don't know if I've gaslit myself into thinking it's okay that I'm different, but now, at twenty-seven, I almost like the fact that there's something special about me, that I am different. I kind of like the different parts about myself, as cheesy as that sounds.\n\nThe fact that I wear a scarf, for example — it's such an evident thing, it's almost the first thing you see about me. And there's a little bit of pressure I've always felt with that — I always feel like I have to, and this could go back to what others think of me; maybe I'm cognizant of the fact that people may have perceptions about what a Muslim woman is, so I'm always smiling, always upbeat, positive — I constantly feel like I have to manage people's impression of me. But, in a strange way, I do like the bar I feel like I have to set for myself. I like that I feel like I'm representing something bigger — I like the fact that when my students leave me, even if they're not going to stay in touch, they had the opportunity to interact with me and see what a Muslim person is, if that makes sense at all."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I think it definitely has changed. I'm very lucky that I went to an Islamic school until eighth grade — I always talk about the small circle I mentioned earlier; all of my closest friends, we all went through nursery, elementary, and middle school together, and some of us went to different high schools, but we're still very close. We always talk about how grateful we are for the foundation we got at an Islamic middle school and how we have a strong understanding of our faith — not all of us are hijabis, or some of us started out as hijabis and now are not, so even within my close group of friends, due to our experiences, we're all at different places. I think my childhood, growing up, I was very much surrounded by other Muslims, and for that reason I had a very strong sense of self, just because it was very affirmed when I was younger. I don't think I lost that going through high school and college, but there was a time when I got almost insecure about my sense of self — you go through that time of questioning what you were taught, which I think is very healthy, like, do I really believe this. Nothing to the extreme, but then in my young adulthood that strong sense of self returned, and now, at twenty-seven, I have a very unshakable sense of self — I truly feel like I know who I am, and I'm okay with that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I would say yes, I do, and I'm really grateful because I have a lot of sources for that. I'm really into podcasts. My dad is an imam, so I can always go to him, and he's always sharing different things. I really enjoy going to Jummah when I can — unfortunately during the school year I'm not always able to. The mosque I prefer for Jummah is [MASJID 1] in [COUNTY 1], in the [CITY 3] area, and the imam there is [IMAM 1] — I really enjoy his khutbahs, so that's been my go-to masjid for the past four or five years. Even when I'm not able to make Jummah, if I remember to on a Friday, they livestream their khutbahs, so I'll listen to those. Other than that, I think you just stumble upon videos with short snippets of Islamic knowledge on a daily basis. So I get knowledge from a variety of places."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "My hijab story — there wasn't really a point in time I remember saying, I'm going to wear the hijab today. By the end of middle school I still wasn't wearing my hijab a hundred percent — I would in public, but if I got in the car after school I would immediately take it off, then put it back on before going into Walmart or somewhere like that. Going into high school, my mentality was that it would be so much harder to put it on and go into school one day wearing it, then start wearing it, and if I ever wanted to take it off, take it off (later) — so I decided to start off wearing it (from the beginning).\n\nI think, like I mentioned earlier, I'm very grateful for it because it's a constant reminder that I am Muslim, and with that comes a certain standard for myself. I do appreciate how people treat me with it on — this is something I've come to realize the older I've gotten — I think there's a certain level of respect that people give you automatically if you wear a scarf, and I've noticed that very frequently in daily interactions. But yeah, I'm very grateful for it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I do know that people have different views of what Islam is and what Muslim women are like. When I was younger, in my teens and as a young adult, I did harp on that and constantly think about what other people thought of me, and I think that was due to comments people would make. My mom is a convert, and her family isn't Muslim — recently my little sister got married, and she was telling me a funny story about something our grandmother asked her.\n\nBasically, to cut the story short, our grandmother was asking her a bunch of questions about her husband, who, due to various circumstances, she hadn't met yet — she wasn't able to come down for the wedding. Our grandmother said, don't tell your mom I asked you this, but does your husband treat you right? My little sister started laughing and said, yeah, he treats me right. Then our grandmother said, you know, he has that stereotypical Arab look, doesn't smile in pictures — he's very sweet, but he doesn't put his hands on you, right? And my sister said, no! That's my own family holding those views. Even when my mom married my dad, my grandmother had a lot of strong opinions about it, because that was a long time ago. I think there are things people think about Muslims, and things people think about Arabs, so that's like a double whammy. I know people hold those views, and to be completely honest, there are probably people in the world those stereotypes apply to, but the problem is that those are overgeneralizations — people take one cultural practice and apply it to a whole group of people. But honestly, I can see that changing in the next couple of years — there are so many Muslim voices on social media, and as the world, especially America, gets more diverse, I can see people interacting more with Muslim people and Muslim women on a day-to-day basis. I think that's what truly helps change those mentalities and preconceptions, when people actually ask those questions and hear from Muslim women straight from their own mouths. I feel like that will start to change, and I can see it changing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "What I was mentioning at the beginning of the interview was just my mentality in life — I'm not sure if it's a defense mechanism or a healthy practice, but truly I don't allow myself to harp on small things. If it's something that won't matter in a year or in five years, I'm not going to get angry about it — I'd rather just let things go, let it roll off my back. It's the same with difficult times in life — I know they're going to get easier. I'm not sure where I get that from, or if it's naturally my personality; it's not how people around me, my family and my circle of friends, deal with problems, so I don't think it was modeled for me. I don't know why I'm like that, but I don't harp on things too much. For example, my mom recently went through a health scare that involved getting sent to the emergency room — yes, I was worried about her, but I had a very positive outlook, telling myself we're going to get through this. She's doing great now, alhamdulillah. I try not to say to myself, \"you're dealing with this right now,\" because, to be honest, I don't feel like my problems in life are that significant compared to other people's, so I don't like to complain or say \"I'm so stressed\" or \"I have so many problems.\" I don't really operate like that. Again, I'm not sure if that's a defense mechanism or a healthy or unhealthy thing, but it would probably take a lot for me to shut down."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I do. I think the expectations for Muslim women are a little higher than they are for men. Even growing up, I have three sisters and three brothers, and there's just... To be honest, I think that religiously the pressures and expectations are pretty even, but culturally, I do think that, the way things have progressed, there's more pressure on Muslim women in how we conduct ourselves and carry ourselves than there is on Muslim men.\n\nBoth — within the community and outside of it. Within the community, I just feel like your image is very important. The way I've always viewed it — and again, no one has ever explicitly said this to me — is that you're always a representation of your family, and I think that's a cultural thing. I was always a bit of a goody-two-shoes in school, and I think the reason was that I always thought whatever I do is going to get back to my parents, is going to be a representation of them. My parents raised my siblings and me in a way where they would trust us until we did something to lose that trust, and I think how they raised us made me never want to lose that trust and always want to present myself in a positive way, because I always felt that pressure — whatever I do is a representation of them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "So, when I was younger — and again, I said this a little bit earlier — I did struggle a lot with being different, with getting stared at. Oh my gosh, I am very sensitive to being in an area and getting a lot of stares. My mom is from [TOWN 1, STATE 3], a very small town, and whenever we go there... I have a vivid memory of being in high school, going to a buffet with her family, who are not Muslim, and just being in such a crowded restaurant with everyone constantly staring at our table, it felt like. I don't know what they were thinking, but I think I did used to make a lot of assumptions about why they were staring at me. When I was younger I really, really struggled with stares, and even until now, I don't really like going to the beach in a bikini — I guess some of that is still there, I don't like standing out. There are certain times I wish I wasn't different, so I'd say that's the biggest difficulty. I've never found the concept of hijab itself to be difficult — I've always seen the women around me wearing hijab, and actually the hijab itself I really love. I have a great respect for the concept of modesty. I'm not opposed to the hijab — I think I'm just opposed to what other people think of me, or just the staring, and knowing that they may be thinking this or that.\n\nNo, and I think a lot of people would find that surprising, considering my dad is an imam, but I can't remember a time when my parents said, okay, you have to wear hijab, or why aren't you wearing hijab — I really can't remember a time when they said that. All of my sisters and I started wearing hijab full-time at different times — my older sister loved the hijab, she's in baby pictures wearing it at five or six years old, she's just always worn it. My younger sister was wearing it by second grade. Me, like I said, I wasn't fully wearing it until high school. But I don't remember a time when anyone in my family, or my parents, said take it off, or don't wear it, or you have to wear it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Probably my family. I think it has a very strong impact on my choices — what's coming to mind is kind of what I just talked about, how I act in public; I think a lot of that I get from my family. But at the end of the day, I don't feel like I have to do things because of my family... what I'm thinking of is like me deciding to become a teacher. It's not that my parents were opposed to that, but I did feel like I had to go a certain route career-wise that I didn't end up going on. Was that from my parents? No, that was more so culturally — my parents have never explicitly said, we want you to become this or that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I'm number five (in my family). Not really — I don't feel like I have to lead by example in that particular sense.\n\nI think I stand by what I said earlier, that I do feel like I have certain expectations — not that anyone has ever explicitly said that to me, but I feel the need to overcompensate in that respect. Where I'm struggling with the question is the word \"role,\" because if anything, I feel like I truly have almost a background role — I'm not really someone who has a leadership role in my community, and I don't really feel the need to get involved in my community to that extent. Even when I go to Jama'ah, for example, I'm in and I'm out — I don't really stay and converse too much with people, not because I don't like the people there, but I just like having a very background role; I kind of just go and do my thing and leave. In my family, I guess I have different roles at different times. I do have the role of being an older sister — I have a younger brother and younger sister, so with that comes checking in on them from time to time, being there whenever they need me. As far as my parents, as they're getting older, all of my older siblings have either moved out or are no longer in the state, so I've kind of taken on that caring role for my parents — I'm the oldest child they have here in [STATE 1], and I've started to feel that in the last couple of years.\n\nI think I would run away from anything that requires me to be too out there, if I think of \"role\" that way — I would really rather be in the background."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "I think belonging here in the West means getting to a point where you're comfortable with the culture, to the point where you're familiar with the area around you, you can speak the language, you understand the nuances of how that society functions. Once you've attained that, I'd say you have a certain sense of belonging — on a day-to-day basis, when you can maneuver through life without much difficulty, I'd say you've attained a certain sense of belonging.\n\nAbsolutely, I think I've attained that. Like I said, I grew up here, and my mom is American, so I feel like that gives me a sense of — not ownership, but like, no matter what anyone says, I always know that I am American. If someone were to say something like \"go back to your country,\" I do feel like this is the country I belong in. Conversely, my dad is Syrian, and I wouldn't say that if I went to Syria right now and lived there for three months, I think it would take a while for me to feel like I belong — which is interesting, because I do covet the Arab and Syrian sides of me a lot. But I think if I went to Syria right now, I wouldn't feel like I didn't belong exactly, but I would feel like I had to get to that point of being able to maneuver in that society, because I think I belong here more than I do there — which is kind of sad to say, because I do covet those Syrian parts of me and hold them very near and dear to my heart.\n\nI think it's a combination of all of it — me knowing that ethnically I am American, that my mom is from [STATE 3], that her dad was Native American — I feel like, to an extra degree, I do belong here, and I feel like I check all the boxes of being American, as far as my comfortability being here. I feel like I don't have that with my Syrian side, and I think I covet it so much because I'd love to be equally as comfortable with both languages and really understand the culture. But to be honest, I think this is because I grew up here — some aspects of American culture I prefer over the toxic side of Arab culture."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "I think a lot of times I don't feel like there is a conflict, because of the idea of America as a place where people of different religions and cultures should come — this country was built on immigrants, that kind of thing. Conceptually, my story and my family's story is what America is all about. But if I'm not thinking conceptually, if I'm thinking about what America actually does, about its actions — those are very distasteful, and that's where the conflict comes in. There are certain things America stands for, not what America says it stands for, but what it does, that conflicts with things I hold dear. So those two things are kind of on opposing sides.\n\nTake Syria, for example — I really don't appreciate how America conducts itself on the foreign stage. Regardless of the president, it's not really about the president, it's about America's actions — how involved we are in stirring up things overseas, or with Gaza. Am I proud of my home? Yes. But sometimes I'm not proud of the fact that I live in a country that supports certain things and does certain things overseas. It's not a singular event — if you really look into certain things, it's not pretty."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "Do I think there's a conflict between my faith and the country I live in — again, conceptually, no. Even though America is kind of considered a Christian country, I don't really view it like that. I think that on a day-to-day basis, if you take the news out of it, people, from what I've observed, enjoy the fact that America is that diverse. I was at the airport the other day and there was a guy praying in the parking lot, and no one was disturbing him, and he felt comfortable enough to do that — that's the really beautiful part of living in a country this diverse. So I don't really feel like the country, or my faith, conflicts with the country, because I do feel like we still have religious freedom — the fact that you can live your life and wear a hijab loud and proud, walking around with it, is a testament to the fact that you have religious freedom. In that respect, I don't think they're at odds."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "I do pray in my classroom. Now, that being said, do I lock the doors whenever I pray? Yes. Would I feel uncomfortable if someone were to walk in on me praying? Yes. I'm not sure why — I don't think anyone would say anything if they walked in and I was praying, but I think it's just a personal thing, because, like I said earlier, when I was younger I did really care about what people thought of me, and I don't like being stared at. I kind of gaslit myself into seeing those parts of being different as being really good, and to an extent that is true, but there are certain parts of me that also just want to be like, no, I'm normal, I'm the same. But will I secretly be in my classroom praying? Yes.\n\nI think it's not that I think anyone would mind — if I'm being completely rational, if someone were to walk in, they'd think, okay, she needs a second, and come back later. Rationally, I don't think anyone would mind. But I think the irrational part of me is like, no, I have to close the door. I don't know."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I think it kind of makes that part of me that doesn't really sweat the small stuff even more pronounced — there are more important things to be worrying about. It's not that the people around me are like that, but truly a lot of things just don't matter to me, because there are certain things that are more important, and I think ultimately it does boil down to the Akhirah — this world is really insignificant, and I know that. Again, I'm not sure if it's a defense mechanism, but that's really the only thing that should be stressing me out, if that makes sense."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "I'm comfortable with the fact that things are out of my control. I'm very comfortable with it — the idea of Qadr, of fate, that everything happens for a reason. I'm very comfortable with that. And yes, a thousand percent, that's what makes me more relaxed compared to my colleagues."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "What matters most to me is being a good representation of Islam, and also not being too flashy about it — not constantly saying things, just knowing that I did them, that's important to me. And on the other side of that coin, not being hypocritical — saying one thing and doing another — really matters to me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Yeah, ultimately I'm doing it for the benefit of the Akhirah, not at all for the benefit of this world. Aside from being a good person — I feel like being a good person is very important because, although it's like a drop in the bucket, it's almost like paying it forward — if you're a good person, since you can't control what other people are doing, at least you're trying to be a good person, at least you're acting how you wish people acted.\n\nI don't know, but I just know that it is really important. I feel like it's a conjunction of different things — part how I was raised, part religious reasons, part because I'm a representation of my family. I think it's a whole bunch of different things that have just been reinforced throughout my lifetime."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I think it means, kind of like you were saying earlier, relinquishing control, knowing that there's a bigger plan, and that at the end of the day everything is written and there's a reason for everything, whether you like it or you don't."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I think I feel most liberated at home, because I'm the most myself at home. I feel like around your family you can say whatever you want and do whatever you want — you don't really have to watch your words, because your family knows who you are the most, so even if you say one offhanded thing you didn't mean, no one's going to take it the wrong way. I feel like around my family is where I feel safest, and that safety kind of leads to feeling liberated."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-007_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-007", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_a_responsibility_to_represent_the", "question": "DO YOU FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY WELL?", "answer": "Every woman — because if you were caught, like how some people are caught acting up on an airplane or being super rude to somebody at a store, and you're wearing a hijab, I would be disappointed that you're negatively representing Islam, that you're reaffirming, maybe, if someone does view Muslim women negatively, that view, by acting that way. So I think it's the second one.\n\nRemember when I said, when my students leave, if I was the only Muslim woman they interacted with, I would want them, when they think of a Muslim person, to think of me. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but ultimately I do feel like, because we're obviously a minority, it's very important to always be your best. I do see what you're saying about the danger in that mindset, how it can lead to overgeneralizations, but I feel like that's where you have to use your critical thinking. If there's a video of someone acting up on a plane, I'm not saying that person is negatively representing the whole Muslim community or Muslim women — I'm saying that to some people who do have misconceptions, it could reaffirm those negative misconceptions. I'm not saying it does, I'm saying it could. So if you're going to wear a hijab, there is, in my opinion, a big responsibility, because you represent something bigger than yourself — but that's just my personal opinion.\n\nI think so, because it's right there in your face, that you're Muslim, and it's not something to not be proud of — I think it is something to be proud of. But, at least in my mind, in my opinion, that's how I view it, and I'm not sure if I put that standard on myself, if that's all in my head — it's possible. But would I ever want to change that or try to convince myself otherwise? I don't know, because I like that I constantly feel like I have to be at my best. I like that I feel like I need that — not that I'm a hypocrite, I do things when I'm not wearing a scarf too — but I feel like it's almost a challenge to myself, to always remember; it kind of checks me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Keeping my house in order — that's pretty much it, along with family and work.\n\nFaith is basically what our day revolves around. We have to wake up for prayer, so we're constantly reminded of our purpose — whatever it is that we do, we have our faith in mind. For me, as a Muslim woman wearing hijab, when I go outside I'm a representative of my faith, so I carry that with me everywhere I go."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "That depends on how they approach me and what questions they have. I've worked with Islamic nonprofit organizations, and we do a lot of da'wah work — of course, any interaction, everyday interactions, can be da'wah, a means of educating others about Islam. So basically I tell them that we live lives that are constantly conscious and aware of the existence of a Creator, and we obey the commandments He sent. For us, the most important thing is monotheism, the belief in one God, following the prophets He sent, and just being the best human beings we can be."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've been in the US for probably thirty-two years, and in the [CITY 1] area for about twenty years total.\n\nI'm a convert — I converted to Islam when I was twenty years old, but I started learning about it fairly young, in my teens. My experience has been a little different than maybe someone raised in a Muslim family. I came from a Catholic background, was raised in that faith, and always believed in God, always prayed to the Creator, but I didn't know at that time exactly who that Creator was, and I was confused about that for a long time until I found Islam and started comparing Christianity to Islam. When I first converted, I wanted to go all in — since I'd already been exposed for a few years before converting, I wanted to start wearing hijab and start practicing right away, but I met some resistance from family members, so I had to hold back a little. With the hijab specifically, I'd say it took about a year before I was able to start wearing it properly. I actually converted a year before September 11th, so once that happened, it also caused a lot of friction with family members, but eventually they understood that I was committed to my faith and wanted to live it wholeheartedly, including wearing hijab. I think the biggest change after that came after I got married and had children — that's when hijab doesn't just become part of you, it becomes part of your family, because you're constantly with your children as a woman, so you're visibly Muslim, and you become either a target or an ambassador, depending on who you're dealing with when you're outside. That has shaped me to become more aware of my surroundings, stronger in my faith, and more prepared to answer questions and to protect myself and my family with regard to any hostility that may arise from my identity as a Muslim woman."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_come_to_islam", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO ISLAM?", "answer": "I started learning about Islam when I came across the autobiography of Malcolm X. I started reading it when I was about fifteen, sixteen years old, and I also watched the movie, directed by Spike Lee, about his life. I was fascinated by Islam, and specifically by what happened to him after he made the pilgrimage to Mecca — before that he was part of the Nation of Islam, more into the Black power or Black Muslim movement, but once he went to the Middle East and saw Muslims of every race, culture, and ethnicity, he realized Islam was actually a unifying force for good rather than something that divides. He realized that racism wasn't a problem throughout the world in the way he'd thought, but rather a problem specific to the United States — of course it exists elsewhere too, but he was able to separate the two and see that Islam was the answer to those kinds of isms, like racism and colorism. When I learned about that, I was very curious what exactly Islam was. About a year after I was exposed to Malcolm X, I met a Muslim family from Egypt, and they helped me get hold of literature about Islam and answer questions I had. I actually approached them with my questions, and they graciously answered and offered me whatever reading material I needed. That's how I started reading about Islam on my own, and that eventually led me to convert."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "As I was reading about Islam, I already knew that if I was going to start practicing this religion, I wanted to wear hijab, because covering was something that was already constant in my life, even as a Catholic — I was raised around nuns, I was in Catholic school, and the women there, in the school and the church, wore a habit very similar to what a Muslim woman wears. As a Catholic, the figure of the Virgin Mary is very important, and at home, church, and school I would see images of her wearing a veil. So I always knew that covering was something that would make a woman closer to God — as Catholics we learned that the Virgin Mary, peace be upon her, was the epitome of a righteous woman. So it didn't seem strange to me, when I learned about Islam, that women should cover — it seemed like the natural thing to do, something that had been lost in other cultures and religions. So I embraced hijab wholeheartedly, and I wanted to start wearing it right after I converted. But I was living with my parents, and they didn't really approve of that, because it was new for them, even though they were Catholic too and saw the correlation — they were also more aware that society doesn't accept this as a normal thing, especially from someone of my background. So at first I had some resistance, and I would only wear it to the masjid when I went to pray, or if I was going out with other Muslim girls to a Muslim gathering. Eventually, a few months after I converted, I was able to get a job with a couple of Muslim doctors who had a practice, and because they were Muslim doctors I convinced my parents that, since I'd be working in their office, I should wear hijab to work. My parents agreed, and I started wearing hijab to work. Then, a few months later, September 11th happened, and at that point my parents asked me to take the hijab off, because they thought it was too dangerous for me to wear it outside, given the hostility toward Muslims right after 9/11. So what I would do is put the hijab in my purse when I left the house, then put it on once my parents didn't know, and remove it before coming home so they wouldn't realize I'd been wearing it outside. That happened for a while, until I eventually moved away for college, and at that point I told them I was going to wear hijab full-time. They saw that I was able to get a job — I actually had a job interview wearing hijab, and I got the job. When they saw I was able to do those things with hijab, they accepted it, and I've been wearing it ever since — I think it's been since 2002 that I started wearing it regularly.\n\nI think it's just as the Qur'an says — it's an identifier, a form of obedience; you're following the commandment of Allah. It also separates a person from everyone else, in the sense that Allah says you'll be known as a believing woman. Another thing it does is deter you from doing things that aren't becoming of hijab — when you're covered and outside, people understand you're a Muslim woman, or at least a woman of faith, so they won't expect bad behavior from you, indecency, rowdy behavior. It really makes you aware of God, raises that God-consciousness, and puts a standard on you of modesty and decency that maybe you wouldn't have without that constant reminder that you're representing your faith the moment you step outside."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "There's this prevailing misunderstanding, or stereotype, about Muslim women being oppressed, or obligated to wear it, forced to wear it by the men in our lives — our husbands, our fathers. That's just not the case; it's a very personal decision. I'm sure that in some cultures women may feel more pressure to wear it, but for me it wasn't pressure at all — it was something I wanted to do for myself. There's also this notion that Muslim women are uneducated, that the more covered you are, the more uneducated you are, but I've found it's completely the opposite. Honestly, out of all the women I've met in my life, I think Muslim women are among the most educated, the most successful academically and professionally. I'm really proud to be among Muslim women, especially those who've chosen to wear hijab, because it's a courageous thing to do, especially now, in this age."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I try to help inform people, but it does get frustrating at times, because there are people who choose to remain ignorant. I think the more years pass, the more fed up you get with these different attacks on Muslim women and on Muslims in general. But you have to choose your battles and know who to ignore and who is genuinely searching for truth versus who just wants to attack Islam by any means possible — usually they'll attack women because they feel it's the easiest target, and that's just sad, not really worth our time. At the end of the day, I've also learned that this is just part of our test in this life — dealing with the ignorant haters. All the prophets had to deal with the same thing, and I'm sure the women of their time did too. So we just have to keep moving on and being strong for our faith."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "I've moved around quite a lot in my life, because of the nature of my father's work — we used to move every two or three years. I've had to be uprooted so many times, and even after I got married we still moved around quite a bit. What that has made difficult for me has been establishing friendships and having a sense of belonging in my community, and I think that's made even more difficult by the fact that I'm a convert, and that I'm not of the same ethnicity as the majority of people in our congregations at the mosque. That lack of support, of genuine friendships, is difficult, because it can get very lonely — I don't live in the same city as my parents, so I don't have family around; I only have one older brother, and he lives pretty far away. That's been, I think, probably the most difficult part of my life. But the way I see it, if it hadn't been for these moves and these interactions, people coming in and out of my life, even without producing lasting relationships, it helped — had I stayed back home and not moved around so much, I would have never had the opportunity to learn as much as I have. So I'm grateful for that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "There are expectations placed on women from all angles. We're expected, not just as Muslim women but as women in general, to be able to have a perfect life, a perfect household, to carry ourselves with perfect adab, perfect manners, at all times, to keep it together, stay beautiful, stay fit — so many things, but it's not realistic. Then, of course, from within the Muslim community, there are expectations about how to behave, what's acceptable and what's not, and who is \"more Muslim\" than other people. I've had encounters where people question your faith, question your knowledge, basically because of who you are or your background. As for how to overcome that — we're all on our own journeys, we all know the difficulties in our own lives, so we just have to ignore people's expectations and know that the only One we serve is Allah, at the end of the day, and that's who we're returning to. As long as we're doing what we have to do to please Allah, anything else is really just noise."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Alhamdulillah, I haven't had many difficulties. There was a period when I wore niqab, just to test it out — the community I was in at the time, the majority of women wore niqab, so I would wear it to the masjid. Then I moved to Egypt for a while and wore it there, and came back to the US expecting to continue wearing it. But I found it was very difficult — I felt disconnected from people, and the level of discrimination was even more intense with niqab. So it eventually became a decision I had to make, to stop wearing it altogether. I wore it maybe a year and a half to two years — a year and a half consistently, maybe two years on and off. It was a huge burden to decide to take it off, because I felt like I was doing something wrong, but then I had to reconcile with that. I read about the rulings on it and concluded this is not an obligation for a woman, and that it would be better for me, for my family, not to wear it. I was also attacked — not physically, but verbally, in front of my children, on more than one occasion, when I was out in stores wearing niqab. That was another deterrent — I said, I can't bring this attention to myself, because I'm not just bringing it to myself, I'm bringing it to my kids, and I want to keep them safe. So that was the reason I stopped wearing it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My family, absolutely — my family, my children, my husband, and then my parents. I think they shape my choices a lot — definitely for anything professionally, academically, economically, all decisions really go back to keeping my family in mind. Of course, my family is second to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so any decisions that concern my religion, I have to know I'm serving Allah first, but after that, it's my family.\n\nNo — I think faith is something personal. I guess if you go back to the niqab issue... but ultimately I decided I didn't want to wear it, and even that decision was shaped by my relationship with Allah. I was asking myself, at the point where I wanted to take it off, was I taking it off for people, was I putting it on for people at this point, or was I doing it for Allah? And I realized I wasn't doing it for Allah anymore at the end — the reason it was so difficult for me to take it off was because I kept thinking about what people would think, now that they were used to seeing me like this, if I took it off. So at that point I said, I'm not doing it for Allah anymore, so that's why (I stopped). But any other decision that has to do with my faith always goes back to Allah, not people.\n\nNot that I'm aware of — it was difficult for me, but I didn't feel anything outwardly; at least no one let me feel anything. I discussed my decision with other sisters I knew, and I was surprised when one of them told me she had done the same thing — I had no idea she'd worn niqab before, but she told me she took it off because of her children, because of the safety issue. Once I saw it wasn't something rare, I felt more comfortable, and it was just a matter of me overcoming my own fears about what people would think or how they would react."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "That's a deep question. I understand my role in my family as raising my children and being the best example for them, making sure I'm doing the things that please Allah the most, and that I'm taking care of my household and being a good wife. Outside, in my community, I feel like family takes priority, but community comes second — how can I serve my community? I think being able to do whatever you can, being present, is important, helping whenever help is needed. But I have to admit it can be difficult to juggle both — I have a bigger family, a lot of children, and they take a lot of my time, so knowing I can't do as much volunteer work can sometimes make me feel guilty that I'm not doing enough. But I try my best.\n\nAlhamdulillah, I've been given the opportunity to do a lot of nonprofit work, work in da'wah outreach, and also in education and writing. I think my writing is my biggest contribution to the community — I write on issues that affect our community, and that feels like the biggest way I give back. I used to be more active going out into the community, doing more things physically, but that was when I had fewer children and was younger. Now I have a role that's more in the background, but at least I feel like I do something, and that's a blessing in itself."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Belonging — I feel like it's difficult to feel a sense of belonging, especially with rising Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry. We often feel othered, and that's on a macro scale; on a micro scale, even within our own community, we can sometimes feel like we don't belong, depending on whether we're people of color, whether we're of a different ethnic background than the majority of the congregation, or whether our level of practice is different from other people's — we may feel like we don't belong in certain spaces. At the same time, there are moments when the Muslim community feels like your safe space, because of how much hate comes from other groups. I also feel like people of faith in other communities offer that sense of belonging, because they're going through some of the same things the Muslim community is going through. I've had the opportunity to study interreligious relations alongside people from different faith backgrounds — Catholic, Christian, Jewish — and you see that people who are committed to social justice, committed to their faith, are fighting some of the same battles we're fighting, and they recognize the difficulties, so they offer that sense of belonging too. But ultimately you have to be in a place where you feel like you fit in, where you feel close to Allah — I think that's the ultimate tranquility, having that reminder that Allah is with you no matter what."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "I think what Muslims are facing is definitely different, because we're not the majority — we're just a little over one percent of the population here. The anti-Muslim hate, the xenophobia, the Islamophobia, is a real problem. But there's also an underlying problem: this society has become less and less attached to religion. Some people call it a Christian nation — it wasn't founded on Christianity, but it is a Christian-majority nation — yet even Christian churches have lost a lot of their congregations; a lot of people have abandoned their churches. People of faith, especially in leadership positions, see these dwindling numbers of people going to church, being involved in their places of worship. There are seminaries throughout the US that house not just Christians and Jews but also Muslims, studying in these institutions, and there are dwindling numbers of students there too — some institutions have had to close down or shift to online learning to offset costs. Because of that, leadership sees a threat coming from people who want to do away with faith altogether, or with public displays of religion, and they see that the Muslim community, since we're the biggest target of that, means there can be a threat to themselves as well — if you do away with one faith, eventually it comes down to the next one, and the next one. I think that's what has sounded the alarm on that issue."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "Honestly, outside, I have not. You sometimes feel an air of tension depending on where you are, because of your faith, because of the way you look, or at least you assume that. But I think the place you see a lot of the hatred, a lot of things boiling, is online. We've had this shift to social media over the past ten or fifteen years, more and more on our phones, our devices, interacting with people online, and you see the polarization, people spewing all kinds of hatred online, and that makes it more apparent that there's a problem. When we're living our day-to-day lives, going outside, going from place to place, our jobs, school, or even just to the supermarket, we don't feel the anti-Muslim hate — if we're blessed enough, we're not going to experience any physical attacks or anything like that. But when we go into that online space, where people interact without any filters, you see the things people are saying, and you wonder, is this what people are actually thinking, because they've been emboldened by having a screen to hide behind, so they're able to say whatever's actually on their mind. That creates a kind of tension when you go out and wonder if the people you see online are the same people you're interacting with outside."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__who_gets_to_represent_muslim_women_in_research", "question": "WHO GETS TO REPRESENT MUSLIM WOMEN IN RESEARCH, MEDIA, OR AI?", "answer": "The reception has been mixed. Some people are open and welcoming, and there are others who still have some suspicions, or who have expressed how difficult it is for Muslims to get a platform to even speak on their own religion — which I find really fascinating, because I've heard from Christian scholars and speakers who are out giving lectures, offering classes, and speaking on Islam. I asked, why is it that Muslims aren't able to speak for themselves? And I was told that people don't trust Muslims. It's eye-opening that people would choose to listen to someone outside our faith to explain our faith, rather than speak to one of us directly, so we can explain ourselves and our motivations behind our decisions to practice.\n\nIn academia, especially, to be white and Christian and male gets you a pass — that's the first tier. To be white, Christian, and female gets you the second tier. Academic spaces are dominated by white Christians, so they get the credibility and the opportunities to speak about others more frequently than people of color, and definitely more frequently than people of minority religions, regardless of race or ethnicity. So, as Muslims, we don't have the same clout to speak, and that's because there's a system in place that really suppresses the voices of people of color, of people of minority religions, in this country and elsewhere in the West."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "The Akhirah is a reminder — we're only here temporarily, so we have to prepare for leaving this world, and anything we do, we have to maximize our effort to do something good. I think about the concept of sadaqah jariyah, ongoing charity — what can I do that's going to help me even after I leave this world? That's why I really enjoy writing; I feel it's a powerful way to leave a lasting message, because writing is something that stays with us. Books, articles, even online articles, can stand the test of time and continue to offer me a chance to do good, even when I'm gone."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Allah is in control. Allah is always in control, and we fool ourselves into thinking that we control things, but at the end of the day we have to remind ourselves that Allah is in control of everything, and we have to put our trust completely in His infinite knowledge and wisdom."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "What matters most, of course, is doing these things with sincerity, for the sake of Allah first and foremost. But one of the worldly benefits is that we're here as a minority religion in the United States, and we have the opportunity to show people what Islam really is — so we have that responsibility because we're here. As for me, I was born in the Western hemisphere, so this is my home, and I don't have much choice in that matter — of course I could pick up and try to move to another country, but it's much more difficult for somebody born in the United States, with a US passport, to move their family to a different country and stay there permanently. So we're here, and we have the opportunity to show people what Islam really is, to contribute to this society in a positive way, and through our daily interactions to show people who Muslims really are. Those of us living here have that great opportunity to acquire good deeds and show people the best of us, so they can see that Islam is more than what they see on the news or depicted on television and online."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Self-awareness — I think I mentioned before that hijab provides a reminder, and I think it's the same with acts of worship: praying five times a day, fasting, they all serve as a reminder that God is watching, and that we're responsible to Him for our actions. Those acts of worship deter us from doing things that are evil or don't align with our faith, so they provide a certain awareness and mindfulness of who we are. For me, as a Muslim woman, I feel like hijab and the things I do as a Muslim are part of my identity — they become part of you, and I think this is especially the case for Muslim women. Hijab becomes part of you, you can't separate yourself from it, because hijab is the first thing people see when they look at you, so it just becomes part of who you are."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberation is freeing your mind — freeing your mind of what people, of what society, is choosing for you, or what the majority is doing, or what people deem acceptable or unacceptable, man-made trends and things like that. Freeing your mind from those things is liberation. Liberation is being able to practice your faith and know that no one can take that away from you, and being able to choose what you want to do in your life — to me, that is liberation. There's this notion in this society that women need to be liberated, especially Muslim women, because people see us in hijab, and hijab is supposed to be something that oppresses. But meanwhile, women in this society aren't free either — they're not free to choose to be a person of faith; a person of faith who dresses modestly is looked down upon. Only about a hundred and fifty years ago, all women in this country dressed modestly, no matter their religious background. So there's this hypocrisy about what women should and shouldn't do, and that's not liberation — that's more oppressive, for women not to be able (to choose modesty) and to work and be like men and things like that. I feel like that's more oppressive than a Muslim woman who's able to protect her modesty, isn't harassed outside because of the way she looks, and is able to practice her faith freely and live her life according to what she believes is best for her. To be able to choose that for yourself — that is more liberating than anything else."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah — it's just a beautiful way that we say it in my language, instead of submission we say surrender, like surrendering yourself. That is surrendering every part of you, everything that you do, to your Creator.\n\nSubmission can feel like it has a negative connotation, like you're submissive, right? But when it comes to the Creator, you're surrendering yourself, you're giving yourself to your Creator, your deeds and your actions, to the Creator. When you think of it that way, you realize that, because we belong to God, we're admitting to ourselves that we're not in control, and that we owe everything to our Creator. So we give ourselves, we surrender ourselves, to Him."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-008_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-008", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "There's a hadith that says the world is a prison for the believer and a paradise for the disbeliever. So when you think of yourself as submitted into this world, you're a prisoner to this world, but when you think about the Creator, that's beyond this reality — submitting, surrendering yourself to your Creator, goes beyond that and is liberating you from this world. Our paradise is with our Creator, but our prison is in this life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Right now I'm a recent graduate from [UNIVERSITY 1], so I'm taking life a little slow, just relaxing, and working my side job, which is nannying. I drive to my shift, usually in different parts of the [METRO REGION 1], but a lot of times they have shifts in the [SUBURB 1]/[CITY 1] area, so I drive down there, clock in, watch the kid I'm assigned to, then clock out and go home — that's been my daily routine the past couple of weeks. In regards to interacting with people, that happens a lot when I'm shopping and stuff like that, and I'd say most of my experiences interacting with people have been positive, now and in the past. I've been wearing hijab since I was about five or six years old, from a very young age, and at one point I even wore niqab, but that was only for about a year, and I never took it off since then, or the hijab. So alhamdulillah, I don't think I've ever had a negative experience, and I would attest that to me mainly being around Muslims.\n\nI grew up going to [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1], which is a private Islamic school. I was there from pre-K all the way to eighth grade, so most of my childhood experience was being at that school, where everyone was Muslim. My extracurriculars were also at that school — I did karate there too, predominantly with Muslims as well — and with my family we would go around to the rec center and the pools, and that's the way I would interact with other people from different faiths and people of all kinds.\n\nBut I would say I never felt isolated or targeted because of my hijab. I will say that when Islamophobia was extra targeted in the media, there was a rise in attacks — it's still happening now, but I'd say maybe around 2018, 2019, around those years — I felt a little scared, seeing the things that were happening to people who looked like me, people who were Muslim, people who wore hijab, how they were targeted, and hearing their experiences. I definitely felt scared sometimes to go outside with my hijab, and especially during the time I was wearing niqab, I was even more scared. But alhamdulillah, I think Allah blessed me with being around good people, and I never had to interact with anybody who had negative thoughts of me or who would hate me for wearing hijab. I will say people definitely have questions — I've encountered that a lot, people coming up and asking why I wear it, if I'm hot in it, and stuff like that. Since I grew up around Muslims, I was happy people asked, to show that they were curious and actually wanted to learn, so I answered them happily.\n\nFaith is a very big part of my life. I try to use it as a guide every step of the way, so I think it shows in every choice I make — it's backed up by my religion, always at the forefront of my mind. For example, let's say I'm clocking into my nannying shifts — a lot of times I'm working with different families who don't know me, so I'm meeting them for the first time when I knock on their door. One time I knocked on the door and the father answered and held his hand out, like, \"oh, nice to meet you, my name is this and that.\" As a Muslim woman, I'm not supposed to shake hands with another man who isn't a close relative. That doesn't happen too often, since I'm not really interacting with men much, but when it does, I get a little shy or embarrassed to say no to that person and shy away their hand, or say, \"oh, I can't do this, I'm a Muslim woman,\" and state my values right then and there. I've been more intentional about that, so when that incident happened, I put my hand to my chest and said, \"oh, I'm sorry, I don't shake hands with men,\" and the person was very responsive to that. I guess that's one way my faith showed up in that moment, when I made that decision to stand by my faith and my values.\n\nIn other cases in the past, when a man held out his hand and I had to say no but was too shy or embarrassed, I didn't say no, and ended up shaking his hand, and felt really guilty, like I hadn't stood by my values — which is what led me to be more intentional, to stand by my values even if nobody else around me is, even if there are Muslims who sometimes shake hands with other men. That's sometimes why other people, non-Muslims, don't understand when I say no. I had an incident once at school where I made that decision to stop shaking hands with men, and said, \"oh, I'm sorry, I don't shake hands with men,\" and they said, \"oh, but this other person did\" — and that other person was a Muslim woman — and I said, \"yeah, but everybody goes about their life their own way and makes their own decisions.\" So that's one way where, even if other Muslims aren't doing something and I have to be the odd one out, my faith stands up for me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I don't think I've been asked that question, but if they were to ask, I would say that my community is very close, and we're very much bound by our faith — our faith very much connects us, and we're always there for each other. I'll say specifically my local community, instead of the entire Muslim community: I'm talking about the [MASJID 1] community, because that's what I've been around the most. Even though I did grow up around [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1], I haven't been there in many years, so [MASJID 1] is now my community. We're very connected, and we all have different strengths and play into each other's strengths. We meet often, we have different youth events, and I love that we can all come together and talk about our issues and relate to each other, especially living in the West, where sometimes you don't meet someone going through the same thing as you and can feel alone in that. To come to a masjid and be around my community, we can all talk about what we're dealing with and feel less alone, because we know the other person is most likely feeling that way too. Yes, I've been part of the [STATE 1] community all my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "From when I was a child, I grew up around predominantly Muslims, so that was just what I am — I'm a Muslim — and it was something I didn't even have to think about, it was very ingrained in me. But that was part of an issue for me too, because eventually I needed to go find who I am outside of that community. Since I'd been around this community my whole life and been told certain things my entire life, when I wasn't around these people, I didn't know where I stood, what my values and opinions were outside of it.\n\nAfter I went to college, I was actually in an environment with very few Muslims — going from being around Muslims literally all the time to a space with barely any. I tried to look out for Muslims there and made friends, though those friends happened to be from the mosque and went to that same school, so I stuck with them. In the first semester I didn't really know anybody — the friends I'd made from the mosque weren't there yet either — so I was basically alone. I didn't feel like I really connected with anybody, and didn't even feel the need to, I guess, because I felt faith was such a big part of me that I wouldn't be able to connect with someone of a different faith, since we didn't hold the same values. So I isolated myself a little, and also started dressing differently because I wanted to fit in and not stand out. I had always worn abayas — that was my dress code, I never wore anything else — but at that school I didn't want to wear one anymore, because I didn't see a single person there wearing one. So I started wearing pants and shirts, sometimes skirts, which I'd worn before too, but not the abaya specifically — that I stopped wearing.\n\nAt first it was a little exciting, something new and different, but I'd say I also felt a little empty, like I was losing part of myself. Even though it seemed small, it was still a value I held closely, connected to my faith, a big part of me, so shying away from it made me lose myself a little. After that semester, when I reconnected with friends from the mosque who came to that same school, I stuck around them, and we hung out for the rest of my time there. I felt more comfortable wearing abayas again, and then I also started seeing other Muslim students at the school wearing abayas, so I felt even more comfortable.\n\nThe biggest difference was when I transferred to a bigger university, [UNIVERSITY 1], which had a lot of Muslims. I was so happy to go there, because at [COLLEGE 1], the previous school, there were barely any Muslims — there was Jumu'ah and an MSA, but it wasn't really active or pushed, so I never went, and my schedule didn't align either, so I never made it to the events they had. But at [UNIVERSITY 1], everything was very different — I saw Muslims all the time, always around, saying salaams, dressing the way I'm most comfortable dressing. There was Jumu'ah, and I started going back to it — I hadn't been able to at [COLLEGE 1] — and I felt a lot more connected to my community and my faith that way. They had a lot of events, and even though I think it's a PWI, I found a lot of diverse communities there. There were also other cultural communities — I'm Somali, Egyptian, and Yemeni, so there was a Somali club and an Egyptian club, a lot more opportunities to connect with different parts of myself at that school.\n\nSo that's how my faith and identity changed as I grew. First I was in a stage where I was constantly around people like me, around my community a lot, and that was all I knew. Then in my adolescent stage, figuring out who I was, I felt a little lost and wanted to get away from the community to figure that out on my own. Then I went into college and was put in an environment where I was literally alone — that was a struggle, and I did lose a bit of myself wanting to fit in and not stand out. Then after reconnecting with my community, I reconnected with my values and what was really important to me. Yeah, that's where I am now."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Besides the videos I get on my IG and TikTok feed, I don't seek it out actively, but that's something I want to do. In the past, since I was at Islamic school and after that went to Quran school, a big part of my life I was actively seeking Islamic knowledge, more than my secular studies. That played into me losing that later in life, when I went to college and got really into my secular studies — I didn't have time, or didn't make enough time, for Islamic studies. Now that I've graduated, that's something I really want to put all my focus into going forward."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "When I was younger, for as long as I can remember, I absolutely loved the hijab. I started wearing it around age five or six because I loved it so much — I loved playing around with different styles and dressing it up different ways. I don't think I wore it every single day from age five, but for sure by the time I reached puberty, around nine years old, I wore it every day, and I haven't taken it off since. I love my hijab. I struggled a little with wearing it the correct way — in my adolescence, around thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, I had thoughts of not wanting to wear it correctly, wanting to show my hair, wanting to experiment with different styles. I went through that phase, and I'd say I still go through some of those struggles — I want to experiment with different styles, even though I know what hijab is; I see other people getting to experiment with styles in their lives, with hijab too, people wear it so many different ways, and I want to experiment sometimes too, even though I know it may not be the most correct way.\n\nEven though I do struggle with it, I can never see myself taking it off — it's part of me, that's who I am, I can't imagine not wearing hijab, that wouldn't be who I am. I'd say it's also been a protection for me, from things that are bad. When I see people in the streets and they compliment my hijab, say how much they like it, and know I'm Muslim, they come up and start asking me questions about Islam. I'd say wearing hijab is a representation of my religion, and since my religion is a big part of me, I really value that.\n\nAt the beginning of my life, I wore it just because that's what everyone around me did — my mom wore it, everyone around me wore it, that's just what everyone did. Later in life is when I had to understand and learn the real meaning of hijab — not that I wasn't taught it, but I had to seek that out for myself. I learned that later, and I'm still learning. Despite struggling sometimes with hijab, and not always wanting to wear it the right way, I have to understand there is a certain way ordained for Muslim women by God, for reasons He has told us, but also some reasons are just (part of) His wisdom, and I have to trust that. That's something I took in, I'd say, later in my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I'd say sometimes non-Muslims may be a little intimidated by people in hijab and think we're all the same — that all hijabis are a certain way, act a certain way, are very rigid, and don't have personality. Sometimes I do have that in the back of my head — whenever I'm meeting someone who doesn't know much about Muslims, or it's their first time seeing a hijabi, I have that thought that they probably think I'm a certain way, that they have a preconceived notion of who I am. Then they get to know me and it's like, I'm not what they thought a Muslim woman would be. I think people sometimes don't think of Muslim women as actual people who have different personalities — we're not a completely different kind of creature, we're all human, we think similarly, we work the same, it's just that we have different values, and this head covering is part of something that I value."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I've never encountered any discriminatory acts toward me because of my hijab. I will say I've seen some false representation, not specifically in my life, but in the media. In certain shows I watch, I see people wearing hijab and they're not really representing it the way it should be — for example, there was a Spanish show where a girl was a hijabi and later took the hijab off because of a boy; the meaning of hijab wasn't really represented accurately in that show, I believe. I see that often in small clips here and there in the media — shows and movies where the actual meaning of hijab isn't really talked about, you just see the covering, and it's not really addressed why this person is covering. So I don't think it's been represented accurately in the media, but I'd say recently we're getting more accurate representation. Growing up, I never saw an accurate representation of Muslim women unless it was from YouTube and Instagram, from personal accounts of Muslim hijabi women — I would follow those because I thought that was very relatable content, since they were Muslim women doing editorials and daily vlogs and stuff like that, so I thought that was accurate because they were representing themselves. But from the broader media, growing up, I didn't see any accurate representations."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__who_gets_to_represent_muslim_women_in_research", "question": "WHO GETS TO REPRESENT MUSLIM WOMEN IN RESEARCH, MEDIA, OR AI?", "answer": "Yes, I for sure think self-representation is very crucial, because we know ourselves best and can represent ourselves the best. Like I mentioned, I felt the most represented by watching people represent themselves — Muslim women, Muslim hijabi women, whether on YouTube, Instagram, or in interviews — because they represented themselves and talked about their own experiences. Even though it's important for the broader media to represent different kinds of people, Muslim women included, I think it should come from Muslim hijabi women, because they know best how to represent themselves. Even though we go through different experiences, we all understand our collective experiences — because of our religion, I'd say."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Let me think — a difficulty I faced recently, I'd say financial difficulties. Before going to [UNIVERSITY 1], I knew I had to be the one to completely pay for my tuition myself. At that point I was just working my nannying job, my babysitting job, and that's not consistent — I had to find another job, find a way to pay my way through the next two years at university, and it was a lot more money than community college, so I was very much stressing. But I really had conviction that I wanted to go to [UNIVERSITY 1], so the previous month I took a semester off and saved up as much as I could, but I only saved enough for one semester, so I decided to go with that and look for jobs during that semester to pay my way for the next three. That was a really stressful time, because looking for jobs itself is stressful, and looking for jobs that fit my school schedule was even more stressful, since it was also my first semester at university and the workload was a lot different than at community college. It was really hard adjusting, and I was constantly in the mindset of needing to make this money, needing to find ways — it was a constant stress on me.\n\nDuring that time, I relied a lot on my faith, relied a lot on God, and put my conviction in Him that He would help me, even though I didn't see a solution in front of me. I didn't have one, I just worked as much as I could, but it wasn't amounting to the amount I needed. I really held on to my faith, and thankfully I graduated, and I do have some money left to pay, but not a lot — I don't have much debt. I give a lot of credit to my faith, because I tried my hardest — I really did tie my camel — I tried as hard as I could to find ways to make money, even while in school, and with my reliance and conviction in God, I made it through and overcame that difficulty and stressful time."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Yes, I do think there are some internal expectations within the Muslim community, especially for Muslim women. We're kind of the representation of Islam — when Muslim men go out in public, you can't really tell if they're Muslim. So I'll say yes, Muslim women, hijabi women specifically, are meant to act a certain way, because we're basically representing Islam.\n\nI was basically saying that because Muslim women outwardly represent Islam through hijab, you can quickly identify that a woman is Muslim if she's wearing one, in contrast to men, where you can't really tell if they're Muslim or not. Because of that, Muslim women are expected to act in a way that represents Islam — she can't really do wrong, or do things that contradict Islam, because then she'll give people the wrong idea. So I think there's extra pressure on women who wear hijab to be, in quotes, on their best behavior, because people are watching and they know you're Muslim. I think that pressure of always having to act right, in a certain way, kind of intimidates some Muslim women who want to wear hijab from doing so, because of that pressure. I see a lot of Muslim women actually taking off their hijab because of that, because there's so much pressure from their community to be perfect.\n\nAs for external expectations, from outside people, I'm not quite sure — I don't assume so, because they don't really know what hijab is or what it represents. When someone sees a Muslim woman, they kind of judge the entirety of Islam based off that; it's almost an inherent reaction, like: this hijab-wearing woman I know is a Muslim, she's acting this way, so this is how all of Islam is, how all Muslims act. So when someone sees a Muslim woman wearing hijab, they may judge other Muslims based on her actions, whether good or bad, because they associate her with other Muslims."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "I'd say I feel most responsible toward my family first, and my community — they're the people I'm most connected to, so naturally I feel most responsible to them, or for them.\n\nThey very much do shape my choices. A lot of my choices are shaped by my family and their opinions, and also by my community and how they do things. Even though my community's outlook is similar to my family's — that's what I grew up around — if I ever have differing opinions, I'd say my community is more responsive to a difference of opinion and nuance than my family, where it's more their way or the highway. I'd say my family shaped me in the way that I have to act in a mature and responsible way — I'm also the oldest, so that's inherent — and that, in turn, shows up in the way I act around my community."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "Basically what I was taught growing up — I'm the oldest, so I have to be mature and responsible and look out for everybody. That was kind of how it was growing up, and it shows up in my community too, where I know I have to respect my elders and everybody, and help everybody out when I can. It's not just about me and my needs — there are other people I have to take into account, and I have to show up for them too."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Belonging in the West — I guess just feeling appreciated and accepted for who I am, no matter what I believe in. I think I'm feeling that more lately than in the past, and I give a lot of credit to representation in the media — TikTok is a very big outlet now, and a lot of Muslim women are posting videos, talking about themselves and their lives, and I feel more accepted. These are women who live in the West, some in my community, some in others, but still in America, and them posting those videos and educating the broader community about who we are is making other people more comfortable and inclined to accept us, not just based on negative preconceived notions pushed by the media in the past. So I've been feeling a lot more accepted recently, and a lot more comfortable and safe around people who aren't Muslim. I think people who act negatively toward Muslims are just very uneducated, and probably live in parts of the U.S. that are, I won't say far from civilization, but if you own a phone and are on social media, more often than not you're more accepting of a variety of different people. I definitely give a lot of credit to that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "That's a good question. To answer it, thinking about people's experiences in Muslim countries in contrast to mine — I see myself longing for that, to be in a Muslim country where you go out and a lot of people, maybe not every single person, are Muslim. You don't have to find Muslims in the crowd, they're just there, and people automatically understand things about you, particularly faith-wise — they just understand and accept it, and I don't have to explain certain choices I have to make. In Muslim countries, they celebrate Ramadan and Eid, and those celebrations are a big thing, whereas in this country it's not.\n\nHere, as a faith, we're a minority, and some parts of our faith aren't really accepted the way they are for other faiths — for example, Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter are a big celebration, people get work and school off for them, but for Muslims we don't get that for our celebrations. So there's kind of a divide, where certain parts of my faith aren't really made for this country, whereas in Muslim countries it's the opposite.\n\nEid isn't celebrated the way we celebrate it ourselves. It often falls on different days during the year, and sometimes it lands on school or work days, so you don't get time off, and it doesn't even feel like a holiday, whereas for Christmas and Easter there's a lot of advertisement in stores and you get time off — it's a big, accepted thing here, where Eid and Ramadan aren't. Another thing is halal meat — recently there are more stores selling zabihah halal meat, but in the past there weren't. I remember going to [GROCERY CHAIN 1] a couple of months ago and seeing they actually have a halal section, and I was really surprised, I was shocked. I know Costco has it too now, maybe for a couple of years, I just hadn't noticed. But those things weren't normal growing up — you couldn't go to a regular store and ask for halal meat, it would have to be a halal store. So there are certain things where you have to put in extra effort to accommodate your values, whereas other people don't have to, because it's embedded in this country — I'll say specifically the Christian faith. There are also stores, like [GROCERY CHAIN 2], that have a kosher section, so they're accommodating Jewish culture too, but I don't see any halal sections in those stores. That's where I see the difference and the divide."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "I've never seen that, thankfully — in my personal experience I haven't experienced that, but I do know people, and I've seen it a lot in the media, where they've experienced those kinds of interactions, where people are scared of them or very discriminatory toward them. But thankfully I haven't gone through that experience."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "That's a good question. I think a lot of the choices I make day to day are about how this will benefit me not only in this life, but the next life too. For example, when I was struggling to find a way to pay for school, the easy way out would have been taking a loan, but that would have meant incurring a lot of interest, and interest is a really big no-no in our religion. Even though it wouldn't have had immediate consequences, I knew it would have been a very big consequence for my Akhirah, for the next world. So I told myself I was going to try my hardest not to take that, because I know it would hurt me in the next life. That's one example of how thinking about the next life shapes the decisions I make in this world."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "I ultimately understand it through the way that God's wisdom is infinite — He plans, and I can plan the best I can, but His plan is always better. I trust and have full conviction in God that He wants the best for me, and even if a decision may seem bad to me in the moment — let's say something happened that wasn't what I wanted at all, not how I planned it to go — I have to understand that this is just the way God wanted it to happen, and it will lead me to something even better than what I imagined."