Schools of Thought

Muslim women hold community forum to talk about their vision vs. media hype

Dealing with and disproving stereotypes is all in a day’s work for Rehana Hadid. As a Muslim woman who runs her own food truck and catering business alongside her husband, Hadid is anything but the weak and reserved housewife that many people expect her to be.

"People look at Muslim women as not having a voice. As not being able to speak, or not having rights, or that we're oppressed, or that we're mistreated, and it's quite the opposite. Muslim women have a lot of rights," Hadid tells SFR.

Although discrimination and hateful behavior because of her religion and way of life has been relatively minimal in the past, Hadid and her husband say that recently, they've personally experienced more of that within their own Casa Solana neighborhood, an escalation that they find shocking for a city as open-minded as Santa Fe.

"I feel like people look at us like we're not humans. Like we're some terrible, evil people, and we're actually really nice, loving, kind people," Hadid says. "People aren't educated about what Islam really is. ... We all may have different schools of thought that we follow, but our basic principles are love and peace and happiness. That's what Islam is about: It's about peace and love and having an open heart."

In an effort to address the knowledge problem surrounding the Islam religion and culture and separate the facts from the fiction, Hadid, who spends many of her days creating cuisine for the family's Kebab Caravan business, says she hopes to reach listening ears as part of a diverse panel of approximately ten peers called "Muslim Women Speak." This event, which takes place at 1 pm on Sunday, Jan. 10, is an open forum, moderated by Judith Fein, at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design. The entire community is invited to come and ask any questions they may have.

"There will be women who are American-born Muslims, there will be women who are Muslim born in other countries, there will be women who have converted to Islam," says Fein. "It's an opportunity for people to meet their Muslim neighbors. They may not have even spoken to anyone before who's Muslim. … Here are women who are so smart and open-hearted and funny. "

Fein says the main motivating factor in her organization of the event is the discrepancy between the portrayals of Muslims in the media, and the Muslims she knows in real life. The purpose of having the event is to help people connect in a way that is rooted in a deeper understanding and appreciation of one another, she says.

Fein partnered with Zeinab Benhalim of Tribes Coffeehouse, a friend who helped create meaningful conversations on the topic after 9/11. Those small gatherings at Fein's home began with eating together and taking turns asking questions of one another. As the size of the gatherings grew into the hundreds, along with the desire to meet more frequently, Benhalim offered her coffee shop as a meeting place.

Benhalim says that she is driven to be a part of the upcoming event because she feels "that people don't really understand the Middle Eastern culture." She hopes that she and her fellow panel members can correct the misinformation and misunderstanding that leads people to connect terrorism with Islam. She wants to make it very clear that "terrorism and Islam [do] not go together," she says.

A third member of the panel is Muminah, a woman who adopted that name when she converted to the Islamic religion about 30 years ago. She made the decision to become a Muslim after she became acquainted with members of the Muslim community near where she lived and met people who were "very interesting, very nice, very highly educated people," she says, "and it led me to read the Koran, which I did about five times before making the decision to convert. To me, the Koran laid out basically a blueprint for living in a very nice, gentle, way. That was it."

The equating of Muminah's nice, gentle lifestyle as being one and the same as that of the people responsible for the November bombings and shootings in Paris is what spurred her to be a part of the panel.

"The rise of Islamaphobia has been very sharp since the Paris event. It is time for everyday, ordinary Muslims to invite the public to know what we are about as opposed to what they read in the newspapers, which is usually something shocking and equating all Muslims with those horrible terrorists who are, as far as I'm concerned personally, not Muslims. If they were, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing," Muminah says.

She adds that through this event, people will become more informed about not just the religion, but Muslims in general, and "see that we're no different than they are. We have the same hopes, the same dreams, and the religions themselves are very similar."

Muslim Women Speak
1 pm Sunday, Jan. 10.
Moderated by Judith Fein,
The Forum at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design,
1600 St. Michael's Drive, 982-9248

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