uc berkeley's muslim student publication volume XXII issue I
threads
volume XXII issue I
board nawal seedat editor-in-chief ceren fitoz creative director javairia abbasi social media editor print editor
rania mirza
finance & logistics director ameena qureshi marketing director anum arif
web editor
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table of contents
4 editor's letter 5 To: From: 9 autopilot existence
13 tour of jordan
31 cappadocia 33 the faults of humanitarianism
41 a letter to my younger queer self
45 lifted spirits
23 working with what you've got
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Readers, This issue is dedicated to our communities, the diverse backgrounds we come from, and our individual experiences that influence who we are today. The efforts of our staff and board members has culminated into this work of art. I am eternally grateful for their craft. And I welcome you all to be a part of this creation.
With love, Nawal
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To: From:
words | alana arman
Sometimes I complain that my back aches, but I am built from the stock of backs that have endured the cracks of whips and sinister hands of the white man I am built from the central Asian steppes, from nomadic tribes that formed an empire so beautiful the world shivered at its name, so beautiful that in the tall structures of my forefathers, delicate tile walls and the ascent to felicity were preserved even while they stared down the face of seemly taller hegemonic structures I am built from the sons and daughters of the revolution, from the ones who kept their heads, and gathered up the all the courages in the world to cross the gallons of ocean brick by brick of me is built from pioneers, from barrier crushers, from glorious colors and cultures mixing together And I was raised by lionesses, women who sacrificed for the pack so that theirs had it the best they could give, brave and compassionate, they have carried with them my destiny, imprinted on their wombs, and feeling the ridges of it, tell me that they believe I will do great things And I was raised by the softest mathematicians you’d ever meet, firm, grounded, and kind, men who believed in me and told me I was brilliant and refused to see me as anything less
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And on days that I feel weak I tell myself I must remember this, I must remember that all of these things that I think are unsurpassable mountains shall indeed crumble before me one day, and the voices of my ancestors in the fields will be rejoicing sweet hallelujah and the voices of my ancestors among the tiles will be rejoicing Alhamdulilah, God is so great And I, daughter of my father, daughter of my mother, sister to my sister, and sister to my brother, servant of the Almighty, a beautiful synthesis of all the beauty of my cultures, will synthesize my own one day And maybe she’ll be wrapped in red ringing in the moon’s new year Maybe she will have spiciness in her veins and profound poetry built into the DNA of her fingertips Maybe she will have the coolness of the eyes of the oases and be built from beautiful intellectual traditions and the hospitable sand And I will remember to tell her that she was built from the ones who endured the heavy burdens of civilization and the harshness of man, that she was made from the grand minarets that conquered Rome, and that she was made from the ones who took the glory of Versailles to the new world, And I will tell her that regardless of the high reaching mountains that she may be tasked with razing to the ground, she is brilliant and must refuse anyone and anything that thinks any less.
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autopilot existence words | aamna haq
You have never existed before; No one has ever had your thoughts; You are wholly distinct from anyone else that has ever stepped foot on this Earth. That is to be alive. We are unfilled potential, wanting to overflow with memories, experiences, ideologies and distinctions. This potential is what coats every fiber of our being; it is what drives our appearances and actions. And it makes us conform. It can make us strive towards achieving the ever present standard -- the standard that we don’t even realize is there. It’s subliminal, clinging to every thought like dust on a surface. We want to look like, talk like, and be like what we like. We like it because of the value ascribed to it. The question is, do we even know what kind of value that is, or is the notion of value also something implanted within our subconscious? Yes to both. We can make associations to what we’ve already collected in the form of memories, and ascribe our ‘own’ value in terms of those memories. This value is heavily influenced by a murky standard in our mind’s eye.