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I think it's just really holding on to it, not compromising certain values just because other people are doing so. By holding on to my values, my future family and I would stand out, and we'd probably have to actively seek further opportunities to better accommodate what we want in our values. That matters a lot to me — just making sure I really hold onto my faith, no matter what climate or what's going on around me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Yeah, I have the intention behind doing these things — not taking certain opportunities, or showing my faith outwardly — because I want to please God, and because I know doing these things will lead to my success, not only in this life, but also in the next."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "For me, it means completely submitting to what He has decreed and ordained for me, whether I understand it or not. Full, complete submission, even if you don't understand it — there are certain matters where I don't understand the wisdom behind them, but ultimately I have to realize that my view of wisdom, my perspective, is very, very limited, in contrast to God's — He has a much broader perspective than me. There's a hadith, or a saying, that in comparison to God's throne, we're like a ring in a very vast desert — if you dropped a ring in a very vast desert, that's how small we are in comparison to the throne of God. I understand and realize that my perspective is very limited, I don't understand everything. I also think back to other times in my life when something happened that I really didn't want to happen, and I thought it was the worst outcome, but later realized it was actually the best outcome and worked out in my favor. So I reflect on times when things didn't work out in my favor, and that strengthens my conviction in God."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-009_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-009", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I think liberation means the freedom to express yourself in any way you want. I experience that, I guess, through my faith, and through feeling accepted, being able to explore and do what I want while also still being accepted by my community and the people around me. That's how I feel liberated.\n\nI felt really liberated seeing all the Muslims around me doing what they do — they were all in different clubs, and a really big one was the MSA. They held many different events — a barbecue, an event where you could play bowling and pool and different games — a bunch of different activities, whether directly related to faith or just recreational, and that was very liberating for me, because I could be around like-minded people and still do all the activities that people in other communities do. If those other communities did those activities, I might not feel as comfortable going, because I don't really know anybody, and I don't feel like I'll connect with anybody, since we don't have one big thing in common, which is religion. So those were certain times I felt liberated, and joining [UNIVERSITY 1] was a very liberating experience, especially seeing Muslim hijabi women wearing long clothing — I also saw a lot of niqabis there, which was very surprising, because I had never seen a niqabi at my previous college, even though it was smaller. Just seeing young adult Muslim women sticking to and holding onto their values and faith, even in a big college like [UNIVERSITY 1], which is a PWI, so there are so many different people who may not understand why you do what you do, and sometimes you're in classes where you're the only POC, or the only hijabi, or the only Muslim — seeing those people still hold onto their values made me feel liberated. It made me feel more comfortable to do the same."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "I'm an only child. I have two parents who work full-time, so I think a lot of my day is me left to my own devices, kind of getting through my day, in general.\n\nWell, I sleep late, so I wake up late — the first time I wake up is for Fajr, and then usually I go back to sleep and wake up again for the day. Most of the time my days include college classes; in the past three years they have, before that it was classes in general, so I'd say I'm a student above everything else. I'll have something to eat — most of the time I do skip breakfast — then I'll try to do some work after whatever class I have, and I'll end the day with an episode of something.\n\nFaith shows up in Salah most consistently, and it shows up in conversations with people. When I speak to someone, it always starts with salaam — that's when I'm speaking to Muslims, which is the majority of the people I surround myself with. The only time I was surrounded by non-Muslims was my two years at [UNIVERSITY 1], and even then Islam showed up in my conversations, because even when I made friends, I'd tell them, for five minutes I'm just going to go pray, and sometimes I'd explain, sometimes I wouldn't. In the past two years is the first time I even had a non-Muslim friend, so all of these experiences were pretty brand new for me. Just talking about Islam is probably where it shows up, and it shows up on Fridays, because I try to be more involved — I try to do more Quran on Fridays, I try to go to Jumu'ah, kind of reconnect. Another part of my routine is a Quran class once a week that's not on a Friday. I think those are the most consistent ways Islam shows up in my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I struggled with that a lot in the past two years. I went to [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1] — I would have a hard time explaining it, so what I ended up sticking with was that [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1] is a K-through-12 private Muslim school, and that's kind of how I'd introduce myself to people when they asked about my schooling experience.\n\nI would explain that I spent my time there on the girls' side — my teachers were women, my classmates were girls — and that influenced the way I saw things, like group projects, where I had a hard time communicating with my male classmates. Eventually, in my last semester, I got really good at treating everyone properly — not professionally, just without being intimidated, I guess. I'd say my community is really close, and I had to remove some of that closeness when I was interacting with people at [UNIVERSITY 1]. For example, my teachers at [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1] versus my professors at [UNIVERSITY 1] — there was more distance, and that was hard to transition into, because in my environment you know someone's grandparents, their siblings, their parents, how they live their lives, for the most part. As Muslims, we know everyone's at Jumu'ah on Fridays, or this day is special — Ashura recently came in, and that's something that brings me closer to my community members, because I kind of know them. It was different to explain that to people, because they'd be like, how is it possible that you're close to this many people, or that you know such things about this many people? And I'm like, the base is that we're all Muslim first. I'm not going to lie, eventually I just ended up not explaining — even with Salah, toward the end of my time at [UNIVERSITY 1], I would just say I have a meeting, and then I'd leave and come back to whatever we were doing.\n\nIt would be like the list of questions — hi, what's your major, what high school did you go to — because there were a lot of networking-type events, so I was constantly introducing myself. Hi, my name is [INTERVIEWEE], I'm an econ major, and then the follow-up questions, but it would be a couple minutes long and then you'd do it with the next person.\n\nI had this one friend — she's Indian, and India has a lot of Muslims, but her family wasn't Muslim — and she knew enough about me that when I had to go pray or anything, it wasn't even a conversation, she'd be like, oh, okay. But she had Muslim friends too — two guys specifically — and whatever I told her about being Muslim was contrary to how they were acting. For example, she had a graduation party, and the boys were drinking at the party, and I'd say, I don't drink, I'm Muslim, and she'd look over and see the guy drinking, and I was like, okay.\n\nThey were Muslim, and I would constantly be — this was the first time I'd been around Muslims who weren't from my community. The Muslims I grew up with had a certain standard of practicing Islam, and the Muslims I ended up meeting came from everywhere in the U.S., from backgrounds that weren't maybe as strict as the way I was raised, so I'd end up contradicting myself in front of non-Muslims who had met these other Muslims. Sometimes I was kind of dumbfounded, like, now what do I say? It was a tricky thing to navigate. I remember, I told her I was Muslim and she still invited me to the party — it was really just at her apartment, a couple people — and I went, said hi, and then left, because they were acting a little, you know, as these things go.\n\nA more specific example would be interactions between opposite genders — I'd have a certain boundary and other Muslims wouldn't, so I'd look like the more extreme side of the spectrum of Muslims at [UNIVERSITY 1], if that makes sense. Girls would be giving guys hugs, and I'd be like, no — I'll stand over here, or I'll wave, whatever the case may be, and it would confuse a lot of people. Over time I ended up just saying, I have a meeting, when I had to pray, instead of saying, I'm going to pray. But for the people who did understand there was a different spectrum of Muslims — there was another girl, she was white actually, from [STATE 1], and her background gave her more interaction with Muslims. I wasn't her only Muslim friend, and her previous Muslim friend also prayed, so when I said, while we were studying one day, hey, I'm going to go pray, she'd say, yeah, it's probably around the time, and I was like, how do you know that? So it was a degree of interactions, and they were all different."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've been in this community, I think, since kindergarten — I haven't really left this nook of [MASJID 1], [CITY 1], I've lived here a really long time. But my sense of self —\n\nI'll draw a parallel to my time in [CITY 2], since I've been there twice now, each time about two weeks. When I was in that community, my sense of being a Muslim woman changed, and when I'm in my community here, it's also different. The way I grew up, everything was pretty harshly stated in terms of how I, as a Muslim woman, was meant to dress, act, and speak.\n\nWhen I went into an environment where Muslim girls were encouraged to do things, I hadn't even thought that a whole community would be okay with their daughters — the girls of the community — doing something like that; it would just be natural there. I felt myself more inclined to make Islam a part of my — Islam is a huge part of my identity anyway, but more often than not it feels like a responsibility here. In [CITY 2], I remember thinking it was easier to be a Muslim woman in an environment where people aren't constantly telling me how to be one.\n\nAt first I thought it was because a lot of the Muslims I was meeting there followed the Hanafi madhhab, whereas [MASJID 1] is Hanbali — over in [CITY 2] there are a lot of Hanafi masajid. I had an easier time thinking about my future and what was possible, whereas here I feel very confined to a certain path — it's like you either do this or you don't, and that's what makes you a good Muslim woman, when you look back on your life at the end of it.\n\nHere, something that comes to mind is post-grad life. I'm being told that I'm getting older, that times are changing, that people need stability and family before they reach for other goals. In interactions with friends, we're subconsciously mirroring to each other what we've been told, and when we have accomplishments, like getting a job or traveling, it becomes a bigger, more complicated conversation. With parents, family, and friends — even yesterday I went to someone's graduation party, and the group of girls there had been together since elementary school at [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1], and we were discussing how we weren't allowed to travel, not even out of state for college, or when someone has a better opportunity, like an internship a couple months long in another state — it's an amazing opportunity, good for your resume, good for your career trajectory, good for figuring out if you even like this career path you picked at twenty years old. But we're not being allowed — it's more confinement, everyone's being pushed toward staying home in a very frustrating way. I'm seeing people have different reactions in personal interactions that they wouldn't have if they were able to leave their homes and experience things and become more evolved as people. Instead I'm seeing girls I grew up with backtracking to looking like they were raised in the 90s — not that the 90s were super confined, but I feel like we're moving backwards.\n\nI think it might be my circle of people — even when I branch out a little, I'm hit with the same set of values. When I was in [CITY 2], I met girls from different states, specifically at the [ISLAMIC INSTITUTE 1] community, and all those girls had come in from out of state for education, for learning. Hearing their life experiences, I remember thinking I wished some of the girls I knew here had parents who would release them a little to have some of those experiences. It didn't make me sad, but it made me understand our differences more starkly.\n\nI don't know why, because it's not by ethnicity — every friend I have is from a different ethnicity, and all the girls I met over there were too, so I don't think it's culture. It might be that our parents are trying to preserve Islam the best way they think they can, by monitoring us, trying to make sure we don't lose what they think the U.S. is making us lose — what they've taught us, what we've learned. And we've learned a lot, I think. At this point I'm 23, my friends are around 22 to 24, and I see such a difference in our development versus that of our peers, whether at school, at work, or in different states. Everyone's talking as if our lives are over, and I think that's so detrimental, because I feel like I have a lot left to do.\n\nNow everyone's kind of just waiting for marriage, then talking about getting married, having a kid, raising it, and I'm like, I want to do different things — maybe I want to go study overseas in two years and learn something, or move to another state and take a job opportunity and figure out how to do that.\n\nMy parents let me travel for my friend's [ISLAMIC INSTITUTE 1] graduation — I didn't study there. When I was there for two weeks, I went to a lot of their final parties, a lot of the halaqas, and met a lot of new people. Another thing I'm noticing is that when you have experiences, you think differently, and then you act differently, and when you don't have a lot of experiences, you're more confined to daily suffocation — mundane things become very suffocating, and then you take it out on the people closest to you, if that makes sense.\n\nI'm seeing that in a lot of my friends now — post-grad, a lot of us are looking for jobs, and it's not easy, so there's like one to two years at home, and their parents are like, well, you can't go out, you can't do this, you can't do that, so everyone's kind of banging their head against a wall trying to figure out how to have the pressure released from them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I do. Attending [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1] was my mom's way of me seeking religious knowledge, and it was very helpful — I got a good base of Quran, Arabic, Islamic studies. On my own, I would volunteer at [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1], for the youth — I was there for like four years. At [ISLAMIC INSTITUTE 2] I was a consistent volunteer, and I'd attend those classes, and the local masajid as well. I'm also enrolled in — I don't know if you know — [ONLINE ISLAMIC ACADEMY 1]. It's kind of like a catch-all two-year program for all the bases of Islamic knowledge, though I hesitate to say exactly where they're based, since it's [ONLINE ISLAMIC ACADEMY 1], it might just be through the Saudi government, I'm not sure. I'm going to start in August. Along with my classes, my dhikr, tafsir classes — I do try to seek Islamic knowledge, but inshallah I want to do it in a more structured way in the future."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I've been wearing it since I was a kid, so it wasn't really an active choice, but I'd say when I was in middle school I wore it looser, and that was probably the closest I got to not wearing it the way I do now — I think now I wear it pretty coveringly. I think hijab is also your clothing, so the journey to skirts and abayas was also something that took time. Even now I'll still wear pants from time to time, but looser-fitting. I don't think I really had a problem with that — sometimes it would just be that something didn't fit and I'd need a size bigger so it would sit closer. Overall it was pretty simple, I guess. I think hijab in an environment with Muslims is one thing; in an environment without Muslims, you tend to gravitate more toward pants and less loose clothing, just to fit in. But I don't think I ever went to the side of just not wearing it.\n\nMaybe a couple years ago, when I started looking into hijab materials and abaya styles and things like that, that's probably when I started thinking more about how to make myself feel good in hijab instead of just wearing it out of habit. It makes me feel more comfortable going outside, and I think I first noticed that specifically when I went to Saudi for the first time — I chose on my own to wear niqab there, because I was more comfortable in that country, since if you're the only face people can see, you're the only face being looked at. Hijab just makes me feel comfortable."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "That even amongst girls who don't wear hijab — I have family friends where my mom told me, when I was growing up, that people had questioned her about why I was wearing hijab so young. She would literally put hijab on me and I'd be running around in a short-sleeve shirt. I think that was important, because for me it wasn't something I had to think too long about — it was just something I always did, like when you get ready to go outside, you wear hijab. Those same people, their kids are now very grown, mid-20s, late-20s, early-20s, and they're not covering at all — and it's gotten worse, they're more on the side of non-Muslim attire than just regular attire and not wearing hijab. That's something I noticed. Another thing is that the same people I grew up with, we probably had similar lives, but they would isolate me for being too religious, or it would be an assumption. I'm actually not the best Muslim ever, I promise, but it would be more difficult to connect with some people because I'd be isolated for being too religious. No, it would be an assumption — not based on conversations, just the hijab."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Yes. If I was in a position of closeness to the person who misunderstood, I would clarify. If I wasn't, I'd kind of just let it slide, unfortunately, because it would become a thing they'd talk to their friend about, and it would turn into an altercation. I really don't think that if someone misunderstands something, it's my place — I'm not an alimah, I'm not a sheikh, it's not my place to give nasiha like that. But if it's someone I'm close to, I'll say, hey, this is actually wrong, Islam doesn't say that, this is how I've always practiced it — whether it's the hugging thing, the shaking hands thing, or praying salah on time. Those are things that if I know the person who misunderstood it, I would clarify, because I know that to be true and I know what this person is doing is not. That's as far as I would take it. If I'm close to the person, I'd correct their misunderstanding; if I'm not close to them, I wouldn't want to put myself in a position where they go talk to the Muslim person and put me in a situation of drama — it's not what I went to school for."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "To stick on the theme we've been talking about, I'd say my identity as a Muslim woman in the [UNIVERSITY 1] environment is something I had to think about a lot. There were points where low iman found me more often than not, because I was constantly surrounded by people who seemed like they didn't put in as much effort into doing certain things, but they still got the same results as me, sometimes better — not in terms of academics, but maybe it was easier for them to make friends and maintain them, or easier to get internships or jobs, or have these achievements, and I'd find that frustrating in the moment.\n\nBut when it would be summer or winter break, the frustration would dissipate, because I'd be in my own environment again, and I'd understand the way life kind of goes, and my iman would go back up. So I faced this up and down — there was a lot of turmoil in that for about two years straight, and I think, hopefully, now that I'm out of there, it'll go back to normal."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I think if there was something I could say to a lot of people, it would be that I wish we saw our lives in a different way. There's so much opportunity out there, so many experiences waiting to be had, so many different ways of achieving the same thing, that I really wish, instead of monitoring each other, instead of being jealous, instead of being scared that someone's going to put your experience down so you don't share it, and everyone isolating themselves to protect themselves from evil eye or whatever it may be — it would be better if we could see that we all have time, we all have the opportunity to live full lives without just waiting for marriage, or even graduation, to happen to us. If we could take it easier and stop waiting for the next thing, we'd have fuller lives, and it would make us happier people, because we have, mashallah, a lot of time and energy, and support from our parents, financial or emotional, and if we could take all of that in and let go of what might or might not happen, we'd have better experiences of living — because I look around and see girls who are anxious and exhausted and depressed, and I think we can really make a choice not to live this way.\n\nCulturally, communities that have — for example, in Morocco, there are Christians, there are Jews, there are Muslims, but there's also a culture of not giving too much information, for everybody, whether Muslim or not. But when you come to the West, to our environment here in the U.S., people are much more open with their lives, so there's a lot more connection, and I feel like Muslim girls are constantly scared of each other, maybe subconsciously — how close can you be to someone when all you ever say to them is, hi, how are you doing, alhamdulillah, and that's it? There's nothing below the surface in terms of connection. How are you going to connect with someone if you don't know anything about them?"}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__has_wearing_hijab_created_barriers_in_education_or", "question": "HAS WEARING HIJAB CREATED BARRIERS IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT?", "answer": "I think I didn't feel like myself in a lot of my interactions there, because I was putting on this persona of disinterest and nonchalance, because that's how everyone around me was acting. There were people I went to class with two semesters in a row, saw multiple times a week, and I couldn't tell you their names — it was so distant, and that was really hard for me to go through, but I learned, I guess.\n\nI think my degree of practice played into it — I'd wear abayas to school, and hijab of course, and there were times my entire row would be empty, everyone sitting in front of me or behind me. It was the strangest thing, but over time you get used to it, and when I'm outside school I have community, so it wasn't something that put me down, but it was something I noticed.\n\nI'd look around at other Muslims and their experiences, and the ones who did have friends of the opposite gender, or connections with non-Muslim classmates, were living lives I didn't want for myself. So I decided if the alternative was to get involved in things that might distract me or reduce my iman, even though I'm already struggling with it, it wasn't really worth getting hung up on — though that wasn't my initial reaction, that's a conclusion I came to after thinking about it. My initial reaction was loneliness, feeling like, how is this fair — but then you get over it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My parents. It shapes a lot of my choices — my major, the school I went to, the job opportunities I even apply to, much less accept or reject. It shapes everything.\n\nI think in my house we're not as cultural as the homes of people I know — a lot of people have a lot of culture in their house, but I couldn't tell you a couple things from either of my parents' cultures. Even so, if they're more cultural than our household, we still have some of the same experiences. Being the only child plays a role too, yeah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "In my family, I'm kind of living what they were unable to do. Even my major — one of my parents began college but wasn't able to complete it, and that was their major, their program. Even finishing high school — one parent wasn't able to do that, so school is connected to that.\n\nIn my community, I guess I'm a volunteer, because I end up in situations helping out — event childcare or just being part of helping — that's probably my most consistent role.\n\nAs an only child, I feel like I have a lot of free time, for some reason, or maybe I want to make my time free, but I think a lot of people I know seem to have less, so I just go out and help. It helps with connection — I'm the kind of person who feels better interacting with people, whether I've met them before or not, and then I come home feeling better than when I left. Maybe that's why."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Belonging — I'd say in employment, belonging would be a workplace that lets you be employed without releasing you from your responsibilities as a Muslim. What I look for in a workplace is a place that will allow me to take off during the last ten nights of Ramadan, somewhere to pray salah. At [UNIVERSITY 1] we had the MSA space, which allowed for salah during the day, and a space for weekly Jumu'ah. Belonging in the West would be the same as belonging anywhere else. When I was in [CITY 2], the masajid gave me a lot of belonging, because they had spaces for wudu, where you could wash your feet the way I do at home, and handheld bidets in the bathrooms. Belonging as a Muslim there made me feel like my wudu was accepted, my salah was accepted — on this side, that's more what I get from my house than my workplace or school.\n\nYes, a little — not that people need to be thinking about me twenty-four seven, but basically, yes. It's literally just wudu and salah, being comfortable knowing I'm able to pray in whatever space I'm in. In general, I'm one of those people who walks around with a prayer mat and will just take it out and start praying — everyone will look at me, but I don't really care. Me and my friend go to [CITY 3] a lot, and we both have those little things in our prayer mats, and we'll just pick a corner of the grass and pray. Nothing has happened to us so far, and inshallah nothing does. If you want to belong in an environment, you'll figure it out."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "This country — I think the older I get, the more I realize that perhaps we didn't belong in the first place. I was just really young, so it wasn't as stark for me, but the older I get, the more I realize that very systemic things in this country are anti — not only anti-Islam, but anti any structured religion.\n\nEven before getting into the different sects — when I meet Orthodox Christians or Orthodox Jews, the non-extreme ones, I find their experiences relate to mine in unexpected ways. I'd met Christians before [UNIVERSITY 1], but at [UNIVERSITY 1] is the first time I met Orthodox Jews, and a lot of them had the same struggles I did. I met a girl who also went to a Jewish private school, and it was the funniest conversation — every single point was matching. She was shocked about how wild some of the students could get, how distant the professors were from students, how there wasn't really respect in professor-student relationships — for example, at the end of every lecture, some students, while the professor is still talking, will just get up, pack, zip up their bags, and leave, because it's the end of the time slot. I'm like, he can finish his sentence, thirty seconds isn't the end of the world — and she was relating to all of it. I remember thinking, I wish you didn't love Israel the way you do, because we could have been friends.\n\nShe was part of the student union, and I saw her walking around with those shirts on October 7th, but she was a nice person right up until I found that out, so it was conflicting information for me — why am I relating to you so much? But I did meet very normal, very nice Orthodox Jews too, same situation. I remember that one girl specifically because she hit every nail on the head of my experiences as well."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "A threat to what? Not personally, but I do know of Muslim girls in the MSA who were being stalked around campus after October 7th, and the police were called on them. There was a Jewish Students for Peace group, and another one, and they'd host events on the main mall at [UNIVERSITY 1] with police surrounding the perimeter, as if the Muslim students were going to attack them. I found that very funny, because the aggressors and stalkers of Muslim girls on campus were the ones being protected with police from Muslims — that dichotomy was very, very annoying. I told my mom about it, and that day she called me early and told me to come home, because it was getting dangerous on campus. That was my fault, because I told her something that had happened — things don't really escalate on that campus more often than not, there's no escalation, but she was freaking out, she literally told me to skip class and come home. That was the first time that ever happened. It was a bunch of conflicting situations, but it did not happen to me personally, feeling like I was a threat."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "When I was younger, in high school, it wasn't as prevalent — I was in Islamic studies at [ISLAMIC SCHOOL 1], hearing about the Akhirah, the Day of Judgment, hearing that everything happens for a reason, that if a du'a isn't answered you might get something better in the Akhirah, or even in this life. But it didn't really sink in for me until around 2022, when I started thinking that we have entire lives left to live. I started zooming out from my day-to-day experience and seeing it as part one of a journey: life in the grave is one part, the Day of Judgment is one part, and then the last part is when you're actually in wherever you end up — inshallah, for all of us, Jannah — but that's another life to live. When you zoom out from your experiences, everything becomes easier to deal with — disappointment, isolation, loneliness, all of it doesn't affect you the way it once would have. Even if you feel it temporarily, even very strongly for a while, it's still not as much as you'd feel it if you didn't think about how this is just part one of several."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Before, I used to want a lot of control over what's happening around me, what's happening to me, what kind of experiences I'm in — I wanted to know all the details, all the questions answered, the plan. I still am like that, but now I'm more certain that things are going to work out however the chips fall, and I have a more hands-off approach.\n\nIf I'm sure I've done everything I could to do things the correct way, even if I make a mistake, I still tried to do it correctly — that gives me peace and comfort, makes me less stressed, less anxious about the situation. When I look around at some of my classmates, I see they don't have that same peace, and they're having different experiences, acting very wild, and I don't want to live what I've seen someone live through. Even if my experience doesn't make me feel pretty when I look in the mirror — because as a Muslim woman, you dress well for the sake of Allah — and even if I'm having the worst day, no makeup, all of that, the alternative doesn't attract me. Yeah, the broader, non-Muslim community — that's what I mean."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "When I think about practicing in the long run, what I'm working on right now is making sure my secular experiences are of benefit, and to increase my Islamic knowledge and have that shape how I do things secularly — what company I work for, what job I do, what repercussions come from the work I do, and who I give my energy to.\n\nI mean, in the wider world — if I work for a company that does bad in the world, and my job strengthens that badness, I don't think the repercussions just go into the air. If you work for a place that does bad things, you get a portion of that. I want to be able to do work where I'm certain the repercussions are positive."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "If it's at a park, I have a lot less stress. If it's on a sidewalk, or even at school in a hallway, I'm more aware of my surroundings — not being afraid to be openly Muslim, and consoling myself that I'm genuinely not doing anything wrong, so there's no reason my heart should be pounding like this."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "It means just trying my best to fulfill my obligations, trying my best to have supplementary acts of worship outside the obligatory ones. I think it just means trying my best, even if the scope of what I'm doing is small. It sounds easy, but it's actually really hard — something as small as praying on time could be a battle for some people and not for others, or just having tawakkul in Allah. Especially now, I feel like the culture of the U.S. is very anti-tawakkul — propaganda, people's think pieces, even pop culture, all these things pull you away from having tawakkul in Allah. A lot of it is fear-mongering, or just makes it difficult to say, I know everything is going to be okay. It's about finding a balance and bringing that into my personal life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-010_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-010", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberation? I think when you travel, you feel liberated, because — there's a hadith, or an ayah of the Qur'an, where we're told to travel Allah's earth — and just thinking about that makes me feel like traveling is liberation, because you go somewhere and see different things, but the one thing that remains no matter where you go is making sure you're fulfilling your obligations to Allah — praying on time, making proper wudu, making ghusl on time if you get off your period, not letting it drag a day or two. It's making sure that no matter where you are, you have your set of things to do — your adhkar, your du'as — you're not alone.\n\nThe more I travel, the more I realize that. Traveling is liberating because when you come back to your environment, you see things differently — where you might have thought, this is such a frustrating thing I have to do every day, now you come home and think, thank God I have this, alhamdulillah for this. Or you come back with different experiences, and when you talk with your community or family, you're able to help someone out of their struggle, give them a different way to see things.\n\nEarlier I was talking about feeling confinement, and I guess I said that because it's the most relevant thing to me currently, something I was struggling with.\n\nIt's liberating because it helps me see what's actually important, where my priorities are, and that liberates me from the stress of the job search, since I recently graduated and it's a huge theme in my life right now. It liberates me from being anxious about the future, because even if things are delayed, even if there's no stream of income currently, I still know my top priorities are in order."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "An ordinary day in my life usually starts with school. Between my childhood and three years with family, I went for a GED, and then continued with career and academics thereafter. That's how I began my career."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "We are people dedicated to our families, kind-hearted, wanting the best for others as we wish for ourselves, and making a positive impact in the lives of ourselves, our families, and the community we care about."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've been in the United States since 1998, so that would be about 28 years this year. Comparing from the time I started in this country till now, there's been a lot of positive changes, and also a lot of negativity, and that actually spurs from 9/11, when the World Trade Center was attacked. From there, being a Muslim became more difficult, especially as a hijabi — walking around the streets became more difficult. Having the fear that I could be attacked always came to my mind, and especially going to school, completing my undergrad was really challenging, because working as a student, not having a car, having to move around — even on public transportation, at least about 75% of the time, I always faced negativity from people on the bus and around me. That really impacted how I felt in terms of my confidence level. As much as I was confident, the attack and Islamophobia really affected how I did things, how I tried to embark on things and make decisions. I preferred to be within a community, or within the house, where I felt more comfortable, rather than going outside — even working was difficult, because it was more dangerous, since people would call me names just because of my identity. But I did not want to back down, and I continued wearing my hijab — my dressing was part of me, so I was not going to back down on it. But I realized it affected the way I went about my daily life outside the house. I'd say that was after 9/11, thereabouts, maybe around the mid-2000s.\n\nThat gave me a little bit of confidence, because of the environment I found myself in and the people I worked with — they loved me for who I was, and also protected me. If there was any backlash from anybody outside when we went out, they were there for me, even though they were non-Muslims, because of the way I already carried myself around them — it felt comfortable, that as a Muslim, we're just like other people who want the best for ourselves and our families. That helped me regain a lot of confidence, starting with my children and all of that. I guess now the backlash is back, because of the political atmosphere, but I think overall the confidence I gained back then has helped me navigate the challenges of now."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes, I do seek religious knowledge actively. I turn to scholars, I turn to my husband — he's more knowledgeable in the faith than me — and I turn to the Book of Allah, the Quran, for guidance, and also the sayings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, for guidance on how to face whatever challenge I may be dealing with."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "My hijab story is so funny. I started wearing hijab back in my native country, Nigeria. I went to a Christian school — being in that Christian environment, we were forced, not even given an option, to practice Christianity. My dad was not enforcing hijab, my parents did not enforce us to wear it — we didn't even grow up with the knowledge of girls wearing hijab. We were only taught to be modest in dressing and to have the best of characters representing ourselves outside our homes.\n\nI remember I got sick at a period of time, and that sickness really impacted the way I viewed life. That was around the time I was going to get admission into college — that year, me and my sister were supposed to start college, but I couldn't, because of my sickness. That sickness made me turn back to Allah, and I started reading the Quran. As I read, I started realizing all the falsehoods we'd been taught in high school. That strained the relationship I had with my siblings and my parents, because me and my sister, who went to the same school, had that mindset that Christianity was the answer, that it wasn't a sin. But now, going outside my own shell, outside the knowledge my parents had given me, I had to navigate the challenge of finding the truth. It was either I continued with Christianity, what we'd been forced to do, or I found a way to understand — if Christianity was the answer, I'd understand what I was doing, and if Islam was the answer, I'd understand that too. So I started reading the Quran, and the more I read, the more conviction I gained that this was the truth.\n\nThe next year I gained admission — I went through the application process again and got into a polytechnic in Nigeria, and that really changed my perspective, because when I stepped into that university, regardless of the way I dressed, the people who came to my aid — this was a place I didn't know anybody, didn't know where I was going to sleep, had no idea how I was going to live my life there — the people who came to my aid were Muslims, and they weren't even fully practicing hijab or anything. I met a friend I still have a relationship with now, as a sister — she took me by the hand when she saw me crying, and we went through the admission process together, how to register and all of that. I realized Islam was just the truth — Islam, the way of life, was what gave me that peace of mind, that regardless of what I did, I could go back to Allah and ask for forgiveness and not be criticized, not be put down. After my first semester, I saw a lot of sisters wearing hijab, and they started attending Muslim Students' Association meetings, and I just fell in love with the way Islam was presented — it wasn't hard, it wasn't harsh, it was subtle, in a way that made me feel, okay, even without wearing hijab, I could be a Muslim who could become better and understand the reason why Allah asked women to wear hijab. Once I understood the ayah Allah revealed about covering, in Surat al-Ahzab, I realized this was a conviction I would obey my Lord with — I would be better, rather than trying to please the people around me who wanted me to be part of them. So the struggle of trying to balance it out — I decided no, I was going to stand firm on my deen, my religion, and get better at it, because I understood it more. That's also what led me to make sure that when I have kids in the future, I'd be able to help them understand the reason behind hijab, rather than just putting it on them.\n\nThe hijab protects me, it gives me confidence, it gives me the reassurance that obeying Allah is the ultimate, and when I obey my Creator, everything else becomes easy, because Allah said with hardship comes ease as well. So regardless of what I may be facing, I know that hijab is just an outer covering — it comes from my inner self, from having the conviction that Allah is the one who told me to cover, and in obeying Him, He has told me in the Quran that whoever obeys His commands will surely get a reward, which is happiness. So anything that happens to me, I know it's only by the design of Allah, not any human being. My hijab has given me the confidence to navigate challenges in life and know that this is just a passing trial, and the ultimate goal is working toward the life we're promised in the Akhirah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I think people categorize us as — maybe privileged, subdued, that we cannot make it in life, that we should not make it in life because we are women. The misunderstanding the media has portrayed to people of the Western world has been really negative, and that's the reason a lot of people in America, or the Western world, who have no real knowledge of hijabis, of the role of women in Islam, misunderstand us as women wearing hijab as being subdued — that we cannot have a career, cannot make it in life, that we're subject to harshness and can't make it past a certain level, even in education. For example, that education isn't something we should have.\n\nI remember a time I was teaching, and a parent came to me — her child was in my classroom — and I believe she looked at me because of the hijab and thought, how can this person even be a teacher, she's not worthy of being a teacher. She tried to challenge me one day, and as she did, she wanted to know my educational background. Once I told her, she just apologized to me, because she'd had it at the back of her mind, from the way the media has portrayed Muslim women, that we're not able to have a good education, not given that opportunity, and she'd had that negativity pushed onto her. That really changed her perspective toward me from that day onward — the respect she gave me afterward was much more than the way she treated me at the beginning of our relationship as her child's teacher. That person was non-Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "I remember, in 2015, after having three of my children, I faced the reality of either sending my children to public school or being in an Islamic environment. My house was far from the school, and I enjoyed my career as a teacher, I loved teaching, but I had to face the reality that it was becoming too stressful because of the distance, and we didn't want to live outside our means — whatever we had as income, me and my husband, we were going to live within it, we weren't going to get a house or a place of living that was more than our income could sustain. So we had to face the reality of either homeschooling our children to still give them the best education, or sending them to public school, because the alternative was just too stressful. That was the challenge we faced, and I remember trying to think, why do we have to go through this? But one thing was certain to us: our children were not going to go to public school, no matter what. We were not going to face the same challenges we'd faced with hijab, and the stories we'd heard from Muslim colleagues about children facing a lot of bullying in public schools, especially children who wear hijab — that could affect their confidence, and we didn't want our children to face that. We had girls, so it was a tough decision, but looking back, we're thankful to Allah that He guided us to make it — it's not a decision we've regretted one bit. Navigating it was the first challenge: how were we going to give our kids what we wanted them to have, and also let them have a social environment for their own well-being. We were able to balance that with activities for the kids, and alhamdulillah, they're young ladies now, thriving, in college, and I believe they've navigated the challenges they've faced as well.\n\nFirst, we had to do some research — me and my husband had to sit down and decide, okay, it's only going to be one income, sustaining a family of five. So we sat down and wrote out all our expenses — what could we cut off, like cable TV, things that were more luxury than necessity. Cutting those off didn't impact our life in any way. My husband had to double down on his work, and I had to be the one staying home with the kids. We had to draw up a plan for how we were going to teach the kids the curriculum, to make sure they'd be able to keep up with other kids outside the home, and when it came to any state testing, they'd be able to pass, to be at the same level as kids outside our house. We consulted with people who were homeschooling, and got support from a few friends and our family too — when you don't stand alone, when you learn from others, you realize how much easier things can be. Having the right support, our family was there for us for the times I needed breaks, and that's how we navigated the situation.\n\nWhen we made that decision, I realized, okay, I trained to do that work as a teacher, teaching other kids, and I also wanted to be in an Islamic environment — I didn't want to teach in a public school. I had gone through public school for my teacher training, and I'd made that decision within my heart that teaching in a public school wasn't something I'd want to do, except as a last resort. When we'd weighed all our options, I realized I could continue teaching, just teaching my own daughters instead. Especially for my five-year-old, who wasn't in school yet, I decided to take that on myself — I could take the same grade level I was teaching in school and put that energy into my daughter, and see if I could have a positive impact on her, if she could accomplish what the kids in my classroom could accomplish. I looked at that as a success for me. I realized the flexibility of homeschooling let me do a lot of things I was able to do more of outside the classroom, but also use my teacher mindset to teach her. When we decided to put her in an online Islamic school, and she went through testing, she was two grades above level, and that's how I looked at it as my success — that was what made me happy. I gave up something, but I saw something else in my own daughter that I probably wouldn't have seen had I not made that decision to stay home with my kids."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Definitely. The first thing, as a Muslim woman, you must be educated — you must be well-rounded to be able to have an impact. When we hear the stories of Aisha, radiAllahu anha, and Khadija, radiAllahu anha, and all the other wives, all the Muslim women back then, that's our own pathway too — we should also have a positive impact, and one of the ways we can do that is to be educated. You need to know what society is learning and be able to differentiate it, so you're not just in your own bubble, thinking this is the only way to approach things. Understanding what others who are non-Muslim think, understanding their thinking, and how you can make a positive impact, is what we build our community upon. A Muslim woman, even if she's going to be a stay-at-home mom, must be well-rounded, educated in the Western world and also in Islamic studies.\n\nI think it goes back to our own parents. For me, at least within our Nigerian community, I'd say almost everybody had the same orientation from our parents, giving us that educational background — it wasn't a choice, you had to go to school, you had to learn — so that when people confront you with challenges, when people come to challenge your deen, you're able to understand where they're coming from and answer whatever questions they present. If you're living in ignorance, the way people will treat you, the way you'll be impacted by their thinking, you'll realize you'll be leaving your own being and your own beliefs to believe in what other people believe, because you don't have that deep understanding of what you've been leaving.\n\nYes, we had Islamic education at home, but it was on a basic level — not the way I'm teaching my own kids now, it's different. Yes, my school in Nigeria was a Christian school, but at home, and I lived in a boarding house, so it wasn't as if I was seeing my parents every day — we'd spend the whole semester at school, going to church and all of that, and then come home and practice our deen again."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "I feel most responsible, first of all, to my family, my nuclear family, and to myself. And to my Creator — I'm responsible to follow and obey the commands of my Creator, Allah, and responsible for myself, since the actions I take will either impact me positively or negatively. Once the decisions I make for myself impact my own family, if I've made positive decisions, I know that positive attitude carries through to my children, my spouse. But if I make wrong choices, there's a tendency I'll bring down my own family too. As the adage goes, show me your face and I'll tell you who you are — the people around you say something about the type of person you are. So if I try to be a good person, if I try to follow the commands of Allah, the decisions I make, for the most part, mean I want people of that same mindset around me, my circle, to help me when I'm going through difficulties. So definitely, my responsibility is to love my family, my extended family, and my community as well."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I think going back to the Quran, it lays down the basics of the role of a woman, the impact she has. Even for those who don't have a spouse — they always say, behind every successful man is a woman. I even look at, for the non-Muslim example, someone like Bill Clinton, the former president — when we say he was a successful man, even through his struggles, his wife was beside him, and that's how non-Muslims think of it too. For a Muslim woman, it's even more — you have that impact, you're the one training the next generation. When you train a child well, you train the nation well, because that child goes out to train others, and the cycle continues. But if the mother is ignorant of her role, of the importance of having a positive impact on her children, you'll realize you'll lose them, because society will take your children away with their own stories, their own falsehood, and you'll see the children drift from believing in the oneness of Allah.\n\nI believe it's something wider society shares too, not just an individual belief. A lot of people, even non-Muslims, don't send their children to public school, because they believe the way they want to raise their children is different from the way the public system trains them, and a lot of that comes from the larger curriculum being taught — as an individual, you don't have the role to make changes in that system, so you either go along with it or find a way to create your own system, one aligned with your belief system. So I believe it's more of a general thing than just an individual thing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "My faith and the country I live in — it's challenging, and it also gives me the assurance that the more people understand me as a Muslim woman, the more they go back and learn about Islam, and accept it, because they can reason, they can understand — it's not about logic, it's the truth, but you have to understand it, and understanding it means you can't be in ignorance, can't just follow someone saying something on social media. You have to sit down and educate yourself, and when you educate yourself, you empower yourself, and when you empower yourself, you can stand on top of the mountain knowing your empowerment and your knowledge are based on understanding your faith, and you're able to navigate anything based on that understanding. So what I've found is that standing my ground, not backing down on hijab, has helped me a lot in this country — it's given me the confidence to navigate things, in a respectful and firm way, so that people understand me, and I can have an impact through how I present myself to others. When I represent myself well, people can say, this person is a Muslim, and this is different from what they've heard about Muslim women, and that can lead them to educate themselves and understand Islam."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "Oh yes — going back to 9/11, it was a huge challenge, because I was working as a student. When we came to this country, it was just me and my brother — my parents brought us and went back, so we were left to navigate ourselves here. We had family friends, but the main navigation was left to us — either based on what our parents had taught us, and we continue that legacy, or we let society drift us away from that path of being Muslim. When 9/11 happened, even the first few days after, I remember getting on the bus, sitting down just like any other time, and I never realized how that would affect me. I remember a white woman screaming right in my face, calling me all the words they called us back then — you're Osama bin Laden, you want to kill us in this country, you need to go back to your country. It wasn't easy — I'd go home and cry, not want to go to work again. We didn't have a personal car, my brother didn't either, so we had to take public transportation to school and work and back home — it wasn't just getting on the bus once, it was an everyday thing, so that threat grew more and more. My boss offered, at that time, that one of my colleagues could pick me up and drop me off close to my house, but I realized, how long was that going to last? People were ignorant, people were angry about what happened, and they put that anger on Muslim women, because for men it was easier not to be identified as Muslim, but for a Muslim woman wearing hijab, they'd consider you a terrorist, Osama bin Laden, here to hurt them. I never made comments to anybody — I understood why they were angry, but I didn't understand why they had to direct that anger at me, an individual just trying to go about my daily life like them. That was the threat I faced then, and alhamdulillah, it strengthened me, it strengthened my iman — I knew this was a test from Allah, and the only way to pass it was to stand my ground on being a Muslim woman, and nothing less."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "About Jannah — that's one thing we do, sharing reminders as a family after morning prayers. Allah's promise to those who do good, who pray their salah, pay their zakat, do good to others, be kind — simple things — is that if you do these things, inshallah, by His mercy, you'll gain the pleasure of Allah and get into Jannah. That's written clearly in the Quran, that He has promised this. He created the heavens and the earth, He makes the night turn to day and the day turn to night — the signs around us give us that understanding that the One who created all of this is the only one who can give us the hereafter, His paradise. Following those simple things He's said in the Quran isn't complicated — just go about your daily life the way that pleases Allah, and continue to seek His mercy. Those are the simple, uncomplicated things we talk about in my family — smile at others, be kind, when you see someone holding something and want to go through a door, hold it for them, that's an act of charity. Those little things count, and you don't know which one thing you do that pleases Him. We also remind ourselves of the story of the people of the cave, trapped in that cave, each pleading to Allah that this one thing I've done, use it to open this gate for us — and Allah did. We use all these examples as our own reminders, that when we do good, we can use that to hope for the best outcome."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Not everything is something we would understand. I remember, I lost one of my sisters in 2014 to cancer — she was a medical doctor, and I kept thinking, she was a medical doctor and yet she couldn't cure herself. No matter all the things she'd read, all the things she did, none of it was going to cure her from that cancer. That journey lasted about six years, and she passed at 24. Throughout that journey, it gave me the insight that regardless of the trial, you just put your trust in Allah. It's tough, it's difficult — I couldn't make sense of it, that a doctor couldn't cure herself — but looking back, Allah has said He will test us with life and death, and that really opened my eyes, my horizon, that regardless of who you are, you'll be tested, and regardless of whether you can make sense of it or not, you just put your trust in Allah. With that sadness came the fact that my mom had passed away just four years before my sister — that grief was still there, but carrying on with the hope that Allah has my back. Even if I have to sit down and cry for a moment, it's okay, because I know He has my back through this ordeal. I don't need to, like in my country, where people will say, oh, maybe someone did this to this person, maybe someone cursed them — no, there's no reason to navigate that when you have Allah. That's what allows for the sakeenah to get you through the test.\n\nAlhamdulillah, the grief is there all the time, but we always look back and say, alhamdulillah, she died as a believer, peace be with her."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "About the long run, I think it's just having that confidence and understanding that you're only answerable to Allah, not to humans. I always think, when it's time for Salah, and I'm scared that maybe if I try to pray something would happen to me, someone would attack me — which does happen — but I know that if I'm doing what pleases Allah, and He takes my soul at that point, I'll be happy, I'll have that sakeenah. When we're at the mall with my kids and it's time for salah, we try so hard to work our schedule around salah, but sometimes it does happen that we're still out shopping, and that's how it goes. I've taught my children, and led them by example — even at a funeral, we always have a prayer mat in our bag, and we go and pray, then continue whatever we're doing. Salah is our priority — if anything happens to us because we delayed too much, we'd find ourselves asking, why didn't I pray? Why didn't I pray on time? So to the best of my ability, me and my husband, we've tried to instill that in our children. Even when we're traveling and it's time for salah, we can combine our prayers — we find a place to stop, combine our salah, and continue the journey. Once salah time comes, you start to feel uneasy, you won't be at peace with yourself until you pray, because it's already part of you, and something that's part of you is hard to tear away, except if you put yourself in a community where Islam isn't practiced. So we navigate it so that our salah comes first — if we want to go out, we ask what time salah is coming, maybe we delay going out until after salah, or if it's a place where we know we won't be able to pray at all — like the airport — things have become much easier there too, you can find a place to pray now. Society has changed over time, and we're seeing that a lot of people see Muslims as just as good as them, or even better, and that's what we believe."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "This is in obedience to Allah — that's what Allah wants me to do. My wudu is my key to my salah, and my salah is my key to my hereafter. When you're praying, you're in total submission to your Creator, you're obeying Allah at that time, because that's what He ordained us to do — as it's said in scripture, He created us for nothing but to worship Him. So when that time of salah comes, what I'm thinking about is that this is related to Allah, and nothing else comes before Him. After that, Allah makes everything else easy — even the difficult things become easy, by His grace. Sometimes when I'm finding something very difficult — like I said, my day begins with tahajjud — I put it in front of Allah: make things easy for me, make this decision easy for me, the decision that's best for me. That's total submission to Allah, alhamdulillah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "It means everything to me, actually. It means my conformity to my religion — my dressing, my eating, my mingling, my whole life, because Islam is a way of life. Everything I'm doing — the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that your daily activities, if you have the right intention, can be an act of worship. If I'm going to find a means for my family to eat, a source of income, or cooking for my children, for my family to be healthy, to not go hungry — that's an act of worship, because it's what Allah wants us to do. Everything connects — when I give my children food, Allah has given us the sustenance and the ability to cook it, and it's all an act of worship. When you have that mindset, subhanAllah, even when you're feeling tired, that energy comes to you, because you know every day won't be a perfect day. Even the best of man, the Prophet ﷺ, said, I'm nothing but a man like you, I am not perfect, there's no perfection. So I don't work toward perfection, I work toward doing my best, and when I do my best, I know Allah takes care of the rest."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-011_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-011", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberation is knowing you're not answerable to anyone, you're not begging anyone for your sustenance. Maybe someone comes to you and says, if you don't practice your deen, I'll give you this much money, I'll give you this, I'll give you that — but you feel a great surge knowing you're not begging anyone for sustenance, that whatever little you have, putting your trust back in Allah, gives you that liberation. Especially with money — people feel that's the number one thing they're answerable to, that if I don't have it, I can't do this, I can't go. But if Allah's given me this, I can be happier than someone who has much more and has a lot of worries. Because the barakah is there — Allah puts the barakah in it — I can have one dollar and feel on top of the world, because I know my life is in His care, that He has my back in everything I'm doing. That's when I feel most liberated, every day, because when it comes to my daily activities, my husband trying to work according to company policy — but anything that's against our deen, we find a way to let his boss know, no, we don't practice this, I don't go for happy hour. I don't have to bend to your culture to have my Islam taken from me — I would not bend to that. I do the work, I can do what I need to do to take care of my family, but anything that crosses the line with my Islam, I go with my Islam, and I know Allah will take care of me, because I'm doing what He wants me to do."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "An ordinary day in my life: I'm a homemaker and a homeschooler mainly, and a mother of three. In my spare time I teach Halaqa, the Islamic study circle, and I teach Quran one-on-one. A regular day would be, after I wake up in the morning I do my morning worship and have breakfast. On school days I would drop off my oldest child, who is a college student, at the train station, then come back and either exercise or have breakfast, then wake up my third child, who is in middle school, so she can start her day — that would be homeschooling, or maybe we would go to a homeschooling co-op. If we come back before lunch, I give lunch too. I also have my father-in-law at home, so I give him lunch, or if we are gone the whole day I set his lunch out. By afternoon I do dinner prep, and dinner would be around before or after Maghrib. Most of my Quran one-on-one teaching is in the afternoon on some days. I guess that would be a typical day.\n\nHow else does faith show up in a given day? Well, first of all, there is all the compulsory ritual worship — the five prayers. In the morning I do extra; I'm trying to memorize Quran, so a lot of time is for that, and some other worship habits I'm trying to build — sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I'm still training myself to have those habits. A lot of it is because I teach Quran and have to prep for my halaqas, and then there's teaching my kids, especially my youngest. Faith is basically the center — I can't really answer that separately, because your life is faith, and everything else is because of your faith. My service for my family and my in-laws is all based on faith. I don't really see a dichotomy where faith shows up sometimes and doesn't show up other times."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would say that I'm somebody who believes in God and tries to center her (life on that). I guess somebody who's never met a Muslim woman would assume I'm not Muslim, so I would center tawhid first — that we believe in absolute monotheism, that our faith centers around God, and a Muslim woman would be somebody who — and that's why I wear the hijab, because it is an act of obeying God.\n\nThe Muslim community would be a community of people with diverse backgrounds. It would be a community that believes in one God and believes in the existence of the prophets and the holy books. I guess I would center it around the pillars of faith and what we believe, but then I would add that we're a diverse community with many backgrounds and cultures, and also different levels of understanding and different levels of practice."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "The community I'm part of right now — I would see myself as part of several communities. I'm in [CITY 1, STATE 1]; there's a mosque five minutes from me, so you could say I'm part of that community. I'm also originally [COUNTRY], so I'm part of the [COUNTRY] community in [CITY 2], which is further away, and I teach in a different masjid, so I see myself as part of that community too, although maybe a little loosely since I just teach there and I'm not there day to day or at their events. And I feel very much part of the [RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION] community because I attend the events regularly and I'm actively volunteering, so I consider myself part of all these communities.\n\nHow has it changed over time? My immediate community in [CITY 1] — when my kids were small and I first moved into this place, I was much more involved and much more regular; for example, I would attend every Jumu'ah, and I even started volunteering in the school based in that masjid and became a teacher there for about two years. When I stopped teaching, I still went there regularly, but as time went on I felt less connected to that community because there's a predominant culture there, and as a person who's not part of that culture, you feel it — you feel that you're not really seen. When the masjid leadership changed to a younger, more American-educated person who was more open to input from all communities and held events inviting community input, I got excited and active again. Then that new leadership was overturned by the older leadership, back to something that isn't exactly exclusive — nobody would say we're not open to other cultures, everything is technically open — but the atmosphere and feel of it is a kind of hidden, subtle exclusivity, I guess I can say that.\n\nI've been in this community as long as I've been married, since 2005, so twenty-one years. I'm an idealist, so I always say the masjid is Allah's house, and the ones running it are people, and people aren't going to be perfect. So I was very doggedly just attending, attending, attending. Some of my friends, especially those more born and bred here, even though they're part of that culture, moved away because they felt it was too cultural, but I'm the one who's not from that culture and I kept saying no, this is Allah's house, you focus on Allah's house, and Allah's house is maintained by believers. For almost two decades I tried not to let the atmosphere affect me, but I think I kind of gave up a little, especially when someone made a harsh comment about my daughter, who was in her early teens, about her wearing pants. That was a small thing, but she became masjid-averse, and that affected me. Then COVID came, and we were inside and didn't go for Jumu'ah at all, and when we could go back to the masjid, I had by then found [RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION], and that spiritual need was fulfilled by [RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION] — Alhamdulillah, it really fulfilled that spiritual need. My eagerness, my idealist drive to always go to the masjid, kind of waned. After COVID, I stopped going to my closest, local community masjid as much for Jumu'ah — I come now and then, depending on the events, but not as regularly as before. For taraweeh, I still come regularly out of love for it, but outside Ramadan I'm not as consistent as before. So that has changed.\n\nAs for my sense of myself as a Muslim woman — Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Yes, it's definitely changed since I started wearing the hijab in my mid-20s, and I can say that was my gate to Islam. Before that I practiced Islam more ritualistically and very inconsistently — if I felt like praying, I'd pray; if it was convenient, I'd pray; if not, I didn't. I led a lifestyle that didn't refer to Islam at all; I just followed what felt good, what I thought was good, and how [ETHNICITY] culture and society were, so that's what I followed. Hijab became my gateway into Islam, because hijab was the hardest thing for me to apply. I went back and forth for nine years after I found out it was compulsory, and once Allah allowed me and made it easy for me, everything else after that became easy. I would always check whether something was halal or not; Islam became my guidance. I started learning, taking classes, and all my remorse over my previous lifestyle and my gratitude that Allah allowed me to change propelled me forward. The learning is a lifelong thing. So the evolution has been more learning and being more careful about the deen. Knowledge-wise, Alhamdulillah, I've improved a lot — I'm almost fifty now and I wore hijab at twenty-six. But I have to point out that sincerity-wise it's a struggle, always a struggle. In the early days I would read Yasin and tears would just come; I remember long tahajjud with tears, and that's kind of my benchmark, because I remember how passionate and remorseful you are when you first come to it, like a new convert. So I try to remind myself that knowledge-wise I'm exponentially further along, but sincerity-wise it's always up and down, and I have to fight within myself, especially now that I'm in spaces where I'm teaching — I have to remind myself about sincerity, about not taking it for granted, and about not letting it affect me when people are very respectful toward me. I can't say how the evolution is sincerity-wise; I just ask Allah to accept it and help me, but I get scared because I remember how sincere I was in those early days. I try to stay aware of that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes, actually. When I first wore hijab I was in [STATE 2]; there was a masjid but no imam, so it was mostly from the internet. I remember reading the Quran, reading the ayah and right away reading the translation, and over the course of two years or so I became very familiar with Arabic and started noticing the root patterns — this means the same thing but the word is different, and then you see the letters are the same. It was very much self-taught. The masjid had a small library; people left cassettes there and I would listen to all of them. I printed out Q&As from the internet and that's how I learned. There was also a halaqa taught by an auntie, going through a tafsir book, though it wasn't as structured — that was also part of it.\n\nWhen I moved to [CITY 2], things opened up for me — I found out there's a word-for-word translation, which was what I'd been doing all along by hand. I went to more classes, [ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTE 1], and online institutes like [ONLINE ISLAMIC INSTITUTE 1]. I should also mention there's an organization for [ETHNICITY] Muslims in America with regular halaqas, and a phone halaqa program I started around 2004 that I'm still part of — they were very instrumental in my early days. I would go to [ISLAMIC EDUCATION INSTITUTE 1] seminars when they came to [CITY 2], and I stumbled on a Quran institute while trying to memorize Quran after my parents passed away, because I wanted to do something for them. That memorization program didn't stick at first because my kids were smaller and I couldn't keep up, but I later found a Quran institute that taught tajweed and qira'at, and Alhamdulillah I got an ijazah from them. Then I found [RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION]. From the qira'at program I realized that if you really want credibility, you have to go through a structured system — halaqas are good for spiritual maintenance, but a structured program gives you a foundation, a chain of teaching you can point to, even though there are different opinions, say, on pronunciation. I looked for an Alimah program, but I'm Shafi'i and most online programs were Hanafi. I tried one program that wasn't very organized, then I Googled a Shafi'i Alimah program online and found [RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION], which is very organized, Mashallah, so I stuck with it. In my [ETHNICITY] community I'd somehow gotten invitations to teach, even though my knowledge was just from halaqas — the [ETHNICITY] community in [CITY 2] is small, and there aren't alimahs the way there are in the Desi community, so I felt a responsibility to be in a more serious, structured program, which is why I sought out the Alimah program. I didn't leave other institutes, but [RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION] became my main place of learning."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Hijab is tied to my conversion story. I have to go back to my family — my parents. My father was gentle and soft, and we would organically pray together, but he never presented it as Islamic rules; we just prayed together. He was a diplomat, so we moved to different countries, and in every small [ETHNICITY] community we found ourselves in, he basically became the imam, even though he wasn't traditionally educated, just well-read and devout. It was never presented as rules. I remember being maybe seven or eight, him taking me to an outdoor restaurant at night, his face against the night sky full of stars, talking about Allah — I don't remember what he said, but I remember the feeling of awe. That was Islam for me.