IT was while living on campus as a college student in America that I realized that people who looked like me were only marginally tolerated in the modern world. 

On one particularly distressing day, I decided to seek the help and advice of my resident director—who was in charge of enforcing the university’s conduct code and of preserving the rights and safety of all the students living in my dormitory building. Growing up as a practicing Muslim in America had never been easy, and I knew as early as kindergarten that many non-Muslim Americans didn’t have much affinity for my religion or lifestyle. However, I also knew that in educational and professional settings, the people in authority upheld the rights of minorities and that conduct codes and guidelines were in place to protect the rights of everyone.

Like all schools in America, my university had certain rules. Amongst them were laws against underage drinking and cohabitation in school residential areas. In other words, students under the age of 21 were not allowed to consume alcohol, and male and female students were not allowed to use school dorms to “live together” as boyfriend and girlfriend—especially when they shared a room or suite with others. 

And, like all schools in the world, students at my university broke the rules.

Now, before I go on, let me clarify that I am fully aware that people will break rules—even the most “righteous” of us. And, no, I’m not naïve: Growing up in a society as “free” (or “enslaving”—depending on your perspective) as America, I had long since come to accept that, to many in the society around me, life was about breaking rules.

So it wasn’t due to any desire for moral utopia that inspired my seeking the help of my resident director that distressing day. It was simply that I felt completely violated and distraught in my own room. I couldn’t even enter the bathroom without donning full hijab because it wasn’t uncommon for a male student—one of the my two suitemates’ many “boyfriends” (who routinely cohabitated in their room, which was joined to mine and my roommate’s by a shared bathroom)—to be in the bathroom when I entered. I feared even stepping out the shower due to their recklessness (which, by the way, a measly “lock” on the bathroom door would do little to thwart). The repeated drunkenness of these “friends” didn’t help the matter any.

I felt—to put it in a word that nearly all Americans can understand…

Harassed.

And anyone who has ever felt the psychological and emotional effects of such utter helplessness, especially miles away from people who love and care for you, know that this experience is no small matter.

So I turned to the one person the university had assigned to my building to address problems just like mine—the resident director.

When I knocked on her door and she answered, I was relieved. I had feared she wouldn’t be in her apartment. After exchanging polite small talk, I explained to her my dilemma, which was compounded because I was a practicing Muslim woman who covered in front of males who were not close family.

After she listened to me pour my heart out, she nodded as if deeply concerned, then said the words that would stay with me for years to come…

“Don’t you realize that your lifestyle is intimidating to people?”

“If you want to understand how things work here,” I told my roommate, an international student from Taiwan who was utterly dumbfounded by our suitemates’ open violation of university conduct code—and by our resident director’s nonchalant attitude about it, “remember this.”

I frowned momentarily and shook my head before sharing what I learned was the real “code of conduct” in most of American society…

“Everyone has the right to do wrong,” I said. “But no one has the right to do right,”

I added, “unless it doesn’t interfere with those who are doing wrong.”

Fortunately, my distress at the university ended—at least as far as sharing a bathroom with reckless drunks was concerned—when my father talked to a senior administrator at the school and the administrator dutifully took the matter into his own hands and saw to it that I could sleep comfortably at night and enter my bathroom without hijab (or fear).

However, my distress as a practicing Muslim has never ended.

And the saddest part of this reality is that much of this distress comes from the growing intolerance for Islam—amongst Muslims themselves.

• • •

Yes, we hear about religious intolerance all the time—even religious “extremism.” But most of the time, these terms are attributed to the media-hyped “boogiemen” that keep the ignorant masses fully entertained and glued to the television…

Because the ignorant need a talking head from a flashing, colorful screen to tell them whom they should love, hate, admire, condemn, or fear.

And—lo and behold!—when they turn off their “plug-in drug,” they are duly warned. And these intoxicated “good Samaritans” take action to save the world—by shouting derogatory words at that the bearded neighbor or “oppressed” hijabi…

Or by supporting that “patriotic” soldier son or daughter in exterminating all those “darned extremists” (i.e. boogiemen) that CNN told them existed half way across the world.

And ah! Finally, they are able to sleep at night…

Because they know that extremism is finally being rooted out…

…Because they are now intolerant and extreme themselves.

• • •

But today, it doesn’t stop there. The masses of Muslims also want to join in the fight against extremism—on a social level…

…By commanding the evil and forbidding the good whenever they meet someone who appears to be a practicing Muslim.

…I remember when I was in college and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) had planned a social gathering at a local restaurant. When I approached our reserved table and greeted my fellow Muslims, before I could even sit down and read the menu, a female MSA member grimaced at me then asked challengingly, “What do you think of people who don’t wear hijab?”

No response I gave was sufficient, no matter how diplomatic I tried to be (and believe me, this confrontation isn’t what I had in mind when decided to spend the evening with my fellow Muslims). And after I explained myself as best I could, the MSA member and her friends—predictably—shook their heads at me (yes, condescendingly and judgmentally) and said, “You all are too judgmental of people who don’t cover.

• • •

As for people believing that it’s other way around: that practicing Muslims are the ones who are most intolerant in religious issues, I refer the reader to one of my responses to a similar sentiment expressed in response to my fictional short story “From the Diary of an Extremist”:

There are definitely those [practicing Muslims] out there who appear to push their lifestyle on others. However, this can never be an excuse to mistreat anyone who looks like them. This blanket generalization and justification for mistreatment is actually the essence of extremism itself. This is where racism is born, as well as oppression of others: If I have a bad experience with a person from a certain country or of a certain skin color, [then] they all have to “pay.” Thus, I myself become an extremist and an oppressor…in the name of avoiding extremism and oppression.

In reality, both presently and historically, it is those who practice religion more “strictly” who suffer most from the intolerance of others. The oppression of the Companions in the past and the current suffering of Muslims who are unjustly treated and incarcerated speak for themselves. There are also societies and universities that forbid the Islamic covering, the headscarf as well as the niqaab. You do not find such restrictions on “non-practicing” Muslims. Thus, I am amazed that the stereotype of extremism isn’t actually the other way around: Those who don’t cover or practice Islam “strictly” are “extremists.” Of course, neither stereotype is correct, but I find this current stereotype very ironic.

My experience too has been that the great majority of sisters who cover as the female Companions did do not “lecture others constantly” or “chastise” others. They simply walk in the room and people assume they are “judging” others. They simply share their understanding of hijaab (as all the other sisters are doing) and they are “chastising” or “lecturing” others. They can smile, speak kindly, even say they realize there are different opinions, and they (ironically) still are accused of thinking they’re better or of “chastising” others. Thus, they are the ones who are in actuality judged harshly and chastised [for their dress and appearance]...

In the end…the [mis]treatment of those [who appear to practice Islam “strictly”] are far more common than the “judgment” and “chastisement” [that people attribute to them]. In most cases, the judgment and chastisement is imagined, and is rooted in the spiritual insecurity of the observer.

…The reality is that there is a greater lack of tolerance and “chastisement,”— among Muslims and non-Muslims— for those who practice Islam [“strictly”], than the other way around.

May Allah help us to root out extremism—that horrible, growing intolerance for righteousness that is afflicting the modern world.

…Even amongst Muslims themselves.

Umm Zakiyyah is the internationally acclaimed author of the If I Should Speak trilogy and the novels Realities of Submission and Hearts We Lost. To learn more about the author, visit themuslimauthor.com or join her Facebook page.

Copyright © 2011 by Al-Walaa Publications. All Rights Reserved.