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It comes in the form of language that we’ve heard spoken every day, that has cemented itself within our recollections; it comes in the form of images we see every time we open our eyes, that we see even when we close our eyes; it comes in the form of words that we read, that float around in our heads and tell us the ways we should live our lives. It becomes difficult to steer away from the current because it is so well rooted in our fundamental being; We need to evaluate what makes us who we are and decide if we can exist without it. Do you know if you are yourself or just a product of this system? Individuals are not born — we are made. We arise with an innate longing for love and food and shelter, but what becomes of each of our needs varies. Every action done in front of us, every word uttered near us, every place we see builds upon itself until there is a substance that we can draw from to reason. Some things are predetermined. A child born into prosperity and a child born into poverty both have a blank slate. They do not understand a single thing about who they are. What matters is what they can become with that acquired understanding. But what if that information is exactly what holds them back? That information is what defines them, puts them in the machine, and tells them the outline of their lives. It is fundamental to who they become.
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How on earth can we grow out of these things if they are all we know? We can be taught to question and to be curious and we can be taught to be complicit. We are taught who we are until we are able to teach ourselves, but we teach ourselves from what we have been taught. Is it our fault that we are who we are? It comes to exercising free will. In our cosmopolitan, fast-paced world, there is no way that we cannot have been exposed to varying points of views and ideas -- with our innate morality, we can filter out positive information and make micro-decisions in everyday life. Pay attention to what’s filtering through your ears. Keep your eyes open and process what they see. Don’t dwell on actions and go with instinct. Be kind. Although these actions are not going to change the world, although there is no clear, lasting, memorable impact, they can gradually influence our identity and shift our personality into someone who is aware of their existence and the energy they emanate. It is better than being bleary-eyed, blank-faced and unconscious in our understanding and sense of how everything affects us. This autopilot existence is phenomenally jaded -- however, it is the start. Experiences and observations change us. But it is our choice and responsibility to decide how we want to be changed. It is each being’s ultimate decision... to be ignorant or self-aware.
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a tour of jordan
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amman
petra
the citadel
the dead sea
madaba
wadi rum
photos | sania elahi
working with what you’ve got: an empirical investigation of governance in a corrupt state
words | emaan siddique photos | zawwar kamran
Prior to last summer, my view of Pakistan was quite narrow. Further constricted by the fact that my perspective had been shaped almost entirely by Karachi. Living in Kuwait, only a few hours from Karachi, my family and I visited the city often. As a kid, if you had asked me what distinguishes Kuwait City from Karachi, I probably would have replied “the beggars.” Growing up, I was told that street begging was the result of individual delinquency and mismanagement, which in turn perpetuated cycles of generational poverty. It wasn’t until I was much older that I began to realize that the underlying causes of poverty are actually far more complex. I believe this is especially well-illustrated in an anecdote told by Professor of Economics, Abhijit Banerjee, in his co-authored book Poor Economics, in which he tells a fascinating story that clashes sharply with traditional views towards poverty: “Every morning before dawn the women went to the beach, where they collected wet sea sand. They then laid it evenly on the street before the real traffic began. When the cars started driving over the sand, the heat from their wheels dried it. All they had to do then was occasionally scrape off the top layer of sand, now dry. By nine or ten, they had a quantity of dry sand, which they brought back to the slum to sell in small packets made from discarded newspapers: The local women used the dry sand to scrub their dishes.”1
This anecdote, among others, give me enough reason to believe that the poor are not intrinsically unmotivated, but rather individuals with a particularly challenging set of circumstances. The exact causes and features of poverty vary in different contexts, which means that academics have to put extensive time and resources towards understanding issues of poverty in a specific place and time. This is especially relevant to research related to Pakistan, a country with an extremely unique history and set of political circumstances. Historically and politically, Pakistan is a very interesting country. Ever since independence in 1947, the country has gone back and forth between four democratic and three military periods.2 Alongside these dramatic shifts in political ideology, Pakistani bureaucracy has a long-standing history of corruption. In a 2009 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center on Pakistani public opinion, 71% of respondents stated that corruption posed one of the biggest problems in the country, outranked only by crime, terrorism, economic turmoil, and the illegal drug epidemic.3 Poor governance has been determined a major cause of economic downfall in various contexts, as it often hinders the effectiveness of initiatives aimed at promoting equality and societal well-being. Hence, I believe that poor governance is the leading impediment to economic prosperity in Pakistan. While this is especially prevalent in three of Pakistan’s five provinces, this does not appear the case in the remaining two: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB). 1Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. 2011. Poor economics: a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty. 2Pakistan’s political history is nicely outlined by Asad Hashim at Al Jazeera 3“Growing Concerns about Extremism, Continuing Discontent with U.S.” Pew Research Center. 2009.