\n\nThen I went to college in [COUNTRY], and the campus had a very strong Islamic movement and Da'wah movement, where the tangible benchmark of a successful da'wah was getting someone who didn't wear hijab to wear it. I was a rebel, and that approach didn't work on me — I reacted the opposite way, thinking, you think I'm a bad Muslim because I don't wear hijab? Fine, I'll color my hair purple. I still wanted to be spiritual, though, so I looked for a halaqa outside my campus, and I found one that turned out to be a misguided sect, almost a cult, actually banned by the government — they wanted a bay'ah (pledge) before moving to a new topic, and I refused, being the rebel that I am. A classmate I trusted helped me realize what it was, and I asked her to teach me instead, treating me as someone starting completely from zero. When we got to the topic of hijab I got stuck, because I realized that practicing Islam truly meant changing my lifestyle — and at the time my lifestyle was very un-Islamic; even my boyfriend used to drive me to these lessons. I wasn't ready, and I put religion in the back of my mind after I graduated and moved to Austria.\n\nThen I moved to the US, and September 11 happened, and people started talking very badly about Islam — I was shocked, because I thought Americans were open-minded and advanced, and yet they couldn't see that religion is sacred. Around that time, a white convert who had taken off her hijab was staying with my roommate and me while she tried to get back on her feet and find work in that post-9/11 atmosphere. In my heart I protested — she was already there, already a Muslim, already someone who could show people Islam wasn't backward, and she was giving it up. That made me turn inward and ask, what about me? I'm educated too, and I do believe Islam is true. I started rethinking hijab and Islam. One day I decided to wear it, and then I had a kind of breakdown, because it had been nine years since I first learned hijab was compulsory back on my campus at seventeen or eighteen, and now I was twenty-six in [STATE 2]. I always thought that once I wanted to do it, I'd be able to. So when I wore it and then physically couldn't leave my apartment, I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with me. I called my dad, who said it seemed like this had been on my mind a long time, and asked how my salah was; I said it was fine, I prayed. He told me to improve my salah, not to get angry, and if I found my mind going blank with nothing to think about, to do dhikr instead. I later realized that was like tazkiyah — my mind had accepted hijab, but my heart needed to be purified.\n\nA few months later I went to the masjid, where I would always wear a loose hijab just for the visit. Driving back one day I thought, maybe I'll start wearing it properly in Ramadan — then I thought, how do I know I'll live through Ramadan? So as I was driving I thought, I'm wearing a hijab now, I just won't take it off again. And it was so easy, Alhamdulillah — that's Allah. From then on everything was easy; I stopped playing music in the car, and there was a thirst to learn everything I could. That's why I collected all the cassettes from the masjid. I became remorseful about my past lifestyle and became active in the community, volunteering in the Sunday school of that masjid in [STATE 2], and I realized I loved teaching. I changed my focus toward studying Islam and becoming a teacher. So hijab was the gate. It's very important to me because it took nine years, and I could have died in that time — I put myself in so many reckless situations, like wanting to try drag racing, going out with guys I didn't really know. Now that I have kids, I think, I was such a fool.\n\nThat nine years, from realizing hijab was mandatory to actually wearing it, Allah just got me to that point — Alhamdulillah. Hijab is very special to me because it's my gate to Islam, and I try to be mindful with women who don't wear it, because I remember what it felt like to be pushed and judged before I was ready. It can come at any point in someone's journey toward Allah, but for me it was really my gate, the hardest thing to submit to, so being able to do it is very special. Thank you for this interview, honestly, for reminding me how special it is."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Yes, definitely. I've had people ask me, did your dad tell you to wear it? And I just laugh, because my dad never told me to. It's a common misunderstanding — the internet gives people the perception that you're oppressed. But I feel like now it's much better."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I haven't had that kind of direct question in a while — that was mostly early on, in my twenties. Especially here in [CITY 2], because it's so diverse, people are used to Muslims, but the encounters are more subtle now — like being in a grocery store and noticing a woman looking at me, clearly scared. I just smile and try to be friendly, though I do feel a pressure, when I'm out, to be more agreeable no matter how I'm actually feeling — though you don't want to fake it either. As a hijabi you're conscious of things — I'll always put my cart back where it belongs, even if I've parked far away, because I'm aware someone might see me and think, look at that Muslim woman not following the rules. I remember once talking to a white, non-Muslim friend about an issue I'd had, and she said, if it were me I'd just complain. I went quiet, and later I realized I hadn't complained because I'm a hijabi and I don't want to seem disagreeable in public. That used to weigh on me — you feel like you have to act nicely, be agreeable, because you assume people don't understand you or might be prejudiced, which I don't like, because then you're defeating yourself by assuming the worst. But I think somewhere in my forties you just stop caring so much what people think in general, so I feel freer now. I still act the way I should, but it doesn't weigh on me the way it used to."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I didn't relate what I described to \"the community\" so much as to myself. At the local masjid I've weaned myself away from, their approach to women is really based on their culture. When I'm in that community, I do feel there's an expectation for women to be a certain way — for example, at iftar, you can feel the men get preference in how food is distributed; if there's a limited amount and a lot of people, the men tend to get the better portion. My mother-in-law, who's also from outside that culture, and other women who aren't from it, would look at each other, because we feel it, whereas the women from that culture just accept it since that's what they're used to. In [ETHNICITY] culture it's not like that — it's equal, or sometimes women even go first.\n\nAt another masjid with that same predominant culture, I was there with my homeschooling kids and it got a little noisy, and someone behind the curtain shushed us rudely — you don't find that at the [ETHNICITY] masjid, which doesn't even really have a partition, just a low, loose one. At an iftar there, the women were cleaning up and laughing about something, and women from another culture started taking pictures of them, asking why. My son, who hadn't been to the [ETHNICITY] masjid in a while, noticed on the drive home how different it was — that the women were noisy, but nobody shushed them. It made me realize the women are really the engine of a community, and that the women taking pictures were probably struck by how joyful and free the [ETHNICITY] women seemed. I don't want to say one culture is better, but I do notice the difference in expectation as I move between communities — in that other community, women are expected to conform and just take it, and maybe they're used to it, so it doesn't register to them as repressive, but from my outside vantage point it can feel a little repressive. At one meeting about Ramadan that included some girls and women, the man leading it spoke in a way I found condescending toward the girls, and the girls themselves just stayed quiet and seemed okay with it. That worried me, especially for a girl who is also American — I wondered, what happens when they meet men outside the community who talk to them respectfully and sweetly; will they be too easily swayed because they're used to being talked down to at home?\n\nI don't want to throw my brothers and sisters under the bus by saying \"it's the culture, not Islam\" to outsiders, because that's still my community, even when I've been to a masjid where the women's section is small and dingy, or the carpet isn't nice. I remember once, when I was working at that masjid school, we planned a bake sale where the teachers would run the table, and the masjid board said they didn't want the sisters standing out there selling — not wanting to put them on display, which felt disrespectful from where I stood, though I tried to understand it might be a different notion of respect from their point of view. Islam does teach respect for women, but the practicality of it passes through the prism of culture and comes out in different colors. I try to look at it that way, to empathize rather than think badly of others, but after two decades here I do sometimes feel a resentment toward this predominant culture, because it's become so dominant in the Muslim American sphere, and there are a lot of masjids like that — I think it's partly because back home, women don't go to the masjid, so there was never a need for a bigger space. As an [ETHNICITY], a minority within the American Muslim experience, I sometimes feel resentment, especially when I read that \"Islam is oppressive to women\" — no, it isn't; it's just different cultural ways of doing things. Sorry, this became a bit of a rant.\n\nAs for external expectations — meaning from non-Muslims — I try not to think about it too much, but let me give an example. In my late twenties, in [STATE 2], I entered a graduate research competition and won second place, already wearing hijab. When I received the award, a woman told me, you should be really proud of yourself. I smiled, but later I wondered why she said that — it seemed harmless, but there was something in it. I realized it was probably because I'm hijabi, and she assumed my faith was oppressive, so my succeeding defied her expectations, like I was somehow out of the norm. So maybe that's the external expectation — that when you succeed, it surprises people because of how they view us."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "My parents passed away about seventeen years ago, on the same day, and that was one of the biggest difficulties I can recall. How I made sense of it goes back to our belief that there's a decreed time written for each of us — there's no way around it. That's how I accepted it, though it was still painful and sad. Looking back, I feel it was humbling, because I realized I had subconsciously been treating my parents as a kind of backup plan — I married someone outside my own culture, and when they died I felt a sense of loss like a safety net had been pulled out from under me. I wondered why I felt that so acutely, and realized I'd been relying on them in a way that meant my reliance on Allah wasn't as complete as I thought. I might have gone through life thinking I was a good Muslim without ever recognizing that gap. Their passing made me realize that and, in a way, made me stronger — it pushed me toward wanting to do hifz for them and toward deeper Quran study. So the answer, again, is that I went back to my faith, trusting that it was Allah's will, and over time came to see it as something that was ultimately better for my iman — and certainly better for them, since neither of them suffered a long, difficult old age; my dad was sixty-two and my mom was fifty-seven or fifty-eight.\n\nThere's a hadith that your parents are crowned on the Day of Judgment (through good deeds like memorizing Quran on their behalf), and that became a big motivation for me. In the worldly sense, I felt like I hadn't done much for them — I finished my master's, worked a little, got married, had kids, and didn't really work after that — so I thought maybe I could present this for them, inshallah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "I feel responsible for my kids. There's also a duty to myself. If I said only my husband, I wouldn't be being truthful — I feel more like an equal there, not really \"responsible for\" him. I owe it to myself to try to do well in this world and to be safe in the Akhirah. So I try, as much as I can, to make choices that wouldn't jeopardize my Akhirah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I'm responsible for my family. There's a kind of balance, though — when I was taking a halaqa from my [ETHNICITY] teacher, she said we have a little responsibility to everyone: you're responsible for your family, yes, but you also have some responsibility to your community, and you should contribute what you can in your capacity. My husband is from a different culture than mine, and in the beginning there was a bit of a clash, because in his culture the expectation is more that family comes first and everything else is extra. He's since become more flexible about it. I'm someone who feels that if you wait for the house to be perfectly clean before doing anything else, you'll never get anywhere, because the house never ends. So I follow my [ETHNICITY] teacher's approach — she's understanding, Mashallah; when a halaqa runs a little longer, the women will say, okay, let's end now, because they know the husbands might not be as patient. Back in [STATE 2], the [ETHNICITY] women in a room upstairs would take their time at events, but you'd see the husbands tap the steel stair railing with their keys to call their wives down, and whichever wife's husband it was would go running. We were more relaxed about it, I suppose. Sorry, I don't mean to make this about one culture versus another; it just comes up.\n\nFor instance, when I was younger and talking to a brother — someone other than my husband — from a certain culture, I asked a friend from that same culture to help me, maybe teach me a dish so I'd have something to talk to him about. She asked, why would you consider him? Your women are more free. I didn't understand what she meant at the time, being young, but with more experience I came to understand it. I've heard similar comments since, from friends about Southeast Asian men in general — that they're less rigid about domestic roles — though I also know plenty of men from that other culture who are loving, gentle, and exactly how I'd expect a good man to be. I know it's a stereotype, and it's probably unfair to the men who aren't like that, but that's the impression that's out there.\n\nAs for my role in the wider community: I feel I have some responsibility to it, so when I'm invited to speak or teach, I try to make it work, fitting it in around my family without waiting for everything else to be finished first, because if everyone only looked out for their own family first, the community itself would suffer. It's a together thing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "Between Islam and America — if America needs Islam, it definitely needs Islam. All the ills you see in society — the unhappiness, the pressure on women to look a certain way, where appearance determines how people treat you and how successful you are — hijab takes that pressure away. It's not about your looks, it's about your character and conduct. I feel Islam is an answer to a lot of the ills of our society, but the society doesn't want it — it's a Judeo-Christian society, after all — though I think the more open-minded non-Muslim Americans become, the more they learn and, inshallah, the more they might see the good Islam can bring. So the relationship is kind of love-hate: America needs Islam, but America doesn't want Islam, or parts of it think they already know what Islam is and don't want it. I guess it's up to us as Muslims to conduct ourselves in a way that people can see the beauty of Islam."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "That time in the grocery store, when an elderly woman was looking at me and I saw so much fear on her face — that wasn't right after 9/11 at all; it happened much more recently, here."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Subhanallah, that's everything. It's everything. That's all I could say."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "When something is beyond my control, I understand it as something Allah has allowed at that time. Even though it's painful or very hard, I surrender to it, accept that I don't understand it, and surrender."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "What matters most is that we're free to practice, and respected for the way we practice — that matters to me. Alhamdulillah, I feel better about that now than I once did.\n\nIf I could change something for the future, for my kids and grandkids, it would be the prevalence of Western culture's push toward just going after what you feel like, what you desire in the moment — I don't want to call it godlessness exactly, but there's a strong sense of chasing desire without restraint. That doesn't really align with Islam, where you can express yourself, but within a framework of what pleases Allah. I wish there were less of that pressure on kids and youth, though I don't know how you change something so built into the society."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Yes, of course. My intention — I try to keep Allah at the center of it. Who am I really doing it for, or policing myself for? That's the question I try to keep in mind."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah means letting go, understanding that Allah is Al-Hakim, the most wise, in everything, including his timing and the things he allows to happen — that even when you don't understand something, or even feel an aversion to it, you surrender to Allah, trusting there's something good in it, or that this is simply the way of the world. It means accepting things that happen, including things that cause you pain or sadness, and letting go of the idea that you know what's best. That's what submission to Allah means to me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-012_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-012", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I feel most liberated when I practice, because then you're focused on one thing, instead of being affected by what people think or say. When you practice, it's not about what people think, it's about Allah, and that's very liberating — who cares? Homeschooling is a good example — it goes against the grain, but my first motivation was raising my kids with Islam in mind, and centering on Allah, trusting this is a gift and a trust from Him, makes it not matter what people think about homeschooling. Or with hijab, or even just getting ready to go somewhere — I used to spend so long choosing clothes and putting on makeup, wondering who I was trying to impress, and realizing modesty means not needing that. That became liberating too — not caring what people think, because you care what Allah thinks, becomes freeing. I'm not saying you stop caring about people entirely, but when the focus on Allah takes over, that's liberating."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Right now I work from home, so an ordinary day would be getting up around Fajr, doing my morning adhkar, a simple morning routine, and then logging into work from home. Usually after work I have either masjid events I attend or social gatherings I like to attend, just to keep myself out of the house for some time.\n\nI do try to maintain consistent reading of the Quran. It's not a set number of pages every day, but I try to incorporate it in some way, whether that's Surah Al-Waqi'ah after Salat al-Maghrib or Surah Al-Mulk after Salat al-Isha. There are also portions of the Quran already incorporated in the morning and evening adhkar."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would describe myself as someone who is considerate, open-minded in the sense of not discriminating based on how someone looks, and just willing to help. My community would say that I show up — I'm pretty loyal to my commitments; when I say I'll organize an event or volunteer or show up somewhere, I keep my word.\n\nMy community itself is open. We are very warm hosts and we love to feed people — food is our love language, so anyone new to our community will get to see that firsthand for sure."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've been born and raised in America, in [STATE 1], for about fifteen years. I'd say I was raised in a bit of a bubble — surrounded by Muslims in my social circle, and in school too, since I was fortunate enough to attend Islamic private school. As time went on and I switched to public high school and then university, where there are people from all walks of life, it made me realize I am different from my community, but there are a lot more similarities than differences between me and my peers. So although I have to follow my religion based on what I think is right, that doesn't really affect my social interactions with people who aren't similar to me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I do seek religious knowledge actively. I just finished a two-year program at my local masjid, and I'm currently learning tafsir through my local masjid's imam's wife. She's kind of the teacher for the entire sister side, so I turn to her for any questions or fatwas."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Hijab has always been present in my life. I was in Islamic private school, so it was part of our uniform, so transitioning from wearing it exclusively for uniform to wearing it full time was, Alhamdulillah, not at all difficult, because I was already used to it — it was just natural to wear it to the grocery store, for example. What does it do for me? I feel there's a level of inherent respect most of the time when I'm out in public around a majority of non-Muslims. I think there's a sense of modesty and boundaries that my hijab easily portrays to other people, so they understand I'm not one to mess with, for lack of a better phrase. Alhamdulillah, it has given me a layer of protection that I didn't fully realize until I had the hindsight to see it. There have also been unfortunate moments — hostile glares, or a clear difference in customer service, for example — but alhamdulillah, nothing major, so overall it has acted as a protector for me.\n\nI officially started wearing it full time everywhere in middle school. In late high school, when I joined public high school, I came to understand that I chose to stick to the version I believe is right not just because I was constantly surrounded by it, or because my mom wears it, but because of the knowledge I sought out and the reasoning behind the commandment, and because I'd seen firsthand the protection it provides me in everyday life. So based on my experiences, knowledge, and introspection, I came to an internal decision that this is right for me, even though I had already been wearing it before reaching that decision. My schooling was a combination — elementary, middle school, and the beginning of high school was Islamic school, and then I transferred to public high school partway through."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I think to the common person there's an obvious misunderstanding — that this is forced on me, that I'm oppressed, that if I didn't wear it my dad would hit me or something. That's pretty common, I think, because the word \"freedom\" when it comes to wearing anything tends to lean toward one definition rather than the other. In America, as the years have gone by, the freedom to let a woman wear whatever she wants usually tends to mean she can show however much of her body she wants, but when it comes to the other end — covering up however much she wants — that's not seen as part of the definition of freedom; anything more than usual is deemed as something that must have been forced on her, that it can't be her choice. So I think that's a lack of understanding from the general public."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "There were a couple of times, especially during COVID when I was in college and we were all wearing masks, when I was ordering coffee and there was this inherent bias that I wasn't able to speak English, so the barista would start showing me cup sizes with their hands — \"this is small, are you okay with small, or do you want medium\" — like a side-by-side demonstration. I'd just say, I can speak, and they'd be taken aback. That happened a couple of times. Honestly, I just took it as a humorous incident. I don't try to look too deeply into it, especially when there was no negative reaction afterward — I'd say maybe it was an honest mistake, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "When I was graduating college, I had a difficult time finding a job. The job market was pretty bad at that time, and honestly still is. I was seeing people around me get a lot of offers, but at companies I didn't feel comfortable being part of. I ended up getting a position on campus at the school where I studied, which worked out in my favor, but during graduation, when everyone was talking about where they were heading next, I didn't really have an answer, and I felt kind of singled out in those conversations. I had to sit back and realize this was my test — was I willing to overlook certain company policies just for the sake of money or a title right after graduation, or was I willing to wait and see what God had planned for me? That time was pretty difficult.\n\nThis was around the time of the Palestinian conflict, when everyone was starting to realize where these countries even are and what history has to say about these events, and it was becoming clear who held which stance. Some companies were so blatant that it would have felt like a betrayal to myself as a Muslim to become part of them — whether defense companies or companies actively providing financial support to causes I don't think should be receiving that support. I tried my best to avoid those blatant betrayals of myself — of whether I'd be able to earn income from that, eat food bought with that money, live somewhere bought with that money, and tell myself that was correct."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Of course, yes, a lot. The first thing that comes to mind is obviously wearing hijab a certain way, talking in a certain way, choosing certain fields of work and study — just this common trajectory of going to school and then immediately getting married and immediately starting a family. At least in my community I see that as a prominent factor; if someone over a certain age is still in college, still pursuing her education, or working in a career that doesn't leave room for a family yet, it's seen as her missing out, or not following the script.\n\nWhen it comes to internal difficulties tied to hijab: when visiting places where I know diversity isn't present, I would internally tell myself not to be loud, verbally or physically — to be very pleasant with whoever I was talking to, take care of my own things, and not rely on people. For example, I visited a state that doesn't have many Muslims or immigrants, and it was pretty clear in convenience stores and restaurants that service workers were already uncomfortable seeing a woman in hijab. So I put an expectation on myself — if they got my order wrong, for example, I wouldn't call them back to fix it the way I would at home in [STATE 1], where diversity is present. There I would just take it as it is, try not to be the cause of anyone's inconvenience, and stay on the quieter side — meaning not calling back or sending food back, not constantly asking where something is when I could just look for it myself. I wouldn't say this resolved anything, really — it just prevented friction, in the sense that I could at least tell myself I wasn't causing anyone inconvenience or making them go out of their way for me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My parents. A lot of the time, when it comes to structuring and scheduling my day, or looking at the events I'm going to or the people I'm spending time with, there's this internal dialogue of, will they be okay with that? They know all my friends, and I feel this inherent responsibility to make sure they're never displeased with me, so they always know where I'm going and who I'm with. It's simply because there's a strong emphasis in our religion on this — displeasing your parents, in some sense, is displeasing God — and I want to make sure that's never the case for me. If that means constantly telling them where I'm going or who I'm with, that's totally fine by me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I'm the eldest, so I have this inherent responsibility to make sure everyone's needs are taken care of — if my mom needs to go somewhere, I'm going with her; if my dad needs an appointment made or something done, I try to make sure that's taken care of. Beyond that, just making sure errands run smoothly and no one has any major issues that need attention.\n\nWithin my community — we've had a smaller batch graduate from the Islamic course I mentioned earlier, and we've been kind of involuntarily, but happily, recruited by our masjid to serve as the face of the next generation — leading youth events, teaching semester-long fiqh classes, and so on, since we've been given certification to do so. We're kind of the go-to people in our generation for that. So I feel a sense of responsibility to make sure the kids in elementary and middle school at least know someone closer to their age they can reach out to with religious questions."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Belonging is a pretty loaded question, but I'd say it means I personally don't feel like I need to keep moving. When I was visiting that other state I mentioned, I noticed I was internally always on the go, but in [STATE 1] I feel like I don't have to go anywhere — I can stay, mingle with people, and I don't have too many people questioning me. I'm just part of the background, essentially. That comes from my everyday experiences and interactions with all sorts of people, Muslim and non-Muslim, here.\n\nIn that other state, the first obvious thing was the staring — that struck me immediately — followed by curtness in replies, or just an unwillingness to help out. In a restaurant in [STATE 1], a server usually keeps an eye on their section and is willing to check on you, but in that state it wasn't the case; I'd even say we were being ignored and pushed to the side, with no one really willing to reach out and make sure we were okay or needed anything."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "It has its pros and cons. The religious freedom here in the West lets us follow the religion in a way that makes us comfortable, whether or not that's \"right\" is a different conversation — in other places, people trying to enforce religion do it in a way that doesn't conform to everyone's lifestyle. The trade-off is that it's sometimes a topic of conversation in certain gatherings — like at the library, someone asking why I actually wear the hijab, or whether I can really not eat pork, some of the more common questions.\n\nHonestly, it makes me feel happy most of the time, because I give people the benefit of the doubt that it's coming from genuine curiosity rather than a way to dissect or validate their views on Islam. I like seeing the recognition on people's faces when they hear about the commonalities in our religions — that Mary also covered her hair, for instance, or that pork isn't allowed in some other religions either, and they see that common ground. I really enjoy it; it doesn't make me uncomfortable, though I think it takes reading your gut feeling and the intention of the person asking. If someone had malice in their heart, I imagine it would be best not to engage."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "I'd lean toward no."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "This reminds me of a quote — the summer heat is hot, but Jahannam is hotter — so we really have to stick to what we know is right, straighten our intentions, and hope that Allah accepts us. I've seen people struggle with the idea of living comfortably in the West, but especially after seeing the Palestinians suffer, I've come to this realization that Islam is Islam — we know what's right and wrong, and we can't try to conform it to fit other people's insecurities, because we'll have to answer for every single action in the next life. Just imagining having to answer for what I'm doing right now scares me, so I try to follow whatever I can."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "A few years ago, I would have thought it was a punishment for my sins. But I'm starting to realize that a lot of the time our experiences or difficulties are either a means of protection or Allah's way of making sure we stick to the right path and don't falter over something small. A lot of the time, once it passes, we realize in hindsight that we got through it, and that we're stronger than we think we are."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "Safety. Although prayer is important, especially as a Muslim woman, we're told that if, say, Maghrib starts while I'm driving on the highway, it's not a smart idea to pull over and pray on the road, because you never know who else is driving, and when we pray we're not in full awareness of our surroundings, so the concern is safety, both mine and that of the people around me. When it comes to practicing, I make sure it's not somewhere I'm truly visible — in college, I'd usually find an empty conference room, or some corner that didn't make me stand out, mostly for my own safety rather than to avoid making someone else uncomfortable.\n\nBesides Salah, dress matters, obviously, and making sure what I eat is halal, which can be difficult sometimes."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "A lot of the time it's become muscle memory, but there are moments — especially in Ramadan, or during the ten days for Hajj — when I'm physically putting the hijab on in front of the mirror and I have to stop and remind myself that my intention in wearing it isn't just habit, it's that I'm trying to please Allah and that this is an act of worship, and I make the du'a that Allah accepts whatever I'm doing. It's unfortunately not an everyday practice for me — that's a personal weakness — but it does show up at certain points."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah simply means following whatever He said, without misconstruing it to make it fit your daily life — the key word is misconstruing, rather than making it fit. For example, we're always told to pray at the earliest time, but sometimes that's literally not possible, like when you're traveling on a plane or a train, and if you have to wait a little to pray, that's okay. But misconstruing would be something like saying interest is actually fine because it's everywhere in this country. So to me, submission to Allah means knowing what's absolutely wrong, making sure you stay away from that, and trying to live the rest of your life according to what He said is good."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-013_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-013", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberation, to me, is the personal freedom to practice Islam. Alhamdulillah, for most of my life I've been in a state where I can wear hijab, or even wear the abaya to university, and the next day wear jeans, and no one is going to scold me or attack me for that personal choice."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "I wake up in the morning for the Fajr prayer — right now that's around 4 a.m. Then I go back to sleep after praying, and I wake up again to go to work. Right now I work at a private practice; I'm a physician, so I see patients for consultations. I have a short break between 1 and 2 p.m., though I'm usually running late, so it's closer to 2 p.m. when I end my morning consultations, around the same time as the Dhuhr prayer, so I eat and pray, then start the afternoon consultations again, and usually finish after 6 p.m. and go home."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "There is no single Muslim woman — there are as many different Muslim women as there are women in general — but Muslim women are supposed to be helpful, kind, respectful, and shy; these are values they're supposed to hold, among others.\n\nAs for my community: they are awesome. I don't think there's just one community — here in France alone there are many — but we are supposed to take care of each other like a family, like members of one family caring for one another. That idea comes from the recommendation we get from our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him; it's one of his teachings."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've always lived here. As for how my sense of myself as a Muslim woman has changed — I feel a responsibility to show good values, to show, not exactly \"excellence,\" but the best version of a human being, so that when people look at me, they see only good things. That's important to give a good vision of Islam; I feel we should all be examples for others who don't know Islam — women and men both, but because women who wear hijab are more recognizable, we carry more of that responsibility. It's a feeling I've had — for example, during (medical) school there was a voice in my head telling me that because I wear hijab, I have to be better than the others. I couldn't be a bad doctor; I had to be a good one, so I had to study more, learn more than others, so I would have the right answer and set a good example — not particularly about Islam, but in general, during (medical) school, around scholarship and academics."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "Yes, certainly. First of all, I had to take off my hijab when I was a student, whenever I went to school or the hospital. When I was a student, and also during my five years of work after my diploma, hijab was forbidden in the hospital, so I had to take it off every time I entered and put it back on when I left. That job was mandatory for me to get experience, so I had no other choice but to go to the hospital, and I felt I had no other choice but to take it off. I would take it off in my car, in the parking lot, before going in. That's hard — at first you completely disapprove, and you feel obliged to do something you don't want to do; you feel treated like some kind of criminal, like you're doing something wrong when you're not. You also feel that they don't want the full you, just a part of you.\n\nIt's enforced with pictures — like signs showing it's forbidden, clearly written. If you don't comply, there have been many problems for sisters who wanted to keep it anyway — some couldn't work, couldn't go to school, lost their job. There's a recent story of one who had received scholarship money for her studies, and since she didn't want to take off her hijab, they dismissed her from the hospital, and she had to return all the money, for something like four years of study."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes. I seek it through an online institute — I take classes on weekdays."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I started when I was twenty. I was born into a Muslim family — my mother always wore the hijab, so it was natural for me to wear it eventually; it was just a question of when the right time was. After medical college, I decided to put it on — I had moved cities at that point, to the south of France for three years, so it was like starting a new life, and I started wearing it there. I already knew the French law about hijab when I put it on: it was strictly forbidden in high school, not forbidden in university, but forbidden in the hospital, so I knew I would have to accommodate that. I knew it was temporary — just for a time, to get my diplomas, and then afterward I would do what I wanted, and that's what I did.\n\nSomething is still missing, though, because I left the hospital, a place I really liked working — now I'm in private practice, but I loved working at the hospital and I left because of the hijab restriction, so they lost a doctor who wanted to stay, and I lost a team I liked. I did decide to leave because I couldn't wear my hijab there. In my private practice now, I am able to wear a form of hijab inside — not exactly a scarf like this, more like a small cap; I don't know quite how to describe it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I don't know if people understand anything — they just assume what they hear from politics and the media, that Muslim women are obliged to wear it, that it's not their choice, and that it's the opposite of freedom for women. I think that's what they think when they see a hijabi — not most people, but people who don't live around Muslims. There are places in France with very few Muslims, and I think that's the feeling there."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "It's not so much about Muslim women in general as about the hijab specifically — I've heard that I'm foolish, that it's not my choice, that I'm siding with women being dominated by men, that kind of thing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_did_wearing_hijab_change_people_s_interactions", "question": "HOW DID WEARING HIJAB CHANGE PEOPLE'S INTERACTIONS WITH YOU?", "answer": "In high school, before I wore hijab, my life felt normal, like anyone else's — even now I feel I have a normal life like anyone. But the interactions did change: I felt more isolated after I started wearing the hijab than before. People don't come to you as easily as they did before."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Racism is part of this too. In high school, before I wore hijab, I still felt racism from my teachers and the school administration. They didn't want me to pursue medical school; they pushed me toward literature instead, insisting a lot, because my grades were better in literature than in science — though not catastrophically different. I'm sure that if I hadn't been Arab, things would have gone differently. One teacher told me plainly, are you serious, you will never be able to do medical school, just forget about it, and called my house many times. They had a plan for me to go study literature in Belgium and then possibly transfer to medical school there. My mother, who wears hijab, didn't want the principal to see her and put even more pressure on me because of it, so she sent my father instead.\n\nThere were so many stories like mine, of children from North African or Arab immigrant families being steered away from higher study and toward something more like a trade, rather than being guided toward what was actually best for them. When I asked directly, they didn't hide it — they told parents plainly that it was better for their son or daughter to go a certain route instead."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__has_wearing_hijab_created_barriers_in_education_or", "question": "HAS WEARING HIJAB CREATED BARRIERS IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT?", "answer": "The admission process is through a website where you list your choices; back when I applied, there was no in-person meeting — it was based on high school grades and recommendations, not a physical interview. I believe that's changed now, and there is an interview process today. I honestly don't know of any case of a hijab-wearing Muslim woman applying to medical school and being able to attend that interview wearing hijab — it's a recent change, and I just don't know."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I don't know that it's about the community so much as internal expectations — from myself and my family, more than from the whole community. We come from immigration, an economic exile, so there's an expectation that we should build a better life than our parents and the first generation had after leaving their countries. When it comes to religion, my family transmitted it to me and expects me to grow in it.\n\nAs for expectations from the broader French society: there are certainly some. They expect Muslim women to be visible and engaged in society, in teaching, medicine, law, so we're not left on the margins, so we can help each other and build ourselves up. But there's also a different expectation from the non-Muslim French community — they tend to favor Muslims who aren't very practicing, who might drink at parties with colleagues, or otherwise seem \"integrated,\" or really, assimilated. I don't know if that's an expectation aimed specifically at Muslim women, but that's the general pattern. It's really associated with immigrants more broadly — since a lot of immigration here is from North Africa, and most of those immigrants are Muslim, and Africans generally are Muslim too, so when people say \"immigrant,\" they often mean \"Muslim.\""}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "It depends on whether a decision affects my family or is personal — if it's about the community, I'm responsible to the community; if it's personal, it's for myself and my family. I don't know if this is a good answer, but I'd say you have to have a good intention, and the outcome should be good — not to hurt anyone. That's the important thing, I think."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "The role is the same in the family and in the community — to be present, to help others, not to hurt them, and to set a good example."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Belonging means being part of something. When you're part of a community or a family, you have to be present, to interact with others in a good way, to set a good example, to help others in need, and, when you're in need yourself, to be able to expect that same support from someone in your group.\n\nYes, I belong in France — because the story of my family is bound up with the story of France. We didn't choose that, but that's how it is, so yes, I belong. But I don't feel treated like every other French citizen; I don't feel my place is quite equal to (that of) other citizens, even though I do think my place is in France. It's not exactly the same story as my family's, but a mixed one — because of the colonization of my country, my family ended up in exile here, which is why there are so many North African immigrants in France, and that's why we belong here too."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "I'm not sure the French, ethnically French people, see me as French. On paper we have the same rights, but in daily life we don't feel that we have the same rights — we can't rise as high as we'd like; mosques are closing, Muslim schools are closing, we can't go swimming because they won't accept burkinis or separate swimming times for women. It's not a huge thing on its own, but it still signals that you're not treated like any other French citizen."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "Alhamdulillah, there are still many ways to learn about the religion here — you can go to mosques, gather with other Muslims, sit and learn Quran at the mosque. There are many things you're free to do in France, one hundred percent, and probably worse elsewhere, so there are good things too — many French imams you can learn from, ways to travel and learn about your religion. But the more time passes, the more restrictions there are — like I said, Muslim schools are being closed because they're accused of \"separatism,\" meaning that going to a Muslim school is treated as separating your life from society, wanting to stay only among Muslims, and that's forbidden, so they close the schools. There was also the controversy around the abaya — they stopped girls in school from wearing long dresses, even dresses that weren't technically an abaya; if you looked Arab, or like an immigrant, or Muslim, and wore a long dress, you couldn't enter the school. That law was around 2003 or so. There was also a recent law about the surgical cap some Muslim staff wear in hospitals — a nurse was dismissed from her job for wearing one, and there was another case of a non-Muslim woman who had a hair-related medical issue and was asked to produce a certificate proving she wasn't Muslim. It's terrible. It feels like they're watching for this constantly, especially before elections, when they start targeting Muslims more.\n\nOn the faith side, there are also closures around prayer — if you can't get to the mosque during prayer time, you simply can't pray; when you're outside, you can't pray anywhere, because it's forbidden."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "At work, I'm at my desk, in my own room, so I pray there. When I was in school and university, you simply don't pray there — usually you pray when you get back home."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "I don't know — they never made me feel that I was a threat. I don't know if they feel it, but I've never felt that myself."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__are_muslims_treated_differently_from_other_religious_groups", "question": "ARE MUSLIMS TREATED DIFFERENTLY FROM OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN FRANCE?", "answer": "Jews and Christians have their own schools, and those schools aren't being closed — it's specifically Muslim schools that are closing. Jewish schools have police protection; you can't touch anything related to Jews, because that would be treated as antisemitism, so no one says anything against a Jewish school. Islamophobia is a problem in France, but officially they try to deny it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "When you're convinced about the Akhira, you have to judge yourself every day — was this a good action, is this something forbidden, is this something that pleases Allah, is this a sin or bad behavior? That's what awareness of the Akhira should make you feel. It also reminds you that you're not eternal here — you're just passing through, and you will pass away, so you have to leave something good behind, in your world and in your society."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Inshallah, whatever Allah wants is the good thing. This happens every day, in minor things and big things — you say inshallah, you pray the istikhara (guidance) prayer if you want to, or you make du'a and leave it in Allah's hands."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "It's the same, really — there's nothing that matters more than something else; it's a package. If you're Muslim in France, you shouldn't have to choose between praying and wearing hijab; you should be able to practice fully, if you want to. It's not for politics or other people to interfere in how you understand Islam, in what's right or wrong practice — it's not for non-Muslims to decide for a Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "The meaning of laïcité is separating religion from the state — that the state and government shouldn't interfere in religious affairs, and that all religions should be free to practice as they wish as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. That's the true meaning of laïcité, but right now, in practice, it means that some religious people aren't able to practice their religion within society.\n\nYes, it affects me directly — in high school, at work. Women who wear the niqab can't go outside in it. At the beach, you can't wear a burkini. There was also a recent controversy because the actress Anne Hathaway wore something similar (in a film), and people said it was fine for her but wrong for Muslim women to wear the same thing in France. So yes, we are victims of this law."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_oppressed_by_the_state", "question": "DO YOU FEEL OPPRESSED BY THE STATE?", "answer": "Sometimes, yes, I do feel that, but then I think about the many good things in France, and I know other countries have their own good and bad. For example, thinking about Morocco, since I'm Moroccan — yes, you can wear your hijab and work in it there, but you also see poor and sick people who can't get treatment; in France, anyone can get treatment. So there are good things and bad things everywhere. Sometimes I feel oppressed, and then I think about the good things. I feel oppressed because I want to be treated like any other citizen, to feel that I'm just as valuable as anyone else, like any French person."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s25", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Yes, absolutely. You feel good, like you're doing the right thing, when you fast, when you pray, when you have a connection with Allah — you feel you're on the right path."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s26", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__what_is_it_like_to_fast_during_ramadan", "question": "WHAT IS IT LIKE TO FAST DURING RAMADAN IN FRANCE?", "answer": "You're allowed to fast. You get a lot of the same questions from people every year, even though you fast every year — aren't you thirsty, do you want a small coffee, I have chewing gum if you want it — but you're allowed to fast."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s27", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "It means knowing that you have to return to Him, and that everything you do in life, you do for Him. You have to follow His guidance, because He's given you the way through the Quran and through the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him, so you have what you need to follow that path successfully."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-014_s28", "participant_id": "MWI-014", "country": "FR", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I've never really asked myself this question, because I've never felt the opposite of liberated — oppression, or something like being in jail. So yes, I'm liberated, I'm free — I know I'm free to have my faith, free to say I'm Muslim, free to pray, to fast, to go to the mosque, to travel. I feel free in everything, so I've never felt unfree, even living under France's laws. I know they're trying to restrict us, but we always find a way — if you can't go to school, you study online; if the mosque is closed, you gather with sisters and brothers, you meet in parks. We're always trying to find a way to do what we need to do. If I miss a prayer, like Zuhr or Asr, because I couldn't pray at school, I tell myself it's for a good reason, that it's only temporary, and that Allah knows I had no other choice."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "No ordinary day is quite the same, but on a day when I'm working: I get up, I get my things ready, I take my car, and I go to the place where I work. I'm a general practitioner, a doctor in medicine. I do my consultations, then I go back home, do things at home, and then I sleep. That's an ordinary day.\n\nAlready in the morning I'm waking up for Fajr, alhamdulillah — I pray, I do my morning adhkar, my morning supplications. Before I go to work every day, I entrust my patients to Allah. I do this every day. During work I'm wearing hijab, alhamdulillah, and it shows that I'm a Muslim, and everything I do during the day, at work, I do with the intention that it's something of khair, something good, that maybe Allah will reward me for. I don't know if it's the right word in English, but every morning before going to work I always do this du'a, like the du'a of Musa: \"Rabbi shrah li sadri, wa yassir li amri, wahlul 'uqdatan min lisani, yafqahu qawli,\" and another du'a from the Quran.\n\nI ask of Allah — because I'm the one with the patience, I try to do my best, but at the end, the best physician, if I can say this, is Allah. I'm not (solely) responsible for my patient; I give that responsibility to Allah. I entrust my patient to Allah and tell Him, they are Your patient, not my patient, and I ask You to do good for them, to cure them, and to protect me — to be able to be the best physician I can be that day, to make the best diagnosis, to not make any errors, to not forget things. Sometimes I have to send a paper for a patient, I can't forget. So I entrust everything in my day to Allah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I won't talk about my local mosque right now, because I've recently moved to the north of France — I'm just discovering my new environment, as I just got married, alhamdulillah. But if I had to describe where I was before, because I was there for at least ten years and was involved in the community — I was involved in the mosque, but also very much in an institute called [ISLAMIC STUDIES INSTITUTE 1]. I did a course in Sharia there — it was three years.\n\nWe are kind, welcoming people. A lot of non-Muslims also came to see what Islam really is, and subhanAllah, most of them later converted. We also had halaqas open to everyone — halaqas for sisters and halaqas for brothers; mothers of converted sisters came to understand. The aim of the institute was to be comfortable with our Islamic identities but also to be working citizens in France — to be comfortable with both identities and find our place with them. What I liked about this institute is that our Sharia courses were really applied to our day-to-day lives — we talked about how we behave at work, how we handle the hijab, how we deal with finances in a Western context. Our sheikh and our ustadat told us the aim of the course was to give us tools to be a benefit to the community, to the city, to French citizens, and to feel comfortable with our French citizenship, because most of the students, like me, were born in France — we lived here, we know France better than our parents' home country — but we needed to be able to live with this Islamic identity and not be ashamed of it. Here in France, until university, I was always taught to cover — to hide this Islamic side of me at work, in my studies. It was only in the last few years — I'm 30 years old now — that I became more able to talk about my faith. I couldn't before, or be openly Muslim. I had my hijab, but I had to not show my Islamic side through my words.\n\nFor example, I wore hijab at 12 years old. It's a very long story, I'll try to shorten it. I wore it when it became mandatory for me — in France, before high school, there's middle school, and it applies from middle school on; you can wear it later at university, but it depends. I had to wear it in middle school; I was in a Catholic school. Officially in France, when you're in a Catholic school — a faith school — you can normally do what you want and wear hijab, because it's not a public school. When I wore it, it was very difficult at the first school — I was bullied by the professors, it was very, very difficult. I didn't wear it fully — I wore a kind of cap that I had to take off when I entered the room, and the professors were really hard on me, and the director too. I later moved to another school, an institute with middle school and high school, and there Allah was very kind to me — I was able to wear the hijab, not fully, but with something showing my ears, because the director asked me to show my ears so it would be less shocking for people. It was very difficult — there was a lot of uproar in the school at that time. Parents asked the director to ban me from the school. They organized a big gathering in front of the school to get me out, because I was wearing this — it wasn't even a full hijab, it was a cap, like the under-cap of the hijab, showing my hair. At that time I liked dresses, I felt good in them, I felt feminine in them.\n\nMy parents thought well for me — they wanted the best for me, they didn't want me to have problems — but they always told me not to wear dresses, because it felt too Islamic. For example, I was wearing this under-cap — everyone knew I was Muslim because I covered my hair every day, so it was no secret — but I didn't wear dresses until very late in university, because I was taught to show the least possible of my Islamic side. What I wore was acceptable for a Muslim woman, not revealing, but always trousers with something long. I didn't wear dresses until really recently — I think I began around 23 or 24, when I became a little less concerned about what people think of me, about being \"too Islamic.\" So that's an example. And I didn't speak at all about my faith — in middle school, high school, and even later at university, until very recently. I'm 30 years old, and I think I began talking about my faith at work only about two years ago, and I still don't feel completely at ease when I talk about it, because of the fear that stayed with me. Part of the problem, when the parents gathered to get me out of the second school — the one that accepted the under-cap — was that on the first day everyone came and asked me questions, and because I answered honestly, it came back on me. So I kept this kind of trauma: if I talk about my faith, they will get to me. I was really young, twelve years old, so it was a big shock to have a group of adults attack me — a big group of parents trying to get me out of the school. I was a very good student — one of the top two — so it wasn't about my attitude or my grades, it was really about the way I dressed, the kind of hijab, and it wasn't even a full hijab at that time."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I grew up in a very Muslim household, alhamdulillah — a very practicing household. My father is the local imam, my mother is also a Quran teacher — she's always at the mosque, we never see her at home, and if she's not at the mosque she's on Zoom teaching classes, mashallah. So I grew up in this environment, and I was taught Islam from a very young age. What I liked is that I was very lucky to learn Islam through logic, not just halal and haram — for example, we don't do zina, not just because it's forbidden, but because it doesn't protect the girl or the boy: feelings develop, they get attached, and if they separate, hearts get broken, and if a child is born from it, that child won't be protected. It wasn't just halal and haram, there were always reasons given, and I was lucky to learn it that way.\n\nAs for my identity — at the end of elementary school, when I was ten or eleven, I had a full year where I was really thinking. I was always convinced there was a God — that was never a question for me, I couldn't imagine existence without a God, it wasn't logical to me. But I asked myself that year, is Islam really the right religion? Because I'd only been taught this, I didn't know anything else, and in France most people are atheist. So it was a year where, every week, I took a book from the library to study a religion — I studied Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, everything, one each week. I was ten or eleven, at the end of elementary school, just before middle school, and it was my way of choosing my religion myself. At the end of that year of research, I was even more convinced that this was the true religion, and I came to Islam knowingly.\n\nI think that was the first step in my journey toward my identity as a Muslim. The second important step was the hijab. I wore it because it was mandatory for me — not because my parents asked me to, but because I had my menses. As you may know, when a woman has her menses, we become — I'm searching for the word in English — I became baligha. My mother didn't tell me to wear hijab or not; she called me by my name and told me, now you are baligha, I'm not responsible for your actions anymore, so know that everything you do from now on is between you and Allah. I will cover you, I will be there for you, I will support you, I will advise you, I will be there for you for everything, but I'm not responsible for your actions — I've given you everything, and now you make your own choices.\n\nThe hijab, for me — I didn't even question myself, I was very naive, I didn't know what would happen when I wore it. It was just self-evident: I'm Muslim, so I will wear it. I already wore it before, just for going out shopping, or at the mosque. It wasn't even a question — it's mandatory, I'm Muslim, I became baligha, now it's mandatory for me. I wore it without even thinking about the consequences — I didn't know what kind of consequences it would have, that it would permanently impact my life, that I would suffer a great deal because of it. Not because of the hijab itself — I think it's a ni'mah, a gift Allah gave me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "It's a ni'mah because I think it protected me from a lot of things. What I like about the hijab is that when I talked with someone — especially during my medical studies — I was never seen as a woman who could be used or disrespected, someone people could not speak to properly. I was always seen as an equal, seen for my qualities, my personality, my place as a physician. I remember sisters, great sisters, some of whom knew more and did more than me in their day-to-day life. I don't know how it is in America, but in France, medical students have a reputation for being flirtatious, not very respectful — not with patients, but with each other, with the nurses. There are a lot of stories, not very proper, between students. Even the parties thrown by medical students are known for being the wildest. Students are known for talking a certain way — dirty jokes and so on. But with my hijab, because they knew I was Muslim, even without knowing the principles of Islam, they never made dirty jokes with me, they never talked that way around me — I'm not talking about the racist side, there was some discrimination there too, I'm talking about the misogynistic side. When I came into a room where there was a dirty joke going on, in the staff room or between medical students, they would go silent, change the subject — they never talked that way in front of me. There were sisters who weren't veiled who told me, it's unjust, I'm Muslim too, why don't they respect me the way they respect you? It protected me from bad things, from bad places. When there were parties, they understood I wouldn't go, so they didn't invite me, they didn't even approach me about it. If it was something respectable, they'd call me; if it was something wild and not right, they knew there was a limit they shouldn't cross with me.\n\nI think it's really great. Even when someone was interested in me — before I was married, of course, now I'm married, so this doesn't apply — but even then, they knew they couldn't approach me casually; they had to come respectfully, ask for my father's number, or whatever, but not just talk to me like that, because I'm not available in that way. Anyone interested had to come with respect and dignity and serious intent. So I think it's a great ni'mah, and I feel bad for my sisters who don't see this side of the hijab."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "We have to adapt constantly — it's difficult. Prayer, for example, was always a big question. At first, when I was younger, I never even thought of praying at school or university, because, like I said, I had a lot of problems. I was scrutinized all through middle school and high school, and everyone was waiting for me to make the mistake that would get me out, so I didn't have a normal, peaceful childhood — I was always on my toes, always wary of what I said and did. I wasn't like other teenagers during high school, so I didn't even think about praying or finding a place to pray, even though it was a Catholic institution. During university, I always went back home to pray every prayer of the day, which wasn't always easy, especially in winter. Then during university I met a friend who was very confident in her faith, and she had a big impact on me — that's when I began to change, because I followed her to halaqas. We formed a little group of sisters and started being together every day, with other sisters who had different outlooks — some of them hadn't practiced in middle school and high school, so when they came to university there was a little more freedom. They didn't think like me — I was always wary of what I did, while they were freer in their minds, more at peace with practicing Islam publicly. So we were always searching for places to pray in secret — when we went somewhere, one sister would keep watch while the other prayed, to make sure no one was coming. We always had to hide. I remember a sister who'd just arrived from the UK, on her first day in France — she saw us wearing hijab and came up to us and asked, excuse me, where is the prayer hall? There was no prayer hall.\n\nOfficially it isn't prohibited — it's only recently that they added it to the university's internal rules, not the French law itself. Before that, officially you could pray everywhere, because unlike high school and middle school, you just have to respect the public peace — meaning you can't disturb the people around you, you don't pray somewhere people are working and you're in their way. So officially we could pray, but in reality — for example, there was a place where they caught us; it wasn't used for anything else, just old archives, books no one read, no one went there — and they came and told us we couldn't pray there anymore. If they found you praying even in an empty classroom, they wouldn't let you, they'd get you out, and you could even get a sanction. Because of the problems with the university, we were hiding — that's why we were hiding. No, there was no room reserved for Muslim students.\n\nWe could pray, and when I was at university we could wear hijab, but when you go to what we call a \"stage\" — a residency, where you go to the hospital and work, learning to be a doctor — it was totally forbidden. Every time I had to go to a new place, I was afraid, because I didn't know if they would accept me, so I couldn't wear the hijab. I never wore the hijab, or what we call the medical under-cap — I bought a surgical cap made of fabric, so it was less see-through, and I wore that. Even with that, sometimes there were problems. I was doing my residency in a city in the south — it wasn't the worst one, they let us wear it, and since I was a good student I was lucky, I didn't have a lot of problems. But in other cities, for example [CITY 1], they banned even surgical caps — students there couldn't wear one at all. Of course, if you're French with no ancestry from the other side of the Mediterranean, they let you wear it. But now, in the hospital rules in [CITY 1], they've added that you can't wear a surgical cap unless you're in surgery. I have friends for whom it was a nightmare in [CITY 1], and they didn't wear the hijab. Most of my friends who are physicians didn't wear the hijab during their studies, at least not at the hospital — in school they let us, but not in the hospital. Same with middle school and high school — most of them couldn't wear it at all. I'm one of the few who could, because Allah allowed it for me: the first day I went to my new middle school, the director told me he felt the new law banning hijab in France was unjust, that everyone should be able to practice their faith — he wasn't Muslim, he was Catholic — and he told me, don't worry, I will defend you until the end. He was true to his promise; he defended me even when parents threatened to pull their children out of the school, which was private. He told them, if you want to take your child out, that's your choice — I will only reconsider if I ban all the students who cause problems at school, since most of the problematic children's parents were the ones leading the group against me. So they backed down. But during middle school and high school I was extremely careful, because I knew if they found even the smallest thing on me, they would get me out of the school.\n\nUnfortunately, no — I don't know many people like that director. Most of my friends and sisters, even from Catholic school, I've never met one, even though I've met a lot of sisters — I was very active in the community, in French Muslim student organizations — I've never met a sister who had the same experience as me, who was able to wear it in middle school or high school. Never, until now."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Most of them think we are oppressed — that we have uncles, a father, a husband forcing the hijab on us, or that we don't understand and are supporting a system that oppresses women. Once I was carpooling — we call it BlaBlaCar, a system where you travel with someone else you meet online — and I was with an older woman, in her sixties. Most people, when they meet me for the first time, think I'm not educated because I'm wearing hijab, so when I speak with them they're shocked — oh, you're a physician, you did studies? They're very surprised. When they see a Muslim woman wearing hijab, they assume she's at home, has ten kids, has a husband oppressing her, no education. Now it happens less, because I'm a doctor and finished my studies, so they have more respect for me, but before, when I'd talk, they'd act as if I were unusually intelligent for a \"real\" Muslim woman, which made them uneasy.\n\nWith this woman, for example — I'd recently gotten married, so we talked a little about the wedding — she asked about Islamic weddings, in my case an Algerian wedding, the traditions, because she'd never been to a wedding that wasn't French. I showed her pictures of traditional Algerian dresses, and since she was a woman I had no problem showing her the pictures without my hijab. She was surprised and said, but you're beautiful — why do you cover yourself, as if you had to be ugly to cover. I explained that as a Muslim woman, my beauty and my body are precious, and I don't give them to just anyone — you have to have a contract and rights to see my hair. If you're my father or my brother, you're responsible for me until I marry, and even after, if I have a problem with my husband, you're still responsible and accountable for me — that's why you have the right to see my hair. If you're my husband, we've made a contract, and I have rights over you just as you have rights over me — you've proven yourself worthy of seeing my hair, of touching my body. If you don't have a contract or a blood bond with me, you can't see my hair. I don't see anything more empowering than that — is there a woman more empowered than me? We have so much value, we're elevated, not everyone can touch us or see us or talk to us; if they want to talk to us it has to be for a professional reason, in a professional setting, or things have to be done properly. She was really surprised, and she told me, but I see many Muslim women who are oppressed by their families, who don't have money, who can't work. I told her, the first time a woman could open a bank account in France was in the 1970s — as a Muslim woman, I've had financial independence for 1,400 years, so that's what you're talking about. I told her I do work like my husband's, and he has a good-paying job, alhamdulillah, but he's responsible for it — what he earns in a month, I might earn in a week, but he's the one responsible for the house, he's the one paying for everything. That doesn't mean I don't help him — if I want to help, I do it out of goodness of heart, and sometimes I just don't want to, and I don't pay. That's how it is in Islam. So where are my \"oppressive\" words? Whereas a French woman has to be perfect at everything — she has the male responsibilities, she has to go to work, bring home money, pay everything fifty-fifty, but she also carries the mental load, because in the end, when the kid is sick, who stays with the child? The mother. Who thinks about the appointments, who handles everything? The mother. In France they'll tell you it's fifty-fifty, but it's not — in the end the woman does the cleaning, the dishes, everything, and carries what they call the \"mental load\" here — thinking about everything that needs to happen.\n\nBecause in the end she has the role of the woman — I think we have that caring side in us — but she also has the role of the man, she's doing both, and in the end she doesn't find herself, she's unwell, unhappy, because she's carrying both roles. On my side, if I decide tomorrow that I don't want to work, I just don't work — he'll have to provide for everything, like he's already doing. I don't pay for a lot of things; I only pay when I want to, because he's a good husband, he treats me very well, so I do it out of goodness of heart, but there's no obligation. What I do pay for — like when we go to restaurants, sometimes I'll treat him, or I'll buy him something out of goodness of heart — but I don't pay the bills, I don't pay for the house. I handle the household errands, and he helps me with that too, because we help each other, but I don't carry the mental load he carries for the bills. If I get sick tomorrow, if I have a difficult pregnancy, I don't have to think about (providing). I've seen my French friends who aren't Muslim — especially the ones who are physicians, because we have a good pace of life, alhamdulillah — if she's married to someone who doesn't have a high-paying job, the household is built on her income, so she knows if she burns out, if she has a difficult pregnancy, she can't stop, because they've built their life — the car, the credit — around her income. So she's in a dilemma, with a workload and a mental load that's monstrous. I don't have that, as a Muslim woman. So who is really the oppressed one?\n\nFor them, these laws are liberating me — liberating Muslim women, taking off the veil. I think most French people believe they're liberating women. When I first put on the veil, in middle school, it wasn't accepted by the professors, because at that time I was still a very brilliant student, involved in a lot of things — I was in the theater club, I did embroidery, I was in charge of things in my class, I had a lot of extracurriculars, I wasn't just a good student. For them, if I wore the hijab, I would become oppressed — before, I was the liberated Muslim woman who'd come out of oppression, who'd succeeded in life, who wasn't privileged — my parents are both doctors, alhamdulillah, so we didn't have to fight to be educated, but from their point of view I was getting away from the \"Algerian way of thinking,\" the \"Islamic way of thinking,\" I was liberated. So for them to see me put on the veil was like, what's happening? We thought she was liberated, educated — what happened? And that's when things fell apart completely with them. I don't think most of them were racist, or bad people with bad intentions — I think most of them, by bullying me to take off the hijab, thought they were liberating me, doing me good, because for them hijab is oppression, patriarchy, having no rights as a woman, having no liberty, no freedom — if you wear it, you can't do anything. I remember the mother of one of my childhood friends — I was really shocked by the words she used. She said that with the hijab I was going to become a \"menagère\" — in French, that means a woman who's only at home, cooking and cleaning and nothing else. Just because I put on the hijab, even though I was the same person, still in the clubs I mentioned, still focused on my studies, still had big dreams — it didn't change who I was — but they saw it as if I'd been oppressed by my parents, as if I'd destroyed my own brilliant future, as if I wouldn't have any future. That's how they saw it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__has_wearing_hijab_created_barriers_in_education_or", "question": "HAS WEARING HIJAB CREATED BARRIERS IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT?", "answer": "It depends — officially, no, but in my case I'm not really interested in hospital work, I don't like hospitals. I was more drawn to clinics. In small hospitals it's not too difficult, but in the big hospitals in big towns it's difficult to work with hijab. In the smaller hospitals in the suburbs, though, they don't have enough doctors — they're always searching — so sometimes sisters work there with the hijab because the hospital doesn't have a choice: either they accept the sister with her hijab, or they don't have a doctor. Most of the time, though, they don't work with a full hijab — they wear what we call a turban.\n\nIn public hospitals it's still really difficult, if not impossible. I think it was this year that a nurse got kicked out of a [CITY 1] hospital — not because of hijab, but because she was always wearing a surgical hat. She was a very liked, very good nurse — her colleagues supported her, did petitions, went on strike — but she still got pushed out. So it wasn't even a hijab. It's easier for doctors than for nurses, because a nurse is under the supervision of what we call the \"cadre,\" the head nurse, and head nurses are usually harsher, harder on their colleagues. Doctors are under the supervision of the chief of service, who's a doctor, and he has so much else to do that he often doesn't even notice — if you're doing your work well, people tend to turn a blind eye to a surgical hat. But head nurses are much stricter about the hospital's rules — they always have something to prove.\n\nDuring a training placement in the hospital, as a nursing trainee, I was under the supervision of the nurses, and that's when I had a problem with the cadre, the head nurse. I never wore the hijab in the hospital — I wore a cap. What helped, subhanAllah, was that I had two weeks of training and she was away on holiday the first week — Allah made it so. When she came back, there was only one week left, and everyone was already praising me, telling her how good a student I was, how hard I worked. When she asked me to take off my under-cap, she didn't know I'd had years of preparing for this kind of situation — I told her what a great nurse she was, talked about everything except the hijab, and she got so pleased with the praise that she forgot about it entirely. I only had a few days left, so it was fine.\n\nThe second time, I was doing a residency in gynecology, working with a doctor. I didn't feel right about him — he didn't do anything to me, but something felt off. He kept talking about religion in front of the patient, and I never answered. In the end I was right to be wary — he complained about me to the chief doctor. It was humiliating: I was in the middle of my rounds with the other students when they called me in, in a tone that made me think I'd done something wrong. I was afraid — I thought, did I make a mistake with a patient? But I knew I hadn't. The chief doctor put me in the corner during a staff meeting, in front of everyone, and told me to wait, that I couldn't go back to work. Then he told me: we received a complaint that you wore the hijab during work, and that's not permitted here. Then he looked at me and said, but you're not wearing a hijab, you're wearing a surgical cap. He turned to the other doctor and asked what he was talking about. The doctor tried to backtrack, saying, but last week she was wearing a black hijab. I told him it wasn't true, and that we could ask all the nurses and students if anyone had ever seen me in a black hijab in the hospital. He kept insisting, saying, no, she was wearing something like a niqab — completely contradicting himself. I told the chief doctor, if you want, I bought this surgical cap at a medical shop, I can give you the name so you can verify it's a medical device. He apologized, said it was ridiculous to have made me come in, that he didn't understand what was going on. All of it happened because the other doctor had seen me outside the hospital wearing my hijab. It was a ridiculous scene — he even claimed I always wore a black hijab, and I don't even like the color black, so it wasn't even true.\n\nYes, he wanted to make a scene, he wanted me out of the hospital, he wanted me to have problems — and if a training placement isn't validated, you have to redo the whole semester, so it's a big deal. There was also a lot of discrimination — for example, when I wanted to enroll in a class only open to high-level students, I went to the secretary, and she told me she wasn't sure my grades were good enough, even though I was among the best. I told her, enroll me anyway. I came out of her office, and as another student — with grades well below mine — went in, I heard her tell him, oh, you have great grades, don't worry, you'll get into this class. I went back and asked her, didn't you just tell me something different? She got flustered, uneasy, and said, no, no problem, I'll talk to the professor directly. I had a lot of scenes like that, because I was wearing the hijab and they didn't like it. I think for the secretaries it was hard to see a woman who'd studied more than them, who might become their superior one day, wearing the hijab. Here in France, if you want to work in cleaning, there's no problem with hijab anywhere, even though it's the same law — you can work cleaning with hijab everywhere, no problem. But when you climb the ladder, when you have a high-responsibility, high-paying job, then it becomes a problem, because I think it defies what they believe — you're supposed to be an oppressed woman, so why are you in this high-paying job? It means you're not oppressed, and that defies everything they believe. And I think there's also a colonial dimension — my parents are Algerian, and France colonized Algeria for many years, considering them beneath them. Seeing someone with Algerian roots reach a high-achieving position reverses that. As a doctor, I don't see myself as above anyone — tomorrow, if the housekeepers stop doing their job, I can't do mine; if the nurse doesn't do her job, I can't do anything, I'm useless. I don't think anyone is above anyone else, but from their point of view — having a high job means you're not oppressed, you're not an idiot, and we're no longer in a position of power over you as colonizers — I think that history is still on their minds, and that's why it's hard for them to see women wearing the veil in high positions. Everywhere in France, in airports, in hospitals, you'll see women in hijab doing cleaning work, and there's no problem."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__what_emotional_impact_has_this_had_on_you", "question": "WHAT EMOTIONAL IMPACT HAS THIS HAD ON YOU?", "answer": "It did a lot to me. For many years I wasn't able to talk about what happened to me — I haven't told you everything about middle school and high school — because I couldn't stop myself from crying. To be honest, I had to see a psychologist, a therapist, about it, about a year ago, because I had trauma from that part of my childhood. It impacted my work, my psychological well-being — there's a whole way of thinking, a way of working, a way of living that was shaped by it. It left a huge imprint on my world, my well-being, my way of thinking. For years I couldn't have ease in my friendships, even outside my Muslim friends — I was always wary, because I'd learned at twelve years old that talking freely to my classmates was what got me into trouble.\n\nAfter that, I was very wary for a long time — I couldn't speak freely with my fellow students, because I was in a position where I had to protect myself, and being at ease with others felt like it meant they could attack me. I was very worried about showing any weakness — I wasn't in a normal position like other students, I was, in a sense, at war, protecting myself, and I held that position for years. I had to unlearn it, and that took work with a therapist, because I also went through a period of having nightmares about that time. In the moment it was hard — I cried at home, though I never cried at school — but it had an impact long after, and my therapist told me it was trauma that I had to work through. Alhamdulillah, I'm better now, but it took a lot of work, because it affected me in many ways. During one of my residency placements, I found myself in a situation that made me feel like I was that little student being attacked by everyone again — it was very difficult. It was affecting my work, because I didn't feel well going to work, I was very wary — there was a supervisor at the time whose tone and way of speaking unconsciously reminded me of my professors back then. That's when I had to seek help from a therapist and understood that I had trauma to work through, to be able to leave behind the little girl who was bullied by her professors and become the woman I am today — proud of herself, proud of her Muslim identity, who won't be attacked again, inshallah, because now I have the tools. I understand now that at that time I was very young — twelve years old is still a child — and the adults attacking me were two or three times my age. Now that I'm thirty, I think, how could I attack a twelve- or thirteen-year-old child, say harmful things to them? It's impossible, I can't even imagine it. I had to work through a lot with the therapist — it took six months, and there are still things I'm working on. It's better now, but it was a lot of work. And in all of that, I wasn't oppressed by my religion at all — on the contrary, my religion protected me and made me feel good. It was when I learned about Islam, did my Islamic studies, my Sharia studies, that I felt confident in my Muslim identity again. It was the French system that oppressed me — they were the ones oppressing me, really."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__did_you_choose_medicine_to_be_free_to", "question": "DID YOU CHOOSE MEDICINE TO BE FREE TO WEAR HIJAB?", "answer": "To be honest, at first I didn't study medicine to become a doctor — my dream was to be a researcher in genetics. But here in France, it's not like in the USA, where researchers have more recognition and more standing. Here, if you stay in France — I'm not talking about going abroad — even if you do biology studies and reach a doctorate, the diploma doesn't carry much weight, because there are so many other students like you and not enough positions. So I chose medical studies thinking I'd become a doctor, and then, when I chose my specialty, I could become a biologist or a geneticist and go back to research, but with the weight of a medical diploma behind me. I did what we call a \"double cursus\" — I did the physician training, and in my second or third year I also worked toward a master's in biology and genetics.\n\nAt that point you have to do a placement in a research lab, and that's when I tried it and didn't like it at all — it was interesting, but I didn't see myself working in that field. When I went to the hospital, I loved being with patients, so that's why I changed direction. But I saw, during that lab placement, that people with a biology diploma — even when they're doctors, at the highest level, known for being very good in their field, like genetics — are always viewed as less than physicians. We had a doctoral student everyone called \"the encyclopedia,\" because you could ask him anything and he'd answer with names of studies and everything — he was incredible — but he had a lesser standing than another student who was a surgeon and had done only six months in that specialty. The \"encyclopedia\" had fewer students under him because he was in a less prestigious field, but the surgeon was seen as higher up the ladder — he had his own office, while the \"encyclopedia\" shared an office with everyone. Here in France, biology just doesn't carry the same weight as a medical diploma, and that's why, as a hijabi, I thought I needed a diploma that would carry weight, that would give me power and choices — which is what I have now: I have a big diploma, and physicians are in demand everywhere. If I'd done biology like some of my friends, I don't think I'd have had the same opportunities. So in the end, alhamdulillah, there was khair in that choice, because I didn't end up working in research — it turned out well. In the way I chose my studies, whether I'd be able to wear the hijab or not was actually a big factor."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_did_your_faith_help_you_make_sense", "question": "HOW DID YOUR FAITH HELP YOU MAKE SENSE OF ALL THIS?", "answer": "During the hard times, my faith had a great impact on me — it was my rock. I was always doing istikhara, trying to make good choices, always telling myself, rely on Allah, there's not much else you can do — rely on Allah, and He will make a way for you. Alhamdulillah, that happened — I saw miracles happen, opportunities that even privileged French kids don't get, and I still can't fully understand how I had them. The doors Allah opened for me are incredible. My mother used to say to me when I was younger, \"yahfadh Allah yahfadhka\" — keep the limits of Allah and He will keep you — and I've always tried to live by that. I sacrificed so much during middle school, high school, and the beginning of my studies, but after all of that, Allah gave me so much — I felt the barakah.\n\nFrom Allah, for the sacrifices, the difficulty, the sabr I had back then, when I was little and didn't want to take off the hijab. I remember my father telling me once, during my residency, when I had that problem I told you about — if it's too difficult, you can take it off for this residency, it's only six months, and then you can put it back on, inshallah. But I told him, that's how it always starts — that's why some can't take it back off, or can't put it back on. I said, I will do what I have to do to keep wearing it, even if it means sacrificing my studies, redoing the whole semester — I won't take it off. My faith carried me through that, because Allah was with me — I was able to live through it and keep going. When I think about the little me, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old, a teenager enduring what I endured, I don't know how I was able to get through it without shedding a tear in front of them — I think it's because Allah gave me that strength. I always thought about the reward that would come from Allah, that even if everyone was against me, if Allah allowed something, it would happen, and if everyone was with me, if Allah didn't allow it, it wouldn't happen. SubhanAllah, so many times during my studies I saw doors open for me — opportunities that people with connections, with wealth, with everything, didn't have. When people hear about some of the opportunities I had, they don't believe a woman could have had them. I learned that Allah is the Provider — we're not doing anything ourselves — and I still try to hold onto that. Ya ghulam, ihfadh Allah yahfadhka. I hope, inshallah, if I have children, I can pass that on to them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "When I was a medical student, it mattered a lot — now it's less the case, because I don't care as much anymore, it's take it or leave it: I'm comfortable with my identity as a Muslim, and if you take me as I am, fine, and if not, it's your loss, I'll find somewhere else. But that's not the case for most of my sisters — I'm privileged. It's not the case for most Muslim sisters who wear the veil, because even without a veil, just from your name, you already face problems — you're not the first choice for recruiters. I don't have sisters, only brothers, and they're in computer engineering, and they have trouble finding jobs, finding placements, because of their names — and they're not even openly Muslim, they don't have beards, they don't wear anything visibly Islamic. Nowadays I'm in a position of power — there's a shortage of doctors in France, everyone is searching for doctors, so now they're the ones searching for me, asking me to come work for them. So my choices are freer now, and I don't think as much about what will happen because of this or that — I won't come to work in a niqab, I won't wear colors that would shock them, I'm not going to go all black just to avoid upsetting them too much, but if I want to wear a turban, or wear dresses — I wear dresses now, which wasn't the case before. But during my medical studies, before I had my diploma, yes, I was always thinking about what the professors would think, what the chief doctor would think, what my fellow students would think — it was clearly part of my choices back then, totally."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "It's a bit better now, but it's difficult. I feel French — I grew up here, I have the codes of here, I understand the culture, the humor — French humor is something else, and if you're not French from birth you don't understand it all, but I have the cultural references of here, so I feel French. Unfortunately, though, because I present myself with the veil, it's complicated — they treat me like I'm not 100% French. Especially the older generation — the first question they ask is, where are you from? I tell them, I'm from France. They say, no, no, where are you really from? But it's not the same for me in Algeria either — when I go there, they call me an expression Algerians use for people who grew up in France — I'm not Algerian enough for them either, there's a cultural gap, things I don't understand without them explaining. So I'm not Algerian, but I'm not French enough for some, and I've had to choose for myself: I feel French.\n\nThe younger generation is easier, because they grew up around Muslims, so they're less worried, less afraid of us — they've seen veiled women living comfortably, just like them, going shopping, doing sports and activities, each with her own personality; every veiled woman is different. So with younger people, it's easier."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I try, as much as I can, when I do something, to do it with the intention to please Allah, to make good use of what He gave me — the opportunities, the knowledge — because if He wanted to, He could take all of it away, remove it all from my mind. It's not mine, it's a ni'mah from Allah. In everything I do, I try, as much as possible, to make it something that will help me in the Akhirah, not something that will count against me there. I try, and of course I'm not an angel, so sometimes I fail, sometimes I fall into ghafla. There are periods that are good and periods that are harder — it depends. Alhamdulillah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "I told myself it's a test from Allah — Allah told us we won't be able to just say \"I believe\" without being tested. When I compare it to the tests the Sahaba faced — they were harmed physically, killed, martyred — what I've lived through is nothing next to that. So I knew, as a Muslim, I was going to be tested one way or another; this was how it was tested for me. And it was also a big ni'mah, because being constantly tested, constantly criticized about my religion, pushed me to really learn about it, to really know it and feel it — if I'd been shaky in my faith, I wouldn't have been able to withstand those tests. It pushed me to get closer to Allah, to learn, so that I could answer people's questions, so I'd be reliable, not shaky on my feet. I had to be sturdy — I had to know my direction, to be able to answer, to be confident in myself, and for that you have to learn; without learning you can't be confident. It pushed me in that direction, because I had no real choice: either I took off the hijab and left the Islamic path, or I became confident in my faith, and for that I had to get closer to Allah and know my religion better. In a way it was hard, because I was forced early on to be very reliable, very sturdy — of course we're not perfect — while I saw the difference with my brothers, who were more relaxed, who had time to discover themselves, find their own way, even stray a little, they had that time. I didn't have that choice — I had to hold on with my teeth and nails, or I would have been destroyed. There were many experiences I couldn't have, places I couldn't go, because I was raised wearing hijab and had that awareness that I couldn't set a bad example. I see it with my brothers, who had the same upbringing as me — alhamdulillah, they're good practicing Muslims — but they didn't have that early pressure to cling to Islam the way I did."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I don't want them — I'm thinking particularly about my future daughters, inshallah, more than sons, because I think it's easier for boys here in France. When I was twelve and those problems happened, I took an oath — I was still young, but I promised myself I'd do everything I could to give the girls who come after me the opportunity to not live through what I went through. Since I was twelve, everything I did, I wanted to open opportunities for the sisters who'd come after me, including, inshallah, my future daughters — so they wouldn't have to always justify themselves, wouldn't feel out of place, wouldn't limit their dreams because they're Muslim. So what matters to me now is giving them that, raising them in Islam, and also maybe finding an environment where they don't face the same difficulties I did. For example, I got married far from where my parents live, which is difficult for me, but the region I'm in now, the north, is much better for Muslims — there are more Muslims here, and they've built more, they've built Islamic schools, there's an Islamic middle school and high school here, even though the French government is making trouble for them right now, so I pray they stay open. There are more opportunities here — you can go to a shopping mall and see a cashier wearing hijab, which would be impossible where I'm from, in the south.\n\nThere are more Muslims here, and they've done a lot — built mosques, educated people — so people in the north are less Islamophobic, more open, more welcoming, and I see that girls and women with hijab have more opportunities, and they're more confident in their faith. My husband's nieces, for example — I don't have nieces or nephews of my own — are very confident, outgoing, well-spoken, not afraid to share their opinions, because I think they were raised in an environment where they didn't have to hide their faith like I did, didn't have to be discreet, keep quiet. So I hope it will be the same for my kids — that I'll raise children who are proud of their Muslim identity, who have strength, who are comfortable in their environment."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "Laïcité — it's the source of all my problems, and it shouldn't be, because laïcité in France means the separation between the state and religion. It guarantees that every French citizen can practice their faith without problem — the people who represent the state officially can't display religion publicly, though in reality that's not always the case; in the Assemblée Nationale, sometimes you see people wearing a cross or a kippah, and there's no problem — it's only a problem with the veil. But officially, laïcité should protect us, and the same for other people of faith — Jews, Christians, everyone — it should guarantee that you can practice your faith freely. But if you're representing the state, you can't openly display your religion. That's what I told you earlier — in university, officially we can pray, but in reality we have to hide. Officially we can pray, because laïcité allows it — it says we have \"la liberté de culte,\" as long as we don't disturb the public order. It means we have the liberty to practice our faith as long as we don't disturb others — if you pray in a corner discreetly, where you're not in anyone's way, officially you can pray anywhere. One time, a friend of mine, a law student who knows the law better than me, was praying in a corner of the university, and someone came up to her — she continued her prayer, finished it, and then calmly explained the French law to him. He couldn't say anything, because it was true, and they know it's true — that's why they added a new internal rule at our university, in [CITY 2], saying you can't pray at the university, even though that's against French law, against laïcité itself. So laïcité here — most people don't understand it as it's meant to be, as a freedom of worship — they use it against faith, and especially, though not only, against Muslims — they use it against Muslims being publicly Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "I have multiple intentions. The first is to obey Allah, to obey His command. But like I told you, I try to have multiple intentions for Allah — one of them, when I wear the hijab, when I go out, is to be a good Muslim, to show the good side of Islam. I had a whole list of intentions I wrote when I was younger, in my journal, and I still remember them. And now, I want to normalize wearing the hijab in the workplace — I want it to be something normal, and I know it will become normal if I take my place, whether they've given it to me or not. So yes, that intention is there too."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah, what does it mean? It means accepting and obeying whatever God has chosen for me, even when it means sacrificing, or not always understanding why — that's what it means to me. It means accepting everything He commands, and trying — I'm not a perfect Muslim — trying to obey Him as much as possible, even when I don't see the reason behind it. Alhamdulillah, we see a lot, especially nowadays, when the world is completely out of control and not working according to an Islamic framework — we see the problems that arise from that — but it means accepting the rulings of Islam, even in situations I don't fully understand."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-015_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-015", "country": "FR", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I feel most liberated when I wear my hijab and go out as a Muslim woman — when I can do my work, live my faith, without problem. Like I told you, I wore the surgical cap in the hospital, but when I wasn't in the hospital, when I was at the clinic — we had training in private clinics too — the doctor running the clinic could accept me with the turban or not; laïcité isn't an issue there, because you're not representing the state. And subhanAllah, it's not even that much more coverage — I haven't changed, I still pray, I still behave the same way, with the same modesty, there's no big change in how I act or believe — but that little more coverage I have, with my hijab, highlights the freedom. It's really special, and now I really feel the difference."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "About an ordinary day in my life, like today: I wake up around 4:30 in the morning to do my Fajr prayer. I had a good intention to stay up and be productive, but I just went back to bed. Then I woke up around seven, got ready for work, had to choose what I wanted to wear, went to work, visited some clients, went back to the office around 2 p.m., did my second prayer at the office, went to visit the last client at 4 p.m., and from there I came home. I commute about 45 minutes to an hour, so I got home — I'm fasting, so I'm a bit tired — and I was exercising with my daughter just before you called me. No, that's okay, it's a regular practice — I fast Monday and Thursday. And that's it. So now my daughter has already made dinner for me, so I'm free until it's time to pray and eat again. That's kind of how my Mondays are."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "I think there are two obstacles for me to pray at work. One is my work schedule — sometimes I'm not at the office but doing home visits with clients, and if that happens, I don't pray; I just hold my prayers and wait until I either reach the office or get home to pray. I know it's not the most ideal thing, but if I'm interviewing people or doing visits, I can't stop what I'm doing to pray. Most of the time, though, there's a space available for me to pray at work — I usually use the conference room, and if not, there's a room designated for prayer on the floor above us. That works except when there are a lot of people in the office and everybody's using all the spaces. Maybe once every three months it's hard for me to find a place to pray, but otherwise, most of the time people aren't in the office and I'm free to use the space."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "That just happened recently, because somebody who'd known me from before — I'm actually a new Muslim, I reverted two and a half years ago — asked me, you dress differently, are you Muslim? I said, yes, I am Muslim. So then obviously the question comes: why do you dress like that? I said the hijab, covering the arms and legs, is a way for me to connect with God. It's a commandment that I choose to accept and comply with. Then we talk about what it means to be a Muslim here, and always the comparison comes up — well, women are oppressed overseas. And I say, well, women are oppressed here too, it's just a different type of oppression. (They) have to go through the struggle — like the volleyball team that didn't want to wear the skimpy uniforms, they wanted shorts, and they were penalized for it. So I explained to my co-workers: the best way to know about somebody or something is to not go by what you see on social media, because it's misleading and inaccurate. But if you're interested, you can visit the mosque — everybody's welcome, you can come and see people coming and going, see what people do there. It's not a cult, there's nothing weird — it's just people coming to worship God in a house of God, just like people go to church. That was the beginning of a four-hour-long conversation.\n\nMy community — I tell people that we are just people, just like everybody else. We have the same struggles, the same tests in life. The difference is that we choose to submit to the will of God, to follow the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and we know with certainty that this book, the Quran, is the truth. We try to comply as much as we can with all the guidance, all the commandments, all the requests — using the Quran as a guide for our daily life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_come_to_islam", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO ISLAM?", "answer": "It's a long story — do we have time? Well, two things, I guess. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be — not a minister, but a missionary. Somebody told me not long ago, and I said, well, you came full circle, you're actually doing that now, but not how you expected it, how God ordained it. But I went — I was raised Catholic. Because of doubts with my faith, I left the church and became an Episcopalian, which is kind of like a more bland form of Catholicism. Then in 2009, I had the opportunity to take a sabbatical from work, and I chose to — I had just lost my husband two years before, so I decided to take a solo trip to Morocco.\n\nAnd I heard the Adhan for the first time, and it just moved me, moved me to the core. But I always say I'm not an impulsive person, because if I was, I would have immediately asked what this was, gone to the mosque, and become a Muslim. But it took fifteen-plus years for me to come around. That was the first time I experienced the call from God — the direct call from God. And I really felt at home. Moroccan people are very hospitable, kind, generous — I got to see people sharing water with strangers, just because they're at the same bus stop and one is thirsty. I said, this really feels like home to me. So I came back and decided to go back to school. During my bachelor's, I took an introduction to Islam class, and I wanted to learn Arabic — I thought maybe if I learned Arabic I could decipher what it was that had moved me. I was blessed to study Arabic in Jordan in 2015.\n\nI did that, and I always thought, oh, my interest is just the language, I want to have the knowledge, I want to be knowledgeable, I want to educate people, because even the misconceptions about Islam were rampant in my family — we were very ignorant, we didn't know anything, we didn't know any Muslims until I went. So I started that process, and in 2016 I took another class on Islamic sciences with [IMAM 1], the imam of the mosque where I attend. He invited us, the students, to visit a mosque and come back with feedback. So I visited the mosque because he'd given us that assignment, and we stayed in touch. A couple of years later I was trying to create a group to better the neighborhood, to help people of different faiths come together, so I invited him — he came, the group didn't take off, but we stayed in touch. Before the pandemic, in 2018 I think, he invited me to a certificate program in Islamic studies at the mosque, saying he knew I loved to study and wanted to research Islam, so I took two classes. Then the pandemic happened and everything shut down, and I went on with my life. In 2023 I was going through some personal things, and [IMAM 1] called me out of the blue — I hadn't heard from him in about a year — and said they were starting the certificate program again, I should come back. So I took a class, starting in August, running through December. I think it was October that my life was unraveling, and I said, let me go back to church, because that's what I know and what brings me comfort. I went to church very conscious that I wanted to participate, to be connected to God again. Then the lessons from class came back to me, and I said, I honestly cannot say this prayer — not just out of habit, but because now I know the truth. I said, okay, now I have all this knowledge, so I can't deny what I already know. I finished the service, went to the parking lot, and cried and cried. Then I said, I know what I need to do. So I went home and did my Shahada.\n\nI didn't tell anybody. My daughter said, oh, mom, you were a closeted Muslim. I said, yeah, because I'd still go to the mosque, take my classes at night — everybody would leave for prayer and I'd stay behind because I didn't know how to pray in congregation. By December, [IMAM 1] gave us an assignment to reflect on what we'd learned from the class. I wrote and told him I'd actually been a Muslim for two months, mashallah, and that I'd decided — because I had a trip planned to take my parents to Morocco — to go do my Shahada in the place where God first called me, and bring my parents so they could witness it. He convinced me otherwise — I was supposed to travel in April 2024, which was Ramadan, so he convinced me to do the Shahada before leaving. I did my Shahada at the beginning of Ramadan 2024. I've been very blessed — my family is supportive, in that they're not against it. After that, I had the opportunity to take my parents to Morocco — we celebrated Eid together, participated in the prayers at the mosque, and they kept me company. I continued taking the classes and finished the certification last December. Now I'm working with the group that supports new Muslims at the mosque. And that's kind of where I am right now."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__how_long_have_you_lived_in_the_united", "question": "HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN THE UNITED STATES?", "answer": "I've been in (the) States for 37 years. I came when I was a teenager, with my family."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "How do I see myself as a Muslim now compared to two years ago? I still see myself as a new Muslim — I don't know when I'll stop using that label, because there's so much to learn, I'm amazed at how much knowledge is required and how little we know. But I think these two years have made me more connected. I started wearing the hijab full-time about four months ago, so that's what's changed in the meantime. I continue to take classes, I try to build friendships and associations within the mosque so that becomes my social group, and I try to help now with the group for new Muslims. I don't lead it — we have an imam designated for it — but I'm a volunteer working as the administrative assistant, taking people's information when they contact us, guiding them to where they need to go, inviting them to our classes on Wednesdays. Now I'm contemplating enrolling in [ISLAMIC SEMINARY 1], in [STATE 1]. It's a constant (journey)."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I attend classes at [ISLAMIC CENTER 1], and I also signed up for various groups online — there's a group for new Muslims based in Spain, and I took a class with them for Quranic recitation. Then somebody suggested a sister from Egypt for Quranic recitation, and I took that class too. I just finished the certificate program with [ISLAMIC CENTER 1] in December — a two-and-a-half-year program. Right now I'm still taking a class on Aqeedah at the mosque, and that's it, because I promised my kids I'd take a break from school. It also interferes with family life, and I'm trying to balance it, but those two years at [ISLAMIC CENTER 1] were intensive — I was taking classes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so my kids didn't see me as much. So this year I said I wasn't going to take classes, but I did end up taking one — they said, we already knew you'd take another class. I'm trying to keep my promise not to enroll in school, but I'll still be held accountable for homework and assignments until next year or so. That's where I am right now."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Because I'm a stubborn person — I've always been stubborn — so that part of submission to God was the hardest to accept. But I kept hearing, I read myself, the ayahs where God commands women to cover, and I thought, do I have to cover the whole way, or can I wear it very loosely? That's what I did — I said I'd wear it when I go to the mosque, and that's what I did for the first two years. Then I came to the realization that the real reason I wasn't submitting completely was just my nafs — pride, and I guess vanity. I like my hair, and I always thought I didn't want to cover my head. I said, that's really the reason I'm not doing this, and that's exactly why I should, because I need to go against my nafs. I made excuses — it would be weird at work, I don't know how my clients would see me. I didn't really worry about my supervisor because we have a good relationship, and he knew — I'd always talked about the classes I take at the mosque, and he knew when I became Muslim. Recently, during Ramadan, I told him I wanted to ask for a religious accommodation, to be off on Fridays and work four ten-hour days, and he was very flexible with me. When the realization came that I wasn't wearing it just because of my vanity, I said, let me just put it on.\n\nI went to work thinking it would be so weird, but almost nobody noticed — well, one person noticed. She said, oh, you look different today, more elegant. I said, oh, thank you. As the weeks went by, people did notice: you're wearing a head covering all the time, are you Muslim? I said, yeah. That started conversations. One of my clients, who's known me for two years, finally asked me today — can I ask you something? I said, yeah. He said, are you wearing a head covering because you're Muslim? I said yes. He said he was just curious, because he'd seen me always dressed covered but hadn't put it together until now, after four months. I said, yep. So now it's just become part of me.\n\nWhat it does for me — it's funny, because I never wanted to be identified as a Muslim. I didn't want to be like a token, or I was afraid that if something happens, my Latina side is going to come out and people are going to say, oh, see that Muslim lady with the hijab. My daughter calls me spicy, so that could come out. I didn't want to be identified as a representation of Islam if I did something bad, but actually it's the same thing, just in a positive light now, because now people see me — like my co-workers said, seeing someone wear the hijab reminds them of God, because that person is doing it out of that affiliation, that desire to do something for God."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "During this time wearing the hijab, I get very respectful treatment from men, but I get dirty looks from women. I think it's the misconception that if you're wearing the hijab, you're somehow ignorant, or oppressed, or somebody made you do it. I had to go through that too — I have a big family, six siblings. When I told them I was going to be Muslim, my youngest sister, who's very close to me, was okay with me taking all the classes, but she asked me, please don't wear that thing on your head. At that point I said, well, I don't think I'm going to wear it, because I don't think it's compulsory — I don't have to wear it to be a Muslim. But time came around, and I said, well, actually, yes, I do have to wear it, because God asked me to, not because the mosque asked me. If the mosque had asked, I would definitely have said no. But because I read the Quran and know that He Himself asked me to, I do it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Yes, because there's a lot of that everywhere, even within the mosque — there's the \"hijabi police,\" the sisters who try to come fix your hijab, touching you without permission, or you see women commenting on other women's choice of color or style, and it's like, it's not my business, it's not your business. You don't know what that person is going through, how long it took them to embrace it, or the reasons why they choose to do it or not. We shouldn't just judge, but yeah, you see that a lot. I want to say (it makes me feel) sad, but most of the time I just get very passionate about it, and I want to correct people — in a nice way, because now I'm learning to be very patient, thanks to God. When people say something negative, I ask them, where did you hear that, or why do you think that, or why do you think I'm oppressed if I'm wearing this — not knowing it's a choice I made. So it could be a negative feeling, depending on the situation, but I'm trying to see it now more as an opportunity to educate people."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Let me think — the difficulty (that) I encounter, well, we encounter it every day, in a way, because I'm trying to leave behind my previous life. My family gatherings — we're Latinos, so it's all about music and food and getting together, but there's also beer, because my dad drinks beer, and my brother. At work, for example, they were trying to build camaraderie, and they'd choose to go watch the soccer game — which I wanted to do too — but they'd watch it at a bar, so I couldn't go. It's not that I would drink, but I would feel really out of place, and I don't want someone to see me in a bar and say, oh, this person is wearing hijab but she's in a bar — it would be really incongruent, it wouldn't make sense.\n\nI am the only Muslim in my family. I see it as part of my journey — if God wanted me to be Muslim from the beginning, He would have given me a Muslim family, but He put me in this Colombian family, and I became Muslim after my 50s. So I pray every day that my family also sees the truth and reverts. There are things I don't partake in, but I still come to family gatherings, I still come to Christmas. I explained to my family — I was the aunt who bought gifts for all my nieces and nephews, made things for everyone — and I told them, I'll give you gifts throughout the year for no reason at all, but I'm not going to give you a gift on Christmas. I was the one who'd send Christmas cards, and I told them, you're not getting Christmas cards from me anymore. My mom has been very nice — she makes sure there's no pork in the dishes, or she modifies the recipes for me. I also told my brother, if we split calls, or if you want me to get something from the store, I can get the fruit or the veggies, but I can't buy alcohol for you — okay, we get it. So for now, that's the compromise: there are some things I don't do, but I still want to be part of my family and part of the gathering."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Oh, yes, the patriarchy is real, even at the mosque, which I was hoping wouldn't be the case, but I have encountered it. I'll give you an example — during my first year, I took a class on Islam and marriage, and I found it very difficult to accept the advice the imam was giving. I stood up and said, I cannot agree with you, and this is why — I don't think the advice is sound for this time and age and for where we live. Things like, stick to your culture — but the Prophet himself said we're all the same and we're here to include one another. Or he'd say, if the mother-in-law doesn't approve, don't even bother pursuing a girl, and I'm thinking, but you had two marriages, so you didn't follow your own advice. What I was really upset about is he said teenagers need to marry young, girls need to marry at sixteen or seventeen — but they haven't even finished school, why would they need to marry just because the boy needs to marry? I said, that's wrong, because we both have a journey to God, and we need to stop going from being someone's daughter immediately to becoming somebody's wife. We need time to grow as a person, to grow in our faith, to grow as a human being, and then when we're ready, we choose marriage — not the other way around.\n\nThen hearing the men make a list of what they want in a spouse, or the misconceptions that had to be cleared up during class — like, when you're having trouble with your spouse, you should put some space between you and not share the same bed, but then the next step uses a word that translates as \"hit,\" though it's not really hit, it's more like separate — but men have taken that literally, in the wrong way, thinking it means they get to hit their wife if she doesn't obey. Those situations are still challenging. I tell myself this is why I need to educate myself, because I need to understand this for myself — I can't take the word of this man in particular, because if you think about it, who were the first people to share the knowledge of the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him? It was his wives, and men came to study from them. Aisha gave about two thousand hadiths, and then men ran with that knowledge and didn't give her credit, but started adding things. One example — they always leave out that Sahih Bukhari wanted to include, in the section on wudu, that women needed to unbraid their hair to wet it, and that wasn't included because they said it would create too much difficulty for women to do that five times a day. Things like that — you hardly hear about the forty thousand women who were part of the history of Islam and collaborated and created knowledge too, because all you hear is the history of Islam through the men's lens."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My family. It shapes my choices in that I (am) patiently waiting for them to come to the same conclusion that I did, that Islam is the way. I don't try to pressure them, because that wouldn't work, but whenever I come from a class or a retreat and learn something, I come and share it, or I talk to my daughter about misconceptions, or something she heard, or something somebody else said, and I try to clarify things so they'll be better informed."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "How do I understand my role? I think that as a woman in my community, but in any community, the place for women is to be nurturing, yes, but also to lead — women leading the families. Yes, definitely, that's the same role I play in my community."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_your_faith", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOUR FAITH CONFLICTS WITH YOUR COUNTRY?", "answer": "How do I explain the relationship between my faith and the country that I live in? Well, everything (is) in God's hands, but I feel that this was part of the plan. I came from South America to be here and get to know Muslims, to attend the mosque, to have that experience. Growing up, there were no Muslims in my neighborhood — I didn't know any Muslims in my country, although now I know there's a mosque and a growing population of Muslims, so that's encouraging. In Colombia — so I think that was part of God's plan for me to be here. And the negative — I see that, well, I'm Latina, so I'm a minority in this country, and I think that now that I'm Muslim, that gives me a second dose of being a minority, because sadly we're seeing the rise in anti-Muslim speech and attacks and all these things."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "The whole life purpose now is knowing that when this life we've got going on here ends, the real life begins, and my actions here — plus the mercy of Allah — will dictate where I'm going to spend the rest of my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "That is just a test, or a small opportunity to grow closer to God. Instead of trying to find reasons why this is happening to me, now it's different — I know that it's either a test, or a form of redemption for something I need to atone for, or it's just an opportunity to grow closer to God. I have a choice. When we confront problems, when we have things going on in our lives that are hard, it's like, what am I going to do with that — go back to the One who gave it to me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I guess it's having the freedom to practice my religion. If it came to a point where America was to say, we're definitely now a Christian country, nothing else is allowed, no Muslims will be allowed, I'll just pack my bags and go. Do I have the freedom? Yes, I have the freedom to practice my religion."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "The intention of those acts is just to serve God and be closer to Him."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Acceptance, patience — consulting with Him, having that support that we know comes from Him. Before I was Muslim, I wouldn't really tap into that — I'd call out to God or go back to church or pray only when I was in real need, but I'd forget to do it in times of good. Now it's constant: it doesn't matter what happens in a day, a week, or an hour — if it's good, it's thanks to God, and if it's not good, it's still thanks to God. It's constantly thinking that way; that connection continues no matter what's going on in my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I feel more liberated in that I'm free to practice my religion and really immerse myself in the community — going to halaqas, going to meet friends at the mosque; that's kind of the place where we go. Part of it is also my age — I'm going to be 55 this year, and I don't have the responsibility of small children, so that plays a role too. Younger women have more constrictions from responsibilities, but for me now I'm free to spend my time doing the things I like to do — I like to spend my time at the mosque and seeking knowledge. I'm free of those mundane responsibilities toward others, so now I can spend my time doing what I want to do."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "There's definitely (an expectation). I think there's an unspoken idea of things you need to accomplish by a certain age — by 23 you've got to be married with three kids. I see younger women struggling with not having good candidates for marriage, or this cultural idea that if you're 29 you're too old and nobody's going to want to marry you. There's a lot of baggage placed on women that isn't really religious, it's more cultural. That's true externally too — there are misconceptions, because people will also think... Well, there's a couple of things people get confused about. When they see, oh, my friend is Muslim and she doesn't wear the hijab, why do you wear the hijab? — you have to explain that. But again, I can't speak for your friend, I can only speak for my own choices, or how I want to identify, so I better not speak for her. And I'm also not going to say wearing the hijab makes me a better Muslim — she may be more knowledgeable than me, she may be more respectful, she may be more submissive to God. Wearing the hijab does not make me better."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "The internal (matters), because everything external — people can pretend. But if you don't have that sincere desire to purify your heart, to seek the pleasure of God, to stay in that state of communion with Him daily throughout the prayers, then what kind of Islam would you have if you're just faking the prayers, or covering because you think it makes you look more religious? It's not (real)."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-016_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-016", "country": "US", "question_id": "followup__what_led_you_to_travel_to_morocco", "question": "WHAT LED YOU TO TRAVEL TO MOROCCO?", "answer": "I only got hints — I'd never even, I didn't even know where Morocco was.\n\nBut I got a bit afraid. I was at work, and I'd been preparing, saying, okay, I'm going to have two whole months off — that was my sabbatical. And one thing I did is, I didn't want my children with me — I really felt like I needed a break from my life — and I said, what's the most remote place I can go to? It just so happened that I had hired an employee who was from Morocco. He knew I was going to be gone for two months and was curious — how can I do that? I told him, you're going to have to work ten years here before they give you a sabbatical. But then I said, I'm struggling — I know I don't want to go back home, I want to go somewhere completely new and different than anything I know. And he's the one who said, you should go to my country, you should go to Morocco.\n\nPeople are nice, and he put me in contact with his family — he said they could pick me up from the airport and help guide me to where I wanted to go, and since I'm a woman traveling alone, they could watch out for me too. Then another employee, who'd started just two months before, was also from Morocco, and he also said, go visit my family there. So I ended up spending one week with one family, one week with the other family, and one week by myself."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Depending on when we wake up, we'll start the day with breakfast — I'll make breakfast. Before that, early in the morning, I pray Fajr and do some of my adhkar. My little one is a toddler, so after breakfast we'll do a little playtime or story time, and then he'll take his first nap. When he wakes up we'll eat lunch and either go on a walk or do some activity — each day is a little different. After our afternoon activity, whether it's a walk, playtime, or an excursion, we'll come back home, eat, and then start settling down for nighttime.\n\nI prioritize my salah — whenever it's time to pray, that's the main priority. My day is organized around the obligatory acts of ibadah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would say, for me personally, there's a strong sisterhood — I've built a strong sisterhood for myself. I have a lot of friends who are also like-minded, and they help in terms of reminding me and being a source of emotional support whenever there's a need. We can rely on one another. It's a very strong community, not just spiritually but emotionally — they help financially if needed. Overall there's just a really strong community and sisterhood.\n\nI'd say it's a community of young women who are all striving towards the same thing, whether in our worldly lives or our afterlife, because that's mainly where we're striving. But we're also pretty ambitious when it comes to our worldly life — we're either in school or working.\n\nI would say we're practicing — I can speak for my group of friends. We're all visibly Muslim, whether we're wearing niqab or hijab. We're visibly Muslim, but on the other hand we're also not too different from the rest, since we have the same goals and aspirations as everyone else.\n\nI'm from [CITY 1]. I've lived in Canada my whole life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_come_to_islam", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO ISLAM?", "answer": "I came to Islam in 2016 — I was quite young at the time.\n\nI've always grown up around a lot of Muslims. I'm predominantly Lebanese, Moroccan, and Somali — I'd say Somali was the more predominant community I was around. I always had them as neighbors, and they were really welcoming; there was a strong neighborly presence, if that makes sense, because now, depending on where you live, you don't really see that — neighbors don't tend to really know each other. But growing up, neighbors were always around; if they were cooking, they'd be feeding us, and we'd be feeding them. There was a strong bond there. I always had Muslim friends growing up, and then in high school I started doubting my own personal beliefs. I grew up as a Christian.\n\nSome of my Muslim friends would tell me things, whether it was a hadith or something from the text of Islam, and it would resonate with me — I believed it. There was no doubt in my heart about what they were telling me. Eventually I started doing my own research. My friends would bring me to the masjid or to gatherings of Muslims where sheikhs would be speaking, and I believed everything I was hearing. I did delay my shahada for some years, but at the end of my high school career I decided to finally do it, due to the advice of a friend, and I just did it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "There was definitely a lot of growth. At first I didn't really know much. At the time my friends weren't necessarily practicing — they were more cultural Muslims — and I stayed with them for maybe two years as friends. Then I realized I wanted to grow, to evolve as a Muslim; I knew I didn't want the same lifestyle I had before.\n\nI attribute this to Allah — I think it was Him removing people from my life and introducing new people into my life. I started frequenting the masjid more often, even though I was anxious to go alone. At that time I didn't have much knowledge, and I would still consider myself new even after two years, because I wasn't wearing hijab yet, and I don't think I really knew how to pray correctly until I actually started frequenting the masjid, getting myself out there, and asking questions. Around 2018, two years after my conversion, I decided to put myself out there — I started learning more about my religion, dressing more modestly, and becoming friends with more of a practicing group of sisters. Up until now that was kind of my trajectory, going up, up, up, up, and then now I feel like I've plateaued. But I'd like to definitely increase in my iman and keep growing and learning."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Now it's mainly online, just because I'm a mother. But when I can, I try to go to the masjid or the local markaz here in my city whenever they have classes. Before, there were a lot of different resources here in the city — there was one masjid that had an Arabic program, and I went there. Even before that I was always learning Arabic, since 2018, once I decided I wanted to seek knowledge about the religion. From 2018 to about 2022 I was really immersed in seeking knowledge — I was studying Arabic, learning about Quran and tajweed, and I started memorizing the Quran. These were all programs in the city, but now it's mainly online."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "In 2016 I didn't jump into wearing hijab right away — I was doing more of a turban and dressing more modestly, long pants, long shirts, long cardigans. After two years, when I started frequenting the masjid, I noticed a lot of sisters were wearing really long hijab, really long khimar, and I liked that — I thought it was beautiful, so I started emulating them and dressing like them. For about two years I dressed like that, with long hijabs and long abayas, and then in 2020 I decided to wear niqab. I decided to wear it mainly because of the mask mandate — I wanted to take that decision into my own hands. I didn't want to be forced to wear a mask, and I thought the mask at the time was uncomfortable. I said, you know, I've always wanted to wear niqab, so why don't I use this as a gateway to wear it. Since then I've been wearing niqab, jilbab, and abaya.\n\nI personally think it's empowering. I really feel the most feminine and the most empowered being able to take modesty into my own hands and not be objectified. The older you get, you realize certain things and you're more aware of how the world is, and I definitely feel safest being covered. When I'm engaging in conversations with people, they're not just looking at me because of how I look — they're engaging with me because of me and what I have to say, genuinely. So I definitely feel a lot safer, in the sense that I'm not being objectified."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I do feel like it's really misunderstood. Prior to the past couple of years, people were more open-minded, I find, especially in Canada — there's this stereotype of Canadians being super nice and polite. But I feel like now, maybe with the political climate, people are becoming a little less open-minded, because I've personally noticed a lot more hostility towards niqab specifically. Which is strange, because I've always lived in Canada and I've worn niqab for the past six years, and it's only become an issue in the last year. I used to be able to work with it on, to live my life wearing it, and I never really encountered any issues until recently.\n\nI definitely think a lot of people misunderstand it and view it as something oppressive — mind you, this is a personal choice that I made as a young woman, and most young women are not deciding to fully cover. So they might view me as oppressed or extreme, but I obviously don't think so, because it was definitely my own decision, before I even got married. I think there's definitely a misunderstanding — most people don't really want to hear the reality of why a woman decides to cover or fully cover. It's more that they want to believe what the media is telling them instead of actually being open-minded and understanding why a young woman would want to fully cover."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__encounters_with_hostility_and_harassment", "question": "ENCOUNTERS WITH HOSTILITY AND HARASSMENT", "answer": "I've encountered — I can remember about three instances that were memorable, and here and there people who stare and give you dirty looks. One time I was driving from Costco, and you know how Costco is usually really busy with lines of cars trying to leave the parking lot — a pickup truck quickly swerved around me, and when he saw what I looked like, he cussed at me and said the F-word. I pulled up beside him eventually, when the traffic was light, and I rolled down my window and asked him if there was something he needed to say to me, and all of a sudden he went quiet. You notice that when you talk back and ask them, they kind of shut down, because they don't expect you to be a person under there, to defend yourself or ask them what's going on — if you have something to say, say it. You could tell he dialed back his aggressiveness, but that was just superficial, because he had this big pickup truck and I was driving a small sedan with my baby in the car. I just thought it was overly aggressive for no reason — we're just going grocery shopping on the weekend, there's no need for this.\n\nMore recently, we were at the grocery store closest to my house — my baby and I had gone on a walk and then stopped by the grocery store. Women I've noticed will more just give dirty looks or glares, or say something and walk away, but men I find are more aggressive. This guy came up to me — I had my AirPods in, and I knew he'd said something vile because of the look on his face. I took my AirPod out and asked if he needed something, and then he started with a whole verbal attack, getting really aggressive and screaming — people on the other side of the store could hear. He was getting red in the face, you could tell he was extremely angry for absolutely no reason; I guess the way I dressed aggravated him. He was talking about how I should go back to my country, that I should go blow something up, stuff along those lines, cursing and using all types of foul language. That was the most unsafe I've felt, because this person seemed like he could actually be of physical harm to me.\n\nHe eventually walked away. Obviously I was shook, just because this is a man and I'm a woman with my child — I wasn't expecting that, and this is my local store, so they know me. Eventually they got security involved and banned him from the store, and then police were involved, because I actually saw him the next day or two days later, so I realized he's someone who lives in my neighborhood. I definitely needed to safeguard myself, so I called the police and made a report — that's being taken care of.\n\nIn another instance, a woman was driving and slowing down her car — mind you, these are all within the past year, so I'm surprised it's been back to back to back. She was an older woman; she stopped her car and stared at me, and I just waved and gave her the peace sign. I guess she didn't like that, and she got really upset with me, so I just walked off — I don't have time to be interacting that way, I have my own stuff to do. There have also been little instances like people slowing their car or honking. Another instance, a white guy drove past and used an Arabic slur, a really derogatory word regarding women — I was shocked, because I'm a fully covered woman, so why would you use that word to describe me? He yelled it out of his car, which was embarrassing, humiliating. There have been a lot of weird instances like that in the past year — this is in [CITY 1]."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "When I first started practicing, around 2018, I was in university. At that time I had learned that interest-based loans are haram, so they're not permitted, and that caused me some difficulty because I was in the middle of my university and needed that financial help to pay for schooling. I ended up not taking the loan — in [PROVINCE 1] we call it [PROVINCIAL STUDENT LOAN PROGRAM], which is what a lot of people use to pay for school. I didn't want to take the loan; I was taking grants, but it became difficult to pay off the rest of the tuition because I had to work and take semesters off to work, and that became exhausting. I ended up actually leaving school because of that. It was a hardship — I wanted to finish school, but it was really difficult to manage and pay it all off. At the time I decided to work full-time, and I found a lot of fulfillment in that, because it was in a field where I was happy, working with children, and I decided to go down that path instead. I was able to go to college, and I found college a lot easier — I was able to manage working full-time and full-time studies online. I think it was a good decision for me, to be patient and eventually find something I wanted to do.\n\nFor me it was because ultimately I'm doing it for Allah's sake. I knew there was going to be no real repercussions — I'm winning at the end of the day regardless of what I'm doing. I knew there would be blessings in whatever I do moving forward, because I sacrificed one thing for Allah, and He opened more doors — He eventually did."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Oh, I definitely think so. There's a lot of expectations placed on women, and I'll speak specifically about marriage. I find that a lot of Muslim women are expected — it depends on who you're marrying and who you're getting to know — but expected to leave off what they've built in order to start a family, to stay home. That can be difficult; I'm not speaking from my own case specifically, but I know some women who may have completed their PhD, and that's a lot of school, a lot of energy, a lot of work, and to be expected to, for example, be a stay-at-home wife — I think that's difficult to do. That's a huge sacrifice, and I feel like men aren't expected to sacrifice in the same way women are.\n\nNot in all cases, but from my own experience, I feel like there's meant to be a lot of sacrifice from a woman's end."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__internal_or_external_difficulties_when_adopting_hijab", "question": "INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL DIFFICULTIES WHEN ADOPTING HIJAB", "answer": "Actually, no, I found it was a very easy transition — I didn't really have much difficulty with that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Now, my child, definitely.\n\nLike I mentioned, I had kind of plateaued in terms of seeking knowledge about the religion, but now that he's here — I'm someone who procrastinates a lot and lacks discipline — he's definitely helped me gain discipline. Now I definitely want to finish memorizing the Quran so I can teach him. I want to be the first person he learns from. I want to be able to grow his knowledge as well, and I would like to be the first source of that for him."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I kind of think of myself as a free agent, but I'm definitely someone who's really family-oriented, and I really enjoy being there for the community. Prior to marriage and my one kid, I used to volunteer at the masjid, and I really enjoyed being there. I like baking, too, so whenever the masjid needed extra funds or there was a fundraiser, I'd bring baked goods, help sell those, and contribute — that's something I really enjoy doing. In terms of family, I take the role of mother pretty seriously, so I'm reading about parenting."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_your_family_respond_to_you_becoming", "question": "HOW DID YOUR FAMILY RESPOND TO YOU BECOMING MUSLIM?", "answer": "I'm grateful — their response was pretty calm. It wasn't a big dramatic change; they just accepted it and we moved on, even with my transitioning from being a turban-wearing Muslim to a more modest Muslim to full niqab. Everything's been pretty seamless — the transition. I'm grateful for that.\n\nYes, I've stayed in contact and received family support.\n\nI think it's cultural, because where we come from, we're not from a culture where Islam is foreign — it's pretty integrated into the culture. It wasn't something alien to them; we grew up around Muslims even before they immigrated to Canada. They were always surrounded by Muslims and knew about Islam. So I attribute it to that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Belonging — that's a good question. Honestly, I feel like as long as you're a visible minority and not of European descent, you don't really belong here. Unless you're truly assimilated and view things how they view things, you're going to be othered, if that makes sense. Especially now more than ever, I don't really feel that belonging, honestly speaking.\n\nOr even other immigrants who assimilate well to the Canadian culture, quote unquote — maybe it's easier for them, they can easily integrate. But if you're like me, someone visibly Muslim who fully covers, I think that's kind of out the door. I may have gotten away with it in my teen years, but even then, I think it depends — they're more open to certain cultures than others.\n\nI'll speak my mind on this — I feel like East Asian cultures are more accepted, because East Asians assimilate really well into Canadian society and culture, they can really integrate. But a lot of us who come from other Asian cultures or African cultures tend to hold on to a cultural identity a bit more without leaving it behind. If you hold on to a lot of your cultural background or identity, it might be harder to assimilate and be accepted by white Canadians."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_assimilation", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND ASSIMILATION?", "answer": "I think there's a way to be balanced, but in my opinion, the way they expect assimilation is like ignoring everything and becoming fully Canadian, if that makes sense. That's how I view assimilation here in Canada specifically. I think melting pot versus multicultural is a bit different — I think Canada is more multicultural than a melting pot, whereas in the States you can hold on to your cultural identity a bit more easily without it being such a huge problem. This is based on my own assumption and experience, but I feel like here you're kind of expected to forgo your cultural identity."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "Previously it was really easy — I found it easy to be a practicing Muslim here, and I didn't find any issues. But now, especially given that I'm a lot more wary of going outside and doing my daily, mundane things, that's actually pushing me to consider moving to a more accepting environment elsewhere. I definitely feel a push to move away, for my own safety and for my children's.\n\nJust the experiences — the hostility I'm noticing this past year only, it's becoming a bit too much to deal with. You don't want to go outside and have to deal with people staring at you and potentially harming you, and now you're seeing more instances of people being bold enough to actually harm people."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_you_re", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOU'RE A THREAT?", "answer": "Not personally, I don't feel that way, but there are definitely people who could view me as a threat because of what I wear."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I'd say I'm definitely more focused — even with the whole university thing, I always have that in the back of my head. I always want to be as conscious of sins as I can be. We're human beings, we're going to fall short, whether here or there, but always reminding myself of Allah, reminding myself that life is very, very short, and that people around us, regardless of their age, their lives can be taken — that's also a big reminder. I'm definitely not too attached to this life; we take the means, but personally I'm always remembering that this life is not everything, it is short, it's fleeting. Time is going by really, really fast lately."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "If it's a difficulty, I understand it as a test, and you just have to work your way through it with patience, and eventually it'll move by. Life is definitely testing for everyone — every human being has their own tests, so you just have to accept that and move through it with grace. You continue with your life, because that doesn't stop your life; you just have to keep continuing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "What matters most to me is the fact that I can still practice. I spent some time in Europe, in a certain country, and it was difficult — you could tell there was a lot of hostility towards women who wear niqab, and it was actually banned there. So I'm definitely more appreciative now of the fact that I can wear it here. I definitely do appreciate that I can still practice my religion freely."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__hopes_for_her_children_s_religious_experience_in", "question": "HOPES FOR HER CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN THE WEST", "answer": "Honestly, I do plan on relocating to a predominantly Muslim nation, for the kids' sake, because I want them to have more of a conservative upbringing, if that makes sense. I'm more wary now of ever putting my child into public school, for example, just because I don't really agree with what they're teaching — it feels like it's being forced upon them. I definitely want to have control over what they're learning and their education, so I definitely want to hopefully relocate to a Muslim-majority country.