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In the summer of 2018, I travelled to Hunza Valley in GB, the northernmost region in Pakistan. Prior to embarking on this trip, my knowledge of the region was relatively limited. While I was told to anticipate screensaver worthy natural landscapes (see pictures below), I was not told to expect progressive educational reform, a commitment towards women’s empowerment, and political cohesion around the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Since GB is disputed territory, its citizens were not allowed to participate in the 2018 national election. However, this did not prevent them from getting all hands on deck when it came to campaigning for the PTI. The deeper I ventured into the region, the more I began to realize the province’s devotion to the PTI. Not only was their allegiance to the party placidly spray-painted to mountain sides throughout the Karakoram Highway, it was also celebrated on banners held proudly over passing by motorcyclists. Khyber Pakthunkhwa This got me thinking, “Is there some sort of relationship between the people of GB’s relatively progressive values and support for the PTI?” I then recalled that in the 2013 national elections, the PTI won the majority of seats in the KPK provincial assembly and has since served as the leading political power in the province. Since then, the party has been widely acclaimed for its progressive policies related to public education, healthcare, and women’s rights. According to an article published by The Economist in 2017, the PTI “has certainly made schools more appealing: the party has appointed 40,000 more teachers, rebuilt institutions blown up by the Taliban and furnished others with toilets and electricity. Teacher absenteeism has fallen.”4 Such acclamations likely contributed to the PTI winning the majority of seats in the lower house of the national legislative branch in the 2018 election. Given that amount of attention the PTI has received, I became interested in understanding the extent to which the PTI has had an impact on the lives of people in KPK. More specifically, I was interested in how differential investment in school infrastructure at the city level has affected educational attainment in KPK. While the PTI has claimed to have increased access and quality of schools, there is no definitive evidence to validate these assertions. The aforementioned article by The Economist also noted that “the PTI’s claim that about 100,000 students have chosen to switch from private to public schools is based on dodgy data.” To date, there has been little research conducted on how school quality affects educational outcomes in Pakistan. While this limited literature includes research on rural regions of Pakistan and KPK in general, there has been no specific research conducted on the rural regions of KPK. Much of this existing literature also fails to present a convincing causal argument. In empirical economic research, causality is everything. Put simply, a lot of economic research has to do with figuring out if “x” affects “y” and if so then to what extent. You can figure this out pretty easily by running some basic code. In that sense, almost anyone can do economic research. Not everyone can, however, do “good” economic research. Another way of saying you’ve done “good” economic research is known as being able to “determine causality.” In other words, does x really cause y? Or is there something else going on that we’re not taking into account? Figuring out how to determine causality is known as an “identification strategy,” which is especially important when working with observational data. Your identification strategy is really everything when doing economic research, which makes the process all the more daunting. The last thing you want as a researcher is for someone to find a way to completely denounce your identification strategy, which is ironically what academics supposedly spend most of their time doing at conferences. 4"Imran Khan’s Party Improves Services In Pakistan’s Wildest Province". The Economist. 2017.