\n\nSpecifically, things like the LGBTQ material — I don't think sexuality should be taught until it needs to be, and even then it should just be the biological aspects. I don't understand why kids need to be taught things of that nature; it's not their concern, and for it to be pushed on them, I think, is an agenda I don't agree with."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "Obviously with the hijab, because it's mundane, you do it every day and you kind of forget why you're doing it. But when I do remember, I try to remember that I'm doing this for Allah's sake — I'm not just covering my whole body and receiving hostility for no reason. I try to remember that as much as I can, just for Allah. Certain things do become mundane, because when you do things repetitively, it can become part of your routine, but I think it also depends on the state of your iman — if you're in a lower state of iman, you might not appreciate these acts of worship, but when you're in a higher state, you're more appreciative, more spiritual, more connected to Allah, closer to Him, your heart feels more full, and you feel that gratitude. It depends on the state you're in at that moment.\n\nI'd say I try to be intentional about my acts of worship, because I want to be rewarded ultimately for what I'm doing — I don't want it to just be a wasted effort."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah means listening to His commandments and obeying. I don't think there should be arguments about what we hear from the Quran or the Sunnah — it might be difficult for some, but I feel we should try our best to obey the commandments that have been sent to us. Especially with things like the example of the student loan — it might be difficult to pay off your tuition, but I think it's better to do it slowly instead of putting yourself in debt with the sin of riba. I definitely think we should avoid major sins as much as we can."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_liberation", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LIBERATION?", "answer": "Liberation in terms of what? It depends on the context. As a Muslim woman, my ideas are based on my belief system, so I think the only way to truly be liberated is by obeying what Allah has commanded us to do, because He created us and knows what's best for us. If He's telling us to cover ourselves, it's for a reason, and you should be liberated that way. Personally, I don't feel objectified wearing niqab — that's how I see it as liberating. What's funny is that even when I'm fully covered I'm still approached by men, but I feel better knowing that I'm not actually seen by them, that they don't have access to me. That's definitely liberating, and I see the wisdom in why we should be covered. Men are wired a certain way, and maybe they can't always control how they think or feel — maybe they shouldn't act on certain things, but we can't control how people act, so it's better to keep ourselves safe. I definitely think hijab is a safety net for us women."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-017_s25", "participant_id": "MWI-017", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I would say, in the fact that I'm a niqabi, I do feel liberated. I feel free — I feel like I don't have to conform to how society wants me to be. Women get so much pressure to look a certain way, to have their bodies look a certain way, to always get manicures, pedicures, their hair done — wasting all this money. If you want to do it, go ahead, but if there's pressure to do it and you feel insecure without it, that's a huge weight that nobody should really be carrying, unless you genuinely want to do it, not because of pressure."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "An ordinary day in my life isn't very exciting. My life in Canada — I'm a mom of three, so it's mostly getting them ready, getting them off to school, their activities, whatever they need to do. I have multiple roles: the mother, the taxi driver, the cook, the cleaner, the event coordinator, everything. At the same time, I'm doing my PhD, so pretty much I'm home twenty-four seven — once the kids are out of the house, I'm working, either on my PhD, another research project, or teaching part-time at the university: preparing lessons, meeting with students, responding to emails, serving on committees. That's pretty much my life. I don't really have a social life right now outside of that.\n\nYeah, that's a good question. Faith kind of structures the day. Alhamdulillah, I pray five times a day — getting up on time for Fajr, and on the times my alarm's gone unheard, I pray when I get up a bit later. The breaks I take throughout the day, how I schedule my routine and meetings, I try to schedule those around the prayer times. Sometimes it doesn't always work — I'm stuck praying in random places if I have to leave the house for meetings. But the prayer kind of guides most of the activities happening. And obviously during Ramadan that leads to a whole new schedule — alhamdulillah, given my work at the university, my schedule switches a little so I can sleep in a bit in the morning and do more work in the evening, because I get tired during Ramadan and fasting. Other than that, in Canada I wasn't really involved in a lot of religious-based community groups, just because I was so busy with my PhD and kids. So I'd say the salah and the fasting during Ramadan are the biggest ones, and then opening up the Quran and reading here and there, or reading a religious book — but I wouldn't say that's an organized, structured part of my daily routine."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I recently met someone — this was early spring. He worked for the property management company that managed the house I was renting; they do yearly inspections to check things like smoke detectors. He'd seen the pro-Palestinian sign in my window, since I'm a pro-Palestinian supporter, and he commented on it, and that led to us discussing Islam. He was saying there's going to be a civil war in Canada because Muslims want to take over, and I was like, what? No, I don't think they do — as a very visibly Muslim woman, I'm telling you they don't want to take over Canada and impose their own culture. One of the things I said was, even within Muslims, we come from so many different cultures — which culture would you even impose? We're very diverse. I guess he's just thinking broadly of Islam and Sharia law. So that's my tangent — I feel like lately there's just a rising fear of Muslims, and it's media-led, especially social media, where they have these ideas that Muslims want to take over and impose our own ideas.\n\nTo more specifically answer the question, I'd say that we are everyday people — we believe there's just one God and that the last messenger was Muhammad, peace be upon him, and we live according to the main principles of Islam, the Sharia. But it's not this evil thing where we want to take over the world and dominate — we're everyday people, we have everyday lives, our jobs, our kids, we want good for them, we want them to be successful, to do the things that are good and lawful, and stay away from the haram. We just want to lead positive, successful lives. That's the frustrating thing — what social media and the news try to present as Islam and Muslims, and what we actually want and do."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_come_to_islam", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO ISLAM?", "answer": "I was actually thirteen years old, in a school that was predominantly white Catholic. I'd met some friends outside of school, and it was Christmas time — I asked one of the boys what he was doing for Christmas, and he said, I'm Muslim, I don't celebrate Christmas. It was a huge shock to me — I was like, what do you mean you don't celebrate Christmas, everybody celebrates Christmas, this is normal. He explained, no, I'm Muslim, this is what we believe. I was just fascinated, and I asked my mother, who's now deceased — I asked her, okay, what's the proof that Jesus is the son of God, that Christmas is normal and everybody should celebrate it? And it's actually her response that led me to learning more about Islam and eventually becoming Muslim. She said, there's no proof, it's just something you have to believe. I was like, what do you mean there's no proof, there has to be proof. And that's when I started learning about Islam, and I actually wanted to become Muslim from that age, but when you're young and scared — I knew those guys, but they weren't close friends I'd see every day at school, just from the neighborhood — so I felt like I couldn't do it on my own, and I only actually became Muslim in my early twenties. It took me quite a while to get there. I always had the intention, but to actually do it, I think I was just scared and needed someone to hold my hand."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I think I've changed a lot. When I first became Muslim, I believed the basics — the articles of faith, the pillars of Islam, all the fundamental parts of the religion. To wear hijab was a big no — I said, I'll fast, I'll pray, but I'm not going to wear hijab. But subhanAllah, I think it was within less than six months I started wearing hijab. I did focus on praying first — that was a big struggle in itself, to build that routine and discipline. Having discipline is something that has greatly improved since I became Muslim, and choosing to be a practicing Muslim, because you have to have that discipline to make sure you're praying five times a day, on time.\n\nMy sense of understanding the world, and the things happening around me — although we don't always have specific reasons and can't rationalize why things happen — it's ultimately having the understanding that everything is in the power and control of Allah. We are the creation, not the creator, whereas before I think I was more controlling. Now it's, okay, I'm not actually in control — yes, I'll put effort into what I'm doing, but ultimately, whatever happens is under the command and control of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That gives me a lot of peace, in a way, and whatever the outcome is, I know it's for the best, even if it's something we don't always like — we accept that's what Allah decreed. I don't spend so much time mulling over it or being angry about an outcome that wasn't in my favor. I think it's just really putting that trust and faith in God that things will work out in the best way, however it's meant to happen."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "No. When I was younger, not married, no kids, I did — I would attend classes every week; I even managed a Quran center for a while. It was really nice to be in that environment, where women and children were coming to learn and memorize Quran. But especially since I had my youngest — even with my eldest, we used to attend a lot of halaqas and go to the mosque — my youngest was more challenging, so that made it difficult to attend anything regularly. Some of the halaqas I used to attend were online, so if I wasn't completely exhausted, I'd log in and listen to the lectures, or once in a while I'd download lectures onto a USB and play them in my car while driving. So I can't say I regularly sought knowledge, but at the same time I didn't completely abandon it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "My hijab story — I can't even put a finger on what really led me to accept it and decide to do it. It was just a feeling, I guess — when Allah puts something in your heart, it changes the heart, and you go in that direction. I've been wearing it for almost twenty-three years now, so it's been a while. In the initial days, when you first become Muslim and you're so excited and want everyone to know — when you don't wear hijab, nobody knows, and everybody thinks you're just a regular white girl. But I was like, no, I want people to know I'm Muslim. So that could be one thing that motivated me — I wanted to be visibly Muslim. I was in college at the time; I converted at the end of January, and I think I started having that feeling toward the end of that winter semester, around April. But I was still scared, and over the summer I'd put it on here and there, and eventually I made the choice that when I went back to work, I would wear it.\n\nI was working with immigration at the time, and I told security, on the Friday, with no hijab, listen, I'm going to be wearing hijab on Monday, so I need a new picture — it was just a weird announcement. He was just kind of looking at me, like, okay. So I showed up on Monday, and I even emailed my co-workers, telling them there was going to be a change — I think I sent it on a Wednesday, so they had a few days to get used to it before Monday. I don't always think things through very well, but anyway, it happened.\n\nMy level of modesty and conservativeness has fluctuated. At first, when I became Muslim, I'd wear jeans with a tunic, long sleeve, a regular scarf — a bit tighter. Then I became extremely modest, wearing only big abayas and big, oversized scarves. Then I calmed it down a little and went to wide-leg pants with long, three-quarter-length tunics, still quite loose. Now, honestly, it's more out of laziness — I just wear abayas, the same three abayas and one hijab, twenty-four seven. So it's definitely fluctuated. One thing I've noticed with sisters — and I'm not trying to be judgmental, because everybody's doing their best with the knowledge they have, and different personalities align with different ideologies — is that I can't say I'm the super conservative type who has to cover my face and can only wear abaya. For me, as long as you're trying to be modest, that's what matters.\n\nGoing back to what it does in my life — I still very much feel that I want to be visibly Muslim. I'm proud to wear it. It's second nature now; I just put it on, and I forget I'm even wearing a hijab among all these other people who aren't. But at the same time, I do very much want to be known as a Muslim, a proud Muslim — I have no fear in that. I've noticed that a lot of men became more respectful once I started wearing hijab — it sets a boundary for how they need to interact with me and the limits of those interactions. I used to experience a lot of sexual harassment, and that stopped once I started wearing hijab. So identifying as a Muslim woman is important, and it establishes those boundaries with the men I interact with. That comes from my appreciation and love for my faith, and wanting to visibly represent what I believe it means to be a Muslim woman. And also, it's a commandment from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala — a commandment I'm happy to abide by, and I don't feel any negativity about it, or that it's a burden.\n\nThat understanding — that it's a commandment of Allah — came from when I started learning, at thirteen. I read a lot of books about Islam, the basics, the translation of the Quran, listened to lectures. I learned a lot in the early years, and even though I knew intellectually that I had to do it, I felt like it was something I'd never actually do. But as I progressed — after I said the shahada, started praying — I think my iman grew stronger, and then I was like, yes, I definitely want to do this."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "There's definitely the misunderstanding that women are forced to wear hijab, that we have no choices and aren't able to think or make decisions for ourselves. I can say that I have many friends who wear niqab, and it was them who made the choice on their own to cover — they're the ones who told their husbands and family it's something they wanted to do, which is the complete opposite of what most people think, that it's the men who tell them they have to. From my own experience and the people I know, it's been the women who made these choices themselves and informed their male family members about it. We're not male-dominated, unable to make choices for ourselves — the women I know are pretty headstrong, and we make the choices for ourselves."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Going back to that example of the man who was saying that Muslims want to take over Canada, that there's going to be a civil war — it's frustrating, because no, we're just everyday people, we're not trying to take over the world and impose Sharia law. Even though I was telling him, Muslims are everyday people, we just want a good education, good work, to raise good kids, go to nice restaurants — he was just like, no, no, no, Muslims want to take over and take control. No matter what you're saying, they're not listening — they just have this idea in their mind and don't care about anything you're saying."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Alhamdulillah, Allah has tested me a lot. Going back to what I said about Allah being in control — the situations we face that we feel are negative, that we don't like, they're difficult, but there's a reason behind it, and no matter what hardship we face, we'll be rewarded for it — better days will come, whether in this life or the next. That's really what gets me through it — having that certainty that Allah is not going to abandon us, and that good will come, no matter how long it takes."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "That's a really hard question to answer, because the community is so diverse, and I think we have little cliques even within the community — groups that are maybe more practicing, the Salafi, the Ikhwani, this and that — we're very much divided and diverse in many ways. Within those different groups, maybe there are certain expectations. The Salafis, for example, are more conservative, and generally the women will be wearing the abaya, the niqab — though obviously it's not the same for everyone. Whereas other groups, niqab isn't even something that's discussed; some might say wide-leg pants are fine, others say you have to wear abaya. It really depends on the group and their perspective.\n\nThe weird thing is I feel like I'm just a floater — I don't fit into any one group. These are the commandments Allah put for us, but how, and whether, we implement them is really a personal relationship between the person and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's not my business if somebody is wearing an abaya and black niqab, or wearing skinny jeans and no hijab. Personally, I don't even think about that — I just deal with people as they are. And, on that note, I've seen women who don't wear hijab who are more religious, more serious about praying on time, than women wearing niqab. So the dress itself doesn't always represent the level of religiosity or implementation of the essential pillars. That's something I think is important to know — I recognized years back that wearing more conservative attire doesn't necessarily mean you're a better Muslim.\n\nDress aside, it really depends from community to community. Some communities are more conservative, prefer women to stay home and become housewives, and education might not be so important, whereas other communities expect Muslim women to get PhDs and be successful in certain careers. And in terms of how they behave — having friends of the opposite gender, who they go out with, spend time with, smoking, those kinds of things — it really depends."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__internal_and_external_struggles_after_adopting_hijab", "question": "INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL STRUGGLES AFTER ADOPTING HIJAB", "answer": "The biggest struggle from the beginning was internal. I don't know if it's just a convert thing, but it was a whole lifestyle change — not having the discipline, having to pray five times a day, and changing the way I saw the world and the things happening around me. My level of understanding all changed, so it was a huge internal struggle at the beginning. It did take some time, and I'm glad I took the time to go through it, because I think sometimes people rush through it — they're like, I'm going to be this perfect Muslim overnight, and then they can't handle it and they regress. Alhamdulillah, I took my time, focused on specific important parts and slowly implemented them before moving on to others — that helped ease the struggle, and I was able to mentally deal with everything.\n\nThe external struggle came along with the conversion too, with my non-Muslim family — they weren't very happy that I became Muslim, they were worried about what would happen to me, they thought I'd change and become this radical Muslim terrorist. Not just them — I lost friends too, especially once I wore the hijab, because then I was visibly Muslim; before that, it wasn't visible, so they could deal with it. Once I was physically wearing the hijab, the friends who weren't happy with Muslims and Islam, I lost those friendships. Externally, family members and friends really changed, even the places I went — I stopped going to places where alcohol was being served, and within my family, a lot of them aren't Muslim, so they drink alcohol, and I wasn't going to sit with them while they drank anymore. A lot of my family members didn't really know how to deal with me, weren't sure what to expect or how I'd change — it was uncomfortable at first, a lot of growing pains, but with time they saw there were some differences, I looked different, but I was still [INTERVIEWEE], and eventually they became more comfortable with that.\n\nI'm still the only Muslim in my family, just myself and my children. Initially everybody was scared, they didn't know what to expect. I remember, maybe five years ago now, my grandmother made a comment — she said, we thought it was just a phase, that you'd go through this phase of wanting to be Muslim. They really expected that, and I think a lot of them thought I'd become this hardcore, conservative terrorist, and when they saw I was still the same person, they calmed down and became more comfortable. We settled into an understanding with each other — okay, this is how it is now: [INTERVIEWEE] doesn't come to gatherings where there's alcohol, [INTERVIEWEE] covers in front of men, [INTERVIEWEE] doesn't shake hands. It was just an understanding that [INTERVIEWEE]'s still [INTERVIEWEE] overall — she'll still sit with you, talk with you, joke with you, but there are certain limitations."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, first and foremost — in terms of fulfilling the obligations of the salah, the praying, the fasting, all of that. After that, it might sound weird, but to myself — to be making the right choices.\n\nA lot of my close family members are deceased. My father is still alive; we have a decent relationship in terms of communicating, but even when I was in Canada he lived in a different country, so there's always been that distance. I definitely help him when he needs it, but he's still very much independent, and it's more that personal, social communication rather than spending time together. That's why I didn't put my parents closer to the top of the list.\n\nIn terms of my relationship with Allah, it's making sure I'm fulfilling the requirements — praying, fasting. On a personal level, it's having balance between my religion and my long-term career goals and aspirations, and interpersonal relationships, with the opposite gender and with my own friends. And with my children — I guess maybe because I'm a convert and my family isn't Muslim to be there to support, I tried to raise them as best I could, when they were younger, as Muslims, especially my older son and daughter, who are eighteen and twenty now.\n\nAt the same time, I'm not the type of person to stand over them, saying you have to pray at a certain time. As they got older, I told them, you have to make your own personal choice about your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and your level of implementation of the religion — if you do it out of fear of me, you're not doing it for the right reasons. So although I'm not a hundred percent happy with the choices they make, I know inshallah the foundation is there, and everybody is going to stand before Allah on the Day of Judgment. I've tried my best, and the rest is for them to make their choices. My younger son, I'm spending a lot more time on now, because he didn't have those foundational classes when he was younger, so I'm trying to provide the same foundation, inshallah, that my older two had — and he'll have to make his own choice once he's older about how he practices his religion. At the same time, I'm their mother, they're my children — even if I'm not happy with the choices they make, it doesn't change our relationship."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__does_lack_of_family_support_affect_how_you", "question": "DOES LACK OF FAMILY SUPPORT AFFECT HOW YOU RAISE YOUR CHILDREN?", "answer": "Yes and no. I don't know how it is in the United States, but in Canada these days, you see even children from Muslim families who aren't quite practicing at all, unfortunately making really bad life choices — and some of them have family members, or families, with close relationships with other community members. The Yemeni community, I'd say, and the Somali community as well, are quite tight-knit, where families spend nights and evenings together, so much time that the kids basically become like cousins. But even in situations like that, I've seen the boys or girls, as they get older, go in different directions, even though that support and foundation is there. So although I initially thought I was at a disadvantage because I didn't have Muslim family support, and my ex-in-laws weren't really involved either, when I saw other families struggling with even worse things than what I was experiencing with my kids, I changed my mind on that. And the solution for that, I don't know."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "That's a good question. Within my family, especially since I'm a single mom and there are no other close Muslim family members, it's definitely my duty to keep reminding my children about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and their religion, and to encourage them to do good, both in terms of religion and their worldly life, and stay away from the bad.\n\nIn terms of my community, I'd say I overextended myself serving my community. I did a lot of community work, and a lot of times I really went beyond my limits, and it took away from my time with my children. Unfortunately I see this a lot with women who try to be involved in community work — just a few days ago I was talking with the woman who took over from me running the Quran center, and she's completely burned out, managing the job of two people, and nobody else seems interested in stepping up, even though it's something very much needed. There's a very small number of people who are motivated to create these community spaces and opportunities for kids and women to come learn, be with each other, support each other, have that sense of community, but unfortunately those numbers are the minority and they end up burning out from overextending themselves to keep those resources and services running.\n\nSo I'd say I'm slightly — I wouldn't say fully — recovering from overextending myself for the community. I'm trying to step back and focus on myself and my kids more, because I can't do it all, but at the same time I'm frustrated that not more people are stepping forward to work together.\n\nI'd say it's the love of religion, and wanting that community — because life is hard, and it's easier when you have that community support, but the problem is that the people providing it are limited, and the people wanting to take advantage of it are many, so it becomes overwhelming. I know another sister who did the same thing — she'd organize weekly potluck dinners for women to gather, bring the kids, have that space to spend time and support each other, and the kids could be among other Muslim kids. But in the end she was the one doing all the cooking, so she burned out and had to stop."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "I think I have a different answer now, especially because of that burnout, from over-investing myself in trying to do so much for the community. When I decided to do my master's, I stepped back a lot; when I decided to do the PhD, I stepped back even more. So I don't even really feel like I fully belong to the Muslim community anymore — don't get me wrong, I definitely do, but I'm just not as involved in community events and activities as before, and I'm okay with that, because of my own confidence in myself as a Muslim woman and my own religion — I know that my religion is really between me and God, not anybody else. It's nice to be around other Muslims sometimes, but because of that burnout, I'm like, I just need to focus on myself and my kids now. At the same time, I think it would have benefited my children more if I'd stayed more involved in the community, but I wasn't comfortable continuing at that level after the burnout.\n\nThat's a tough question — because I'm feeling more and more like, wearing hijab and being Muslim, I'm labeled as not Canadian. I've had people just walking down the street tell me to go back to my country, and it's like, I'm Canadian, I'm white. Obviously, Canadians originally come from many different European backgrounds, but that's something I've struggled with, I'd say, the past couple of years — feeling not as acknowledged, wanted, and accepted as a Canadian, because I'm a Muslim, more than at any time in the past.\n\nIt's still wearing the hijab — being a visibly Muslim woman — that means you're automatically labeled as, I guess, no longer white. I'm not the type of white Caucasian that they want. It's the religion and being visibly Muslim, that's the problem."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "That one's also hard to answer, because we have the masajid, there are Quran classes, Islamic lectures happening — to a certain extent you're still very freely able to practice your religion however you want. If you want to go to lectures and Quran classes, wear the abaya, everything, you definitely can. The only thing is that you do somewhat feel that rising tension, that you're different, and many people no longer want you around or accept you being around. So it's this weird tightrope — you can still practice as a Muslim, but you're not quite wanted or accepted anymore."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_you_re", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL YOU'RE A THREAT?", "answer": "Yeah, just walking down the street and being told to go back to my country. The biggest one — like I told you, the man who said Muslims want to take over, so he's thinking we're a threat, and I'm like, no, we're not, we just want to go to good restaurants, raise kids, have a good life — but no matter what I said, he still saw us as this aggressive group of people.\n\nAnother time, there was a big storm, and a non-Muslim couple came to my house because they didn't have electricity. I had the Al Jazeera news app on my smart TV; they made themselves comfortable, had the remote, going through everything. I was in the kitchen cooking, serving them, and I heard the man comment, Al Jazeera, this is the channel of the enemy — and his wife just kind of shushed him. I didn't even know what to say or how to respond, but at the same time I was so upset — I'm a Muslim, and I'm treating you so nicely, so kindly, but you still see Islam as the enemy. By default, am I the enemy as well?"}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_we_create_change_or_better_coexistence", "question": "HOW DO WE CREATE CHANGE OR BETTER COEXISTENCE?", "answer": "That's going to be very hard to do, honestly, because what's fueling that is a whole media campaign, a social media campaign — that's a hundred percent what I believe. It's not something Muslims in particular are doing, it's that social media campaign, and it's been going on for generations, from the movies to the news to everything, basically creating that fear in people. Not everybody buys into it — I know a lot of people who have Muslim neighbors, spend time with them, realize Muslims aren't like that.\n\nSome people have open houses, potluck dinners, sharing meals, trying to show people we're happy-go-lucky Muslims — maybe some will show up and be interested to learn, but the people just sitting at home watching TV, watching the news, those are the ones who will never show up and will keep spreading the same thoughts, no matter what we do. It's hard to say. After 9/11, Muslims were totally apologetic, everybody was condemning what happened, but did that change anything for Muslims? Did things improve? We were so focused on being apologetic and trying to distance ourselves that some people even took off their hijab to fit in, to seem like, we're fine, we're regular, normal people. I don't have a good answer — on one hand I feel like no matter what we do, for the most part they're not going to listen to us, and at the same time I'm frustrated given the social media campaigns and how we're portrayed.\n\nI think part of the best thing we can do is just keep trying to succeed in public spaces, keep showing up. I attended an awards ceremony earlier this year, for students who received scholarships at the university, and alhamdulillah, many of the top scholarships went to Muslim students, Muslim women, hijab-wearing students — I could see the non-Muslim women were so amazed and impressed at these Muslim women who, for all accounts on social media, are these oppressed people who have no rights and can't do anything, but they see us showing up in these spaces, succeeding and doing well. Even some of my undergraduate students have commented on how happy they were to see me in the classroom, as a very visibly practicing Muslim woman, being the professor, teaching them, doing research, getting a PhD — they were so happy and excited to see me there.\n\nOne time, during Ramadan, I was fasting, and the course was during the daytime, so my mouth was getting dry — it's hard to keep talking. I'm pretty easygoing, so I just said, sorry guys, I'm fasting and getting so thirsty, just give me a minute, and made a joke about leaving my kids at home sleeping while I'm here with you guys. After class, one student messaged me and said she was so happy that I was comfortable openly talking about it — it was a class of two hundred students — that it normalized it for the non-Muslims too, showing them, yes, we fast, we pray, we continue our lives and do good things, and that's it. So with all my rants and tangents, my final answer is just to keep showing up and being successful."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_a_responsibility_to_represent_the", "question": "DO YOU FEEL A RESPONSIBILITY TO REPRESENT THE COMMUNITY WELL?", "answer": "Not necessarily — because there's still a bit of a culture where women should stay home and take care of their kids, focus on that, as opposed to being out in the community and spending all their time there. A lot of my friends would always say, you have your own problems, your own kids, just stay home and focus on yourself. So I don't think there's that pressure, necessarily, no."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Oh, yeah, it actually plays a huge role, because I know that everything I do, I'm going to be standing before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on the Day of Judgment and held accountable for my actions — in terms of harming somebody, even to my own detriment, financially, physically, emotionally, I never want to be in a situation where I'm harming somebody else, where somebody can complain about me to Allah on the Day of Judgment. Honestly, in hindsight, I've even done too much, been walked over, in those scenarios, but at the same time you're trying to get the good deeds and not infringe on anybody else's rights, to make things easy for other people. Definitely knowing that I'm going to be standing before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and judged for my actions, and where I end up in the next life is heavily dependent on it — it plays an overwhelmingly huge role in the choices I make every day."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Beyond my control — I definitely take a step back and leave a choice for my qadar. I used to try to be very controlling, push things to go a certain way if I decided it had to be that way, but with maybe maturity and understanding in my religion, I accept that I try my best in whatever I'm trying to accomplish, but if things aren't working out, or it just seems like it's not meant to be, I'm okay stepping back and saying, it wasn't meant to be like that. That goes even with the death of non-Muslims in my family — some people dwell on it, and it's hard for them when a non-Muslim family member dies. For me, I don't know, maybe I'm just built differently, but the death itself is difficult, obviously, but in terms of their own afterlife, it's under the control of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala — I have zero control over that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "It's hard to say, because on one side I very much believe that religion is a personal choice and a personal implementation. I'm a woman, so I don't have to go to the masjid five times a day — I just pray at home, or wherever I need to pray, I find a place. I pray outside, in hallways, stairwells, changing rooms — I find a place to pray. And that's in the West — I've generally never had any issues finding a place to pray and praying. Same with fasting during Ramadan — it's a personal thing, nobody can force you or control when you can and can't fast.\n\nEven if it came to a point where there were no Quran classes, no Islamic lectures, alhamdulillah, everything is online — the resources are always there for people to find and practice and implement.\n\nWhat I really miss, and didn't like, is not hearing the Adhan, not having a wider community always remind you of Allah SWT. Now that I'm here in [CITY 1] — a few weeks ago I was in a taxi, and the driver was asking me questions because he knew I was a foreigner, and he asked, are you Muslim? He said, your answer is wrong — I said, what do you mean my answer is wrong, your question is silly — and he said, no, you should follow it with alhamdulillah. I just stopped and said, you're right, thank you for that. So sometimes it's those little interactions with fellow Muslims that remind you of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala — that's something you miss if you're living in the West and not among a lot of Muslims. Obviously you see a lot of bad behaviors too, but it's those little things, those reminders, that make a difference. So my answer is that living in the West, you're still able to practice Islam, because nobody can force it on you — you can still pray at home or other random places, learn as much as you want, it's your personal choice. At the same time, I personally felt like something was missing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_noticed_change_in_how_muslim_students", "question": "HAVE YOU NOTICED CHANGE IN HOW MUSLIM STUDENTS ARE TREATED ON CAMPUS?", "answer": "It's a hard question for me to answer. After 9/11, I was in college for most of my college years and wasn't Muslim, and didn't spend time with Muslims. When I did convert, I mostly hung out with MSA groups, the more practicing Muslims. For my bachelor's I did it online. For my master's, I did it as an adult, and I pretty much just went from class to home because I had kids. Same for my PhD now. So I can't really comment on Muslim students then and now — it's hard for me to do that, honestly."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "It's hard to answer, because of the layeredness — where do I even start. I've always had it at the back of my mind, the desire to be in a Muslim country — this was from years ago, but it was always delayed, because I felt I needed more education, needed to finish this or that. My intention was, I'll get a good job and come here with a job, which is basically not what I've done. But it was always delayed because of needing to accomplish something else first. At the same time, I strongly believe in what was written to happen — it was just meant that I didn't come in the past, and I'm here now. Even coming here, I had that layered intention — I was going to wait until after my PhD, but then I thought, it's taking me forever to finish, am I going to keep delaying things? So I decided to take the jump, throw myself in the deep end and just do it, whatever happens happens. I have somewhat of a plan, savings and so on — not no plan at all.\n\nIn terms of how I feel in my intentions, there's nothing better than hearing the Adhan — I love hearing the Adhan. My first apartment here was right beside the mosque; if you missed Fajr in the morning it's because you were dead asleep, it was so loud. Here you can hear the Adhan, but if you have the TV on or other things, you won't — which actually upset me, because I really wanted to be able to hear it loudly. At the same time, I can't say I'm spiritually different between Canada and here — I still feel the same. I can't say being in a Muslim country has increased my religiosity; I'd say it's still the same, whether I'm in Canada or in Egypt — praying, ibadah, everything is the same. Although, fasting the days of Ashura here, I was so thirsty — fasting in Canada is so much easier than fasting in Egypt — but that increases the reward. From a religious perspective, I don't feel different.\n\nFasting Ashura is something from the religion that's recommended to do, a commemoration of what Prophet Musa went through with his companions and how Allah saved them, and it's recommended to fast the day itself as well as the day before or after. As for the intention behind it, it's generally my practice, even in Canada, to try to do as many of the recommended days as possible — a regular practice, though I don't generally do the white days, I'll be honest, but the special days that come a few times a year, I make an effort to do those. That's nothing new — I'd do it whether I'm in Canada or here in Egypt. It's what I want for myself, what will remain no matter where I am."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah means that I'm trying to abide by the commandments of Allah as much as possible, and do my best to fulfill them as they've been commanded. Obviously we all have weaknesses and shortcomings, but that means praying Fajr on time, not just Fajr, all the salah, praying them on time, trying to do any additional salah, fasting during Ramadan, trying to do any additional recommended fasts, giving charity, going for Umrah, Hajj, helping the community, helping the poor — the things Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has asked us to do, commanded us to do, and recommended for us, again with the Akhirah in mind, that you want your scale of good deeds to be heavy when you meet Allah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s25", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "It's a hard question — I don't feel that I'm not liberated. When you ask that question, I go back to the whole stereotypical standard that we're oppressed, we're not free, we're forced to wear the hijab and do all these things — and I just reject that, that I'm not even liberated to begin with. I'm a free woman, and even being a woman, I don't feel like it stops me. I know sometimes people see these patriarchal societies, how women need a man to do everything, but I don't feel that way — there's no man who's ever made me feel that I can't do something on my own, that I need a man to do anything. So in terms of where and how I feel most liberated — the whole world.\n\nAs a woman, Allah created us free. I know there's that stereotype that we need a man to do everything, that we're behind the men, but I don't feel that way at all — I've never been made to feel that way, no matter where I am, in Saudi Arabia, in Canada, in Egypt, or anywhere else I've traveled. I've never felt that I'm a second-class citizen, or that I'm not free. I guess that's just how I see it — maybe I don't have the cultural baggage; people with more of the cultural norms and expectations from quote-unquote Muslim countries might feel differently. Just as a convert, I've never felt that way.\n\nI'd say it's the same — the only thing that's changed is my mindset, my way of viewing the world and processing what's happening around me. But in terms of feeling liberated, I'd say it's the same, whether before or after I became Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-018_s26", "participant_id": "MWI-018", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_know_anyone_else_who_would_be", "question": "DO YOU KNOW ANYONE ELSE WHO WOULD BE WILLING TO SPEAK WITH ME?", "answer": "I have a friend — she's Nigerian, immigrated to Canada, lived in many different countries all over the world, and now she's in [CITY 2]. She's been there at least four years.\n\nMy father is French Canadian, so I could speak to it a little. [CITY 2] is very diverse. Even in [CITY 2], I've been told to eff off and go back to my country while walking down the street, but at the same time, my friend has had really good experiences — nobody's ever been rude or racist to her at all. I don't know how she gets that, being both Nigerian and Muslim, no racism, nothing. At the same time, I think other parts of Quebec would be a very different experience than living in [CITY 2] — other areas aren't quite as tolerant, partly because of a lack of diversity and education. The town my father's from is about two hours from [CITY 3], and people there aren't very educated, so their mindset is very different than people in, say, [CITY 2], where people are more educated. So it really depends. Even now, because of the newer laws, my friend is saying she doesn't know if she wants to stay in a province that's very clearly Islamophobic — not because of something that's specifically happened to her, but because Muslim women who work in schools and daycares can no longer wear hijab there.\n\nShe does consulting work for another province's government, living in [CITY 2] because she likes it there, but she's involved in a lot of activities and things socially. She's even had good luck in places where I've had bad experiences, like Italy — so I don't know what to tell you, she'll tell you a lot of great things, whereas I'm like, Quebec is horrible and nobody should go there.\n\nYou hear it's become normal now to hear that a girl has had her hijab ripped off, or been physically attacked — especially women more than men, I guess because of that visible representation. I was just thinking, while you were talking — I haven't talked to her in a long time, so I hope she'll even respond, but [NAMED PUBLIC FIGURE] — I never say her last name properly — she used to hold [A FEDERAL ANTI-ISLAMOPHOBIA ROLE]. Would you like to try to talk to her? She's no longer in that position since the new prime minister took over and relieved her from it, but I can send her a message with your information, though I haven't talked to her in so long she might just ignore me.\n\nI'll try to think — I'll go through my contact list and see if I can think of anyone else who could speak to their lived, everyday experiences. Since I started my PhD I've really just been antisocial, so I haven't kept up those social connections — it's like I have to apologize to everybody first for ignoring them so long, and then ask them to participate in your study."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Now I don't work — I'm on maternity leave, so it's a little different. When I was working, I was finishing my studies, so I worked in a public hospital where the hijab isn't authorized. I would wake up, put my hijab on over a surgical cap, and go to the hospital. Before arriving, I would take off my hijab and go into the wards wearing just the surgical cap. It's been an issue in almost every ward I've worked in, except one. I'd live my day normally, and at the end of the day I'd put my hijab back on and go home. Now that I'm on maternity leave, I don't think my hijab disturbs my daily life — sometimes I ask myself more questions about it, but now I wake up, take care of my baby, and go out and do whatever I want whenever I want. I don't have a lot of limits because of my hijab.\n\nFaith is the center of my life. I make decisions based on my faith, I educate myself with Islamic content, and I pray wherever I am — I always find a place, especially in stores, like in the changing room of a clothing store. There are very few places to pray, even a mosque, in [CITY 1], especially for women. There are some for men, but except for the big mosque, the smaller mosques don't let women in. They say there's only one room and no one to supervise it, so they give it to the men and say it's obligatory for men (to pray there) — maybe women should pray at home instead. I don't know, but this is something that bothers me. So I pray in shopping malls, in little clothes shops. A few times I've prayed in a public park, but I was so scared that it's really only happened a few times. I think wearing the hijab is a demonstration of our faith in the street, especially in France. I'm in [CITY 1], or near [CITY 1]."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would say I'm French, I feel French, and that I worship only God and pray five times a day. I think if you haven't seen a Muslim woman before, there's nothing that special about us — maybe the hijab, but that's it. I would say we are a community that always tries to do good and avoid the bad, and something I really like is that people do things for Allah's sake. That's really different from the French people I know, who are mostly atheist — they tend to only do something if there's something in it for them. You will rarely see someone do something good out of nowhere. So I'd say we try to do good actions just to please our God and to have good deeds in the balance."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Of course, I was born here, and I feel a strong belonging — I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but I feel I belong to Western culture. It's a mixed feeling, unfortunately, because I also feel that my society is rejecting me, especially politically. Our politicians say so many things against us, it's crazy. Our Prime Minister recently talked about forbidding hijabi women from doing sports in high-level competition while wearing the hijab, and on TV, at the end of his remarks, he said \"à bas le voile\" — \"down with the veil\" — the way you'd say \"down with the king\" during a revolution. I was so shocked. Around the same time — it's quite recent that I started wearing the hijab, in 2023 — our education minister said it was forbidden to go to school wearing abayas. It was at that time that I was traveling for six months, and I felt so free. I couldn't stop thinking — the question wasn't when or why I would wear my hijab, it was why I wasn't wearing it, when I felt so free. So I decided to wear my hijab while traveling, and when I came back it was really hard, because I didn't know if I'd be able to stick with it. The abaya ban happened while I was traveling, and it made me even more attached to my hijab. I think that's one of the effects of events like that: people who are in the middle either become more attached to Islam or become more discreet about it. That's what happened for me.\n\nIt's not only about religion, because here in France we have this saying that religion isn't a hundred percent about the hijab — you can't say someone who doesn't wear the hijab isn't religious. You can have great faith, do many good deeds, and be very close to Allah, but not wear the hijab because it feels impossible. That was the case for me, because I was in medical studies, and it's forbidden in the hospital. It felt impossible. Every year it stayed on my inshallah list, and it seemed impossible until I traveled, especially to Malaysia and Indonesia, where I saw everybody wearing it and everybody was fine with it. I thought, so it is possible. It's so carefree and lightweight there — you see Muslim women in hijab everywhere, on buses, in hospitals, doing whatever they want.\n\nIt's forbidden for people who represent the state, like doctors, to wear hijab, but it's fine for patients — as someone representing a public service, it's forbidden for me. It shouldn't apply in private hospitals, but a lot of private hospitals make their own rules against it too; there, it's the head of the private institution who decides whether he wants to allow it or not."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "It's really difficult — you can't talk about faith in France, that's my feeling. If you say \"I believe in God,\" people look at you like you're dumb, like something out of the 1950s, like a hippie or someone crazy. So I only talk about my faith with Muslims; with non-Muslims, it's one word and the conversation is over. It's taboo. For example, I was recently looking for activities for my son, and near my home there was a place called [FAMILY ACTIVITY CENTRE 1] that offered psychomotor activities for kids. It was free, so I went, and everyone was very friendly — even nicer than usual. Someone asked how I'd heard about them, and I said Google Maps. The next time I went, I noticed a cross in the building — it was a Christian organization. I wasn't sure if it was okay for me to be there, but I told myself it was fine. Someone asked me what my son's name, [SON'S NAME], meant, and I said it was from the Qur'an, and after that it was like \"okay,\" and no more conversation. I've had the same experience in other places — at a mother's coffee morning, I was speaking French to my son while my husband spoke Arabic to him, and a French woman married to an American asked why I was teaching him Arabic, as if I should just be teaching him values. I said it's so he learns about (his) religion, and she just said, \"okay.\"\n\nI think it's the same with all religions — people are very faith-free here, especially in [CITY 1]. There's a lot of atheism. There are some Jews who sometimes talk about their religion. There are Christians who don't go to church and don't practice — they're Christian by culture, not really by faith. I even met someone who had her child baptized, not because she believed in it, but because she wanted him to get into a good Catholic school. And yet, in that church, the people were strangely warm and friendly — I think because they were practicing Christians, welcoming and polite. So I think people of faith understand each other more than we understand atheists."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes, I try to. I'm learning Tajweed at a mosque, and I try to read — I read books quite frequently, I listen to podcasts, and I watch YouTube videos, like Omar Suleiman's."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I always knew it was something obligatory — although at one point someone told me it wasn't obligatory, it was just about control, and that suited me at the time because it was difficult. So I just lived like that. Then I traveled, and I felt so free. I went to Malaysia or Indonesia — I don't remember which — and I was in the countryside. We met some local people, and I told them I was Muslim too, and one woman said, \"Muslim? Where's your hijab?\" I thought, she's right — that's something you'd never hear in France. That's how I began to think about it. I was learning a lot at that time, listening to a lot of podcasts, and I was also so grateful, because traveling the whole world for six months had been my dream. Out of that gratitude, my way of saying thank you was to wear the hijab.\n\nI felt free while traveling, so I decided to put on the hijab because I didn't feel the pressure I felt in France. Before that, I thought I felt free in France, because I didn't realize how much pressure I was under. It was only when I went to other countries that I understood what it meant to be free of that pressure. In South America, for example, we were always trying to find places to pray. Once, at a hotel where we hadn't even slept yet — we'd just left our luggage there — we asked if we could pray somewhere, and they said, \"yeah, of course,\" like it was nothing. In France, if people say okay to that kind of thing, you feel like you have to thank them five times over. It will never feel as easy there. That's one thing that made me realize how much pressure there is in France, from society.\n\nIt's pressure to hide, of course, because here in France, on television and in political speech, they say the hijab is a tool of Islamization — that we're trying to Islamize people, that it's political, that we're trying to prove ourselves in public space. In France they say faith should be private — you can have your faith in private, that's fine — but the French idea of religion is that you're not supposed to show your faith. You're supposed to keep it private."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "At times I've prayed in the toilet, but I asked and was told that wasn't okay, so I've prayed in the shower — in the surgical area, not the changing room, there's always a shower — or in a patient's exam room, not where the patient sleeps, just where you examine them. When there's no patient, I pray there, behind the door, and I lock it if I can. If I can't, I pray just behind the door, so if someone comes in on me I can just stop. Some hospitals even have chapels, but they forbid staff from using them — they say it's only for patients, and practicing (Muslim) staff aren't allowed in."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I think it protects me in a lot of ways — you become more aware of your behavior. I'm proud to be a representation of Islam in the streets; I'm trying to be a doctor while wearing my hijab. I feel like I can be an example for young girls, and even for racists — there's this big idea in France that Arabs are just here to take public money, to have children and live off the state, so I'm proud to show something different. I also think it's good protection against men's looks, even if sometimes it doesn't stop them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I think they need someone to blame because of poor economic policy. Maybe they also want to preserve some idea of French identity. Mainly, I think it's a way to cover up political mistakes — it's easier for people to look at Islam than to look at what's really happening in politics."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_does_your_experience_differ_from_a_muslim", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR EXPERIENCE DIFFER FROM A MUSLIM MAN'S?", "answer": "It's so different, because you often can't tell a Muslim man is Muslim just by looking at him — he could be Jewish, Portuguese, Spanish. So we, (women,) are the main target, for sure. And it's not only about the political representation of Islam — they hate the hijab because, to them, it represents submission: submission to men, submission to Islam. Their vision of freedom is that to be free you have to be free of your clothes, so to speak, and by wearing the hijab we're seen as submitting to men. That's seen as really against French feminism."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__what_does_french_feminism_mean_to_you", "question": "WHAT DOES FRENCH FEMINISM MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I think the French woman (ideal) is someone who doesn't care about anything, who can live the life she wants — any job, any lover. Marrying, for example, is seen as really old-fashioned by my French friends and even my co-workers. I remember being at work, talking with my boss, who was just a few years older than me, and I mentioned I was married. She asked at what age. I said twenty-five, and she said that was so young — she couldn't imagine being married before thirty, that it was crazy. At the beginning, I didn't tell people I was married; I said \"boyfriend\" instead, because I knew it would lead to the same reaction: married, at what age, that's crazy. It's easier to just not say.\n\nAnother thing that happened: I'm a hospital specialist, and at the first meeting of my cohort, there was a buffet, and I was talking with someone a few years older than me. A waiter came around with food, and I asked if there was meat in it. When the waiter said yes, I said no thank you, and the older man I was talking to asked, \"Oh, you're vegetarian?\" I said yes, and then he asked why, since when. I thought, okay, I actually eat ham — I'll just stop the lie right now. It's just so much easier to say I'm vegetarian, but even that didn't work. It shows you it's easier to talk about nothing with them.\n\nAnother thing that happened — a doctor at a well-known center in [CITY 1], who's Tunisian, was talking about his upcoming marriage, which was arranged. People around him reacted like, \"Oh my god, arranged marriage, that's crazy,\" and he ended up not getting the job because of it — they said they couldn't work with someone like that. So, the less you say, the better, I think."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "I think it's part of the difficulties I have to face, but I think it's okay — it makes sense because I'm representing Islam. If I left France, who would stay to represent (us)? I'll have, inshallah, the means to manage, and I feel like if I left, I'd just be leaving people who are less educated or poorer to face Islamophobia on their own, whereas I can be an example of good social integration — a hijabi who works as a doctor. I think that's a good image for people, so I see it as my contribution."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Not that much, I think — I don't know, because I'm not so involved in the community; I mostly have Muslim female friends, so maybe I'm just not close enough to it to feel it. It is quite sad that there's often no space for women to pray at small mosques. I don't go to the mosque often, just for classes or for Eid — for Jumu'ah you have to check beforehand whether there's a place for women. I think there are some women who go regularly.\n\nI see it on social media, but not so much in my daily life. If anything, I see a lot of people trying to ease into the hijab by wearing a turban first, especially in the Algerian community. In France, that community has a difficult history — we were under colonization for a long time, a hundred and forty years, and destroying our culture, especially the hijab, was part of French policy. After decolonization there was a civil war against Islamists — Islamists against the Algerian liberation movement — so there's a lot of trauma around this in Algerian families. When I wear my hijab, I see it in my parents' generation — not my own parents, but for example my friend's father looked at me like, \"whoa, that's so radical, that's too much.\" They're frightened, I think, because of the civil war — they saw so much, and in the 1980s a lot of girls in Algeria were forced to wear it just for their own safety, and that's stayed in the minds of that generation. I'm also thinking of a friend's mother who is starting to wear the hijab, but very slowly — just covering the neck at first — because she has a whole social circle to navigate, and when you wear the hijab you're always worried people will say you're becoming radicalized.\n\nMuslims and non-Muslims (both say this). Personally, I was afraid of being seen as radicalizing — we hear so much about \"radicalization\" on TV, like it's the worst thing on earth. They don't say it outright, but what's implied is that when you radicalize, you're against people, against the state, a danger to others, closing yourself off, not wanting to be seen. I saw a clip from a French TV show where a man said, \"Do you realize how violent it is for me to see a woman in hijab? She's telling me I'll never be with her\" — as if she's telling the whole world it's impossible to have her. It's crazy. I've also seen, on social media, people say that hijab isn't part of Amazigh culture, as if Amazigh women don't wear it — I can't imagine it's even harder for them.\n\nI think the real issue isn't either of those things — it's that I felt like I had to say goodbye to a part of my identity before the hijab. When you put it on, you know a lot will change. When I came back to France wearing my hijab, I went to ask for information at a desk in the métro, and I was spoken to so rudely — before, I had a kind of \"beauty privilege,\" where everyone was nice and easy with me, and with the hijab I never felt that again. But on the other hand, I felt like Muslims would come up to me, like they recognized a sister. Another time, cycling, I didn't stop at a red light — which is really common here, cyclists never stop — and a man got angry and called me \"sale hijabi,\" dirty hijabi, meaning it as an insult. Another time, passing a café, a man who was drinking alcohol said, \"Hey you, why do you cover your hair?\" and I told him, \"Isn't it your dream to see my hair? It's your dream.\" Then I just walked away. But there are things like that. On the other hand, when I'm cycling in [CITY 1], sometimes Muslim men will see me and say it's good to see a hijabi cycling."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "Of course, because in Malaysia I'm a nobody — I don't have social connections there the way I do here. At work, for example, I was talking about the hijab, and a young woman I thought was fairly educated asked me, \"Oh, so did you start wearing the hijab when you got married?\" I said no, and you have to explain, again and again. I just finished my studies this year — six years as a student, then six years as a resident, so you're a full-time specialist, but still a resident. I need one more year in the public hospital, inshallah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "First, Allah. In the work environment, of course, I'm always afraid of my superiors, of people reporting to the administration that I wear a hijab, so I modify my behavior. In the last ward I was in, I never ate with my co-workers at the hospital, because you might run into someone from the administration, and if they see you in the surgical cap, they'll keep track of you until you can't wear even that anymore — because even the surgical cap is forbidden.\n\nI hide when I can and try to be as discreet as possible. For example, when you start in a new ward, they take a photo of you for the hospital website — I let them take it, but then I asked the photographer not to post it anywhere, because I knew it could lead to me having to take off the surgical cap. I also don't let myself speak at conferences, because I don't want the extra attention — I don't want extra work for myself, I just want to finish my studies. I'd wear the hijab, but I don't want to speak publicly, because there's this idea in the public sector that the hijab is political — I don't want them saying, \"you see, she's showing off her religion.\" I don't want the extra problems. It's worth it (to stay quiet)."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "In my family, I try to be as good as I can — I try to educate my son, who's still very young, but I take it seriously, trying to give him love for Allah and for practicing the religion. In my community, I try to act mainly in an educational way. I've participated in meetings where I talk about my job and help medical students study, and I take part in mock exams — I sit on the jury and see the students. I think that's my way of helping the community."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "I'm not sure at all. One of the men in my family married a French woman, and when she met me she asked if I was born here. So I'm not sure — I don't think they see me as French. When they see the hijab, I don't think they do. Just recently I took my son to the doctor, and it was an Arab woman like me, but I felt like she looked down on me, like I was stupid. Since I'm also a doctor, I felt I shouldn't have to ask questions, but she was like, \"no questions, just listen.\" It was for a BCG vaccination, and I hadn't had it done yet because we'd traveled to Algeria — it's actually best to get that vaccination before traveling there — and she said, \"oh, you took him to Algeria, that's not good, not good to go without the vaccination.\" I wasn't even surprised. I don't know if she's Muslim, but probably. I've also had French people talk to me really slowly so I can understand, when maybe I speak (French) better than they do."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "Honestly, I have very little hope that things will change for the better. I'll teach my son as much as I can, especially prayer — I want that to be the most important thing, praying on time, even if that's not the easiest thing here. I don't think it can get better, honestly; I'd be happy if it just stayed like this.\n\nWhat I fear is — there were social reasons why my generation didn't learn Arabic; it was treated as shameful to speak Arabic, and our parents wanted so much to protect us from being mocked, so a lot of people in my generation never learned the language. I'm glad my husband can teach our son. I fear him learning to hate himself — in French, détestation de soi, self-hatred, I hope that's a good translation — because we see so much negative talk about Muslims on television, and I don't want him to feel that. For example, I know of a boy at school who didn't want to wear nail polish, and the school called his mother in to explain why she was \"forbidding\" it, as if the boy should be free to wear it. Another story: a boy saw someone fall at school and said, \"Allahu Akbar,\" and his parents were called in — \"you said Allahu Akbar, that's crazy, radicalization,\" and so on. I also know a ten- or twelve-year-old girl, Arab but from a non-practicing family, who heard \"Allahu Akbar\" during prayer and asked why (Muslims) say it \"like terrorists.\" I think it's not as intense now as it was after Bataclan and the big terrorist attacks in France, when \"Allahu Akbar\" really did mean \"terrorist\" to people. I feel that's slowly changing — maybe people are starting to understand that we say it in prayer."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I wish it shaped it even more, but it makes me try to learn Qur'an, try to do good deeds, and make a lot of du'a. I don't know that it shapes it beyond that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "For the moment, it's still okay to wear the hijab in public space, so I can still do the things that are obligatory in our religion. As for the other difficulties, I think they're meant for us, and that they become good deeds for us — when you have difficulties, it's only so you have fewer bad things weighing on your balance. So I try to take it in a good way, to tell myself it will benefit me in the end, inshallah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "It's a big word here. It's everywhere in the hospital — every time you start in a new ward, you get a PowerPoint about laïcité. It's crazy, really — laïcité, laïcité, you can't wear a surgical cap, it's forbidden, laïcité. But you'll see people wearing a cross necklace, and that's not a problem. Legally, laïcité just means a public agent has the obligation to be neutral — to show no sign of belonging, of religious affiliation. But in French politics they want to expand it to any individual in public space, and even ordinary French people who aren't politicians tend to think that's what laïcité means.\n\nI know laïcité is really just a pretext for Islamophobia — it's very clear. Co-workers will report you to the administration if they see a surgical cap, but if they see a cross, they won't call anyone. Now hospitals even have people whose job is to be the \"laïcité police\" — they're literally called the chief of laïcité, and they go looking for surgical caps on our heads.\n\nThere's a story from my hospital. For a while it was okay for me to wear the surgical cap, but they always made it clear they were doing me a favor. Then one day, someone wrote a letter saying an employee wasn't respecting laïcité — it wasn't even about me, it was about someone at the front desk who wore her hijab visibly, while I just wore the surgical cap in the back. But because of that letter, it became a huge issue. They called me into the office and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I couldn't wear it anymore. I was so desperate. I went to another office, to the ward administrator, and she said she was sorry, and suggested I go to occupational health to see if a doctor could give me a note saying I had a medical need for the surgical cap. I didn't want to lie, but I went anyway, crying, and the doctor asked me what my husband thought about it. I thought, why does it matter what he thinks?\n\nI went back to the administration, still crying — crying with rage — and she asked the same thing, what does your husband think? I said, it's not possible, leave me alone, I'm thirty years old, I'm a doctor, what does my husband have to do with this? I had even more rage after that. I called in sick for a week because I was so desperate.\n\nThen I came back and took it off. It felt like taking off my dignity. It was terrible, I hated it. The administrator told me I was so brave, but it wasn't bravery — it was humiliation, an obligation, there was no bravery in it at all. I thought about it for weeks, and I couldn't accept it, so I put it back on. The head of the ward called me again, surprised, and I told him I'd gotten legal advice, so I was putting it back on — even though the legal advice I'd actually gotten was that there was nothing I could do, that I should just take it off. But I tried anyway, and they let me keep it for the rest of my internship, because it was only one more year, and I'm a surgeon (so they needed me). They wouldn't give me a research contract though — I think because they knew I'd be leaving anyway. I emailed to ask about a position for this year and never got an answer. During that search, I had an appointment with another ward chief where I wore just a turban, styled to look neat, but that felt undignifying too, I hated it. He seemed to like me — he'd already written to HR saying they had a doctor — but at the end of the appointment he told me there was no way I could keep anything on my head, because he was the chief of laïcité at his hospital too. So I didn't get that job either. I did find something else, but I don't know yet how they'll respond to the turban or the surgical cap — I had one appointment with the chief there and he didn't say anything, so it will be a surprise once I actually start.\n\nIt's okay for a hijabi woman to be a cleaner, but not to be a doctor — cleaning staff can wear a cap, even if it's not technically legal, because no one minds. I'm sure that's also post-colonial — it feels comfortable to people to see someone in a hijab in a position \"lower\" than them. That's just how it is."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_oppressed_by_the_state", "question": "DO YOU FEEL OPPRESSED BY THE STATE?", "answer": "Yes, of course. Especially around political symbols — it's crazy what they say."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "I'm always worried someone will find out — that's for sure — but I do it because I have to, and in a sense I can be proud that I'm doing it. Even if I have to pray in the changing room, I'm doing what I need to do, so I feel happy about that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I think it's believing in what He gave us. I think it's trying to be near Him, trying to have tawakkul, (trust in Allah). That's mostly how I'd put it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-019_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-019", "country": "FR", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "In my case, I felt liberated by wearing the hijab, I think. When I go to the hospital I feel oppressed, because I have to take it off, but when I don't have to take it off, I feel liberated, because I'm doing what I want in order to please Allah — I think that's what makes me happy."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "I wake up in the morning, I do my worship, say my prayers, and go about my daily business — making breakfast and so on. I do a lot of volunteer work, I help people, and I do all the other things a regular person does, except I just dress differently.\n\nI live my faith. I say my regular prayers, I follow the guidance in the Qur'an, and I feel that my religion doesn't interfere with my daily life — it is my daily life. I had a successful business running with my husband, and I was out meeting people and so on, and I always had a very good reception."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "Yes, I am. I just excuse myself for five minutes — it doesn't take more than that. I go to the washroom, wash up, go to a corner, take my five minutes, and that's about it, then come back to my meetings and my work."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I would tell them we're no different from you — we just believe differently, but we worship the same God.\n\nYou'll be surprised: I think the people around me are my community. It doesn't matter if they're French Canadian, Christian, Jewish, Bengali, Pakistani, or Indian — it doesn't matter to me. My community is the people around me. I don't associate only with a certain community, because I believe everybody is a human being and everybody's creator is one creator. For me it's been very good — up until now I've had a very good experience here, except for a couple of times in the fifty years I've been here."