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Consequently, the fact that no research has been conducted to measure the causal impact of the PTI’s policies on the lives of citizens of KPK made me initially skeptical of the effectiveness of such policies. Considering that rural KPK has been largely disregarded in the literature despite the existence of valuable data collected over the past two decades, I thought it would be interesting to assess the impact of the PTI’s supposed province-wide policies exclusively in these regions. This in turn gave rise to my senior honors thesis. What is economics? Like, actually? There’s a lot more to economics besides supply and demand, which I think most people, understandably, don’t realize at the undergraduate level. As a freshman, I, too, did not really see much to economics beyond basic supply and demand, and finance-related career prospects. It was only after declaring the major that I began to realize that economics in the real world is becoming increasingly empirical as opposed to theoretical. In other words, the field is becoming more data-driven. Looking back, a lot of the work I did in preparation of actually writing my honors thesis has had to do with analyzing large datasets. And by large, I mean large. Think millions. In fact, most of what I did as part of my thesis last semester was coding in Python. It wasn’t really until after I declared my major that I began to realize the interconnectivity of economics. In my experience, most economic models are founded on mathematical principles, often have implications for public policy, and are driven by psychological, sociological, and political channels. And are often tested using principles learned in data science and statistics. Even though I’m only majoring in one subject, I’ve somehow picked up on a decent amount of math, statistics, and data science along the way. That’s kind of crazy to me considering I came to Cal not expecting to go down such a technical route. What I personally find interesting about economics as a discipline is how theory does not always line up with what the story data has to offer. One famous example of this is a study by Card and Krueger (1993), which found that an increase in the minimum wage in New Jersey (x) actually led to an increase in fast food restaurant employment (y).5 Intuitively, this doesn’t make sense given that if workers become more expensive to hire, you would expect to see a decline in employment rates. Surprisingly, this was not the case. And that, in essence, is what I find most exciting about empirical economic research. You may hypothesize that the relationship between x and y will go one way, and sometimes it will and other times it won’t. In either case, it is important to make sure you ask “why?”, which is exactly what I’ve been doing with my own research. My Thesis I’d just like to start off by saying that doing your own research is daunting. Much of what I did last semester was reviewing my identification strategy over and over again to the point where I could confidently argue that, yes, x does cause y. In my thesis, I worked hard to convince my audience that increased investment in school infrastructure (x) has caused a change in educational attainment (y) in KPK. I’ve attempted to validate this using data from KPK’s annual school census, which demonstrates that all regions had similar growth rates in educational attainment prior to the PTI gaining power in 2013. This is important to minimizing selection bias. 5Card, David, and Alan B Krueger. 1993. "Minimum Wages And Employment: A Case Study Of The Fast Food Industry In New Jersey And Pennsylvania". National Bureau Of Economic Research Working Paper Series.
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The initial results of my study have been both shocking and exciting. Thus far, I have come to the following conclusion: regions that received below median levels of investment in school quality have attained an additional 0.3 years of education relative to regions with above median levels. Initially, these results puzzled me as I’m sure Card and Kruger’s initial results did them. Although these results do not make intuitive sense at first, contemplating them more deeply paints an interesting picture. Considering that the “low-intensity” regions had lower levels of educational attainment prior to the election of the PTI in 2013, it is likely that they were able to make more of the investment they received in the post-2013 period. In other words, they had higher returns to investment. The “high-intensity” regions also exhibited increased educational attainment post-2013; however, their rates of attainment following 2013 were relatively slower. What’s interesting about PTI’s reforms in rural KPK is that they appear to be benefitting the historically disenfranchised the most. Given that citizens from the KPK are frequently marginalized outside the province, such attempts to boost human capital within the province can have important implications for social mobility. Reflections, Challenges & Future Research Looking back on this past semester, I believe that writing an honors thesis has been one of the best things I’ve done during my time at Cal. In my eyes, it has demonstrated that perhaps economic research might be the right path for me after all. Not only have I thoroughly enjoyed the research design and data analysis components of this experience, but I am pleasantly surprised at how much I’ve learned and grown along the way. The prospect of doing my own research no longer seems as daunting as it once was, but instead extremely rewarding. All research has implications, and I hope that mine plays some sort of role in informing the Pakistani people about the importance of good governance. In turn, my study may incentivize constituents to vote and take part in representative democracy. Writing this first draft of my thesis, however, did not come without its share of challenges. One major initial challenge was trying to figure out what makes for an interesting research question. And once the research question is identified, a larger concern is figuring out whether it’s feasible. In this context, “feasible” refers to whether the right data exists and is available to use. What can be especially difficult to process is knowing that the data likely exists, but that