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've lived here almost fifty years — this September it will be fifty years. I came here in September 1976. I've had good experiences, except when I've heard horror stories about the government making laws to discriminate against Muslim women. On a personal note, I have French Canadian friends and English-speaking friends, and I don't see a difference. I'm perfectly comfortable, except with people dealing in areas where the education level is a little lower than where I move around, because the government creates an atmosphere of fear against \"the other,\" and then the other looks at me as the other and is scared. For instance, after 9/11, I was wearing the scarf and working in an office building on the seventh floor, and I noticed that as soon as I got into the elevator there was this barrier of cold air around me, like people were scared of me. So what I used to do was start talking to them with a big smile — \"oh, that's a nice bag, where did you buy it,\" \"those shoes look nice on you, are they comfortable\" — and once you start a conversation, I could literally feel the ice melt away. They'd have a smile on their face and chit-chat with me until I got to my floor.\n\nI think everybody should do that — I don't think it's only because I wear this scarf and I'm visibly Muslim that I do it, but I make a point of it because I know the other person is scared of me, because fear-mongering has taken its toll. I want to break down their fears, show them I'm just another human being like them — I go about my business, I eat my food, I do my exercise, I go for walks, just like them. I only believe differently, I only dress differently. It's part of my wardrobe, part of my practice — it's not something to be scared of.\n\nI didn't wear the hijab until 1997, after I did my Hajj. As I understand my Islam, I have to dress modestly — I don't have to cover my head, I don't have to flaunt my hairstyle, but if I'm modestly dressed and covered, I don't have to wear this. But since I went for my Hajj, I understood it differently: when I stand in prayer I cover my head, so I understood that maybe I should always cover my head. I also found it easier for me, because whenever I'm out somewhere and it's prayer time, I don't have to look for something to cover my head — I'm always ready for prayer. There were many reasons. One was that I wanted people to know it's not your dress that matters, it's what's inside you, what's inside your brain, that matters. When I communicate with others, I want them to feel I'm no different from them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "I have to share with you that I haven't had that experience. There have been many occasions where I was the only hijabi woman among thousands of non-hijabi women, Muslim and non-Muslim, and I haven't felt uncomfortable at all. Sometimes I even forget I have it on my head — I'm driving, somebody cuts in front of me, I scream at them, and then think, \"oh my god, they're going to think this is what a Muslim woman is like.\" For me this is just part of my dress now — I've been wearing it almost twenty years. My math isn't all that good, but I don't feel different."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Absolutely. I read a lot of books, and I've read ten to fifteen different interpretations of the Qur'an. For the last thirty years, maybe more, I've made it my mission to read a different translation every Ramadan, just for my own knowledge, because you really can't translate the Qur'an, you can only interpret it. An elderly person once told me that if you want to understand the Qur'an, you have to read different interpretations, because no two are quite the same — each gives a different perspective, because it's the translator's perspective, and the Qur'an is written in metaphors. So I've made it my mission to read as many translations as I can, though there are a few I keep going back to. I've also read good authors like Karen Armstrong and others. I want to build my own knowledge — I don't want to just listen to somebody else. I do listen to religious podcasts, but I form my own impressions and my own understanding. I don't like anyone telling me what's right or wrong. In fact, I encourage everyone to seek their own knowledge and understanding, because the Qur'an tells us that each soul is responsible for its own actions — we don't have the right to tell anyone they're practicing wrong, whether they wear a hijab or a niqab or neither. It's about how each of us understands our faith and practices it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I started wearing the hijab when I went for Hajj — you have to cover your head there, and of course, when you pray, you cover your head. I understood it as a mark of respect to my creator, and that's why I kept it on: I said, I'm going to leave it on, it's a mark of respect to my creator. Since I have to cover my head whenever I stand in prayer, I thought, why not cover it all the time? I haven't faced any aggression, except two or three times in fifty years, as I told you, so I'm pretty comfortable with my scarf.\n\nIt gives me peace, because I know I'm respecting my creator. When we stand in prayer we're standing in front of our creator, in communication with Him. So if I'm already covering my head when I come before my creator, then by leaving it on, I feel I'm always in His presence. That's why I left it on, and it hasn't had a negative impact on me.\n\nYou could call it subconscious — that's my personal understanding, and someone else might understand it differently. For me, when I have my head covered, I feel I'm in the presence of my creator all the time, because I used to cover my head only when standing in prayer."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "All the time — I'm giving interviews all the time, to the media, to PhD students like you, so many interviews in my life.\n\nI blame my own community for a lot of this misunderstanding — we should have been more open, more willing to reach out and show people we're just the same. When I moved into this neighborhood in 1977 — I'd lived in an apartment building for a year before that, but nobody wanted to rent to us after that because we had four young children; they thought the children would destroy their apartment. So we bought a townhouse instead. When I moved in, I made a point of going out and mixing with the neighbors. My next-door neighbor, a Catholic woman, used to fast with me — when Ramadan came and she saw me fasting, she asked about it, and said she wanted to fast with me too. I asked her, don't you feel hungry, don't you feel thirsty? Because I knew that during Ramadan God gives us the strength to fast. She said no, whenever she felt hungry or thirsty she just offered it up to God, and then she was okay. On the twelfth of Rabi' al-Awwal, she baked a cake and brought it to my door — \"this is for your Prophet's birthday.\" I've had very good experiences. She was French Canadian, and she used to come to my house for dinner, and we'd have coffee together.\n\nThere was another neighbor, a young English-speaking woman, who told me that when I first moved into the neighborhood, people were scared — \"oh, Muslims are moving in, they're taught to keep their houses dirty, they don't live well.\" Then she said, \"I come to your house and it's just the same as mine.\" I said, of course it is — people have these misconceptions about us, and it's up to us to remove them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "By the grace of God, I've never really had difficulty other than financial difficulty — when we moved here with young children and my husband didn't have a job, we had a difficult time financially, but I've never had any other kind of difficulty in life. I've always had very positive responses and feedback from people. We got through it by budgeting.\n\nI said a lot of prayers and asked for God's help, and I got it. I went back to the Qur'an, to the verses in Surat At-Talaq — I think chapter 65, from the second verse to the end of the third. That's a very good ayah for getting over financial difficulty, because God says in the Qur'an, \"I will give you from whence you know not\" — if you have faith in Him, if you ask Him, He will give you from whence you know not. So I prayed a lot, and I was okay — my husband found a job, we budgeted, our children went to school, and we were good, masha'Allah. Sometimes now I just think, my God, where did all that come from? I don't know, but it's exactly as Surat At-Talaq says: He will give it to you from whence you know not."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I don't go to the mosque — I'm sorry to say that, but I feel very insulted that women are pushed into a corner, behind curtains. I've been a secretary at my mosque, and I was on the board of a masjid — the only Muslim woman on the board here in [CITY 1], actually the first Muslim woman on that board — and I saw how our Muslim men operate: my ideas were totally discounted. It's the Muslim men who need to evolve. Muslim women have evolved, but the men need to.\n\nYes, and it's up to us Muslim women to rise up against those biases, against those expectations. It's turning — it will take time, but it will turn, it will be okay. Women are standing up because they're getting more knowledgeable, learning their rights, saying, \"no, this isn't in the Qur'an, you can't ask me to do this because it's not in the Qur'an.\" It's knowledge that we need more of. Things are changing because women are getting educated and learning their Islamic rights, because Islam gave women their rights more than fourteen hundred years ago, but the colonizers came and changed all that, and Muslim men took advantage of it and changed the religious knowledge, kept women uneducated — they said women don't need to go to school, just learn to read and write a little, do the household accounting, and that was it. Men needed the higher education, they said, and the women were left financially suppressed, without the means to stand on their own two feet. But now it's changing — now women are understanding that they have Islamic rights."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My family — I'm responsible for bringing up my children. I taught them how to read the Qur'an, and I used to stand in prayer with them, because my husband traveled a lot for work, so I was alone with the children most of the time. I gave them whatever Islamic education I had, and I prayed with them. Now they're all grown and gone. My son lives in the States — he calls me every day, because I've told him not a day should pass without my hearing from him, since I worry. Every day I ask him if he's applied for anything over here. I don't like that he's there, honestly, to tell you the truth."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "An educator, in every aspect of my life. I try to make life easy for others — God told us that, and that's what my father told us too, to help others. To tell you the truth, I don't make a difference between friends, family, outsiders, Muslims, non-Muslims — whoever needs my help, I'll help in whichever way I can.\n\nYes, absolutely — I was on the board of [COMMUNITY ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION 1], and on the round table of senior citizens of [SUBURBAN REGION 1]. I'm very involved in the community, and I feel everyone has to be, whether it's a Muslim community or not — a community is a community, and how will non-Muslims know who Muslims are if we don't get involved? In my family, I'm a leader — I lead my family toward goodness. I try my best."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "I belong to Quebec, but the government keeps telling me, over and over, that I don't belong. It's a huge — I can't find the word — the government tries its best to make me not feel I belong, although I do feel I belong. Because I've lived here — I've never lived anywhere else for this long. It's been fifty years. I was only twenty-eight when I came here."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "I have to share this with you. The government can keep on talking, but the people around me, they make me feel good. They don't discriminate against me, and life goes on as we want it to go on. The government can keep making rule after rule — who's following that rule? You will have one or two here and there, hijab-wearing women who have been discriminated against, and again I'll take you back to the reason I didn't feel discriminated against: first, I was raising my family and didn't go out to work, and then I had my own business, so I wasn't exposed to that part of society where I've heard horror stories of women being pushed down escalators because they were wearing a hijab. I have a friend who is a PhD, and when she'd just finished her PhD, she applied for a job at a university and got it, over the phone and by email — she was a hijab-wearing woman — and when she went in for her final interview and the man across the table saw her in the hijab, he completely did not hire her. All her credentials worked, her timing worked, her salary was fixed, everything was done — but when he saw her in a hijab in person, he didn't hire her. I haven't faced those situations, because I didn't go out into the world to work. I was home raising my children, because my husband and I had decided he would go out and earn the money, and I would concentrate on our family here. If I'd gone out to work, all my salary would have gone toward babysitting for four children — it wouldn't have worked out, budget-wise. So I said I'd rather give my children security and bring them up properly, and we'd make do with less.\n\nMy faith is my own faith. The province doesn't have any business in my home, and it cannot control my faith. I know Quebec has a history with religion — the Catholic Church used to be very imposing on people, and they resent religion because of that — but I don't resent my religion. My faith is my faith, and I'm a very good citizen: I've paid my taxes, I've done a lot of volunteer work, I've done a lot to help others, and they can't interfere in my faith. So I have no problem with it, although many times we've asked for a face-to-face meeting with government officials and they haven't responded."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_other_faith_communities_face_the_same_restrictions", "question": "DO OTHER FAITH COMMUNITIES FACE THE SAME RESTRICTIONS?", "answer": "The Jewish community here is a very old, well-established community — Jewish people are involved in politics and everywhere, so they're very well established, very powerful. We can't compare ourselves to them; we're not that powerful yet. The Muslim community is very new, and it will take time to establish itself. We have to be more involved in the community, more involved in politics, more involved in education — a lot more involvement. That's how you control many aspects — you control the narrative."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "I live toward the Akhirah — when I follow my faith, I'm taking care of my Akhirah. I live according to how the Qur'an guides me, and that's supposed to be my Akhirah. If I'm not doing anything wrong, if I'm not cheating, if I'm following the commandments God set out in the Qur'an — I counted twelve, I don't know why — I should be fine, inshallah.\n\nI'll share a story with you. There was a Christian woman I knew who was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and she explained everything to her pastor about her funeral arrangements — what dress to bury her in, to put her Bible in her right hand. Then she said, \"oh, I forgot one thing,\" and asked him to also put a fork in her left hand. He asked why, and she said: at church suppers, they used to call out from the kitchen window, \"hold on to your forks, there's dessert coming.\" So she wanted to be holding her fork, because she was expecting something good to come — that's her Akhirah, holding the fork, expecting dessert from God. I thought that was such a good idea. When she passes on, she's going to get dessert. That's what shaped my thinking — that I should do everything good, and have my fork in my hand, ready."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "It's very easy, if you're a person of faith — my life is very God-centered, Alhamdulillah. If something goes wrong, I believe there must be some wisdom in it, and I ask God to show me that wisdom — that something went wrong in my life for a reason, because there must be something good in it. The Qur'an tells us not a leaf falls but that it is in His knowledge."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "No, my children don't have children yet. One of my daughters is a professional athlete. My daughters don't wear the hijab, and I've never asked them to, because hijab is something you have to be comfortable in — if you're not comfortable in it, it doesn't serve its purpose. As long as you're modestly dressed, that's between you and your Lord, your creator.\n\nI'm holding the fork in my hand — I hope the future is good. I'm expecting God Almighty to have mercy on us and show us the way, although we're going through very dark times. I would like us — and when I say us, I mean the whole of Quebec — to understand each other: you're Christian, you're Jewish, I'm Muslim, you're Hindu, you're Buddhist, you don't believe in anything — but we are all human beings, and we should learn to respect each other's beliefs and move on as human beings doing good things for each other, who don't have to be enemies. We are all God's children."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "I don't get their version of laïcité. For me, laïcité means I'm allowed to do and believe and wear whatever I want — if I want to walk around in shorts, that's none of their business; if I want to wear a bikini, none of their business; if I want to cover and wear a niqab, that's also not their business. Laïcité means freedom of thought, to me. How is it laïcité if they're imposing something on me? That's not laïcité, to me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_specific_laws_bill_21_bill_94_bill", "question": "HAVE SPECIFIC LAWS (BILL 21, BILL 94, BILL 9, ETC.) PERSONALLY AFFECTED YOU?", "answer": "I have speeches on that — if you want, I can share them with you and you can take excerpts. But I'm not really the right person to ask, because, as I told you, I've never personally had problems because of these laws."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "I'm a very peaceful person — nothing really bothers me, honestly. If I have good health, food on my plate three times a day, I don't need much. Of course, three cups of coffee during the day is good too — one in the morning, one mid-morning, one at three p.m. — and I'm happy. I'm the kind of person who feels everything can be solved with dialogue: if you have a problem with me, sit down across the table, ask me questions, and I'll answer honestly. That's all."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Everything. Submission is everything — if I'm not submitting to the will of Allah, then I'm not a Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-020_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-020", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberation, to me, means doing things that make me happy, that make me comfortable. I don't really know where — I'm always liberated. I speak my mind; what I have inside comes out of my mouth. I speak my mind. I'm liberated."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "Oh my goodness — an ordinary day in my life? There are several, I would say. I've had several stages in my life, because now I'm a very senior person, and what I've done as a routine has of course varied depending on my age. So where do you want me to start? Because if you say today, my routine today is very different from my routine fifty years ago.\n\nLet me start from the beginning, and the beginning would be my beginning in Canada, since you're interested in the history of women who have lived in Canada. I'll start there — not that I think my life is interesting, but since you asked, I'm going to respond to the best of my knowledge. I came to Canada as what at the time was called a landed immigrant, so I came as an immigrant knowing that I would become Canadian, quote-unquote, after three years. I was here as a student. This is how I started. I had hopes of getting a PhD degree, and I came against my parents' wishes — they thought I'd be here just for a couple of months, and that it was lunacy to be alone in Canada. I wasn't married at the time, so they just let me go. I had saved enough money to pay for my ticket, and I had five hundred dollars in my pocket. That's how I started here. I worked at [UNIVERSITY 1] as a teaching assistant, and I also enrolled in courses for my degree, what I hoped would be a PhD degree — and this ensured that I was more or less financially independent.\n\nI was twenty-eight years old at the time. I came to [CITY 1] because I knew I spoke French — I was educated in a French lycée — and I liked the fact that it was a bilingual city at the time; this was very attractive to me. I was kind of disappointed, because I thought [CITY 1] was a small city compared to where I came from. I came from Egypt, and [CITY 2] was celebrating two thousand years of history at that time, so [CITY 1] seemed quite provincial to me. But very soon I discovered how convenient it was to live in this city — the water pressure was excellent, the phone lines worked without any hindrance, and this is how I started.\n\nNow, if you want to know about my faith: I grew up in a conservative Muslim family, and I had contacts here with the Muslim community. At that time it was basically more Asian, so Pakistani, and maybe not as many Arabs — sixty-forty percent. I can't give you exact numbers, but there was just one mosque in [CITY 1]. I used to go to the mosque, I enjoyed it, and this was my first contact with the Muslim environment here. It was a Muslim non-Arab environment, but nonetheless there was a Saturday school for kids that I participated in, and I really enjoyed it. I liked my life in [CITY 1] — I used to spend an inordinate amount of time going to the stores and seeing what there was available at the beauty counters. And politically, I thought there was more freedom, although I came here with the idea that I was fed up with politics, that I didn't want to know anything about the Arab-Israeli conflict, that I just wanted to be free and live my life. But in fact politics here took hold of me — I was interested in politics, and I did appreciate that you could be involved, that you could go out in demonstrations. Although in the first few years I wasn't politically active, I was more religiously active, because this was my main attachment to the community, to the Muslim community, through the mosque.\n\nAt that time, I must say, there was no marked Islamophobia as there is today — so we're talking about the mid-70s. People would see my brown skin and they would think, \"oh, so you're Pakistani.\" That was the first reaction. I'd say, no, I'm not Pakistani, I come from the Middle East — but usually it was the same place for people, you know, there was no difference, and nobody would address me as Muslim or would be aware that we were so different. That was [CITY 1] in the mid-70s.\n\nNow, things began to change after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I can place it very distinctly, when Khomeini — the late Ayatollah Khomeini — came into power, the Islamic Revolution in '79. People now would start using the word \"Ayatollah,\" for instance, and \"Muslim revolution,\" and \"Islam.\" And there was a very popular book called Not Without My Daughter, by Betty Mahmoody. That was the story of a mother who was married to an Iranian; she thought it was a repressive marriage, an unhappy marriage, and she wanted to leave Iran, but she had a daughter and her husband wouldn't allow her to leave. Betty Mahmoody wrote about her experience, which was an allegory for all the fantasies that Western women have of the Muslim world — that the husband is oppressive, and so on. Anyway, this was the novel, and it had great popularity. It was translated into French, and you would hear about it everywhere. There was also the fact of the American hostages who were taken in Tehran. So this played very vividly here in the media and in the subconscious of Quebecers, of the Canadians here. That was the first exposure, I would say, to the Muslim world, and to the beginning of Islamophobia.\n\nThen in the 80s there were the Lebanese immigrants who came from Lebanon, from the civil war in Lebanon, so we had more Arabs here, we had more religious Islamic centers in Quebec — this was the second wave. In the 90s we had the immigrants coming from North Africa, in particular from Algeria. As the number of immigrants from Muslim countries increased, our problems also increased, because immigrants come and they settle here — they don't settle in faraway places, in the farms, where no one hears about them or sees them. They come here to [CITY 1]. This made a difference. We were seeing more halal restaurants, more young men coming either to study and then to stay. I mean, it was a good thing to see the community grow — we would hear more Arabic on the streets, more specialized grocery stores, restaurants. But at the same time, the international context was, how would you say, coloring the way local people here, local Québécois and local Canadians, were looking at us.\n\nAll this was before 9/11 — so the 90s and the turn of the century. Then, of course, there was 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and everybody wanted to go and fight in Afghanistan to free the women, right? So the woman was a very central part of the Islamophobic context, because of the way they were depicted: they're submissive, they have no agency, they're repressed — in other words, they're covered, you don't see them, they're silent, so they have no role in life except to reproduce. That was the image that was circulated. And of course the Western world was going there to liberate them — this is a very good cause, you know, you can't argue with that.\n\nNow, what was special about Quebec is that there's the French influence. There's influence from France, and the secularism law, what we call laïcité, has also been imported from France, and here it was taken up. With the number of Muslim immigrants doubling every decade — coming whether from North Africa or from the Middle East, and I include here Afghanistan, and Iraq, Turkey — this coincided with the rise of a nationalist view of what people should be, look like, dress, eat, think, speak. That was all taken up by the nationalist Parti Québécois as a banner, as what they thought would be defending the Quebec national values, what they call Québécois values. All this put together gives you an idea about the build-up of Islamophobic trends in Quebec, and especially — I'm speaking for [CITY 1], but this is true throughout Quebec — most of the immigrants, about eighty-nine percent of Muslim immigrants, are based in [CITY 1]."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "Absolutely, I feel I belong. What helped me to integrate was that I married a man — my late husband was from Quebec, but he was from the English-speaking minority in Quebec. He was not French-speaking, he was English-speaking. But I felt integrated because I had in-laws who lived here, who lived in Quebec. I also worked in the English colleges, what they call CEGEPs here. I never felt like an outsider, because I was a hundred percent engaged in the community, and I never wanted to isolate myself. As I said, maybe being married to a Québécois did help me, but also I think of myself as an active member of society — when I was working, I was earning money, I was paying taxes, and I thought that politically I was very engaged as well, not only on the international level, more on the international level, but also on the Quebec provincial level, a little bit less on the municipal level, I do regret to say. I'm only becoming more involved now on the municipal level, with the problems that we have with the unhoused people, and garbage collection, and so on. I'm not happy with the services that the city is offering, but this came at a later stage.\n\nYou can't do everything — I mean, you can't be at the international level and the Quebec level and the municipal level. But maybe the municipal level is something that we as immigrants should get more interested in, because this is more immediate. From my experience as an immigrant, I'm always attached to my home country, so I follow what's happening over there. And although when I came I said, okay, I'm not going to live my life worrying about Israel and Egypt and Palestine and so on, I became increasingly involved in politics, and in Islamophobia. At the beginning, when you live normally, when nobody points at you and says that you're a Muslim, you don't pay as much attention to it — you don't have to defend it, you don't have to explain, you don't have to prove yourself, not as much, at least. But with increasing Islamophobia, yes, I think this is an added challenge. This is more of a challenge also for younger women who are in the workplace — we're very aware of that, especially now that we have laws that curtail what professions they can do, how they should be dressed, what conduct they should adopt in the public place. I'm very much aware of that. Now that I'm retired, I'm not employed, but I do have a business, I do have a rental business, so I'm still active, and I'm very much involved in the community, and I hope I'm doing something that would be of benefit to other Muslim women.\n\nI don't think I deserve all this. I just have to be honest and say I lived my life. I was mentioning to my nephew that I haven't accomplished the things that I thought I would accomplish in Canada, and he said, do you live the life you wanted to live? So that is true, but there's nothing to gloat about."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_faith_show_up_in_a_given", "question": "HOW DID FAITH SHOW UP IN A GIVEN DAY?", "answer": "What I found — and this was maybe in the 80s and in the 90s — was the difficulty, for instance, of praying. That is a big hurdle for Muslims, because you can't just say, well, I want to find a space, a private space, for praying. And then you have to justify it. People would say it's very well accepted to have breaks — a coffee break — but when you talk about a break for prayers, that is not so well accepted. And now there are laws that prevent schools from having a space for prayers for the young people.\n\nWhereas when I first came to Canada, at the [UNIVERSITY 3] there was a chapel. There is still a chapel at [UNIVERSITY 2]. [UNIVERSITY 1], for instance — they refuse to apply this new law that says you cannot pray in a public space, because they have so many international students, and they are selling this as an advantage, that students have a place to pray, a musalla. So it's a room, and it's divided — the place for men, and next to it for women. That is [UNIVERSITY 1]. At [UNIVERSITY 1], at [UNIVERSITY 2], it was a yearly fight, from day one, from forever — I remember it was always difficult to have a space for prayers. There was a space given, allowed for Friday prayers, but not a permanent place. It was always a fight to get a place to pray. And now, with the new law, I'm not sure — I'm not sure if there is going to be a musalla, or even Friday prayers."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_the_new_law_come_about", "question": "HOW DID THE NEW LAW COME ABOUT?", "answer": "I can tell you how the new law came about. This is part of the CAQ, the Coalition Avenir Québec, and that is invoking not neutrality but secularism, laïcité — that you cannot have prayers in public space. What triggered it was that during the demonstrations for Palestine, sometimes they coincided with the afternoon, because here in [CITY 1] in the winter it's almost Asr prayers — you pray noon at twelve, and then ten minutes after two p.m. it is Asr. So in some instances we had to pray standing in the street, just to have a space to pray. And there were also some instances where, at Eid for instance, families came into the park and prayed in the park.\n\nThis didn't go well with the members of the CAQ. So they introduced this new law that you cannot pray in a public place — but then they didn't want to put it so bluntly, so they nuanced it. They said, unless you obtain permission from the municipality and you don't hinder traffic. Which was already the case, because whenever we had demonstrations for Palestine, we did have to take permission from the police, and it was well announced, and the area was cordoned off, so there was no hindrance of traffic or any other activity. It was just that we were praying, and this was part of marking our presence, let's say, or our protest.\n\nAnd so after that they did elaborate on it, and said, okay, a public place — well, what is a public place? A school. Of course schools are a public place, so you can't pray in a college, what they call here a CEGEP, and so on. There are a lot of ramifications to this law, which is Law 94, and this was an extension of another law. So they're just building it up, and going the way France is going, because in France those laws are en vigueur — in other words, they're circulated. So here we're copying France. This is the model for Quebec."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_the_other_universities_have_a_chapel_or", "question": "DO THE OTHER UNIVERSITIES HAVE A CHAPEL OR A MUSALLA?", "answer": "I would say musalla here, because there are four universities in [CITY 1] that I could talk about. So there is [UNIVERSITY 2] — and I think I did mention [UNIVERSITY 2]. [UNIVERSITY 1] has a specific place for prayers for Muslims, so a musalla. There is the [UNIVERSITY 4] — I don't know what the situation is there. Same thing for the [UNIVERSITY 3], I don't know. What I can tell you is that the students — and this I heard from somebody who is doing some research, a French intern, actually, who is doing research there — he told me that he and the other young men have to bring their prayer carpets with them, and they pray in a hidden place, but there is no central place for prayers.\n\nNo, no, they don't have a chapel. In fact, [UNIVERSITY 2] has a chapel, and they have a department of religious studies, so it's integrated there. And I can tell you that at the [UNIVERSITY 3] there was a chapel in the 80s — so a church, a chapel — and then they turned it into a morgue. They thought the space would be better used that way. Yes — for a morgue. That's what happened to it. Now, at [UNIVERSITY 4], I don't know what the situation is there, but for sure now they cannot have a musalla."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__is_the_law_targeted_at_muslims_or_applied", "question": "IS THE LAW TARGETED AT MUSLIMS, OR APPLIED TO OTHER RELIGIONS TOO?", "answer": "Absolutely. Well, the law doesn't say we are against Muslims. Muslims are the most affected by it. When we think of the increment in the Asian immigrant community, there is no debate about being a Buddhist, or about synagogues, for instance. It says \"religious symbol,\" but it's not only the law, [INTERVIEWER], it's how the law is applied. And maybe we are more visible.\n\nAlthough — the second group that is more impacted are the Sikhs. There was a big controversy about the kirpan, the small dagger, the ceremonial, symbolic dagger that Sikh men were wearing, and this was a big issue here at one point, in the schools, for instance. And lately, I just read recently, there was a Sikh man — and it's Sikh in English; I don't want to say a sick man, like someone who's ill. He's also an influencer, so he takes photos of himself and so on. He was working out at the gym, and he was wearing a long dagger — because the daggers that are allowed only have to be seven inches long, and his dagger was obviously longer than that; I've seen him in the photo — and he also had a turban. Apparently one of the employees came and told him, you have to leave. Why can't I stay in the gym? Because you have a weapon on you. And there was a big controversy — should he leave the gym, yes, no, why, and so on.\n\nBut these are still affecting a minority. What makes us more of a target is the numbers. Not that this should matter — I mean, one person is one person too much, that's discriminated against. But over and above the law, it's how people even would discriminate against Muslim women who are wearing the hijab, even if the law doesn't say you have to discriminate against them."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I see that there are more challenges, and this has actually encouraged me to learn more about Islam — when you're going to debate, when you're going to talk about your religion, you have to be informed. So I try to have solid arguments. I read, and I don't know whether the articles I've written are still on the website of [MUSLIM WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION 1].\n\nWhat I write about now is very different from what my sister, who lives in Egypt, is interested in, in the kind of religious knowledge (she seeks). Here you have to convey more basic knowledge, and also to address the attacks and the concerns, so we would look at a different kind of source, a different kind of knowledge, if I may say. I'll give you an example. My sister is very much interested in how you read the Qur'an and the rules — what we call tajweed. I wouldn't have the luxury to just sit down and study those rules, but I would write about the history of Islam, misconceptions of Islam, because this is what I'm confronted with. Nobody will ask me how you read the Qur'an, or whether you read it correctly or not correctly. So there is a certain balance here. Although I know it's very important to read correctly, I would rely on listening to the Qur'an and reading it in the same way, rather than being knowledgeable about how to read the Qur'anic text — because you can't do everything. You have to specialize, specialize in the areas where you would be useful, useful in the sense of being accessible, acceptable, of explaining, in the sense of facilitating integration. That is the objective now, let's say, my primary interest, my contribution or participation. This is what is needed, or what I feel is needed, or what I feel I can do or contribute."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_seek_that_knowledge_and_has", "question": "HOW DO YOU SEEK THAT KNOWLEDGE, AND HAS THAT CHANGED WITH THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT?", "answer": "Books. And yes, it has changed, because at the beginning there wasn't so much Islamophobia, not so many attacks directed so directly at the religion. I was also more on the political side rather than the religious side, because in the Middle East — I come from Egypt — during those fifty years it was always a kind of turmoil, whether it was repression, or seeking to support those who were repressed, political prisoners, whatever. It has been an ongoing upheaval, and that took precedence over Islamophobia. But since 9/11, I would say Islamophobia has become so marked. And we are in Quebec, where we receive blows from both sides, from south of the border and from France — so it's like somebody slapping you on both cheeks, one from the States and one from Europe. Not me particularly, but it's like we are in a sandwich."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__is_any_of_it_directed_at_muslims_here", "question": "IS ANY OF IT DIRECTED AT MUSLIMS HERE, OR AT MUSLIMS IN GENERAL?", "answer": "In general, what's happening in the States is not kind to Muslims either. I get the emails of CAIR, C-A-I-R, and it's not — how do you say? I don't want to use the word pleasant. It's not reassuring, let's say. It's not reassuring.\n\nHowever, the difference between Muslims in the States and Muslims here is that in the States fifty percent of them are natives. So the African American Muslims are aware, politically, socially, whether that comes with advantages or disadvantages. But here, most of the Muslim population is either first-generation immigrants — now we have a second generation — but we are not considered natives in the same sense as African Americans."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_does_integration_mean_to_you_and_what", "question": "WHAT DOES INTEGRATION MEAN TO YOU, AND WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?", "answer": "One word: integration means that you have access to the job market. This is the best way to get integrated. The immigrants who come here from Muslim countries are, of course, not seniors — they are at a stage of their lives where they are active members of society. And how do you become active, how do you become integrated? By having a place in the workforce. There is no other way, no better way to be integrated.\n\nWell, it starts with economic integration. You can't just be — how are you going to be living? This is all you have. You have to have an income, you're not going to live on thin air, you have to have a means of living, and the economic side here is very important. I would say we are living in a society where your value is based on how much money you make. It's as simple as that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_come_to_wear_hijab_and", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DID IT DO FOR YOU?", "answer": "I don't wear a traditional hijab like the hijab you are wearing. My story is very different, because when I grew up — the 60s, the 70s, in Egypt — the women didn't wear it. It wasn't known as such. There was a national attire, but the word \"hijab\" didn't even exist in our vocabulary. It was more those who went out with a black wrap around their head — not a chador, we didn't have this.\n\nThere was also a divide in the society, where the upper class was imitating the Western world — very much influenced by colonialism. I myself went to a French school, so it was also about looking at France as the model: whether I wanted to dress like the French girls, act like them, speak like them. My whole environment was very much influenced by this colonial mentality.\n\nThat was one side of the family. What made a balance is that my father was very religious, and that he had studied in England, so he could see the colonialism, he could see the imperialism — he was more aware of it. He was in England for his studies and then came back — this was in the 40s. But Egypt had both English and French colonial influences. My mother sent me to a French school because this was thought to be an advantage — a young woman of my society should speak French, and it looked good when you sat among people in society to be able to speak French. It was a kind of refinement, if you want. Whereas boys would go more to an English school. My father, being an Arab nationalist, wanted his son to go to a national Arab school, so my older brother went to a national Arabic public school, and I and my sisters went to the lycée.\n\nGoing back to the question of hijab: the question of identity, of Islamic identity, came into play after Egypt was defeated by Israel in the 1967 war. That was the beginning of the call for more Arab Islamic values. And this is how it started — a prominent family from high society started wearing the hijab, and then it filtered down to the society, even up to the 80s. Since I was here, the hijab was not so dominant. I started wearing a kind of hijab, covering my head, after 9/11.\n\nI did it for two reasons. For me, there were always norms of decency that were enforced. For instance, my sisters and I would never wear miniskirts, although in the 60s that was the fashion, the rage — the miniskirts. So we wouldn't wear miniskirts, we wouldn't wear sleeveless blouses. There were terms of decency that were, let's say, unwritten — we would know what would be considered osé, or not acceptable — but the hijab was not part of it. So this was introduced gradually in Egypt and became the norm, and it spread because it became — how do you say — fashionable; it became not acceptable but high class to wear the hijab, you see. So it's a religious component doubled with a societal component — it was a kind of distinction to wear the hijab.\n\nThe hijab, what we call the Egyptian hijab, which is basically what you are wearing — there is some historical precedence, in that at the time when Egypt was under the Turkish influence, and was actually a Turkish wilayat, part of the Turkish empire, then men and women used to wear the niqab, cover their face. But this again was a kind of distinction. This was the upper society: you wouldn't reveal yourself, or show your face, to somebody who's not from the immediate family. It was something for the upper class. It was not for, let's say, the farmers, the Egyptians who were working the fields, or in some other menial jobs — it was for the very upper crust. So that has a certain resonance. And so now the niqab is quite different, but it is not popular; the niqab comes from a Saudi influence. In Egypt at the time, for instance, my great-grandmother used to wear what would be called a niqab today, but she only wore it when she would meet men from outside the family, or go outside the house — for instance, her driver or her cook would never see her face. She always had this kind of makeup (underneath). So that idea of supremacy, or upper class, I would say, played a role in the adoption of the hijab in Egypt. For myself, it was more in solidarity with those who wear the hijab, after 9/11. I think it's quite complicated."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__was_there_more_islamophobia_after_9_11_and", "question": "WAS THERE MORE ISLAMOPHOBIA AFTER 9/11, AND DID PEOPLE TREAT YOU DIFFERENTLY?", "answer": "Absolutely. Nobody attacks me. I rightly think that it's out of modesty, perhaps, that I'm covering my head. I don't look typical — I dress modestly, but I dress off the rack here. I buy my clothes mostly here from Winners; I don't know if you have Winners and others. And so I'm a Muslim, but perhaps they don't think that I'm a very conservative Muslim — or I'm a Muslim that passes. And when I walk in the street, I pass. Now, in the job market, it's a different story. But there isn't as much animosity (toward me) as toward somebody who is wearing a full hijab, whom they perceive as wanting to impose themselves as Muslim. You see the difference?\n\nIt's not that I'm not at ease — no, I'm totally at ease about being identified as a Muslim. I even had some cases where a woman would come and ask me, \"so are you a Muslim, or a Jew?\" And I would say, no, I am a Muslim, that's quite clear. But people here think, or have an idea, that Muslims who wear the hijab do it because they want to impose (their faith), or they want others to convert. They think it's more aggressive, rather than out of faith or out of conviction. So that is the perception. And so I kind of pass — especially because I speak French, and I speak good French. And I'm old also, because older women in France, at a certain time — I'm not saying now — would be more or less dressed like me.\n\nNo, I didn't notice a change — not with the way I dress. And also because I was not on the job market at the time — I was self-employed, I had my own business. So it was not like somebody who is entering the job market, or even studying to become a teacher, wearing the hijab."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_does_the_larger_public_in_quebec_get", "question": "WHAT DOES THE LARGER PUBLIC IN QUEBEC GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Absolutely, (there is something they get wrong). There is a fear. Quebec has not had a good experience with the (Catholic) church, and that gets projected onto Muslims. They wanted to liberate themselves from the grasp of the church, and that is what they perceive as real liberation. So when they see Muslim women so attached to their religion, they say, you are bringing us back to the dark times, when the church had all the power over women — they were against the pill, for instance, they wanted women to have as many children as possible, and they also had a monopoly on the economy, on society, and on the education system. Once Quebecers got out of the shackles of the church, they don't want to see any going back, any being respectful or mindful of religion. It brings back bad memories, and they say, well, we don't want any religion in our life, and we don't want to be with people who seem backward, in a sense, or not liberated. So this is the problem here.\n\nI should get statistics on that before I speak, but originally, yes, they are Catholics — mainly Catholics, the French Québécois majority. Now, with the statistics — and we can look the statistics up — you can also identify as a non-believer, as an atheist, so I don't know what the proportion is. There's also the question of being baptized: traditionally, officially, you're Catholic, but then you don't believe and you don't practice, so you're a non-Catholic (Catholic). The relationship with Catholicism here is rather, you know, not a complex one.\n\nYes, but even during the time of what they call the Révolution tranquille — which would translate, I would think, as not soft transition; I don't have the exact translation, but a revolution that isn't a fiery revolution — the nuns opted to wear secular clothes, not to be dressed as nuns, and to wear a small cross instead of a big cross. So that was part of the evolution, if we don't want to use the term revolution."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_personally_encountered_discrimination_before_or_after", "question": "HAVE YOU PERSONALLY ENCOUNTERED DISCRIMINATION, BEFORE OR AFTER YOU STARTED WEARING HIJAB?", "answer": "Yes — there was discrimination when I was applying for a job, for sure. I did feel that there was discrimination. But you know, Madame, I think at that time I brushed it off. I didn't want to dwell on it. Whereas now I see it more clearly when it happens to others."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__feedback_on_the_study_s_questions", "question": "FEEDBACK ON THE STUDY'S QUESTIONS", "answer": "We should identify the sample. So, for instance, we should say this is geared to Muslim women, Muslims who identify themselves as Muslim, and also to women who wear the hijab — that's another aspect. Then the age group. I'm very sensitive to age now, with a mirror, since I'm a senior, so I can see that in the different phases of my life I had a different outlook on things, and the way you ask some of the questions, I think, is time related. So it's good to have age groups — not giving your exact age, but where you think you fit. I'm not going to say I'm thirty, but if we shifted to the senior category, that's where I would be. The usual age groups, I think. And if you want to add whether you're a student, or a housewife, or a mother — how you identify yourself socially — because some of the questions are very socially oriented, I would say. It's also good to have a sense of who is being interviewed: social and marital status, whether you're working or at home and so on. This is what I was thinking of.\n\nThen there was a question about what kind of difficulty you encountered. It comes somewhere here, I have it, but I thought it would be good to break it down — what kind of difficulty, whether it's in the workplace, or in the family, or other, because we face different kinds of difficulties. That would be a distinction: if I talk about a difficulty at work, it's very different from when I talk about a difficulty socially, when I had to bury my husband, for instance. Those are the ones that come to my mind, what I jotted down.\n\nWe touched on some of the first questions, so if you don't mind, I'll just read the question and tell you where I thought I was irrelevant, in a sense — because I was talking too much, and I don't think that would help. We're not going to mention everything that happened in Quebec and the waves of Islamophobia. All of that is documented historically; it's not only my interpretation or my point of view, and you have better sources for that. So it doesn't make sense to me to include it in the interview, or to give it any weight, let's say. For me it's a background, to explain my — how do you say — in French you say parcours, which doesn't mean my evolution but what I went through. But that's general; I wouldn't say it's specific to me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__where_if_anywhere_does_faith_show_up_in", "question": "WHERE, IF ANYWHERE, DOES FAITH SHOW UP IN A GIVEN DAY?", "answer": "Let me see. Tell me about an ordinary day in your life — I think that one is an icebreaker, more or less, unless there was something specific behind it, because the second question is related to it: where, if anywhere, does faith show up in a given day. This is crucial, I think. If we identify ourselves as Muslims, the first thing is that I pray — we have five prayers per day, and the day follows the schedule of those prayers. If you ask me about Ramadan, for instance, that's another feature of my days during Ramadan. So that is where my faith shows up, in the sense that as Muslims our faith guides us; it's in everyday life. In other aspects too, I do reflect — we face so many situations where we have to decide, how is this consonant with your religion, how would you deal with this given that you want to practice, to live as a Muslim. So that is a constant. If you say that you're a Muslim, it's a way of life. So how are we living in the West as Muslims? That would be the question. I'm not going to say it bothers me, but I do reflect on it, and sometimes I can come up with an answer — it's not always easy.\n\nLet's take a very simple question, a very simple situation. When you go to meet politicians, they want to shake your hand — so do you shake hands or don't you shake hands? Sometimes they know that you may not be comfortable shaking hands, so they refrain from giving you their hand, whereas you would have liked to show that you're friendly. So there's that kind of situation. Or at work, when they have a gathering, a cinq à sept after work, and they meet in a bar or some other place where they're going to drink, even if it's beer or something like that — do you go, or don't you go? That's the kind of thing, at a very practical level.\n\nThere are also other questions where you would reflect as a Muslim, as a general policy. For instance, at school, if you have kids and they have classes where they talk about transgender and so on, and that you don't have to be a girl or a boy, you can be something in between — I don't have to tell you, you know better, but this is the kind of situation that comes to your mind. Or when you get a grant from the government: [MUSLIM WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION 1] is getting a grant, and they have to talk about diversity, they have to have a session about gender and so on. I may not feel comfortable with that, you see, because here there is a clear conflict between what we know from the guidelines of Islam and the society where we are living.\n\nSo when you say, how does faith show up in a given day, I can tell you it should. It really should, as Muslims. We should be reflecting on how we, as Muslims, are living in the West. It doesn't imply that in our home countries we're not going to face those problems, but there the burden, the responsibility, is usually taken by the society, and you just follow. Here in the West you have more individuality and much less, I would say, leadership, or light to guide you, so you have to adjust your own compass. It's your responsibility in front of Allah, which is a part of Islam. We don't have a Pope. We don't have somebody to dictate to you what you should be doing — you do to the best of your knowledge, you could be right, you could be wrong, and Allah is going to judge us. So this, I thought, is a very deep question, if you ask me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_would_you_describe_yourself_and_your_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY TO SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER MET A MUSLIM WOMAN?", "answer": "This is where we talked a lot last time. Just one notice here: I think that there are now a lot of visible Muslim women, because of the immigration in the city — many, many visibly Muslim women wearing hijab and so on. It's outside [CITY 1] that Muslim women have no presence, and there they are represented by the media negatively, unfortunately. So this question — how would you describe yourself? I don't know; maybe you should ask somebody who has never met a Muslim woman. How would you view a Muslim woman? Where do you get your views of Muslim women from? Have you ever met a Muslim woman?\n\nMaybe — I recall that we talked a lot about this, so at this point I wouldn't want to elaborate, because it also depends on who is asking. And in fact, when I first came there were a lot of — I was invited, as I think I mentioned, by a lot of Catholic nuns who wanted to know about Muslim women, and this is one setting where I remember clearly that I had to say what I think I myself represent, or what I am doing, or what I am thinking.\n\nAs for how long I have lived here, and how my sense of myself as a Muslim has changed over that time — I think we did broach on this."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__are_there_places_where_you_feel_you_can", "question": "ARE THERE PLACES WHERE YOU FEEL YOU CAN OR CAN'T BE VISIBLY MUSLIM?", "answer": "This is regulated by law now in Quebec. There are places where you can't pray, whether it's at school, at work, or in the park. No, you can't be visibly Muslim, in the sense that you can't practice your religion. It's okay if you wear a hijab, but if you are going to pray for Eid, let's say collectively, then this new law bans such a manifestation. So in a sense they don't want to see Muslim women — they don't want to see anybody identified as Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_manage_the_eid_salah_in", "question": "HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE EID SALAH IN [CITY 1]?", "answer": "This was a new phenomenon — as I mentioned, this came about after the protests that we had for Palestine. Usually we didn't have Eid Salat in the park. One reason is the weather, and another reason is that we all restrict ourselves to mosques. But then it became popular after the demonstrations, that people want to pray outside.\n\nSo the new law says you can't pray in a public place, but it puts the responsibility of denying it on the municipality — it says unless the municipality allows it. So it's a bit complicated, in a sense, because usually when you have a congregation, whether it's for a protest or anything else, you have to have a permit from the police. Now the new law says, no, you get the permit from the police because the police assures that you're not going to impact the traffic or the parking — just some logistical matter. But now, in addition to this, the municipality has to decide if it is desirable or not desirable, and how it will fit with the laïcité. Is this a religious sign or not?\n\nBecause the Catholics also have processions in the street at Easter. This is why there was a controversy about it. It's a procession, and they go with the big cross, so it's obviously religious, and they were walking in a public place, it's in the streets. So we're not going to prohibit this, of course. So who takes the responsibility here? They found that it's a little bit more difficult to navigate than they originally thought. So there is the law, and there is the interpretation of the law."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_seek_religious_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE?", "answer": "Yes, actively. Yes, I would say only in times of crisis. On a daily basis I don't read much about religion, except for the Qur'an and the prayers. When do I seek knowledge? When I want to write an article, let's say for the Islamic New Year, or for the birth of the Prophet, peace be upon him, this kind of thing. That's where I try to get more educated about religion, and there are tons of books coming out. In other words, I seek knowledge when I want to say something, when I am in a situation — but not routinely, not routine-like. I don't say, okay, I'm devoting half an hour to bettering my knowledge about religion. No, it doesn't work that way, to be honest with you."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_encountered_representations_of_muslim_women_that", "question": "HAVE YOU ENCOUNTERED REPRESENTATIONS OF MUSLIM WOMEN THAT WERE INACCURATE, AND WHAT DID YOU DO?", "answer": "I would write — whether it's to the editors, whether they publish it or not, but I do react."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__a_difficulty_you_faced_and_how_you_made", "question": "A DIFFICULTY YOU FACED, AND HOW YOU MADE SENSE OF IT", "answer": "No — when we face difficulties, we don't make sense of them, otherwise we would accept them. But in general, there are different types of difficulties, right, whether it was at work or whether it was socially and so on. So I don't know where you would want the focus to be.\n\nWell, as a Muslim in general, we have the coping mechanism of sabr, patience. This is something that's very much praised in Islam — that there are difficulties in life and you go through them, that you have to be resilient, you have to be strong.\n\nOne of the difficulties I can tell you about is that I wanted to get married to a man who was not Muslim, and he was not really very keen on converting, so it took me a long time to convince him. He finally converted, but it was not easy sailing. So this is one kind of difficulty, but I stuck to my guns. He knew that if he wouldn't convert, I wouldn't marry him — although he was very open to being married civilly, in a civil court, like we have here. We didn't have to be married religiously, and the marriage would have been accepted socially; here in Quebec people can just register as married, they don't have to go through the church or the mosque to have a religious marriage. So that was one difficulty. How did it make sense to me? No, at that time I really found that it was very difficult to be a Muslim and to abide by this rule that you can't marry a non-Muslim. That, there's no denying.\n\nMy first thought was that I didn't want to go against my religion, so that was a very strong argument, and then I also didn't want to — how to say — to pain my family, because my family was conservative, and although they were delighted to see me married, it wouldn't have been acceptable. But basically, I knew that I couldn't accept being married to a non-Muslim. So this is a kind of my faith that sustained me. Although I wasn't that young — I was in my 30s, and I was alone. And frankly, I didn't have many suitors at any time of my life, so that was a good opportunity, that at least this man loved me and he wanted to marry me. But it was also a big sacrifice on his side, because he had to leave his religion."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__did_they_identify_what_they_were_dismissing_you", "question": "DID THEY IDENTIFY WHAT THEY WERE DISMISSING YOU FOR?", "answer": "Other difficulties that we can mention are at work, for instance. I felt that at one time I was dismissed just out of discrimination. So this is the kind of difficulty perhaps that you want to ask your interviewees about — just to put more emphasis on the workforce and the conditions here in Quebec especially.\n\nThis is quite painful to recall, but I do remember clearly that I was a teacher, and at the end of the year they had to make a review of whether I would become permanent or not. So they did this review, and they decided that no, they wouldn't let me become a permanent teacher, but that they would kind of let me teach the way you fall back on the ladder — you don't go further, you fall back. Okay, so you can say it's quite justified: I didn't meet their expectations or the standards, so I didn't deserve to be a teacher, a permanent teacher. That's acceptable. However, I had a colleague, a white man, and he was in the same situation. So he was automatically promoted and became permanent without any review, and the reason at that time was, oh, we forgot that we had to review him. So they remembered very well that they had to have a review for me, but for him it just slipped their mind — they didn't know that he was coming up for tenure. And so that's it. It just passed like that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_did_you_rationalize_that_sadness", "question": "HOW DID YOU RATIONALIZE THAT SADNESS?", "answer": "Absolutely, absolutely, yes, that was — I didn't rationalize it. I refused, really, to go back down and start from the beginning. Essentially what they were saying was, okay, you can teach, but you wouldn't be permanent, you would be just teaching certain courses — so it's like you're starting over. I said no, I'm not staying, and I'm going to have my own business and start something new and so on, and my husband did encourage me. Which I think was not — it would have been better for my career if I had relented and started over, because eventually I would have been on a tenure track after two years. But I was so hurt, and I thought I didn't get a fair shake, so I said, okay, no, I am going to do something else.\n\nSo that is it. Now it's debatable whether this was the best reaction or not. This is now water over the dam, as they say. But this is me, and this is what I did at the time. I don't know if I'm answering your question, if I'm giving you the right answers."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__are_there_internal_or_external_expectations_placed_on", "question": "ARE THERE INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "The external, this is easy to answer. I mean, there are so many stereotypes about Muslim women, so I don't have to elaborate on what they are, because you know them, and you know how Muslim women are viewed outside, or how they are represented in the media. Let's say that that would be a good representation, or a good image, of what they see Muslim women as being like."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s25", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__is_there_a_time_you_felt_that_expectation", "question": "IS THERE A TIME YOU FELT THAT EXPECTATION WAS PLACED ON YOU AS A MUSLIM?", "answer": "Yes — all the laws that come from the government of Quebec. This is what they think Muslim women are: submissive, with no agency, you name it. It's as if we had no personality, as if I'm not like other women in general. So yes, not only by the government, but by the media, which is essentially what people are reading and seeing. I don't think people think much; they just take what they get, in terms of what they see on TV, or the narrative, or what they see abroad. That's an important point — when they talk about Muslim women, it's always Muslim women in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia, in such places, not women who live in the West, not me, not our reality or our life. It's always an image, generally negative, projected on us.\n\nThe internal expectations — this is a minefield, I have to tell you. Whether it is in the family — now, my husband was not an Arab Muslim, so I can't speak from my own experience, but I can speak from what I've seen, women coming and talking about what they have lived through, or what expectations men put on them. So we have this at the internal level, the family, the domestic experience. And I can mention it because I was with [MUSLIM WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION 1]. Now, this happens in all communities, it's not only for Muslims, and I wouldn't say it's more prevalent in our community than in others, but certainly in general women are expected to do more than men, let's say, in a marriage. I'm not going to dwell on that, because it's not first-hand experience — it is something that has been reported to us.\n\nHowever, when it comes to the people who want to represent themselves as spokespersons for the community — whether they're imams in mosques, or whether they call themselves quote-unquote leaders of the community — how the Muslim community views us women, that's another story. That's really another story.\n\nI want to share with you an experience that I am still unhappy about. Myself and another lady — we had knowledge of someone, a man in our community, very politically active, very astute, very vocal, very connected, I would say. We had complaints from women that he had, let's call it, inappropriate behaviour towards women. So we wrote a letter — he was of course at the head of an organization — asking questions, and he sued us for defamation.\n\nOh, I could say that he got more sympathy from the establishment than anyone else; we were viewed as troublemakers. The case was a little more complicated than that, because there was one woman who complained bitterly about him and then changed sides at one point, and she accused us of trying to build a case against this man, (said) that this is not what she meant, and that she didn't want to have anything to do with this court case. So we were stuck. And it did eventually — we won the case. The judge was very good, because he saw through what was going on. We were awarded a sum of money, a respectable sum of money, as compensation. But in my view, that didn't change the dynamic, the situation — I still find that men would side with men, and that this questioning was not welcome in the community, which is unfortunate.\n\nI must say that the responsibility falls also on these women who complained, and who, when it went to court, didn't want to testify. This, I think, was not in our favour. Somebody comes and says, oh, this man did this and that, and then finally you ask, okay, are you ready to come and say your name and say this publicly? No, no, no, I wouldn't say it, because I'm married, and what would my husband say? That kind of thing.\n\nThere were also some financial irregularities. But basically our questioning, our letter was about — we heard, it was brought to our attention, that some women complained, and we wanted some explanation. And it seemed that this is not the kind of thing that we Muslims should be raising. Quite to the contrary: women would have rights in Islam, and certainly a case of sexual abuse or sexual exploitation would be something un-Islamic. It happens in other religious communities, I believe, but you asked about internal and external difficulties.\n\nAnd of course this man went around saying that he was so generous, so flexible, that he let us off the hook, and everything was settled. Yes, after we won the case. But we don't have access to the establishment, to the men. You don't go around saying, no, that's not true, we won the case. And of course he never said that he paid compensation.\n\nI think I'm going off track here. I'm bringing it up because I think it's an important aspect of our community. We have to look inwards. We always look at the threat from outside, but we also have to have the courage to look inside our community and try to be righteous — not only to cater to the reputation of such and such, but to ask what is right, what is morally right, what is acceptable, what should be upheld, rather than what would tarnish the reputation of such a person because he's good, because he talks to politicians. Anyway, this is my view on the situation. So this is just for you, [INTERVIEWER] — I don't know if it's going to be relevant, but we have problems. We have internal problems."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s26", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__who_are_the_people_you_feel_most_responsible", "question": "WHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOU FEEL MOST RESPONSIBLE TO?", "answer": "Responsible to, or responsible for. I understand, but I don't feel responsible to anyone. That's the case now, for sure. I felt responsible towards my parents and my family in the sense that I didn't want to hurt their feelings, although when it came to my life versus their feelings, I chose my life. That is a very simple situation: I wanted to immigrate to Canada and they were against it, and this caused them a lot of pain, but I did finally immigrate, because I wanted to live in a free country where I could be politically active."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s27", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__looking_back_did_you_get_what_you_set", "question": "LOOKING BACK, DID YOU GET WHAT YOU SET OUT ON?", "answer": "Yes, I think. I lived my life — I'm not going to say I lived the life I wanted to live. It doesn't mean that it was successful, it doesn't mean I have much to talk about, to brag about. I thought I'd make a lot of money, I thought I would be in a career, I thought this and that, which didn't happen. But on another level, I lived the way I wanted to live."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s28", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__and_who_do_you_feel_responsible_for", "question": "AND WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE FOR?", "answer": "So this is responsible to. Now, responsible for — not a hundred percent, not directly, but I still feel I have a responsibility towards my sisters, towards nephews, nieces, the extended family. I feel that I'm still very much attached to them. I feel responsible in a broader sense for Muslims — and this is political, of course, because they're Muslims. Talking about Egypt, I mean, there is an organization that is very active, was very active, not as much now, but I'm very active, for instance, for Palestine, for Egypt and so on, without knowing that there are Christians and Muslims in Egypt. So I would say it's more political than strictly Islamic.\n\nAlthough — for instance, I would feel that I have a responsibility towards the Uyghurs in China. I don't come from that geographic place on the earth, but because they are Muslims. And I follow Justice For All; I don't know if you're acquainted with this organization. They deal with news coming from Muslim minorities, whether it's in China, the Rohingya in India, Kashmir — a lot of places where there are Muslim communities and minorities."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s29", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_those_values_shape_your_choices", "question": "HOW DO THOSE VALUES SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Choices as an activist — let's say that I make time for my activism. First of all, to get informed: this takes a lot of time, I do read a lot politically. And also acting, whether you're writing, meeting politicians, taking positions, signing petitions. Believe it or not, this takes a lot of time. So those are the ones that shape my choices."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s30", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_your_role_within_your", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR ROLE WITHIN YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "Those are two distinct things, although related. One hadith that comes to my mind, [INTERVIEWER] — I'm paraphrasing here — is that the best Muslim among you is the one most useful to the community. This has been really a leading principle for me: that your religion is not only about dogma, it's not only about praying. I'm not saying it is not, but it's not only about the practice — it is also about your feeling, your connection to the ummah in general, and that you have to be actively an asset to your community. You feel that you are not an individual, you are part of the community. This is very important for me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s31", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_does_belonging_feel_like_for_you_here", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE FOR YOU HERE IN QUEBEC?", "answer": "I think we have covered this. Am I seen as a Québécoise — not Québécois, you have to put the feminine of the word? Yes and no. I am definitely a Québécoise — I mean, I love Quebec, I love my life here, so yes, I feel like a Québécoise. No, because people make you feel different. It's not that I feel different; it's how people look at you and how they treat you differently. This is why they would tell you, you are not a Québécoise."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s32", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__is_that_through_their_words_or_through_their", "question": "IS THAT THROUGH THEIR WORDS, OR THROUGH THEIR ATTITUDES?", "answer": "Through their words, for sure. There is a distinction between a native Québécoise and an immigrant — and it's not only terminology, it's also laws, it's a lot of things."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s33", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__who_is_a_native_qu_b_cois", "question": "WHO IS A NATIVE QUÉBÉCOIS?", "answer": "They would define native Québécois as white Catholic — that's it, white Catholic. Born in Quebec — okay, not even. (An Egyptian Muslim born in Quebec,) no. It certainly has a racial connotation, yes. And also, now they are excluding the English minority, although there is a sizable English-speaking minority in Quebec. It's difficult for me to be very precise here, because it's more a perception, what they would call native — and as you would ask, okay, what about Aboriginal people? No, they wouldn't be Québécois. I mean, there is the legal term, and there is what is understood in the parlance of every day, like whether you would say, oh, she's a Québécoise, or she's not a Québécoise. So there are many nuances, and I don't think I am ready to delve into this, because it's very nuanced, and it has so many legal — there is a legal connotation."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s34", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__are_you_seen_as_a_qu_b_coise", "question": "ARE YOU SEEN AS A QUÉBÉCOISE?", "answer": "That's in response to the question — let me see here — are you seen as a Québécoise? That's the actual question, and the short answer is no, except of course that since I live here, I'm a resident in [CITY 1], and I do pay taxes. For that purpose I'm certainly a Québécois. Otherwise, no — no one would qualify me as a Québécois, because as we said, Québécois is more white, French-speaking. Even those Québécois who are of English descent, they would say Québécois anglophone. They would always qualify it. For the rest, no.\n\nPeople tend more to say — all right, there is the term néo-Québécois, but it's not used, I mean, I don't hear it often. And I also refer to the term native, which is born in Quebec; I'm not too sure whether that one is also widely used. Usually, for immigrants, we are referred to by our ethnic background or our origin, or even being a Muslim is a strong marker, so they would say she's a Muslim. Period.\n\nThose are all the nuances, I would say, the identity markers — and if you read my last email, these identity questions are very important here in Quebec. I have a book in front of me about it. It says, Who Belongs in Quebec, and the subtitle is Identity Politics in a Changing Society."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s35", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_happens_with_the_second_and_third_generations", "question": "WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE SECOND AND THIRD GENERATIONS, BORN HERE?", "answer": "That's a good question. I don't have much experience with the kids, so I'd rather not answer this question, but I would refer to a journalist, actually, at [PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER 2], which is a very big newspaper — her name is [NAMED COLUMNIST], and she's not Muslim, she's Christian of Lebanese extraction. She mentions comments like, \"go back to where you came from,\" and she says, I came from [CITY 1] — and she even mentions a district in [CITY 1]. So she's born here. And yet people are judged — it's a racial distinction, I think. It's by the color of your skin.\n\nSo how would the kids refer to themselves? I prefer not to answer. I prefer not to answer, because I don't have enough knowledge. I know of some kids who would say that they belong to the country of their parents, but I don't want to generalize. So let's just leave it. As far as I'm concerned — no, I'm not concerned, except for the taxes."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s36", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_experience_the_relationship_between_your", "question": "HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR FAITH AND QUEBEC?", "answer": "I think it's a strange relationship, and I think it's not understood. I don't think we're given credit for loving Quebec, or for wanting to contribute to the welfare of Quebec. This is the general political speech — that immigrants are seen as a problem, and that our contributions are not valued as they should be. After all, if we came to Quebec, it's because we were accepted by Quebec; it's not that we imposed ourselves. It was a mutually beneficial agreement — you come to the country because the country needs you, and you need to be in this country, you chose to be in this country. But lately, and this is a later development than when I first came fifty years ago, it's more, oh well, we have a housing crisis because of the immigration, and so on. That's the short answer."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s37", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_been_made_to_feel_or_seen", "question": "HAVE YOU BEEN MADE TO FEEL OR SEEN AS A THREAT?", "answer": "Afraid? No, no, I wouldn't go as far as that. Perhaps not welcome, because of my ideas — especially because I'm such a strong advocate for Palestine. So when I was in a working environment, I was seen as hostile to Jews, as anti-Semitic. That would be more the attitude.\n\nSince you mentioned the word threat — yes, there is this theory. The CAQ says that Muslims in general, not me personally, but Muslims who are visibly Muslim, are a threat to Quebec values. You hear that phrase a lot, valeurs québécoises. So what are those values? We don't know, except that they want to convey that they are not following the church, not dominated by the church, and that Muslims want to take them back to that time when religion was omnipresent in their lives, controlling their lives and so on. So in that sense, a threat — taking away their culture, in the same way that they would say immigrants are more anglophone, or want to be anglophone, that they don't want to speak French, and that this is a threat, quote-unquote, to the French language. As a woman, I'm not a security threat — let's put it that way. If we talk about threats here in Quebec, I would qualify a security threat as something going towards men; as a woman, no. As a Muslim, though, I'm a threat to Quebec values. Although again, personally, I'm not perceived as a militant for imposing a Sharia doctrine in Quebec."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s38", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "If you want to say that you're a believing Muslim, you have to factor in the Day of Judgment. Everything is projected with the idea that one day we're going to have to answer for our thoughts, for our acts, for how we're spending our money, how we're disposing of our knowledge. I think that's basic and central to the faith. So depending on how much faith you have, you would fear, or you would think of, the other (world). I think this is a religious question more than a question about our situation here as Muslims in Quebec."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s39", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__when_something_is_beyond_your_control_how_do", "question": "WHEN SOMETHING IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL, HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT?", "answer": "This again is a philosophical question, [INTERVIEWER] — what do you want me to say? We Muslims believe that our life is predetermined; I don't want to say only a certain part of our life. That this was our nasib — is this a word familiar to you? Very much so in our Arab Muslim culture: if things happen to you, then inshallah, mā shā'a qadara, which means whatever God has decided for you. In a sense that helps you to accept what is beyond you, knowing that you're not going to be able to change it, but that you have to live with it, that this was what was prescribed — your destiny.\n\nI even think that in Egypt especially — I'm talking about Egypt because this is what I know — people tend to be resigned to their fate, to what happens to them. So I wish we were more militant, I wish we would be more questioning of what's happening. That is my take on the question. Take patience, for instance: there's a fine line between being submissive and reacting, being active. So I don't think that as Muslims we have to bend at every turn, but there's certainly a part of it where we have to accept that you can't change everything — not everything is within our control."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s40", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_matters_most_over_the_long_run_for", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST OVER THE LONG RUN FOR MUSLIMS BEING ABLE TO PRACTICE THEIR RELIGION?", "answer": "I think, again, that we have to be flexible, in the sense that religion is not only — frankly, is not — outside manifestations. It's also how you behave, how you live, how you treat others. Maybe this relates a little to a previous question, where I mentioned the hadith that the best Muslim is the one who is the most useful, the most helpful, to the community. So preserving my religion is to a great deal about me, rather than about taking an antagonistic approach, which I don't think would help. There is a balance again here. Those are the things that come to my mind."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s41", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_do_you_think_about_the_new_law", "question": "WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE NEW LAW ABOUT PRAYING OUTSIDE?", "answer": "I think it's a discriminatory law, and I think it's politically motivated. We're heading into elections, and it gives the politicians an opportunity to elaborate on a familiar theme — that we Muslims are strange, that we have strange habits, that we practice the religion only in order to impose it. That's what has good currency here: that we want to convert the West, that we want to make it an Islamic state, that we want to impose the Sharia. They don't understand what those words mean, but those are words that have special connotations here, and the nationalist party is building its popularity on them. So that's what I have to say."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s42", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT SIT WITH YOUR OWN LIFE?", "answer": "Laïcité, in the strict sense of the word, is that the state, l'état, has to be neutral in terms of religion — not favoring one religion over the other. For instance, in the so-called Muslim countries, because they're not Muslim any more — again, I'm referring to Egypt — on the Islamic occasions the head of state would be filmed going to a mosque and praying with the others. That here wouldn't be acceptable, because there the government is not secular, whereas in a secular government, the government should not have a religion that the people in the government are following. We agree with that entirely. But it doesn't mean that it should strip citizens of their identity, which is what is aimed at here by those secularism laws — they don't want to see that you are a Muslim in a special place, in what they call places of authority, and they keep on expanding what those positions are."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s43", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__when_you_say_places_of_authority_do_you", "question": "WHEN YOU SAY PLACES OF AUTHORITY, DO YOU MEAN TEACHERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?", "answer": "Yes, yes. First, with Bill 21, they had designated specific people — teachers, judges, prison guards, and what else? There was a fourth category also, where they would say those are women. They didn't say women, so it would be women and men in places of authority — in effect, where you would have influence over others. But with the new law, which is Law 94, they expanded this. So now it's not only teachers who are wearing a visible religious symbol — they wouldn't say hijab, they would say religious symbol, as if it were not aimed at Muslims. Then they said anyone: a cook, for instance, in a cafeteria, wearing a hijab, would not be acceptable; a cleaning lady in a school. So essentially anybody working in the school, not only teachers, and whether they have direct contact with the kids or not. In a public school, you cannot have this.\n\nIt also included the garderies, the daycare centers, where in [CITY 1] a majority of the caretakers are Muslim women. At first they were not covered by Bill 21, but now they are covered — although I think there's a clause that says if you're already in the position, you wouldn't be banned from the position, but you cannot as a new entry be qualified to be in a garderie. So this is actually an extension of the law."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s44", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__has_the_law_personally_touched_you", "question": "HAS THE LAW PERSONALLY TOUCHED YOU?", "answer": "No, no, because I go back to the fact that I'm not in the work market, I'm retired, so it is not affecting me directly. But it's affecting me in the sense that all our efforts at [MUSLIM WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION 1], when I was part of it, were directed towards defending those women, writing about how unfair this law is going to be, how it's affecting the women — and not only the women, because women are not isolated, women are part of the community. I see kids who suffer anxiety because of those laws. I don't know if their mother will be working, if they're going to be able to have the toys they want. This becomes a family discussion, and the most vulnerable segment in our society, which is the young people, they are also impacted. So it's a whole community. And moreover, it's not only the law: it also gives bigots the freedom, how to say, to be more nasty."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s45", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_the_state_oppresses_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL THE STATE OPPRESSES YOU?", "answer": "Yes, definitely. I think this is a kind of oppression. It goes to your pocket, and that's very important — especially in a materialistic society like the North American context, where money is so important. People see you here, and the first question that comes to their mind is, how much money do you make?\n\nIn many instances, you're judged by how rich you are — what assets do you have? It's talked about all the time, and it's given value, I would say, beyond anything else. Before, you would say, she's a kind woman, or she's devoted to her family; now people say, oh, where does she work, how much money does she make? That kind of thing — it seems to me, anyway."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s46", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__when_you_wear_hijab_or_perform_an_act", "question": "WHEN YOU WEAR HIJAB OR PERFORM AN ACT OF WORSHIP, IS THERE SOMETHING GOING ON INWARDLY?", "answer": "Yes, it was a pleasure, but this is a personal question. Awareness, yes — certainly when I cover, before going out, I am aware that I am covering because I'm a Muslim, and that this is the way I want to be dressed and to be seen."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s47", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Again, I think you're getting into questioning to what extent we are practising our religion, or bringing forth things that are more intimate. I wonder — let's skip that one."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s48", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_liberation", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LIBERATION?", "answer": "How God has sent liberation — this is quite clear to me. It's to act according to what I want for my life — very much so — within the limits of my religion, rather than being limited by conventions, traditions, society, that kind of thing. I want to live my life the way I want to live it. This being said, I wouldn't say that it was a successful life, but for me, I can say I lived my life, and this is sufficient reward for me personally."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s49", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__is_there_something_i_should_have_asked_that", "question": "IS THERE SOMETHING I SHOULD HAVE ASKED THAT I DIDN'T ASK?", "answer": "Yes, I think perhaps we should talk about the contribution to the community. Most of your questions were personal. I feel that perhaps you should add: how far have you been engaged with the community, what have you done for the community — that kind of question.\n\nAbsolutely, you're right. I'm sorry — I even have a notice here, this is question sixteen, how do you understand your role within your family and your community. I would have liked anyway, for my case, to separate them. Family is one thing for me and community is another thing, maybe — it's like private and public spaces.\n\nWhat I would like to add is that being part of the community is very important in the West, because our families here are nuclear families, not the extended families that we had in our home countries. So as a compensation, it is very important to be aware, with others, of our role within the larger Muslim community."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-021_s50", "participant_id": "MWI-021", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_have_we_gained_from_the_west", "question": "WHAT HAVE WE GAINED FROM THE WEST?", "answer": "I wonder if you would be interested also in knowing what we have gained from the West. We talked at length about our concerns, but what makes us stay in the West, if it is a choice? We're not compelled to stay here, by and large — we're not refugees. Speaking about myself, I came here willingly, knowing to a certain extent what my life would be.\n\nWhat have we gained here from the West? First of all, physical fitness. For women especially, there are more venues, opportunities and encouragement to be physically active here and to look after my health than I had back home — whether in terms of physical installations, or in how society looks at someone who wants to be physically active. Even beauty standards: in some poor countries, or even not so poor countries, a woman who is well, who is round — who has round forms, let's say — is deemed more attractive than somebody who is athletic and wiry. And this, of course, stems from the fact that somebody who is well-nourished is a sign of wealth — you're not skinny.\n\nSo that is one thing I gained from the West. Another thing is that I have the opportunity to voice my political opinions, which was very vital for me, very important. Back home, no, you can't do that — not fifty years ago, and unfortunately not up till today. So I feel that people are living in a cage; even if it's a golden cage, they can't go outside certain limits. And here in the West there is a price to it — let's not gloss over it and say it's something that you can do every day in every situation. No, there is a price to it, but still you have choices.\n\nI also find that in the West there is more awareness about gender equality, which did not necessarily prevail where I came from. I find there is more awareness of the rights of women in the family, whereas in Egypt it was more — it depends. Men perhaps want to be seen as the deciders, although it may not be the case, but they wanted to be seen as such. So there are nuances, of course. Let's say that my place as a woman in a Western society pleases me, or is more in agreement with what I want to be."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "An ordinary day in my life: I wake up early, before dawn, to do my prayer, then go back to sleep. I wake up again when my alarm goes off at seven, have some breakfast, and sit on my balcony to look at my little flower garden, which is beautiful, and get some sunlight. Then, depending on what the plan for the day is, I usually do some writing or some kind of creative project, because that's what I enjoy doing with my time. I'm in my mid-sixties now and I live alone, so I have more free time than I've ever had, and that's wonderful. I make my midday prayer. Sometimes I go into my part-time job at [NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE], three days a week. Other times I may go visit family members or other members of the community, or I might go shopping — I don't do that very much because I'm opposed to consumer culture. Cooking, chatting, following politics, watching streaming shows on my computer, reading books — I regularly download books. At the moment I'm doing some research on Fatimah al-Zahra, and that is fascinating, absolutely fascinating. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but maybe I can work it into some kind of piece."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "Myself and my community — okay, I am a Western-educated Muslim convert. I came in through Islamic Sufism. I've written about my experience. I met a Sufi sheikh in Switzerland many years ago, and I converted to Islam a year later — actually in Turkish Cyprus, which wasn't part of Europe at that point — and then I married and came to Canada from Europe.\n\nSomebody who's never met a Muslim: well, the converts from the West who went into Islam are a pretty unique demographic. I don't know if you've ever met any of them. It sort of started before then, but it became more significant in the 1960s and 70s. I converted in the mid-80s, by which point there were — I wouldn't say quite a few of them, but a significant number. Interestingly enough, many of them were from secular North American Jewish backgrounds. The man I married had converted ten years previously in [CITY 5] — it was the hand of Allah, the will of Allah. So I'm part of that community, and I do have friends who are raised Muslim — you found me through [MUSLIM WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION 1], the majority of whom are born Muslim and immigrants. So my background is a little bit different, and one of the reasons I wear hijab — I don't wear it all the time — is as a cultural signifier, because nobody, including the Muslims, believes that I'm actually a Muslim, because of my unusual cultural background. So I wear it to kind of prove that I am a Muslim. Well, because I'm white, because of the way I speak, because I was raised in England, and people don't realize that now the only people with faith in England are the Muslims. They're becoming a bit more aware of it, but the stereotype of British people is different to what I am.\n\nI see that as a very positive thing. When I lived in England, in the mid-80s, the first wave of large-scale Muslim immigration was establishing itself, and there were the beginnings of communities in parts of the north of England where the industrial base had collapsed. I thought it was wonderful. I wasn't Muslim at that point, but I lived on a street in [CITY 3] that was full of Muslims, and the culture for women there was that they didn't really communicate with people outside their community, but we had some very pleasant interactions over the years — some lovely acts of kindness shown to me by Muslims. But I never thought that Islam was something that was viable for me, partly because of the hijab, also because of the cultural closeness at that point. I think in that first wave, Muslims coming over deliberately chose not to integrate with mainstream society because they were fearful or they didn't like it, so there wasn't much cultural exchange or dialogue, as they call it now. But that's changed radically.\n\nInterestingly enough, I had an uncle — well, first of all, my father, before he was married, lived in [CITY 4], Iraq. He worked as a doctor there and was very fond of the people he met and his time there, and he talked about it in a very positive way — that was when I was a child growing up in England. My uncle, because they were part of the British colonialist thing (I have to deal with that too), came over from Malaysia, where he was working, and brought someone who worked for him to get treatment because this person had tuberculosis. He stayed with us, and that was the first Muslim I ever met, and the first person of color I ever interacted with. I was seven years old and had never interacted with somebody who had such a different life experience. That was wonderful, because I thought this person was absolutely amazing — stunningly good-looking, extremely kind, and with such wonderful manners. There was always this emphasis put on us growing up that we should have good manners, but this person's manners were next level, they were really good. So that was very positive and inspiring, and I never really bought into the anti-immigrant rhetoric that was around, because it was clear to me that the people coming to my country were better raised and educated.\n\nIn [CITY 1]? Well, I've grown up with the community, I raised my children with them, I'm very aware of what's going on with them. My most positive link with a community at this point is with the Turkish mosque. There is a very old friend who's Turkish, she's in her 90s now, and (her husband has) always maintained [MASJID 1] as a very safe space. He's linked with the Unitarian Church now, and it's become a kind of repository for immigrants — he's got all this stuff stored all over the place, and most of the born Muslims really don't like it, because it's a bit like going into a recycling store — in the masjid, well, the basement of the masjid, but also in the masjid itself. At one point he had all these kids' toys, and then the people praying there objected. Anyway, that is a place where I enjoy my interactions. That's where I go for Eid prayers and things.\n\nWell, it's very varied. Now it's majority Francophone, because those are the people who are coming in. The group running that particular mosque at the moment is a little bit marginal in the Muslim community because they differ about the direction of the Qibla — they're called the Habashis, because they're related to a certain shaykh, and it's to do with the way they calculate it. It's towards the Kaaba, it's not towards Jerusalem or anything, but they calculate the direction of the Kaaba in [CITY 1] differently than everybody else does. Allahu a'lam. Yes, they are Sunni. Honestly, there's just all kinds of variety, it's incredible — practically every cultural community now has its own mosque. I've been in Canada since the mid-80s, so I've seen a lot of changes, and over the years I've negotiated and adapted to nearly all the communities — there are some exceptions. So I've become agile at what they call — I don't know, they have words for it now, like switching — anyway, I've gotten used to that, and I go into these contexts and just do my best to make alliances based on my understanding of deen. I was lucky enough to go on hajj, and one of the things I marveled at was the cross-section of humanity that you would not find anywhere else. It was wonderful, wonderful."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "Oh, yeah, that's interesting. When I first became Muslim, I was sort of trying to be Turkish, because my shaykh was Turkish, and his wife and his daughters introduced me and taught me about Islam — that's Hanafi Sunni. So when I came in and was newly married, I was forced to internalize that when I was confronted with the Muslims at that time, because their interpretation of Islam was very influenced by the Salafi mindset, and it was very rigid, I would say. Within Sufism we're more flexible, let's put it like that — we try not to judge, we try to see everybody as a person of God. So I had this sort of Turkish persona almost. I would say over the years I've internalized my faith more and more and linked it with the person I was born and raised to be — there was this discrepancy between the child who grew up in [CITY DISTRICT 1] and was raised in a certain cultural background, and the person who converted to Islam, got married, and became a sort of trad wife before that term existed, then later got divorced and had to start her own business and survive. So yes, it's definitely evolved, and it's become internalized, and it's actually become stronger. Several years ago, I met my sister-in-law on a visit to the UK, and she said, \"Oh, so you've stopped the Muslim thing,\" and I said, \"No, the Muslim thing has become even stronger.\" Because it's coming from in here — it's coming from my reading of the Quran, my prayers, my interaction with teaching and podcasts and all the wonderful resources that are out there now for us."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "Well, I'm a hidden Muslim. Publicly, I do not wear hijab. I do not want to go around with a target on my back. That started around 2010, when I had to go out and get a job. I had to interview for a job, because I knew perfectly well that nobody was going to hire me as a converted Muslim. The Muslim businesses themselves were not going to hire me because I wasn't part of their cultural community, and it was problematic — plus they had their wives already working there for free, so why would they? And, well, we're under national socialism now — the situation for Muslims in Quebec is the worst it's ever been. It's always been bad, but now there's so much prejudice, a lot of open, active hostility towards Muslims. The incidents of racism — Muslim women being attacked on the metro, having horrible things said to them, treated with prejudice and disrespect constantly. When I was married and wore hijab, I did experience some of that, but to a certain extent I was protected from it, because I was married and in a secure economic position. It would happen when I was driving — there would be these big black trucks behind me, kind of menacing me. That doesn't happen to me now that I'm not wearing it. It's bad, and people are not embarrassed or inhibited about doing it. In [CITY 2] it's way better — not so much [PROVINCE 3], there are far fewer visible Muslims, but in [PROVINCE 2], in [CITY 2], it's fine to wear hijab and be Muslim. Not in Quebec.\n\nI didn't have to remove it, I chose to remove it, and now I use it as a cultural identifier — so when I go into what I'd describe as a Muslim context, I wear hijab, but when I'm in a secular context, I don't. Now I work at [NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE], which is an interesting example, because it's one of the very few organizations that will not discriminate against women wearing hijab — there are hijabi women working at the federal government and at [NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE]. However, I've noticed that many of them have swapped the hijab for a beanie or a hoodie. In the winter I do that too, because it's cold in the warehouse — I cover my head in various ways. A traditional hijab and an abaya, I'd wear to Eid prayer, but I certainly wouldn't wear it to the grocery store.\n\nPrejudice and hostility — that's what was in my environment, and it's everywhere. You can have this thing about educating people about Islam, but honestly, look at Muslim men — most of the time, apart from their skin color, you can't tell that they're Muslim men. So why should I go around with a target on my back or on my head? I read a fatwa that said originally hijab was to protect women, and I agree with it — it's become the other way around, especially in Quebec. Wearing hijab is not protecting you, it's opening you up to hostility and Islamophobia and anti-immigrant, racist rhetoric.\n\nIt's gotten way worse, the situation has really deteriorated, and unfortunately the CAQ government, which is in power at the moment, has perpetuated and encouraged this. It started with 9/11. Shortly after, my husband, who is very intentional about appearing as a Muslim male — he always wears a hat and these kinds of outfits from his Turkish tailor, he looks outrageous — people used to call him Osama. We were traveling to Jordan and we were at Schiphol Airport, and a woman got on the lift and said, \"Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? What are you doing going around dressed like this? Do you realize how much they hate us?\" I've never forgotten that. That was at Schiphol, in Europe, shortly after 9/11. But then it started in Canada too — everyone was like, \"Who are these people? What's going on, they're terrorists, they're trying to take over, they're trying to blow us up.\" And unfortunately this kind of garbage has continued."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I consider it one of my pillars of faith to listen to and watch and read Quran, listen to tafsir, learn — anything I can. I see my faith like a part of my body, if you like. I have to nourish it with good food, I have to make sure it gets exercise and water, that it flourishes and grows, because honestly, if you don't feed it, it will wither. I think it's true — I think we all have to do that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Honestly, at this stage in my life, I don't expect people to understand. I don't place the burden on them of understanding who I am and my journey — that's one of the reasons I wrote this book, just to document it. My daughters read it and they were like, \"Oh wow, we never realized,\" and I'm like, well, why would you? It's been a very long journey, and I'm old now — like I said, I'm in my sixties, so a lot has happened, a lot has gone on, and it continues."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_we_create_change_or_better_coexistence", "question": "HOW DO WE CREATE CHANGE OR BETTER COEXISTENCE?", "answer": "Well, I think the secret lies in our humanity, in our hearts and our intentions. If our intention in our interactions with others is to nurture the faith of that person and meet their heart to the best extent that we can, then I think we're going to be fine. But if our intention is to try to force some kind of ideology on them, or to force a language or a way of life on other people, which is the direction of the CAQ, then there's going to be trouble — Islamophobia, racism, and so on. When people have positive interactions with Muslims, they think of Muslims in a positive way. You've got your typical Canadian who lives in [PROVINCE 2] in a suburban house — he has a Muslim neighbor, the kids play together, the wife brings over sweets, they talk over the fence, their reactions are very positive, people are living peacefully. When that person hears \"they're trying to take over society,\" he's going to think, well, Zaid's okay, I know Zaid, he's fine — or the guy who works in the office, Abdulrahman, he's a good guy, he stayed late and helped me with a project, he always says hi to me in the lift and asks about my family. They've been inoculated against this. The problem is with people who have no experience of Muslims, so they can buy into the idea that \"they're a threat, they're here to steal jobs\" — as if they're here to speak English. Most of the Muslims are from North Africa, that's why they're here — if they came here speaking English, they'd be out of here as quickly as they could. What else is the sentiment? Well, \"they're foreign, they have different values, they're not like us, they're primitive\" — it's coming directly from France, what you hear in France is what you hear here — \"they have to integrate, they have to be part of our society, our culture\" — which leads me to ask, well, what is your culture? I could get nasty, but I'll try not to. What is this so-called culture that the Muslims are supposedly trying to take away from you? Think about it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "As a revert — as a convert, I prefer to call myself a convert rather than a revert, because a revert sounds to me like a diagnosis — a big problem for me is the way I get treated by the mainstream community when I go to a mosque or a community gathering. There is often prejudice, condescension. I'm an old woman, but many Muslim males will not interact with me at all, out of what they think is politeness. They seriously believe that pretending I don't exist is a polite way of dealing with the problem of someone like me in their prayer space, in their club. So yeah, that's a difficulty.\n\nA typical example: I go to a mosque, I'm told I can't go in — I'm shooed out of the main entrance, \"get out of here, go around the back.\" So I go around to the women's space, which is filled with sad women in difficult situations, many children crying and upset because there's nothing to entertain them and their needs aren't being met, and then there's a giant TV screen on the wall broadcasting the imam talking non-stop, usually in another language — sometimes the language of the cultural community of that mosque, frequently not even that language. I don't know quite what that's serving, but it has happened. I wouldn't say frequently, but when it does, I find it disturbing, disruptive to my faith — it hurts my heart. Sometimes I just leave, it's my choice to be there. Sometimes I make a complaint, sometimes accommodations are made because I'm making a fuss, but just the fact that I have to do that — I make alliances with other women in the same situation, and we push and petition together."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "I think there's both. Generally, Muslim women put far too much pressure on themselves — I'm not surprised there's this rate of depression, mental illness, and anxiety among Muslim women, I've witnessed that many times, and it's systemic, tied to the isolation and the kind of family structures they're expected to maintain. For some convert women, there are pockets of communities where women who were raised in the West, in [PROVINCE 2] for instance, are expected — and put it upon themselves — to wear niqab and homeschool their children, meaning they're responsible for the education of five or six children all day, every day, in addition to living life in the West and supporting their husbands. I don't think it's surprising that a lot of them struggle. Anyone would. They put far too much pressure on themselves. That's also true of working Western women generally — the plight of working women with children is far too much pressure whether you're Muslim or not, because you don't have your mother and your aunts or your sisters there to help you the way you would in a traditional context. If you're leaving the house every day, in a traditional context there's somebody there for when the school calls because your kid has thrown up in the classroom — for these women there isn't anyone, so it's on them. I think they could really lighten up, because Islam is in your heart, Islam is in your journey, Islam is in your salah and your relationship with Allah. This is your Islam. Your Islam is not in what you're wearing, how you're living, or where you're living — you should be able to practice it anywhere."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "Well, now there is a law that we're not allowed to pray in parks — it's kind of treated like taking drugs, not allowed in public places. At [NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE], when I first started working there, there used to be a prayer room, but because it's Quebec, they closed it and used the pandemic as the excuse. So they just locked it. Now when Asr comes in while I'm at [NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE], I go into the lunchroom, and there's a group of Maghrebi brothers who sort of acknowledge that I'm Muslim and sort of don't — and I definitely don't (make a point of it either). It is what it is, it's fine, they don't have to understand me, that's okay — Allah understands me, I understand me, it doesn't matter. There's a chair in the back corner of the room that's facing the Qibla — that's the prayer chair. I sit in it, wrap something around my head, and do my prayers. If someone else comes in while I'm sitting there doing my salat, the Western people just kind of stare at me, but the Muslim brothers politely ignore me, and that's that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I do (need to prove it) — that's kind of all I can say. Members of the Muslim community recognize other Muslims, especially within the cultural communities, by their affinity with other members of their group — it's kind of an anthropological thing. This is less the case with younger Muslims who've been through the Western education system, but with the men, most men, and with some women — I used to go quite regularly, and they would make me recite the Shahada or say some surahs, like a kind of parrot performing to entertain them, to prove that I was a Muslim."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "Well, obviously my family — not so much my ex-husband, although we're friends and remain in contact, like he tells me when Ramadan's beginning (though I can tell anyway because I get the alerts on my phone), but that sort of thing is helpful. My daughters — I have three daughters, they're absolutely wonderful, I feel most responsible to them, to be there for them and my grandchildren. I do feel responsible to help my Muslim friends too — these are friendships that go back thirty or forty years, we've always been there for each other, so when they have hospital visits and things, I try. And who else do I feel responsible to? I feel responsible to Allah — that's who I feel responsible to. How do they shape my choices? Well, they're shaped through my heart — what my conscience is telling me is the right thing to do is what I try to do."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "My role within my community, at this point, I've decided is through my writing — as a writer and a Sufi, someone who's promoting spirituality. That's what I see my responsibility and my role as. Within my family, my responsibility is as a mother, a coach, a support."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__learning_to_speak_french_in_quebec", "question": "LEARNING TO SPEAK FRENCH IN QUEBEC", "answer": "In England we all learned French at school, and it was always my worst subject — possibly I was even worse at Latin, but that's a close call, since they let me stop doing Latin within a year. I had to take what we call the O-level three times; I think in the end they gave it to me because they felt sorry for me and I kept trying. So I'm not good at languages. But since I've been in Quebec, especially at [NATIONAL POSTAL SERVICE], I have a lot of fun with the Quebec people who work there — not so much the women, who usually hate me, but the men, and we have this banter. I've learned to speak what they call joual — there's this whole prejudice against Quebec French, but what they speak is a dialect that's actually much closer to medieval French than the French spoken today. I've learned to speak that particular dialect, and I have that accent, and I'm very proud of it, because when I speak to them, they look at me, they know I'm an English immigrant, and then I speak with this joual accent and deliberately use these little aphorisms and phrases — they think it's hilarious, they love it, and I love it too, because it's such fun."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "No. When I first came here, my husband — third generation Quebecer — and I were talking to a very nice, very respectful Quebec man, and I said, well, my husband's a Quebecer, [HUSBAND'S NAME]'s a Quebecer, because he was born here and his mother was born here, and he said, \"mais il n'est pas Québécois de souche\" — which means, essentially, that he's not \"pure wool.\" There was this phrase, which they seem to have dropped now, fortunately, that if you're not one of the people who came over back in the 18th century, then you're not really a Quebecer. No — I joke with other immigrants, I say, well, we're Quebecers, and we both laugh. I've been here since 1986. I think of myself as Canadian too — I have a Canadian passport, and I say I'm more Canadian than I am British because I've been here longer. It's true, I am much more Canadian, but the British thing still comes through when people hear me talk. And no, the accent doesn't show up in my French, because I've got this joual thing going."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "I really like the traditional Catholic identity of Quebec, because it promoted belief in God in the daily life of people, so I appreciate that. I live just outside [CITY 1], in a place named after the Virgin Mary — that's Hazrat Maryam. I like that. Although the Muslim community has this thing where they say, oh, Christians believe in the Trinity, so they're wrong — I've made alliances with Christians as people of faith, very positive alliances, and we build each other up, because the darkness of secularism in Quebec is affecting everyone who believes, not just the Muslims. The Muslims are a visible target, but it's affecting the Sikhs, some of the Jews, the Christians too. Now their churches have to pay taxes, so they have to fundraise to support their buildings, and their buildings are all going to be demolished — I recently read an editorial in [PROVINCIAL NEWSPAPER 1] saying, well, wouldn't it be so much better if we could just use it all as public housing?\n\nWe have to support each other, because Christians are people of the book, despite what you might think about the way the Catholic Church has behaved over the years — they're people of the book, and the people of the book are the believers, and we treat them differently. To me, the problem isn't so-called polytheists or shirk, it's not the Hindus — the problem is consumer mentality, secularism, and liberalism, especially when it's aligned with communism or socialism. This government describes itself as national socialist, and that is the problem."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Okay, well, I'm answerable. I have this understanding I received many years ago from a wonderful sheikh — not Sheikh Nazim, but another sheikh I studied with — who said you really don't have to worry about judging the actions of others. It's good to say something is wrong, it's good to speak truth to power, but you don't have to get into a terrible state about things that are happening, because everyone is going to be judged and Allah will deal with them. So one of the things I say to myself is: it's okay, Allah will fix them. I find that thought comforting, and I also believe it's true — nobody gets away with anything. People can make billions on cryptocurrency, oppressing others, supplying them with arms, this and that — but they're not going to get away with it. So you better be responsible about the way you behave, responsible for every interaction and every intention you have, because your intention shapes your actions and your actions shape who you are. If you wish to be a Muslim, you have to align your intentions and your actions to aspire to the character the teachings of Islam would want you to be."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Again, it's in the will of Allah, and it's not something that as an individual I can control, not something I have a voice in — my saying \"this is terrible\" isn't going to be acknowledged by governments in power. I don't believe in activism, honestly. When I was a teenager, I used to go to protests about things I didn't really know that much about, and I was just being manipulated. I actually see quite a bit of manipulation going on in the Muslim community too, by various political forces, and that concerns me. Allah is in control — it's the will of Allah, and I have a responsibility, as a servant of Allah, to bring about the best outcome I can within my limited capacity."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "What matters to me most is that they have a vital and living relationship with Allah. Because I believe if they have that, then Allah will be in their hearts, and if Allah is in their hearts, their deen will follow. When I was raising my daughters, I was perhaps too liberal, and they had friends whose parents were extremely strict about how they were raised — today those girls have basically abandoned eighty percent of their parents' belief. Allah alim, I don't know about their prayer life, but they're one- or two-pillar Muslims — if you ask them, they'll say, yeah, I believe in Allah and the oneness of Allah, and I don't eat ham, but that's about it. I would aspire to something more than that — an interior experience of connection with the Creator of everything."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_specific_laws_bill_21_bill_94_bill", "question": "HAVE SPECIFIC LAWS (BILL 21, BILL 94, BILL 9, ETC.) PERSONALLY AFFECTED YOU?", "answer": "They've affected my community. Honestly, I think people are afraid. Many years ago, when we had Jumu'ah, we'd meet for picnics in the park, and we'd all be sitting there, and then the men would get up to pray, we'd put out a blanket, and the sisters would pray behind them — we prayed publicly, that was part of our association as people of faith. None of that is allowed now. If we were all hiding, nobody wearing hijab, nobody praying, presumably there wouldn't be a problem — but nobody's doing that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_oppressed_by_the_state", "question": "DO YOU FEEL OPPRESSED BY THE STATE?", "answer": "Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It's like — it's like in communist countries. Yes, the experience here is different than the rest of Canada."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Aligning my intention with the will of Allah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "It was my path. Initially, again, it's the way I came into Islam — I came in through Sufism, so I'd say that's informed by Sufi spirituality, and it's nurtured and encouraged by my interactions with other people aligned with these values — for instance, Abdul Hakim Murad, who teaches out of Cambridge Mosque, and to a certain extent Hamza Yusuf. He's also part of the Haqqani (order), which I had experience with — that's the sheikh who told me about the judging thing, he was one of the Haqqani, and that stuck with me. So yes, those people."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "Liberation — well, I guess when you die, inshallah, your spirit will be liberated from your existence in dunya, with all the struggles of dunya and all the suffering and pain and tribulation you undergo, so you'll be liberated then, inshallah. I just think you have to keep struggling — you get up every day, you do your salat, you do your best, you show up, that's what you're required to do. You're not going to find some kind of spiritual state where you're floating like the Buddhist thing, whatever — don't get me started on that. You're not going to find some special spiritual state where nothing bothers you, and if you did find that, it would be very problematic, because you'd be completely oblivious to all the suffering going on around you."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__who_gets_to_represent_muslim_women_in_research", "question": "WHO GETS TO REPRESENT MUSLIM WOMEN IN RESEARCH, MEDIA, OR AI?", "answer": "As for the impact of AI — if AI can help us be more human and more accepting of our limitations and difficulties, then I think it can be a very positive thing, so I don't mind AI learning from me. AI is much better at quite a lot of things, but AI has nothing to do with faith — AI, unlike a human, does not have a heart. As for \"Sheikh AI\" and all that business — I think humans will transform AI, they're already doing it. It's kind of like the pet rock phenomenon: people would have a pet rock and attribute all this consciousness and all these qualities to it. People do it with their pets, and I think they're going to start doing that with AI. Well, they already are. Not a Muslim marriage, though."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-022_s25", "participant_id": "MWI-022", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__has_wearing_hijab_created_barriers_in_education_or", "question": "HAS WEARING HIJAB CREATED BARRIERS IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT?", "answer": "Oh god, no — never, never, I don't think you're allowed to attend [UNIVERSITY 1] as a hijabi, I don't think you would be. When I was there, they were openly racist, openly — I didn't survive, I left after two terms. I think there's probably a law about it — there was a whole thing about not being allowed to wear hijab in high school, not allowed to wear it in educational institutions at all, not allowed to access government services wearing niqab. At one point they wouldn't let people on buses wearing niqab, and then the pandemic came — masks, that was great, to me that was one of the last little jokes. But anyway, I think about screening people so they can't get into buildings.\n\nMany years ago, I did another interview about hijab, and when I told the interviewer that I didn't wear hijab all the time, he was a Black Muslim from somewhere in the States, and he just gave me this whole lecture — his wife lives in [STATE 1] and always wears hijab, wouldn't go out of the house without it, okay, fine. But I was divorced at that time, and I had made the choice, in order to survive economically, that I would not wear hijab. And there we go."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "I wake up — it depends if I have school or work or not — but I wake up, get ready for the day, and then if I have work, I go to work, if I have school, I go to school. If I have plans with my friends, I go to that. I can't really remember, because it's summer, so all my days look different, I don't really have much of a routine, but yeah, I go out, come back home.\n\nIt shows up in everything I do. Depending on your intention, anything can be an act of worship, so I think faith is everywhere in my day, but tangibly, I wear hijab. So when I get ready, I have this in mind, this act of worship — when I go out, it's part of me and my identity and how I show up in the world. I make sure to do my five prayers during the day, whether I'm inside or outside, so when I go out I'll find a place to pray, look for a mosque, or make sure that wherever I go there is a place to pray nearby. I'm studying Islamophobia mainly, I have a Muslim lens on my research. I'm also very involved in my community, so it does come out. I also have primarily Muslim friends, or even the friends I have who aren't Muslim — we have some talks about faith. So I think it shows up a lot."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I think if I were to describe myself, I wouldn't necessarily start with my faith, although it is something people would see first because I wear hijab — I would start with the basics: we believe there's only one God, and the last messenger is Muhammad, peace be upon him. That actually came up a lot — I went on vacation in Costa Rica, and I was a lot of people's first Muslim woman, so I've done this quite a bit over the summer. They would ask me a lot of questions about hijab and why I wear it, and I'd tell them it's because I'm a Muslim woman, and they'd ask the basic questions — can you take it off, when can you take it off, who can see your hair, why do you dress like this? I answer these because I think if people encounter a woman in hijab and don't know a lot about Islam, they start asking questions, because there are a lot of misconceptions, and it's nice when they ask respectfully — every single one of my interactions has been respectful, alhamdulillah. They usually ask why I wear the hijab, and I tell them I believe in one God and the last prophet. I also make sure people can make links, so I talk about the differences between Christianity and Islam, because a lot of people already know a lot about Christianity, and making those links makes Islam seem less like the \"crazy religion\" it's made out to be in the media. I make those links to help humanize us, because we're really dehumanized in the media.\n\nThe community I'm involved in, alhamdulillah, is very good-willed. I admit I've also been a little bit swayed by media representations of Muslims — not by the West, but by Muslims themselves, the way they represent themselves on social media, a lot of the extreme viewpoints that appear there. So when I got involved in the community I came in with some doubt, but it's honestly been such a good community. I'm especially involved with women, because that's what my research is about, and I've always been a feminist — even before, I involved myself with non-Muslim feminist groups, and now I involve myself with groups that help women's rights. It's very respectful, we try to build a community, really rely on one another. Fun-loving at times, especially the younger part of the community — the older people too, but because I'm younger I can enjoy the more fun parts of it. Very educational. I had this image that there would be a lot of misogyny, and that has not appeared — in fact, people have advocated for women in many ways within the community, which is really different from the way we are perceived in the media, whether it's how we're portrayed or how we portray ourselves."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I was born and raised where I live — always in [CITY 1]. Alhamdulillah, I don't think I've had some sort of identity crisis, I think I've had a very easy life when it comes to my faith. When I was very young, the political climate made people very Islamophobic, and I watched my mother struggle with that. That's kind of shaped who I am as a person — not necessarily my faith, but my sense of justice, and a lot of what I do now in my master's has been shaped by these early experiences. Other than that, until I got involved in the Muslim community, we weren't really involved apart from Quran school and things like that, so I don't think I really had an identity crisis when it came to my faith, because when I was young I didn't really think about it — I just knew I was Muslim, I knew what I was taught in Quran classes, I believed in one God, and I didn't bother with much more than that. In high school, I went to a school with a lot of my community, so I never really had any struggle with Islam, because a large majority of the students were Muslim — I didn't feel any of the Islamophobia. I started to really look into Islam when I was a little older, around eighteen, nineteen, and that's where I started my journey with Islam — learning about it through social media discourse at first, which was really detrimental to my faith, so I stopped, because I thought, if God is the most merciful, why are these people saying things about God that aren't merciful, that aren't just? So I started to look into Islam by myself, with the Quran — I started to really focus on my prayers, started wearing hijab, and that also came at a time when I was doing research about Islamophobia."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "I don't have anything to compare it to, because I've never lived anywhere other than Quebec. I never thought it was much of a struggle until these laws — personally, I'm not affected by the laws about secularism, so it hasn't changed a lot about how I practice, but when it comes to prayer, the laws are starting to affect everyone, because one of them closes down prayer rooms in universities and CEGEPs. Alhamdulillah, this law came in right when I started at a university that doesn't have a prayer room — my first year there, so this past year has been kind of hard on my faith when it comes to prayer. I was looking for a place to pray, afraid, trying to find places to sneak into, because I'd been spoiled by the prayer room back at my old university. Alhamdulillah I have an office now, because I'm a graduate student, so I just pray in there and I'm no longer on campus that much. In my adulthood I've held on to my community, and I think that's what truly helps and makes being Muslim anywhere very easy. Muslims who live in Muslim-majority countries have community, they're the majority, so holding on to your community, your friends, your family really helps — and it doesn't even have to be in a setting where you talk about or practice Islam, just being with people who think like you and accept you truly helps. My non-Muslim friends are also very open-minded and encouraging — because they know my faith means a lot to me, whenever we go out they make sure it's not at a bar, or if they're going to a bar they won't invite me, they make sure there's a place for me to pray, they worry about my prayers, if my hijab is slipping or my hair is showing they'll fix it for me. Being with people who truly understand and accept you, whether they're Muslim or not, really helps in being Muslim, not just in the West but anywhere.\n\nI think a lot of women have had really bad experiences. Alhamdulillah, I haven't had many. I think the worst that's happened to me is crazy people talking to me on the metro, saying Islamophobic things or sexualizing me because I wear hijab. I'm not going to pretend my experience is the only experience, but alhamdulillah I've had a good one — I'm not very affected by the laws, though I still think they're very discriminatory, they shouldn't stay, they don't have legitimacy. I've been Muslim in Quebec, my sister has grown up Muslim in Quebec, and we've had good experiences, so I don't think it should discourage Muslim women from living in Quebec or from starting to wear hijab if that's where their journey takes them. But I do know some women — I don't know if it's a lot — have very bad experiences being visibly Muslim in Quebec, and some women don't at all."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_specific_laws_bill_21_bill_94_bill", "question": "HAVE SPECIFIC LAWS (BILL 21, BILL 94, BILL 9, ETC.) PERSONALLY AFFECTED YOU?", "answer": "There are three laws. The first was Bill 21, which basically does not allow anyone who wears religious signs to work in a government job in a position of power — this affects lawyers who represent the court in Quebec, judges, police officers, and, really importantly, school teachers, because it's a female-dominated field with a lot of Muslim women teachers, in high school and elementary school — it's a very big community, and the educational system is already underfunded and understaffed. The law came into effect in May, and from that point no one could be hired into one of these positions of power representing the government of Quebec. People who already had a job could stay, protected by a grandfather clause, but they couldn't be promoted or change positions — if you're a woman teaching third grade, you'll teach third grade for the rest of your life; if you're a sergeant in the police force, you'll be a sergeant for the rest of your life. You can't switch schools even if you move far away. There's a real focus on education because that's where Muslim women are concentrated, but it's affected a lot of other fields too — anyone studying education who was a Muslim woman wearing hijab, that dream was dead to them unless they worked at a private school.\n\nThen Bill 94 came into effect, after they found that one or two cases in the entirety of Quebec didn't follow the rules, and made this big law focused on the educational system: no one who works or volunteers in a public school in Quebec can wear a religious sign — teachers, psychotherapists, speech therapists, parent volunteers (and the Quebec educational system relies heavily on parent volunteers because it's understaffed), library volunteers, volunteers who take kids to field days, janitors, school lunch staff. It's truly erased religious signs from the view of children — supposedly to protect them, because Quebec has a long history with the Catholic Church being restrictive and oppressive, and when Quebec liberated itself from the Church it made everything secular. Quebec is secular, Canada is secular, but we had an open secularism that allowed people to be who they are and live, without laws dictated by any church. Now it's honed in specifically on Muslims, I think, because of our portrayal in the media — Quebec is openly trying to be like France, to remove religion from everything, and this shows up specifically targeting Islam because the media only ever talks about Muslim women when discussing religious signs and secularism, saying very dehumanizing things, and they have since 2012–13, when they were trying to establish the first law, the failed Charter of Values.\n\nBill 94 also prevents students from wearing niqab at school. And Bill 9, the newest one, prevents every student in CEGEP and university from wearing niqab, and extends the restrictions to any school that receives government funding, even religious schools, and to daycares — Muslim women who wear hijab can't wear religious signs in subsidized daycares. It closed down prayer rooms in CEGEPs and universities, and limited the halal menu at cafeterias — some schools have halal, kosher, vegetarian menus, and now you can't fully ask for one, I can't remember the exact rules on that. It made public group prayer illegal, so you can't pray in public in a group. The thing with these laws is that legislators didn't really think through how they'd be implemented, so they're still trying to figure it out — but yes, that's how they appear.\n\nThey're relying on school boards to enforce these laws — yes. There hasn't been a case where a board refused, but [ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SCHOOL BOARD 1] sued the government over Bill 21 — they still comply, but they've taken part in a lawsuit now in the Supreme Court, already debated, and we're just waiting for the verdict, it's been months. No school board has failed to comply. In cases where people haven't respected the laws, those specific professors or teachers are just fired."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I've worn hijab for almost four years now. My story was very spontaneous. I was sitting down — I was not a religious person, I was not practicing, unfortunately, almost at all. I did not dress modestly, I did not pray, though I did fast. I had a lot of struggle with religion and didn't care that much — I had some feeling of guilt, but not enough to change it. It was a Tuesday, I was writing a paper — I do my research on Islamophobia, so I was writing about Bill 21 when it was fairly new — and I couldn't pray because I was on my period. I felt this feeling that I really wanted to do an act of worship, and I was like, oh, I can't pray, I really wanted to go back to prayer in that moment. There was a Quran in front of me, and I wasn't informed enough to know you can touch the Quran on your period — I'd been told the main opinion is that you can't. So I couldn't read it, and I just thought, what if I start wearing the hijab? And that's what I did, alone in my house, and I started wearing it the next day, but the decision was made that same day. As for what it's done for me — truly, everything, because the moment I started wearing hijab is the moment I really started my religious journey of knowledge. I started to learn more about Islam because I told myself that the way wearing hijab in the West works out, it's really only materially negative — everyone assumes I'm subject to Islamophobia, dehumanization, and also assumes I'm a religious woman — so I told myself, since I'm putting myself in that position anyway, I might as well be ten toes down and start learning and practicing my religion properly. Since then, alhamdulillah, it's been going so well."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Yes, a lot. I think people have a lot of misconceptions about hijab and Muslim women — people think we are oppressed, brainwashed, that we don't have agency, that we're submissive, that all women who wear hijab are one type of woman — quiet, submissive, kind of childlike, reduced to a childlike state because we wear it. That's part Islamophobia, part misogyny, and it's not true. We're all very different people, with different opinions — even though what we share is belief in Allah and Rasulullah and wearing hijab because of it, the reasons why we wear it are different, our religious opinions are different, our personalities are different — we can be strong, loud, bubbly, we can also be quiet, creative, alternative, anything. At the end of the day, the way I see it, hijab is just an adornment you wear because you believe in it enough to wear it, but it doesn't change anything about who you are on the inside. And while it's true some women are oppressed, that's true of every woman, Muslim or not — we're all oppressed by the patriarchy. We're old enough to make our own choices and think for ourselves, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with men or anyone outside of God. One of the biggest misconceptions is that we wear hijab just for modesty, just to be protected from the male gaze — that's a really dangerous misconception, because it takes away from our agency and makes it sound like we can't think for ourselves. It really diminishes what hijab truly is, which is an act of worship to God — it's about you and God, about being recognized as Muslim, about altering the beauty standards. The way I see it, Islam is not just haram and halal, it's a lifestyle that gets you to detach from material things and focus on the immaterial, on the afterlife to come — kind of how Buddhist monks shave their heads and live in a monastery with very little clothing. We wear the hijab to divert away from material things, from beauty standards, to focus on what's truly important — our relationship with God, helping people, the community."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "I already had the basics — my mom put me in Quranic school, and my parents taught me religion — but I wanted to rework the basics, and I'm still on this journey. I started to wear hijab at a time when I saw a lot of people converting to Islam online, and I decided to pretend I was a revert and start truly from the basics — the five pillars, understanding the importance of the Shahada, prayer, fasting for Ramadan, and having a relationship with the Quran, because the Quran is the word of God, the one thing we know for sure is His word, so we should have a relationship with it. I had never fully read the Quran, even though I'd been Muslim my whole life — I didn't even know what religion I was truly participating in. So I started with the basic knowledge anyone curious about Islam would want — why people pray five times a day, what the Shahada means. I'm still working through it, it's a big text to digest, but it's made my first connection to God the Quran itself, and not other people's interpretations of Islam, which has really weeded out a lot of the bad things that come out within our community.\n\nI have a Quran class, so I memorize with a class and have a teacher, but I also do a big part myself. I read from a Quran that has the Arabic, transliteration, and a lot of context — pages and pages of historical context. I started reading the Clear Quran, which is a very good resource, but I found it lacking in places — when you don't know the context, some of what you read seems a little unfair, especially since I started from the beginning, from Al-Baqarah and the surahs that came later, which are more about rules, wars, and history. As you know, Islam introduced the Meccan surahs first, to get to know God, and the rules came later, but I started the other way around, with the rules coming first. My Quran offers a lot of social and historical context — it makes links to the Bible, to Greek philosophers, to Shakespeare, so it really connects to a more contemporary reality."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "Right now I'm struggling with finding a job. I have little jobs, so I have a steady stream of income, alhamdulillah, but it's still very small. I'm used to having multiple jobs at the same time for a bigger income, and being busier — right now the job that's usually my main job, I don't have, so I'm underemployed, still struggling to find one. The way I make sense of it: alhamdulillah, I live with my parents, I still have some income, I'm never truly in a place where I'm really struggling, I feel very blessed, and I remember that whatever is meant for me will come for me — God has a way of always providing some stable income even when I don't have a stable job. It is a struggle at times, because I'd love to have some routine, something steady, some security, but I make a lot of du'as and remember that at the end of the day, I am safe in the hands of God."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Yes, a lot — internal and external. We have expectations from our community and from outside it, and it's truly a lot of pressure, because we have everything coming at us — Islamophobia, patriarchy, and the two coming together, an intersectional experience. Within our community, depending on where you are and who you turn to, we're not fully supported when we talk about the misogyny within it, and we don't really have a space to do that — if we want to talk about Islamophobia, Islamophobes say \"but you're oppressed within your own community too.\" So we're oppressed within our community and also oppressed outside of it as Muslims — it's a struggle to balance everything. I think the best way to fight it is by doing it ourselves, fighting both the misogyny in and out of our community and the Islamophobia that affects us, our men, and our children.\n\nThere's a lot of pressure surrounding the hijab, because it's the factor that shows you're Muslim — you get a lot of looks, and because people know you're Muslim, people feel comfortable coming to tell you what you're doing wrong, whether outside the community or within it. If someone feels you're doing something haram, whether you are or not, they feel comfortable giving you \"advice\" — and I put that in quotes, because it's not necessarily well-meaning or useful. We get policed on our bodies, in the community and outside it, because we're visibly Muslim, and outside the community people feel free to victimize us because we're women and obviously Muslim, and say whatever comes to mind. There are good experiences, where people ask about Islam in a nice way and you have interesting conversations. But there are also experiences where you get hate-crimed, dehumanized in a conversation you never asked for, when you're just trying to get home. The eyes on us, and people thinking they can police our bodies because we wear hijab, is very difficult, especially because it comes from inside our community and outside it both."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "It depends what my role is in that case, but generally I feel responsible towards my family. I feel like we owe something to everyone — I don't have a very individualistic mindset, I love community, I love helping out and being there for people, so I do feel a sense of responsibility for a lot of people around me. I guess that informs what I do now in my career and education, but when it comes to my own personal actions, I only feel responsible towards God. If I wanted to take off the hijab today or tomorrow, I wouldn't care as much about what people think or say, or my responsibility towards them — when it comes to my personal actions, I only feel responsible to God. But I do think we owe each other something — community, respect."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "There's not a specific one, I just use my skills to help in any way I can. With my family, I'm very present, emotionally and physically as much as I can be — they're people I care about, so I want to be there for them and help them as much as they need. It comes from a place of care rather than obligation. I know I'm a very vocal, opinionated person, so my role comes out a lot in advocacy — I'm involved in a lot of it, because it really takes nothing from me except time to be vocal about the things I care about and for my community."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "I wouldn't say I feel like I belong in the Quebec community as a Quebecer — I would say I am a Quebecer, but it depends who's asking. Seeing as we're very obviously not accepted by a lot of Quebecers, when people ask where I'm from, I give them my parents' nationality, even though I was born here. But if someone told me I'm not a Quebecer, I'd say I am, I was born here, you can't tell me what I am. I don't have much attachment to the land itself, or the culture — I just don't really care that much.\n\nVery difficultly, in a very difficult way. I'm blessed to have had few bad experiences, but seeing people be so Islamophobic has brought me closer to my faith — that's something that happens when you feel you're not accepted, you hold on to your community. It's brought me there, but what's kept me there is Islam itself — I don't feel like I have trouble reconciling the two, because I am who I am, and you can take me or leave me. There are a lot of Muslims in Quebec, I live in a big city, so it's not like I'm the only Muslim in a small village where everyone else is Quebecois — I don't feel too much trouble reconciling them.\n\nI don't know if they accept me as Quebecoise, and I don't care if they do. I know the Quebecois I surround myself with do. I don't even know if I come off as Québécoise — even my accent isn't very Québécois, so maybe they don't accept me because of how I talk, and maybe they do — but their acceptance doesn't change the fact that I am Québécoise."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "It shapes fully what I think. Whenever I'm going through something hard, I remind myself that this life is temporary and very short compared to the Akhirah — whatever trouble I'm going through, I'm going to die in a few years, inshallah, maybe ten, twenty, thirty, it doesn't matter, even if I live to be a hundred it's not a long time on this earth. That helps me get through the bad things, and it also helps me truly enjoy the good moments, because I'm not going to be here long, and life can be so beautiful and so painful. Because we have an afterlife, I can enjoy the time I have and also get over whatever bad thing I'm going through. The fact that there's a hell and a heaven really helps me navigate things — for example, the genocide in Gaza. One of the things that's helped me navigate it is knowing there is a hell for people committing this genocide, and the victims will have their justice, in this life and the next. The concept of martyrdom helps reconcile the feeling of helplessness we have, being so far away, unable to do much — I'm involved in advocacy for Palestine, but you can make all the effort in the world, and if the people in power don't listen or care, it won't happen in the time you want. It helps me to think that the moment their blood touches the ground, they're transported into the feeling of heaven, they see what heaven is like, they have their justice in the grave and will have it in the afterlife, and the people committing this will be punished for it. It really helps with the whole justice of it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "I have a lot of trouble with that, because I do love control, but I try to tell myself that everything is beyond my control, in a good way — that I just have to learn to let go, that the only thing I can control is myself, and I will do my best, and what happens, happens. You just have to believe that God truly loves you and will take care of you — you have to hold that belief and try to let go, and that's a lot easier said than done. I still struggle to implement it in my life."