there’s no way to realistically access it. This can often be the case when looking for observational data on Pakistan. In economics, census data can be a valuable source of information regarding a country’s socioeconomic status. Officially, Pakistan has conducted six censuses since 1951. With the right amount of digging you can find individual level data (also known as “microdata”) for the third to fifth censuses (1973, 1981, and 1998); however, whether or not the data is useful is debatable. Beyond age, sex, marital status, and some basic measures of educational attainment, these censuses don’t have much to say. Even then, they each come with their own set of flaws: one year excludes a whole three provinces, another excludes a sizable number of districts within a particular province. In short, there are a number of interesting indicators that the census can inquire on, but this does not appear to be the case in Pakistan. To make matters worse, the next earliest census to be conducted after 1998 was in 2017, and the data has yet to become publicly available (surprise, surprise). This really makes me wonder whether Pakistan is outright terrible at collect-
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ing data, or if the issue of data dissemination is far more complex politically. When I first got started on this project, one obstacle that seemed unsolvable was not being able to access data on educational attainment at the city level across time. To overcome this obstacle, I had to get creative. One source of information that the Pakistani state happens to be good at disseminating are the results for the Pakistani Social and Living Measurement (PSLM) Survey. The PSLM has consistently collected data on millions of individuals since 2004. Having access to this data was useful as it allowed me to average educational attainment at the city-year level; thereby, making my research question realistically answerable. However, there are many more interesting questions related to Pakistan that need to be answered. More specifically, there are a number of programs and policies that Pakistani institutions roll out that are in desperate need of evaluation. Evaluating these policies is crucial to determining their effectiveness, and whether they should be continuously supported. Lack of access to data, however, serves as a huge barrier to aspiring researchers interested in the region. As long as the Pakistani bureaucracy remains complicated in this regard, researchers will need to be more creative with their empirical strategies and methodologies. To date, no single dataset on educational attainment in Pakistan has existed. But, considering that I have been able to construct a dataset for KPK, I believe that I can do the same for the remaining major provinces and regions in Pakistan. By making this dataset publicly available, I hope to encourage scholars interested in Pakistan to pursue more rigorous research on the country and promote greater data availability and transparency. Considering the multitude of Pakistan’s socioeconomic challenges, the country is in desperate need for effective action now more than ever. Thus, the sooner researchers can learn to effectively work together, the greater the likelihood that barriers to Pakistan’s economic development gradually breakdown.
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photos | zahra
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Cappadocia photos | zahra ansari
5:03 am
4:40 am
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the faults of humanitarianism words | khadeja ibrahim
photos | ameena qureshi yoseph ghazal
When looking at many major charity organizations giving aid to the West Bank and Gaza, many will claim to be aimed at aiding the “humanitarian crisis in Palestine”. Even more, these organizations claim to be “apolitical”. We must ask however, what does this language of humanitarianism that is disconnected from politics do? Especially in Palestine, which has been facing a Western-backed Israeli occupation for decades, how does one even provide help without acknowledging the political situation at hand. Yes, there are obvious humanitarian issues at hand. The occupation has displaced millions, and cut off those within the West Bank and Gaza strip from basic needs like housing, food, and water. However, addressing the solution to the Palestinian predicament from a humanitarian perspective is problematic, and not all encompassing. The problem in Palestine is a political one, which in turn has led to a humanitarian crisis. NGOs whose focus is aid for this secondary effect while neglecting the main problem, do more harm than good. They create populations dependent on aid for survival. This aid can be taken away just as easily as its given, as we have seen recently with the United State’s cutbacks from UNRWA.
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Inside of Dheisheh Refugee Camp, facing out to the entrance
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Alleyway inside the camp
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Humanitarianism is derived from a particular moral or ethi-cal mode of thought and fills in the void of political discourse. Miriam Ticktin argues this concept in her piece Where Ethics and Politics Meet. She says that without a guiding political principles, humanitarianism can have brutal consequences. The moral recognition of a problem often replaces a political response to that problem. It addresses trauma but not the reasons behind that trauma. Furthermore humanitarianism functions differently than human rights. Arguments based on human rights are grounded in law, and for the most part make legal claims and demand accountability. Humanitarianism functions differently. Humanitarianism is rooted in the ethical responsibility of bringing relief to those who are suffering. It makes claims of a common humanity, and of saving the victims unconditionally. In such, humanitarianism reduces beings to ‘suffering bodies’ as Ticktin describes it, and strips them from their lawful rights as humans. Humanitarian organizations in Palestine are part of the NGO ‘economy’, which is a non-productive economy dependent on the inflow of external aid. Under the guise of humanitarianism, these organizations restructure Palestinian culture and depoliticize its constituents.