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I really hope the laws are reversed, and that we can openly (practice) — because where it's going in Quebec, they're trying to erase Muslim women, to erase religion from the public eye. I feel nervous, and I really hope it doesn't get as far as it has in France, because I know that's their goal, as they say very openly."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "I do believe in laïcité, just not the way it's done in Quebec — the way it's done in the rest of Canada. I think it's good to separate religion from the state, but the laïcité present in Quebec is what we call, in the rest of Canada, \"une laïcité ouverte,\" an open secularism, where the state and the church are separated but people are free to practice however they want, or not practice at all. The closed secularism, \"laïcité fermée,\" seen in Quebec, is based on discrimination and Islamophobia, because the entire media discourse around why we should adopt secularism only ever talks about Muslims and Muslim women — it's discriminatory, it's really bad for society, because outside of discriminating against Muslim women, it also removes religion from education. There's a curriculum reform too — we used to have a program called Éthique et culture religieuse, ethics and religious cultures, which taught us about different religions, gave us the basics, let us know other religions and other people aren't evil. That's been changed to Culture et citoyenneté québécoise. Taking that away really takes away the knowledge part, because now, especially in regions without many Muslims, all people know about Islam is what they see on TV — that we're oppressive, terrorists, basically Orientalist views. I see this type of secularism as really bad, but otherwise I love the concept of open secularism we have in the rest of the provinces in Canada."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "I try to connect with God while I do these practices. Sometimes it's not very easy or obvious, but when it does work, when I do feel a connection with God as I'm doing an act of worship, I feel very good inside, like my soul is elevating. (My intention is) to worship God, so it helps inwardly — when you change your intention towards anything, even something worldly like work, if you do it with the intention to worship Allah, worldly things won't affect you as much, because your intention has changed, and barakah comes out of it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submitting to His will, to whatever happens — that is what happened, it's out of my control. This is primarily what I struggle with, accepting the lack of control, so submitting to Allah, to me, means releasing control, letting go, learning to let go a little. It's kind of like the secular idea of manifestation, leaving it to the universe, except I'm leaving it to God."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I think none of us will be liberated until all of us are liberated — from all the systems of domination, imperialism, patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy. Until we're collectively liberated, we won't be liberated individually. In the meantime, until that happens, inshallah, detaching from the world helps you feel liberated. It's a mix of the two — individually trying to detach from worldly possessions and material things, while at the same time seeking a collective liberation from the systems of social domination."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-023_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-023", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_oppressed_by_the_state", "question": "DO YOU FEEL OPPRESSED BY THE STATE?", "answer": "Yes, they are (oppressive). The laws take away from Muslims, not just from people who wear religious signs — they take away choices in life, the ability to participate in society, to have a job. They take our rights away, so by definition it's oppressive. And paired with the media discourse, it leads to a dehumanization that's also oppressive — it's not just the government or the laws, but the discourse around them that allows these laws to be adopted, and that's dehumanizing and oppressive too."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "I'll do during the school year. Usually I get up, get ready, and I have a work shift — I usually work at a Muslim summer camp, and right now it's a summer camp, but during the year it's a school, so I usually have a two- or three-hour shift there, and then I go to my university classes at [UNIVERSITY 1]. I come home, do homework, chores, things like that, and go to sleep.\n\nDuring my prayer — my five daily prayers, that's how I start my day, that's how I end it, and it comes up throughout the day too. At work, of course, I teach Quran, so that's religious as well. Conversations with friends — I'd say in every aspect of my life, what I'm eating, what I'm doing, it shows up everywhere. It influences my career decisions too, what I want to study."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I think for someone who has never met a Muslim, I would say everything we do revolves around intent. Being Muslim first and foremost means someone who has submitted their will to God, so whatever we're trying to do, it's for the will of God. If I were to go more into our religious beliefs, I'd say it revolves around being conscious of the fact that there is one Creator watching what we're doing.\n\nI would say we're a very closely-knit community — family matters a lot, the community matters a lot, making sure we're helping each other out. Charity projects are very common, and looking out for the vulnerable — we volunteer at women's shelters a lot, homeless shelters a lot. It's something that's definitely very important, looking out for one another and making sure no one's in need. One other thing that's quite important to us is that our morals are reflected within our communities — if we think an action isn't aligned with our morals, correcting it is also important."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I was born and raised in [CITY 1], I've lived here my whole life. How has it changed over time — I would say more or less it has stayed the same. I went to a hyper-Christian school ([PROTESTANT DENOMINATION]), and that made me very vigilant of my identity, so it's something I had to decide and settle early on in life. I don't think it changed much from there. Trying to think of anything that could have evolved — I'd say one thing is that I became a bit more shy over the years, I think I was more outspoken when I was younger."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "I think it made me practice more vigilantly, because especially at the Christian school I felt like I was the only one — the only Muslim, the only hijabi — so I felt the need to show a good example. If I was about to do something disrespectful, or that didn't align with my values — say I'm at the metro and my classmates are there and I forget my [TRANSIT CARD], even though it's relatively common for someone to jump over the bars, I wouldn't do that, with the only fear being that people are watching and might blame all Muslims for what I'm doing. That was constantly in my head, because I was always afraid that if I did something, they'd equate it to all Muslims, which I've seen happen. So I was super vigilant of the fact that I was the only one, that I needed to showcase my religion properly — I always felt that pressure.\n\nI became hijabi when I was eleven years old, and I was at that school until I was fifteen — my elementary and high school were the same school, so around grade six. In school, yes — I never had any particularly disrespectful incidents. Maybe later on, in the last years of high school, we had a few teachers change, so it got a bit more difficult, but in the first year I was wearing it I was very comfortable. I remember my teachers complimented me a lot, because it's also part of their faith, and even though they don't always follow it, they recognized that, and praised me for it. My first years, when I was eleven, twelve, thirteen, it was okay, I didn't face any discrimination — that came later, but by then I was very proud of my identity, so it didn't affect me mentally, I'd say — emotionally, maybe."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yes, I do a lot of self-study — whatever I learn at the mosque, if there are any halaqas or religious gatherings. I think the biggest source these days is YouTube, any courses you can find online — I can name some scholars if that would be helpful, some of the most famous ones, almost like influencers, they have long series on YouTube on specific surahs, for example. I think that would be my main source — reading Quran and listening to prominent scholars online."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "So this is kind of unconventional, but I'm from Pakistan, and in Pakistan it's common to wear — not on your head, but a shawl on your shoulders. I remember in elementary school, before I started wearing hijab, I went to Pakistan and saw everyone wearing it, so I started wearing a shawl around my neck or shoulders. But at school we had a strict uniform and weren't allowed to wear shawls, and I did not feel comfortable at all without it, because I was so used to having something on my chest. I didn't cover my hair at the time, but I did not feel comfortable without my shawl, and they told me to take it off because it wasn't part of the uniform. However, I remember on the agenda — they'd give us a lot of pamphlets on rules — there was a line that said you cannot add anything to the uniform unless it's for religious obligations. So I actually took my shawl and put it around my head, because then I'd be able to cover my chest.\n\nIt was something different to them, and I had no familial influence either — no one at school, no family influence — I just didn't want to be without my shawl, so I decided to do it. That's how I started wearing it — at first only at school, because I wasn't allowed to wear my shawl otherwise, so I'd drape it over my head and cover my shoulders that way. Then slowly, as I started researching more about Islam, I became more and more attached to it, so within two years I started wearing it full-time.\n\nI think the most important part is that it sets certain boundaries for whoever meets me. I'm happy that without even meeting who I am, someone can tell I'm Muslim, and there are boundaries they'll keep. For example, if I'm about to buy something that has gelatin in it, I've had experiences where the cashier will stop me and say, hey, just so you know, this has gelatin, are you comfortable with it? There are so many examples where someone identifying you as Muslim really helps. Another example I really appreciate is that if I see another hijabi woman on the street, she'll always smile and say salaam, and that can really make your day — you could be feeling really down, but if someone smiles and says salaam, it lifts your mood. That's how I feel, personally.\n\nDefinitely being recognized as such. I also think sometimes someone will come up to you for help just seeing that you're wearing hijab, so there's some sort of bond. At university, at college especially, that's the first way I'll make friends, or people will be friends with me — they see my hijab and they see what values I have, and in friendships it's very important to know where your values align. Maybe the most important point is also that it's a constant reminder to me of who I am, what my values are. I remember in middle school, grade seven, grade eight, we'd have picture day, and I'd see everyone with their hair out, someone would dye their hair or make new braids for it, and I'd think, oh, I wish I could do that too — but then I'd remember, hey, I don't come to school for this reason, I'm not here to show off, and I'm also not in this dunya to show off. I come to school to study, and I'm in this dunya to pass a specific test. So it was a constant reminder of why I'm here, and that's the most important part — it's a reminder of who I am, and a reminder to others of who I am too, and I think that's what it says in the Quran."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__has_wearing_hijab_created_barriers_in_education_or", "question": "HAS WEARING HIJAB CREATED BARRIERS IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT?", "answer": "Well, this story is from about ten years ago, when I was in high school, so I don't know if they've had to change it now — it was also a private school, so I don't think the same legislation applies, so of course it's very different. I do worry, though, that if they continue making these regulations stricter and stricter, about my younger sister, for example — she's in elementary right now, in public school, so I do worry about what changes might come. But I'm happy in the sense that that one line made the whole difference for me — the fact that I could wear a certain symbol if it was religious, giving that permission really changed my life, a very important aspect of it. I'd say it was such an important part of my journey, and the fact that others might not have it — my sister might not have that same encouragement, that you're allowed to wear what you want for religious reasons — it's concerning.\n\nWell, they don't apply in public schools, not that I'm aware of — they don't apply to students, they apply to teachers. But the way it's been going, it's getting stricter, so it is concerning that something like that could happen to my sister, for the teachers, the workers. Yes, to school, yes, but not as an employee. The rule is that if you got a job in the last two years, you're not allowed to wear your hijab in public institutions — court, the police force, schools, government positions — but if you've been working for more than two years, they're not forcing you to take it off. I have heard of stories where both happen — employees who've been wearing hijab for more than two years, working at a specific institution for more than two years, and still had to take it off because of pressure. But I've also heard stories where they let it go — my mother, for example, works in a school, she's been working for less than two years, and even though she was initially given an email saying no religious symbols would be allowed after a certain date in March, no one forced her to take it off, she was just sent an email. So I've heard both sides of the story. But one thing I'd say for sure, it's definitely becoming harder for Muslim women to get jobs. I got a teaching job at a Muslim school, so of course they weren't going to tell me to take it off, but I've had friends who've applied for jobs and found it harder to get hired — not necessarily because the employer or HR is racist, but because they're concerned, they see these laws being passed, don't know what's going to happen, so they don't hire you.\n\nYes, (my mother is) working in a public school. It shouldn't be (up to the school) — the government wouldn't want that, the government would want its rules followed, but I feel like they haven't come up with anything to enforce it yet. Personally, my mother has a good relationship with the school, she's done a lot for it, she's close with the administration, and she knows they would never ask her to take it off."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "Oh yeah, for sure — I've had a lot of instances where people assume certain things, like that I'm oppressed in some way, or being forced to wear it. I've had this conversation with many people — my family never influenced me in any shape or form to wear it. My mother wears it now, but when I started wearing it, she wasn't. That's one thing people assume, that I was forced. Another thing people assume is that we wear it to not attract attention from the opposite gender, that they think that's the sole reason we put it on — so I've explained the misunderstanding around that, what I believe are the nuances behind wearing hijab, my own perspective.\n\nYes, I can give examples. One other thing I'd say is that people assume I'm Arab — I'm from South Asia, from Pakistan, but it's very common for all hijabis to be considered Arab. Perhaps another misconception.\n\nA specific example, yes, definitely, about the part where they assume you're forced to wear it. I remember I was in a friend group and I showed them a picture of my parents — we were somewhere, I was wearing hijab, my mother wasn't, and someone said, oh, she tells you to wear it but she doesn't wear it herself, and I said, no, no one told me to wear it. They were very shocked. I think that's really changing now — a lot more people, I feel, because of all the emerging hijabi influencers online, are starting to realize not everyone is forced to wear it. Social media is really helping with that — it wasn't the same five years ago."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "It was an interview for a specific program — you have to pass several stages, examinations, grades, and so on, so getting to the interview level was very difficult, with CV checks and all that, and then I did not clear the interview. That was very difficult for me, because I really felt like I had spent the last four years of my life just preparing for this moment. I think in general I'm just not very adept at interviews. How did I come out of it? Well, religion plays a role in all my decisions, so I held on to the fact that things in life might not always go as you plan, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala always has a better plan — if He closes one door, He'll open another. One thing I really believe is that sometimes you want something really badly, but it's just not good for you, and you might not see why. Holding on to that belief, and reciting Quran — that's such an important part of my life, reciting it again and again really calms me down — those two things really helped. And alhamdulillah, two years later, I did realize that program just wasn't right for me, and I'm happy now, alhamdulillah."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "Internal expectations, yeah, definitely — expectations revolving around family, family values, are placed on us in the Muslim community. Having children, having a family, I think that's an expectation placed on women. Other expectations — especially regarding hijab, maybe it's more of an issue with the younger community, but you're expected not to mess up, not to make the mistakes everyone makes, lying for example. But again, with knowledge, with social media, it's changing.\n\nI do think so, yes — they expect us to be a certain way too. I had a conversation once where someone said, oh, you have a very bubbly personality, you're very loud, and I said, oh, okay, and she said, because I always expect a woman to be quieter and things like that. I don't know where she got that from. So there are stereotypes about Muslim women, both within the community and from outside it — people expect us to be a certain way, but it hasn't impacted me in any significant way, I'd say.\n\nHave I resolved internal expectations? I don't know if I'd say I've resolved any. External expectations, it's kind of easier, because you can explain to them what's halal and haram, what we have to do and what we don't, so if they think you're supposed to be a certain way, you can say, no, this is what I believe. But you can't always say that to another Muslim, because they're part of your religion too, so you'd think they'd already know.\n\nLike I said, I don't think they've impacted me, so I wouldn't say it's something I have to resolve — any expectation someone has on me, I have my own expectations for myself, and the expectations my family has, that's what matters to me. I have to follow the Quran and Sunnah to the best of my ability — after my religion, my family comes first, so it's about pleasing them, I wouldn't care much what the wider community has to say."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My parents, definitely, my mom and dad. Before taking any decision, I would ask them for permission — if it's a job offer, for example, I would consult them before taking academic decisions too, so just consulting them before any major decision, that's the main way it impacts things. And of course, if they encourage me to try something, they've never been forbidding or forcing about anything, but I would still ask them for permission and consult them first."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "My role in my family — well, I'm the eldest child, so I do take it upon myself to set the example. In my community, as an Islamic school teacher, there are certain responsibilities I have, setting a good example, following the rules within the religion, setting the right values for the children I teach. It varies — I've been a tutor for a long time, but at the specific school I'm teaching at, I taught math and science to the higher grades and Quran to the lower grades."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "What does it mean to belong to Quebec — I guess it would raise the question, do I feel like I belong to Quebec? No. I think my values are different from Quebec's, even though I grew up here. Given all the rules and regulations, and now they're even banning halal food in schools, it's clear that they don't want someone like me here, but I don't have a choice — I grew up here, so it's my home, they're going to have to put up with me. But I would not say I belong in Quebec."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "At (university), I was just walking around campus one day and someone visiting said, oh, I moved recently into this neighborhood, and I was just seeing the place as a university campus. I said, yes, it's a university campus, here's the main building, here's this — it was near the biology center building, and they were asking me what the buildings were. Then we crossed [ISLAMIC STUDIES LIBRARY], and I said, oh, this is [ISLAMIC STUDIES LIBRARY], there's a really cool quiet study room here if you ever need a quiet place to read. My focus was on the buildings themselves, but then they started asking me questions like, how is this allowed, how is an Islamic studies library allowed? I started explaining a bit of the history behind having one, that there was nothing like it before.\n\nThe person was Quebecois, not Muslim. I was wearing hijab. We were just talking about the buildings and directions until I mentioned [ISLAMIC STUDIES LIBRARY], and then he became visibly upset about why there's an Islamic studies library, and it led to, oh, I don't even know how you're allowed to wear hijab on campus, it's not allowed in France. And I said, but we're not in France, we're in Quebec. I could tell he wasn't happy about me wearing it — he said, you can do it at home. And I said, I should have the choice of what I want to wear outside and inside my home. Incidents like these — they're not numerous, maybe around five or seven in my life — but they make me realize that Quebecers don't want me here, personally, they don't want me to wear the hijab, they don't want me to be me."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__is_the_relationship_between_your_faith_and_quebec", "question": "IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR FAITH AND QUEBEC STRAINED?", "answer": "The relationship is strained. It's not that they don't give us religious freedom — there is religious freedom, they just want us to keep it indoors, and to a certain degree I'd say they have the right to say that. For example, I think it would be wrong of us to say, we want to give the adhan loudly in the neighborhoods — that might disturb them, so that's understandable. But then there are things that to me aren't understandable, like why that man had a problem with me covering my hair on a university campus — it's not hurting him, it shouldn't be disturbing him in any way. So yes, the relationship is strained, but I wouldn't say the relationship between my faith and the province is strained — it's more the relationship of me showing my faith and the province that's strained, or tense."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "Yes. However, before, they've always let us pray — we have a prayer room, it was amazing, and they let us rent out a bigger room for Jumu'ah on Fridays. However, recently the government has tried to close down our prayer room, I think twice during the semester, and more times at other universities I've heard of. At our prayer room specifically, news reporters tried to come in and ask us questions about whether it was closing or not, and there was talk of it happening, to which the MSA, the Muslim Student Association at my university, said they'd hire lawyers if need be. There's been talk of it closing, but I haven't had any experience where I wasn't allowed to pray in the prayer room.\n\nNot the university — the Muslim Student Association, we have our own student groups within the university. I don't think [UNIVERSITY 1] itself would hire lawyers to fight our case, it would be the MSA or [STUDENT SOCIETY 1], the student society, the group that represents students, not the university itself. There have been discussions, but I'm not part of the administration segment of the MSA — there's a hierarchy within it, and I'm not part of those who communicate with the university, but I know they've had talks, I don't know what came of it. I think [UNIVERSITY 1], universities in general, the Muslim population is so large that they won't be successful in shutting it down — people would really pull together resources and get lawyers. But the case for smaller colleges and CEGEPs, which in Quebec are the two years after high school before university, is harder.\n\nIn CEGEP it's harder, especially for smaller CEGEPs. The CEGEP I went to, [CEGEP 1], there were very few Muslim students, and we had a very small room to begin with — maximum six people could fit, for a student population of maybe fifty to seventy Muslim students. It wasn't called the Muslim prayer room, it was just called the prayer room, and we had Bibles, Torahs, all religious texts, prayer mats, Catholic rosary beads, and the misbaha that Muslims have too — we had everything, though people from other religions rarely came, I saw Christians there maybe twice in the two years I spent there. What happened was that it was called the multi-faith room, but then they changed the name to the meditation room, because there could no longer be symbols of any religion — that's the law from Quebec, you cannot show religion openly. It wasn't successful at [UNIVERSITY 1], I think because of the huge population there, but at [CEGEP 1] they tried to get it shut down and weren't successful, so instead you can pray in it, but you have to keep all the symbols away — you use the mat, but have to put it away in boxes on shelves. The religious books also have to be kept covered, they can't be on display, and the same goes for the rosary and the tasbih.\n\nYeah, actually, before I came to the college we had a larger room, and then they shifted us a few years later. The MSA tried to contest it, but we were unsuccessful. You could see there was a need, because we would line up outside before prayer time — in the winter especially there were long lines, so you can't say there wasn't a need. But we were still very thankful for the small space we had, because we knew that in French colleges and universities — the ones I've attended were English — there is no prayer room at all, and you're not allowed to have a Muslim Student Association.\n\n[UNIVERSITY 3], [UNIVERSITY 4] — they don't have an MSA either. But [UNIVERSITY 2], [UNIVERSITY 1], [CEGEP 1], [CEGEP 2], [CEGEP 3] all have prayer rooms. I don't know exactly why, but I can tell you for certain it's not because Muslims aren't trying — I have friends at [UNIVERSITY 3] who tried to get a prayer room and were unsuccessful. I don't know if it's because they're more Quebecois than the English colleges — I can't give you a certain reason. The student life animators had the keys to the prayer room, and they were enforcing the fact that everything was hidden."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Kind of tying back to what I said before, I live with intent. So if I have free time, I will try to do something productive, something that will help with my akhirah. If I feel like anything I do might negatively impact my akhirah, I think about that. It influences what I do, what I say, what I watch, what kind of friendships I make."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "Just like what I said about the interview — to me, it's always beyond my control, Allah is in control, He's the one who plans everything, so it'll work out for me in the end. If I can't change it, I'm not going to stress about it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "Well, of course, for me it's being able to show my identity. I know I might be very comfortable with mine, but it's not the same for the younger generation growing up in public schools, hearing things like, oh, yesterday government officials couldn't wear hijab, today it's educators who can't wear it anymore. I'm definitely worried about my own career too — I don't envision myself working as a teacher my whole life, I'm working part-time as a student teacher, but I wanted to go into healthcare, and slowly they're enforcing the same rule there, that you can't wear hijab anywhere in the public sector, so I'd be confined to the private sector, which is concerning. But the biggest thing is not being able to show it — for prayer, for example, I think I'd find a way to do it. That's one of the arguments that came up when there was talk of closing our prayer room — people said, we'll just pray under stairwells like we did before there was a prayer room, it's not going to stop us. But wearing hijab, that's going to directly stop me from a career in the public sector. Even then, I have a choice, I can work in the private sector, private clinics for example. But I worry about future generations, because they might not have the same confidence I did, they might not be able to make that decision for themselves."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "It's definitely a barrier, I would say, because of this value — I don't know if I'd call it a value exactly, but this idea that's very prominent in Quebec culture, it's a word we hear all the time. It means keeping your beliefs private, not showing them in any shape, way, or form."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_specific_laws_bill_21_bill_94_bill", "question": "HAVE SPECIFIC LAWS (BILL 21, BILL 94, BILL 9, ETC.) PERSONALLY AFFECTED YOU?", "answer": "Just one incident, where a woman said, oh, soon, in the metro, soon you won't be allowed to wear it. Other than that, it hasn't impacted my career or education or anything. It was very random — I submitted this as a report to [MUSLIM ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION 1] as well. She was preaching, had a Bible in her hand — sometimes there are preachers in the metro. I was trying to ignore her as best I could, but then she started yelling \"Allah, Allah\" at the top of her lungs, and the metro was packed, so everyone was looking at us, and then she said things like, pretty soon you won't be allowed to wear it, and, are you jealous of me because I don't have to wear it, and, if you want to wear it, go back to where you came from — things like that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_oppressed_by_the_state", "question": "DO YOU FEEL OPPRESSED BY THE STATE?", "answer": "Oppression is taking away someone's power, and I don't think they're able to do that — I think oppressed is a strong word, I wouldn't say oppressed, but it does affect our quality of living, definitely, taking away some of our freedoms. But not oppression, I wouldn't say it oppresses us."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "Submission to Allah means accepting whatever comes your way, not questioning it, not saying why, why me, why did this happen to me — accepting His rules and His commands."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "It kind of depends what sense you mean, but in general — being free to practice your beliefs, not being constrained by other people's values or beliefs. Yes, I do feel liberated."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-024_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-024", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__can_someone_report_you_for_wearing_hijab_in", "question": "CAN SOMEONE REPORT YOU FOR WEARING HIJAB IN QUEBEC?", "answer": "Workplaces can — public schools, but I'm not working in a public school. Universities, as a student, no — we have full liberty to wear it as students, it's just as workers in the public sector. Someone could report it to HR, but I don't think there's anything they could do to report you to the government, for example, to get a government fine — I think that's the case in France, but not here."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s00", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "ordinary_day", "question": "ORDINARY DAY AND WHERE FAITH SHOWS UP", "answer": "At the moment I am in summer school and I'm also working, and I have a roommate who's also a hijabi Muslim woman like myself. Usually I'll wake up around 5:30 — sometimes I'll miss Fajr, but I do my best to pray on time most days. I take Arabic classes with a teacher in Egypt, so I have my classes usually at six for an hour, and then either I'll go to work or have class. Depending on where I'm going, I dress a little differently — I've been trying to wear abayas every day when I can, but sometimes I'm not so confident, so I sort of base what I'm wearing on where I'm working that day. Right now I just finished a contract job as an educator, in a reading intervention program for children with autism and ADHD. On days I have class, I'll go to class and then study afterwards, come home, make dinner, pray, call my parents, and then I'll usually scroll or text my friends until it's time to go to bed."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s01", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "describe_self_community", "question": "HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I feel like a lot of existing as a Muslim woman is really hard to put into words, because I find myself trying to prove myself to my own Muslim community and also to non-Muslims a lot of the time. I would describe myself as a student before anything, and I find that to be a very important part of my faith too — my studies, and trying to establish myself academically so I can build a career for myself that is halal and represents my values. I'm a very ambitious person, and my friends would say I'm someone who wants to change the world — I don't think that's necessarily how I see my day-to-day character, but I find that as I've gotten older, I've become a lot more insecure and struggled a lot more with my long-term goals because of the hijab and because of living in Quebec. In recent years I've also been really involved in activism around the various wars and genocides that have been taking place against Muslims globally, and that's really shaped my identity — it's the first thing I want to talk about if I get to decide where a conversation goes, and I think a lot of people associate me with that. When they get to know me, they usually get to know me based on what I'm studying and my work, which I always politicize very heavily. I think it's hard to balance being feminine and soft, the way I feel my culture often expects me to be, and also being a powerful, ambitious woman, the way I feel is often expected in the West. I don't even know where I fall on that spectrum, because it changes so much based on who I'm around and what I'm doing. But when it comes down to it, I'd say I'm just a student.\n\nWell, I'm Arab, and I'm not necessarily speaking to the Muslim community as a whole, but within Arab culture there's a very strong expectation for women to be soft-spoken, patient, nurturing — expectations of a certain way of carrying myself that are a lot more passive, I guess, whereas in the West there isn't necessarily that same framing of how women should be, there aren't the same social scripts for women. But I'll give so much credit to my culture for the weight it gives to education, to educating yourself and equipping yourself to be productive in society and give back to your community — I don't see that as much here, and that's something I value so much as a person. I see that as the most central thing to myself, wanting to give back to my community and wanting to be educated in order to do that.\n\nI think that we're very collectivist, which people here aren't super familiar with — we care a lot about appearance and how we treat and appear to others, more than we necessarily care about personal successes in career, etc., and we're the most generous and hospitable people ever. I think if more people got to know my community — I'm Palestinian, and I just think there's so much hate going around, assumptions about what a Palestinian is. Of course there are so many different people in every society and culture, but across the board I haven't met a Palestinian who isn't so excited to share their food and share what they have with others. So I would say we're generous."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s02", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "self_change_over_time", "question": "HOW HAS YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF AS A MUSLIM WOMAN CHANGED OVER TIME?", "answer": "I've lived here my whole life. My family is in Palestine, but I've grown up here — I used to visit them regularly, up until the war started; in 2023 I'd visited maybe five or six times before then. I'd say the hijab definitely changed me a lot, because it changed how other people treated me, which in turn changed the way I behaved. When I was younger, I used to do a lot of sports, I wanted to go to the Olympics, and then I wanted to be an actor — my family never pressured religion onto me at all, although there are people in my family who are very, very practicing, much more strict in their religion than I am, but it was never forced on me in any way. My brother is very different from me, we went in kind of opposite directions. But as I got older and became more religious on my own, I became a lot more intentional in what I do, more selective about who I spend time with and the hobbies and things I invest myself in, so my goals became a lot more focused. I went from wanting to change the world on a really big scale to wanting to help individual people a lot more, and I went into education and working with children because I see that as a really practical way of helping people. I think also naturally, for any woman, once we hit our teenage years we get really insecure, and that shaped me a lot too. Also, just living in Quebec in the past couple of years, I've had a lot of Islamophobic encounters that have really changed the way I behave and see others — now my assumption when I'm meeting people, when I'm out in public, is that people are hostile towards me before they do anything, and that will only change if I have a positive encounter with them, whereas when I was younger I'd always assume the best in others. But I think I've also just become a lot smarter."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s03", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "living_here_practice", "question": "HOW DOES LIVING HERE SHAPE HOW YOU PRACTICE OR SHOW YOUR FAITH?", "answer": "It's really blatant in some ways — there are laws that prevent me from practicing my faith to a degree. I'm a student, and this coming fall, Bill 9 is about to shut down all the prayer rooms on university campuses, so that's going to be really major in terms of how I structure my days at school as a practicing Muslim who needs somewhere to pray on campus. But I think it's also really inhibited me in other ways — I wanted to wear hijab long before I actually did, because I was really nervous about how people would treat me. And even now, I feel like I could easily wear abayas every day, but depending on where I'm going I might not be totally safe like that, and I've had interactions that have proven it to me, so I definitely don't feel great. Even though living downtown, in [CITY 1], is pretty manageable because there's a lot of diversity, there are still a lot of hateful people, and I don't think there's much accountability when they act on that hate. It leaves a lot of us feeling very scared.\n\nI don't know specifically about francophone universities, because I don't go to them, but I do know that, for example, [UNIVERSITY 2] does not have a prayer room. [UNIVERSITY 1], which is where I go, we have one of the oldest Muslim student associations. We have a massive prayer room on both of our campuses, and they also organize Jumu'ah prayers every Friday, and all of these things are being shut down. Bill 9 is basically calling for no more religious spaces on campuses, but there are exceptions for heritage sites — there's a chapel on one of our campuses that's still allowed to operate as a chapel, and the irony of that is not lost on a lot of us. These spaces are very used, people love them and rely on them, and I think it's pretty clear to see, even if it's not written directly, that these laws are intending to target Muslims disproportionately. There's also new legislation now around street prayers and prayers in public, which also has a lot to do with the protests that were happening against the genocide in Palestine, and the fact that there were prayers taking place at those protests, which pissed a lot of people off."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s04", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__has_wearing_hijab_created_barriers_in_education_or", "question": "HAS WEARING HIJAB CREATED BARRIERS IN EDUCATION OR EMPLOYMENT?", "answer": "Muslim women, I feel like we gravitate towards careers in education — I'm not a sociologist, but I see a trend, there are a lot of Muslim women in my program and in this field generally. I feel really disappointed, because the laws here now are saying that no one can wear religious symbols even into schools — even if they're a parent volunteering on a field trip, even a janitor, even a tutor representing the school from their own home, they cannot wear religious symbols. You cannot work in a public school or a subsidized private school with a hijab. And you need certain experience — childcare is one of those careers where you can have a great CV, but if you don't have substantial experience with children, you're not going to get very far, and a lot of the time that means doing a practicum during your university studies, but it also means students who've been working with kids throughout their university career are at a huge advantage once they graduate, compared to those who haven't. I think it's really disadvantaging many students. I was really lucky to get an internship at a private daycare, but it's been really complicated, and I've been speaking with and advocating for other students at my university who need to do their internships and weren't sure where to go. It ended up falling on our department chairs to coordinate exceptions, getting them into private daycares or schools, rather than the university itself. I think that's really disappointing, and it really shows that even if our university claims not to support these bills, we're not really welcome in these programs anymore, which is super sad.\n\nFrom my understanding, complaints can be made to the government by basically anyone, and that could result in a fine on the institution and likely the termination of that teacher. Other times the institution just won't be comfortable taking that risk, so they'll fire the teacher outright, or won't hire them, or they'll share the government's politics in believing it's a detriment to students' education. We've been in conversations with our university administration since December of last year, asking for details on how they're going to enforce this, and they haven't given us any meaningful response, despite meeting with them almost five times, repeatedly asking, repeatedly going into meetings — we've just been told, oh, we don't know yet. And now these bills are allegedly going to be enforced next month, and there's still no details, so I'm feeling worried and disappointed about that. I don't think our university is planning to sanction students for praying, but if a complaint is made, they're not going to want to pay a fine, so they might have to take action. Nine and 94 are the ones I'm familiar with."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s05", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__have_you_experienced_hostility_for_being_visibly_muslim", "question": "HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED HOSTILITY FOR BEING VISIBLY MUSLIM?", "answer": "I've had people spit at me, I've had people call me a pedophile-worshipper randomly — at one point I was just walking down the street near my house and a man passed me and spat at my feet and said something under his breath. I've had people come at me on the metro, always a man — I had a man corner me and swear at me for three stops straight, getting really close to me, and it was a full metro and nobody did anything, and that reinforced my fear of going out, because I felt like no one was going to protect me if something violent happened. I've also had kids I've worked with say things that have been really disappointing, because I know they're hearing it from somewhere — I had an eleven-year-old with autism last week look at me and say, \"I hate Muslims, especially Pakis,\" and I asked him, do you know that's a slur, do you know what it means, do you know that I'm Muslim? This kid had no idea, it's just something they heard someone say and are repeating, and if they're not given the opportunity to have Muslim educators or interact with Muslims, that's just going to be what they carry with them until they're adults, and that's how they'll treat people. It's beyond disappointing.\n\nIn other circumstances I've gone into a daycare for the first time and a toddler will run up to me for a hug, and the manager says, oh, her mom wears the hijab, or another kid will come up and say, I like your hijab, my mommy wears it too — that gives me so much joy, knowing there's that representation, but it's also heartbreaking that it's about to be taken away from so many of these kids, and they're undoubtedly going to have classmates whose parents have told them things. It's not just affecting educators and their careers, it's also affecting Muslim kids. A lot of times it's just a look someone gives you — I think we're all aware enough to know when a look is a look of disgust, just based on what you're wearing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s06", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "seeking_knowledge", "question": "DO YOU SEEK RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE, AND HOW?", "answer": "Yeah, I try to. I don't feel super proud of myself recently, I've kind of let that go, but I used to do halaqas at the masjid I go to, and I have some apps I follow for sort of Duolingo-style Islamic lessons. Also, in my Arabic classes, I see that as a big part of improving my ability to read Quran, because I grew up here, my Arabic isn't as strong as some of the rest of my family. And I just love talking about my deen with my friends and people I come across."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s07", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "hijab_journey", "question": "HOW DID YOU COME TO WEAR HIJAB, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "I never had any pressure from my family. I wanted to for a long time, but I ended up putting it on only a couple of years ago — I was in university when I did. Funny enough, it was quite spontaneous — I was having a bad hair day, feeling really overstimulated by my hair kept getting in my face, and I was complaining about it to my friend, and she said, well, we're going to have to go pray anyway, let's go to the mosque at school, and why don't you just keep your hijab on afterwards — no one's going to see us, it's a Saturday on campus, I know you've been wanting to, so it's a good opportunity. So I put it on, and as we were leaving the musalla I ran into about twenty of my friends, and everyone was so excited and happy for me that I felt like, okay, I can't bail now, I've locked in — everyone was giving me hugs, being so excited and proud of me. That was the part I was most scared about, people's initial reactions, and I think that's what held me back for years, fear that people I was friends with might not see me the same way — so when I had that major reassurance, it helped me a lot. I just kept wearing it after that. My same friend, bless her, she's been an amazing support to me — she texted me that night and said, okay, I'm going to pick you up at your house for school tomorrow, you better be wearing the hijab when I get there. She helped a lot, because my parents live in a different city.\n\nIt makes me a lot more intentional about what I choose to do and how I choose to speak to people. I think it really encourages me to be a smarter person. I feel like there are bigger consequences to my actions and my words. It's weird, I feel this balance — I've said I feel unsafe in many ways here, but I also feel safe in the sense that I notice how it changes the way negative people avoid me, and also the increase in respect I've gotten from certain people within my community.\n\nAnd my ability to enter certain spaces, to move more freely in certain political spaces because of my hijab, especially as a Palestinian — I think there's a certain ability to move and speak and do things when you're representing yourself as a Muslim woman that you lose without it, especially because I'm quite white-passing. I also just feel really proud of it. There are some days, even two years later — almost three, actually three years in a month — where I'm just sitting minding my business and I remember, oh my god, I can't believe I did that, that's awesome, because I struggled with it for years. When I remember that I'm just wearing it and not thinking about it anymore, I get so happy. It brings me a lot of pride, and I think it's unparalleled how good it feels when someone says salam to you on the street — that feels so good. I like that other Muslims recognize me as a safe space, someone who is understanding and there for them even if we don't know each other. I've never seen a Muslim sister and had a bad vibe since wearing the hijab, because I feel like we're immediately on the same team, so that's nice.\n\nThe best people in the world — if I could live anywhere, I would want to be in Gaza. My friends from Gaza, the people I know there, there's just a way they see the world, a way they measure their actions, that gives me chills. And I put the hijab partly because of the war as well — I felt like nobody knew I was Palestinian until I told them, which is ridiculous. People should look at me and see a Muslim, they should look at me and think, that person has a side in this — I couldn't just be wearing my keffiyeh every day, it needed to be more."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s08", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "misconceptions", "question": "WHAT DO PEOPLE GET WRONG ABOUT MUSLIM WOMEN OR HIJAB?", "answer": "I think a lot of people assume that I had this big family pressure and grew into it, or got over it, but my family is so relaxed about religion, very open to different faiths and lifestyles, and I think that played a big part in how resolute I am now, because I was able to really consider every possibility growing up around the religion. I think also, as a Palestinian, there's a lot of belief about \"violent Islam\" and a lot of propaganda around that, and people are really surprised to know that my culture values education to such a high degree — we have one of the highest literacy rates in the world, and women are very involved in politics, education, social and community building. That's something that really shocks people. When they find out I'm so deeply connected as an adult with my culture and religion, they don't see it as congruent that I'm also very outspoken politically. I think people sometimes assume I'm hateful in ways I'm really not, based on stereotypes they might have come across. To me, Islam is such a respectful, kind religion, and sometimes people assume the hijab means I dislike certain people — and they're often surprised to know that I'm just Canadian too, living here, part of this community and culture, not carrying around every day being like, I hate this person, I hate that person — no, I'm just minding my business, wearing my hijab.\n\nYeah, especially working with kids, I see this so much — so many kids say, \"but you're forced to wear it, right?\" That's the main one I get all the time, people assuming I've been forced into the hijab and resent it deeply, and I often have to say, oh no, I'm so proud of myself, I did this, this is my biggest accomplishment. I think another thing is that a lot of people find it hard to believe a woman would want to dress this way. Our culture is also very different in that people have a hard time understanding family dynamics in Muslim culture — the idea of, well, I wouldn't put up with that from my family, I'd set this boundary or that boundary — that's just not really a concept that exists for me. Family is family, we're not setting boundaries and ultimatums, we're supporting each other, helping each other grow, and accepting each other's differences. But the biggest thing usually comes down to how we dress, because people can tolerate and understand a pretty diverse range of beliefs, but once it becomes visible, they start to feel some type of way about it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s09", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responding_to_portrayals", "question": "HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO WRONG PORTRAYALS OF MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "A little bit disappointed, depending on how old the person is — if it's a kid, I usually think, oh, this is a great learning opportunity, but when it's coming from someone my age, I think, come on, you've been here long enough, you should have encountered enough Muslim women to know what's actually motivating our decisions. I don't get hurt by it, but I feel tired — genuinely, sometimes I'm just so tired of people being stupid. It doesn't make sense to me how a lot of people don't see the contradiction in claiming to advocate for women's rights, for women's ability to decide things for themselves, while contradicting our ability to decide to wear the hijab or believe certain things. I think that's really embarrassing for those people, and our governments view so much of it the same way — I don't necessarily blame them, but I think people need a little more critical thinking."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s10", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "difficulty_and_faith", "question": "TELL ME ABOUT A DIFFICULTY AND HOW FAITH HELPED YOU MEET IT", "answer": "I really struggled to secure an internship so I could set up my last year of studies. I had to do a lot of networking, speaking to people, sending emails to my department and different daycares, just to set up something I think a lot of other girls in my class get on the first try, just to be able to graduate. That was really hard, because I felt so unwanted the whole time, and I feel like our education system is already not doing great, and it's disappointing that we're pushing away so many educators — the same way we're doing with healthcare workers here. I also think I took a really big risk putting on the hijab, because now, the next time I want to go back to Palestine inshallah, I'm much more endangered by the Israeli military — it's a well-known fact that Muslim women are often targeted with sexual violence and general violence at Israeli checkpoints and when traveling across Palestine.\n\nMy parents definitely felt some type of way about my choice to do that, and the risk it was going to put on me. I've done research projects on the hijab in occupied Palestine, why it's worn in some places and not others, and I think it really is a big sacrifice in terms of mobility and rights there. But I haven't had to encounter that directly yet, because I haven't been back since I put it on.\n\nI keep just feeling so shocked, because when you really simplify it, at the end of the day it's just blatant discrimination, blocking certain religious minorities from certain careers — that's really what it is. They can frame it as protecting children from radical religious fanatics, but at the end of the day, I live in a place where, because of my religion, I don't have the right to a certain harmless, in fact very beneficial, job for the community and society as a whole. It just shocks me sometimes — I can't make sense of it, because so much of Canadian culture is based on this idea that we're so free and fair and kind and inclusive, and then I can't get a job because I wear the hijab, and so many people just don't talk about it. I'm talking to my non-Muslim friends, saying, well, I can't work in a school anymore, and their immediate assumption is that I was convicted of some crime — I have to explain, no, the government decided I'm a threat to children, and so many of them have no idea, they say, that can't be right, not in Quebec. Really, yes, that's where we live. I really want to leave, but I also don't want to give them that, because I do feel like that's exactly what this is intended to do. Since my family doesn't live in Quebec, I've heavily considered just moving to another province where I'd have fair opportunities, because this is the career I want, this is what I studied for, and I'm not just going to throw it away because in a certain part of Canada it's not permitted.\n\nI'm proud, because I think it's a good test, a test of my faith, and I certainly would not take off the hijab over something like this. I put it on before this law was even announced — Bill 9, Bill 94, I didn't know they were in the works or going to be enforced. So when I put it on, I still had every reason to believe I was going to graduate and get a job in a school, and when it became clear that wasn't a possibility anymore, I just thought, okay, their loss — it's really frustrating and a lot of extra work, but alhamdulillah for my hijab, because I wouldn't necessarily want to work in a province where I don't have the ability to dress how I want. Maybe I would change my mind later down the road and want to put the hijab on, and I couldn't without losing my job — better to know now than to find out or have it progress later. At least I'm at a stage where I can still plan my career and future. There are many women who've had the rug swept out from under them after twenty years of teaching, and I think that's much more vile than what I'm experiencing. But the hijab is one of the proudest things I've done, and I have no intention, I've never even once considered taking it off because of this — not for a second has that occurred to me, because it's just a ridiculous concept, to take off my hijab because of an Islamophobe. It doesn't do anything for me in that sense. It does make me want to leave, but that's about it."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s11", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "expectations", "question": "WHAT INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL EXPECTATIONS ARE PLACED ON MUSLIM WOMEN?", "answer": "We all have to assess Islamic teachings on our own — there's no forcing a woman to behave a certain way, and I think a lot of that comes from experiencing things and understanding them, whether through speaking to other Muslim women or not. I felt like when I put the hijab on — I used to do a lot of sports, and suddenly that was this amazing outlet, but suddenly there was so much shame, I was so ashamed to be seen playing soccer with my friends, I could not go to the gym.\n\nWithin the Muslim community. That said, many Muslim friends of mine are athletes, go to the gym, do these things, but they've also spoken about experiencing this idea that a woman should not be doing that in public, that it's not modest, and I think modesty is such a broad term, really hard to understand — there's not a specific line, it depends so much on the context of where you're doing something, what you're doing it with, who you're doing it with, what your intentions are, and that's so hard to understand as a young person, especially living around one culture where your friends here say this is normal and cool, and the other culture at home says a woman should not do this. I think many of our parents, if they're immigrants, don't necessarily understand the nuance that it's actually not as objectively bad to do something here, because the cultural context is different — for sure it'd be bad if I did it in a city in the West Bank, but here it's really different. I find myself hiding things from different people in my life depending on how I think they'll respond — with some Muslim friends I'll talk about the soccer game I played last week, or the event I went to, and with other friends or family I'll say I was at home studying, or I don't do these things. That takes a really big toll on someone. It causes so much anxiety — especially when you're growing up here and want to fit in, want to have the same experiences as your friends. I don't think it's that effective, what our community tells us, which is often just a flat no or a flat yes. There needs to be more conversation about that gray area, especially being second generation — it's so confusing. I think we assume young girls know what's modest and what's immodest, and I still don't really know.\n\nI think we're expected within the Muslim community to be better representatives of the religion than non-hijabis, so when we do make mistakes, the social consequences are usually bigger. In terms of Canadian culture and the expectations on us, I think it's a lot more just assumptions that we're powerless, not in control of our lives, and I feel a lot of pressure to prove that wrong. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but I think it causes a lot of people to underestimate us and not give us opportunities we deserve."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s12", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "responsibility_bonds", "question": "WHO DO YOU FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO, AND HOW DO THOSE BONDS SHAPE YOUR CHOICES?", "answer": "My parents. I feel very responsible to not disappoint them, to make sure I set myself up well so they can have a good rest of their lives, especially coming from what they've come from. It's so important to me that what they've gone through has led to an overall good in my life, and alhamdulillah, I really think it has. They've given so much for me, and I hope inshallah I can compensate for that to some degree.\n\nIt's hard, because I haven't lived with them for some time while I've been studying, but I call them many times every day, and I run everything by them — decisions about what job I'll take, where I'll live, if I'll sign a lease, if I'll buy a dress, what I'll cook for dinner — I really call them for everything, we're very, very close as a family. My parents really consult with me, they don't make me feel like they're telling me what to do, they guide me through conversations in a way that I feel like I understand the decisions I'm making, and I'm very grateful for that. Long-term, when I think about getting married, I don't want to move far from them, and I don't want to do anything that would disappoint them in a big way — that's always at the back of my mind."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s13", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "role_family_community", "question": "WHAT IS YOUR ROLE IN YOUR FAMILY AND COMMUNITY?", "answer": "I see my role as having to transfer a lot of generational information — I try to speak to my grandmother a lot, she's still in Palestine — and I put a lot of pressure on myself to help my community, sometimes to my own detriment. I sacrifice a lot of myself to protect people, a lot of labor to give them opportunities, and especially since the war, that's been such a huge part of how I live with myself here. Within my family, I see myself as a conflict solver — that's kind of the role I've always had, very much a mediator, the person always talking things out, reconciling situations, trying to make sure everyone's on good terms."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s14", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "belonging", "question": "WHAT DOES BELONGING FEEL LIKE HERE?", "answer": "In Quebec, I think it just means not feeling scared — really trusting that there's equal accountability for people who might do something hateful towards me, as if they'd done it to any other person. I don't want to feel like an exception, I don't want to feel like there's added legislation specifically for me, whether to protect me or to inhibit me from accessing certain things. I don't think Islam or hijab should be an issue in Canadian politics the way it has been, especially in Quebec. I also think sometimes people don't factor in what makes something inaccessible to a Muslim — if I'm at a job and everyone wants to go out to a bar as a social, I don't think it's talked about, like, oh, you're going to order something that's not halal for the team and not run it by anyone — I think it would be nice if that was considered more. But really, at the end of the day, it's less about stopping all hate crimes against Muslims and more about just actually treating them the way you'd treat any other act of violence. Stop it. Sometimes it really feels like there's this huge exception made for Muslims, and I've always felt there's an exception for Palestinians too, that for some reason violence against us, or laws against us, are seen as justifiable. That's really disappointing."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s15", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_you_belong_here_are_you", "question": "DO YOU FEEL YOU BELONG HERE — ARE YOU SEEN AS FRENCH/QUEBECOIS?", "answer": "Some people do, and then other people say, go back to your country. I think a lot of people presume, when they see someone wearing hijab or a Muslim, that we've come here from somewhere else, and they might not necessarily mean anything hateful by it, but I think even the most well-meaning person doesn't necessarily see us as part of the real Quebecois culture. We just don't really mesh."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s16", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__what_do_you_miss_about_practicing_your_faith", "question": "WHAT DO YOU MISS ABOUT PRACTICING YOUR FAITH OPENLY?", "answer": "I wish I lived somewhere where I could hear the Adhan, where people were praying on the streets, where during Ramadan shops don't close at night — sometimes it's really lonely here, especially during religious holidays, and sometimes just on regular days, I wish my religion was more visible. I get really homesick when I see videos where a masjid is playing the Adhan out loud, and I feel like everything is so closed off here — our masajid are old buildings designed to not look like mosques, because they'll get hate-crimed if they visibly look like mosques on the outside. I think that's just so sad.\n\nI don't know the history of it, but to be fair, it would never end well if a mosque were playing the call to prayer out loud here. In terms of the architecture, the official reason I've heard is that it's in part to protect against attacks, that many mosques are openly community centers, outwardly, I should say — but I haven't done proper research on that. I feel like there's a little bit of a feeling that I'm sort of secretly a Muslim sometimes, because it's complicated to ask for accommodations to go pray or to have a meal I can eat. So sometimes it's lonely."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s17", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_and_where_are_you_able_to_pray", "question": "HOW AND WHERE ARE YOU ABLE TO PRAY DURING YOUR DAY?", "answer": "Always in the musalla at school — we have a prayer room in one of the buildings on our downtown campus, and also at our other campus. The university hasn't told us yet how they're going to enforce it, but it's not going to be allowed to be used for prayer, that's what they've told us. The rooms will stay, but they won't be allowed to be used for prayer."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s18", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "akhirah", "question": "HOW DOES YOUR AWARENESS OF THE AKHIRAH SHAPE THE WAY YOU LIVE?", "answer": "Sometimes it snaps me back into focus — I spend a lot of time scrolling, and I definitely shouldn't. I get these bursts of motivation sometimes, always at the most random time, and I feel like I need to get my life together, that I'm so far behind, doing so many things wrong, and I wish I could leave this place and live in a Muslim country. It also pushes the way I am with my family, how I want to treat them, be there for my parents — I think that's so huge. That's also, I think, the main reason I've persisted so much with my hijab, through a lot of discrimination, when people are really hateful and I've had bad experiences — I feel very confident that there is ajr in everything, that there is for sure a reward in all of the bad we encounter here as Muslims, and undoubtedly it's khair for us, that we were chosen to be here and not somewhere else. I wish I was more consistent in the emotional relationship I have with these concepts."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s19", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "qadr_control", "question": "HOW DO YOU MAKE SENSE OF WHAT IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?", "answer": "That Allah is there — I actually feel really calm when things are not in my control, it's when I feel like I could have done something differently that I find it really, really difficult. But that was something my parents really hammered into me from when I was young, that you do what you can and then you leave the rest to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that's it, you've done your part. A lot of that, when you're helping others too, is about your intention — I find that very reassuring. I don't think I've really struggled with it as a concept in Islam, but sometimes I wonder if the reason things are happening a certain way is because I haven't been as good as I could have been — I'm working on that, because I don't think that's the greatest outlook."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s20", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "long_run_practice", "question": "WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR PRACTICING YOUR RELIGION IN THE LONG RUN?", "answer": "I think just maintaining as much of it as I can, not losing or sacrificing anything that Allah has commanded from us for comfort in dunya here. I really don't want to find myself in a position where I look back and realize I've compromised aspects of my faith and how I practice, just to fit in better. So for me it's less about being a representative, and not really so much about establishing myself either — it's really about maintaining. I don't see this as my long-term place, to be honest."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s21", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_do_you_understand_la_cit_and_how", "question": "HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND LAÏCITÉ, AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU?", "answer": "I think it's just the fake way of — I mean, Quebec is founded on the Catholic Church, we have a [PROMINENT CHRISTIAN LANDMARK] at the center of [CITY 1], and our holidays at school are based around Christmas and Easter. And somehow they think it's convincing to tell us that these laws banning Muslim women from places are about keeping religion out of society, about secularism. I just think it's funny — it cannot be real, the fact that they find it convincing. But I don't want to negate the religious trauma people have had in Quebec and say religion should be everywhere — true secularism and laïcité is about removing religion from the government and allowing people freedom of religion outside of the government, and that's the complete opposite of what they're doing. They're making laws around how people should dress and behave religiously — that's the polar opposite of what that entire concept is meant to mean. True laïcité and true secularism is something I'm not at all opposed to — absolutely, the government should have no religious affiliations, I completely agree with that and would encourage it. But what they're doing is saying nobody should be allowed to be religious unless it's a religion they're comfortable enough to have absorbed into the fabric of their community. And because Muslims are seen as outsiders, that's the issue."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s22", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__how_are_muslim_women_adapting_their_career_plans", "question": "HOW ARE MUSLIM WOMEN ADAPTING THEIR CAREER PLANS?", "answer": "Most of us are just changing our career goals. A lot of girls are saying, oh, I'm not going to be a teacher then, I'll do that instead, or, I'm going to do grad school in [PROVINCE 2] because I can't stay here and be a teacher — that's the running theme, not so much people saying, how are we going to combat this, although I do know many people who are — I know some really, really smart, mashallah, girls who are lawyers working in activism against this. But for the most part, the ones I've spoken to in my field have just been saying, okay, I'm going to leave, or I'm going to switch to a slightly different sector."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s23", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__which_professions_are_affected_by_these_laws", "question": "WHICH PROFESSIONS ARE AFFECTED BY THESE LAWS?", "answer": "Not at all — it's specific targeting of teachers working in public schools. I can't remember specifically where the line is drawn, but my understanding is it has to do with a balance of power — if you're in a position where you're an educator or holding authority over someone, you're not able to wear it. I don't think healthcare workers are affected. Professors — so far it's okay, I haven't had any — oh, no, I've had one, I had an Arabic professor at university — universities are fine. It was such a shock when Bill 9 came out, because that was the first time they came for public universities and our prayer rooms, but nothing so far on who's allowed to teach. I think that would be extreme for them, and I don't know how they'd garner enough public support, because universities tend to publicly oppose their stance on \"secularism,\" which isn't secularism, and to be honest, their base of support for these bills comes from non-city centers, the less metropolitan areas of Quebec, where there are fewer large universities and student populations. Student cities are not for this."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s24", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "followup__do_you_feel_oppressed_by_the_state", "question": "DO YOU FEEL OPPRESSED BY THE STATE?", "answer": "In Quebec? Yeah, one hundred percent."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s25", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "heart_intention_practice", "question": "WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR HEART, INTENTION, AND OUTWARD PRACTICE?", "answer": "I have some goals — I want to memorize Quran inshallah, and I want to have kids, and I really want to feel confident that when I get married, inshallah, I can be a good teacher of the religion to them. Sometimes the way I think of it is that I'm gathering knowledge that I can pass on, and obviously so I can implement it in my own life, because I've yet to learn something about my religion that hasn't benefited me. My goals really have to do with my family, being a better daughter, and inshallah someday being a better mom. It's also about understanding, because I think even within our own community women are taken advantage of for their lack of understanding of their rights, and outside our community women are taken advantage of for their lack of ability to advocate for their rights as Muslims too. So that's always beneficial. I think it's to better myself for others."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s26", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "submission", "question": "WHAT DOES SUBMISSION TO ALLAH MEAN TO YOU?", "answer": "It means not always needing to know the answer. That's deep — yeah, I don't know if I can really go much more into that."}
{"segment_id": "MWI-025_s27", "participant_id": "MWI-025", "country": "CA", "question_id": "liberation", "question": "WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU FEEL MOST LIBERATED?", "answer": "I understand it as the freedom to have all your needs met enough to discover yourself on your own terms — literally, to rid yourself of external influence on your own agency. When I am back home, or with my family, when I'm closest to my Palestinian culture and that way of living, I feel the most comfortable, the most at peace to be myself. I mean Palestine when I say back home — I grew up here, but it's always been home for me, I've gone back for summers and months at a time since I was a very young kid, and it's always felt more like home than anywhere in Canada."}