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Despite their 70 years of functioning in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, humanitarian organizations have failed to offset the occupation or mitigate human rights abuses. Instead, they have created systems of welfare to which Palestinians depend on to survive. Furthermore, they have done a disservice to Palestinians by not implementing measures that would lead to sustained and lasting change. These NGOs provide many social services and emergency aid, but they have not created the fundamental policies changes necessary to end human rights abuses in Palestine. Such a structural shift would end the need and reliance on humanitarian organizations, and would lead to a Palestinian state in which human rights are recognized.
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Graffiti on a side of a home 38 31
An art piece on the entrance of a home in Dheisheh Refugee Camp. Three politicians are saying 'me' to represent the people. Standing with Handala, the tallest person on the left is wearing a shirt that says 'we' and calls them selfish.
coming out and coming into authenticity and wholeness: a letter to my younger self words | aleenah ansari
In honor of all the queer writers of color who have told their story like Urooj Arshad, Audre Lorde, and Fatimah Asghar. My work will always stand on your shoulders.
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First of all, hello! Take a deep breath. Innnnnnnn. And out. It’s nice to pause for a second, right? I know you don’t do that often, but I can assure you that taking your time will make you so much happier. This could exist in the form of giving yourself a few extra minutes to write every night or taking some time to see your friends just a little longer. I hope this letter gives you an opportunity to pause too. There is so much coming your way. I don’t want to give it all away because there’s joy in surprising yourself. I know you’ve always wanted to be someone who inspires others with your story, but you’ve haven’t known how to make this happen. The truth is that you deserve to see yourself as a person of impact, one who creates space for people to be the most vulnerable versions of themselves and open up. You’re becoming the woman of your dreams: someone who is independent, headstrong, diligent, passionate, and intentional with her words and actions. I know you haven’t seen a lot of women, particularly queer women of color, who are celebrated for their creativity, leadership, and ability to create change. Remember that you don’t have to feel shame, blame, or guilt for the education or ideas you were taught; however, you also have the responsibility to educate yourself and others. I challenge you to be this source of representation for others and follow in the footsteps of the writers who inspired you. Now is the time to demand the education you deserve, one that shows you people who are queer, powerful, and inspiring. You deserve to see yourself as a future engineer, storyteller, and mentor to other women of color. I want you to know that love is the most transformative force in the world, and you deserve to be loved authentically. This means that love doesn't always look the way you’ve seen it portrayed in media or religious texts. It’s true that coming out is scary and liberating all at once. I know, I know, queerness is a new idea for you, but that doesn’t mean you have to be scared of it. I want you to fall in love with a person, not a gender, ideal, or person in your mind that “fits the mold.” If you open yourself up to a deeper love that may surprise you, you’ll find out that people can make you an even more vulnerable, kind, and selfless. You’ll realize that sharing your heart, scars, and fondest memories with another person will make you feel more whole. As for you, being queer is not about looking or asking gay or meeting some artificial standard that’s put on you. If people speculate about the identity of your crush using he/him
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pronouns, recognize that this is only a reflection of heteronormativity. Queerness looks the way you do - it can be walking down the street hand-in-hand with your best friend. It can be saying “I love you” to your friends and seeing them as a part of your long-term happiness. It can be wearing your favorite pair of leggings with colorful pink and blue socks so you exude joy with a bouncy high ponytail, joyful attitude, and deep love for making people feel seen. It can be advocating for policy change that enables queer people to have their marriage recognized by the government. It can also be asking, “what’s your significant other’s name?” instead of assuming a pronoun when talking about your friend’s crush. But It’s okay if you don’t put that rainbow pin on your jacket or buy a pride flag for a few more years. It’s okay if you haven’t fallen in love with anyone, let alone another woman. It’s okay if everything changes once you open yourself up to queerness, and you have to process your feelings out loud. There is no wrong way to do this as long as you remember that relationships are the quiet rhythm and hum of love and care. I also want you to stop getting rid of your text messages and old journals because you’re afraid of how you’ve felt. You don't have to move on by deleting every remnant of something that brought you so much joy at one point, and it'll come in handy for your future memoir. There’s this amazing piece of technology that’ll become popular in the future - it’s called Google Docs! If you have old poems and journal entries about people you used to love, changing dreams, or emotions that no longer serve you, put them in a Google Doc and save them until you’re ready. That way, you can revisit old feelings without regressing. Trust me, your heart (and future book editor) will thank you. You’re an old soul, and that wisdom will serve you well in future relationships, but it’s okay to make time for fun. You deserve to look yourself in the eye, put down your phone and explore cities that could become your future home, eat dessert without feeling overcome with guilt, and give love a try. Remember that nothing you do is black and white but simply the right decision at the time. And if nothing seems to be going right, remember that if it’s not alright, it’s not the end. Keep shining, little light! Your deepest love, brightest sunset, and first, second, and third tattoo are right around the corner (did I say too much?). Love always, Aleenah
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LIFTed Spirits
words |aasiya syed
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I take a deep breath in, tighten my core, and drive through my heels. The bar reaches my collarbone and I take another deep breath, keeping my spine tall. My breath is short as I realize the next few seconds will dictate if this barbell will shatter my skull or not. I drive through my heels again and push the barbell as explosively as I can above my head. I am holding one-hundred-eighty pounds over my head but I do not feel scared, only powerful. I finally drop the barbell to the ground, smile to myself, and do it again.
I did almost twenty clean-and-presses that day, and each time the motions became easier but I continued to increase the weight I was pushing. I was nineteen at the time, and just a year ago if you had asked me to pick up a fifty-pound box, I would have said no––not because I wasn’t strong enough but because I didn’t believe I was strong. The fear of my strength stemmed from the fact that I had never seen young Muslim girls like me weightlifting in the gym. The first time a Muslim woman in the athletic world came to my attention was in the 2016 Olympics, Ibtihaj Muhammad, the hijab-clad fencer. She gained the respect of Muslims globally as she carried herself with modesty, courage and respect for Islam, herself, and the sport––her fight in the Olympics named a “historic debut” by ESPN. I remember thinking that her influential mark in the industry came at a time of tense juncture in American politics with the election of President Trump and the particularly hostile feelings toward Muslims. Nevertheless, she persisted, and I admired that. My attention piqued again when Nike Pro Hijab Ambassador, Zeina Nassar, aided in the groundbreaking amendment in the International Boxing Association’s guidelines to allow female boxers to wear hijabs at international competitions. Despite the fact that I don’t wear a hijab, it was inspiring. While the rightfully attained praise and recognition of Ibtihaj Muhammad and Zeina Nassar is instrumental
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to the inclusion of Muslim women in the world of sports, why is their very existence an anomaly? The old answer to this question was that the Islamic virtue of modesty contradicts a Muslim woman’s ability to be an athlete, but figures such as Ibtihaj and Zeina have debunked that notion. Today, the lack of athleticism in many Muslim girls’ upbringing plants a seed of ethical self-regulation rooted deeply within their mindset when it comes to fitness. We all remember our Sunday school activities that often included basketball for the boys and some form of domestic activity for the girls. We experience this again ten years later when our MSA hosts a sports night for brothers and a chai night for girls. The problem is not that our Muslim women possess no interest in athleticism; rather, the problem lies with the dismissal of fitness as anything more than a fleeting interest. On the rare occasions a Muslim woman does make fitness a priority, their choice becomes a spectacle. It is important to understand that the issue is completely cultural, but individuals use Islam as a scapegoat whenever issues of gender differences arise. Rights of men and women respectively are stated clearly in the Quran, in which common ground is found in terms of humility and haya (modesty); the genesis of modesty for both sexes in lowering their gaze and guarding their private parts. The obvious difference between men and women in Islam and modesty is that women are prescribed a tangible act of modesty despite the fact that internally, the same
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rules are placed on both sexes. This feeds into the aforementioned ethical self-regulation many Muslim women feel about athleticism: their physical obligations of haya make it harder for them to see how the two can be synonymous. Around the same time Ibtihaj Muhammad emerged into the olympic spotlight, I started my own fitness journey. I never had a clear relationship with health and fitness––I ran track for a little bit in high school and ate the healthy South Indian food my mom would prepare. But eating healthy and working out was never a priority for me because I saw it as a chore and hindrance to my social life. The summer before college was tough for me emotionally as I was transforming and creating my thoughts and perceptions of the world. I fell on Islam to put the pieces of my life together, I talked to God everyday––I asked Him to give me happiness in a world where that was such a complex feeling. My brother, on the other hand, would spend hours in the gym around the block from our house and I became curious about what was so special. He had a gym membership for some time now, but when I decided to get one for myself, it became breaking news in our household. Not because it was surprising but because I willingly wanted to go exercise––it was a foreign concept to my parents in raising a daughter. They didn’t fear my ambition but rather my safety as a young Muslim woman in a mixed environment.
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My first day in the gym was awkward, to say the least. The next day was a little better but I restricted myself to the cardio floor. About two weeks in, my curiosity about the ominous third-floor of the gym peaked and I built up the courage to see what it was all about. I didn’t just see people picking up heavy things - I saw strength, power, and confidence which I admired and knew I wanted. I started out small and stuck to the basics, I taught myself everything there was to learn about weight-lifting and it became the sole reason I would get out of bed everyday that summer. This was the happiness I had asked for. I didn’t know I would be capable of performing heavy compound movements but more importantly I was unaware of the mental strength I had. Adding weight to the movements became an addiction and before I knew it, I was deadlifting my own weight. The heavily mixed environment of the commercial gym I started out in and the school gym I use now in college bothered me at first. It didn’t bother me that my male peers were using the same space as I was to workout, but because I was constantly on high-alert. “Is that man looking at me or am I just self-conscious?”, “Should I not use this machine so those boys don’t look at me?”, “Are the clothes I’m wearing inappropriate or is that man just creepy”––these were the thoughts that ran through my head and it wasn’t fair. But when I realized that my goals were important and
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there would be no easy way of getting around seeing boys at the gym, the thoughts faded. I know, easier said than done. As I started to share my passion for fitness with friends, a few of them and other Muslim women in the community began to come along. It was the best feeling seeing these women redefine their strength, to see them push their limits. I admired their curiosity of it all. But, slowly the group got smaller and less women started showing up because of how uncomfortable they felt in a mixed environment and constantly feeling on edge, or receiving discouragement from males in their life. I understood completely but it bothered me that the feelings inevitably existed, that being an active Muslim woman carried so much emotional baggage. Still, three years into weightlifting and my overall fitness journey, my emotional and physical strength is constantly being questioned. It hurts the most when my own brothers in Islam question it. Their validation is not necessary but their support would be more beneficial than backlash. “I can put those weights back for you”, “Are you lost?”, or my personal favorite, “Are you here to workout or watch boys play basketball?”–– these are all things Muslim men have said to me in the gym. The solution to all of this isn’t simple or straightforward, it’s a revolution that women like Zaina and Ibtihaj are pioneering. But just as much as our com-
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munities praise them for their well-earned success and dignity, let us not discourage the Muslim women who are beginning. Whether that be the girl at Sunday school who wants to play basketball rather than color, or the young woman starting out in a gym, or the sister in MSA who would rather participate in a sports activity than sip chai and gossip. As a Muslim male, encourage the women in your life to be active and support them in their fitness endeavors––whatever it may be. Our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), advised Muslims to teach their children sports such as swimming, archery and horse riding. He used to encourage Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) to walk at a fast-pace like him, he chose to always work with his hands whether it was in his home or fighting a war, and he valued health. Thus, as an ummah, we need to eradicate the stigma surrounding Muslim women and fitness because being active is simply part of who we are. Every single woman has the spark of fitness in them––whether that be weightlifting, running, yoga, sports––whatever it may be, take that spark and light it on fire. We are only given one body, take care of it, let it reach its potential.
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