Interview with Samina Ali

I spoke to Samina Ali in Barcelona last year when she was here to take part in a debate about women and Islam.

Lishman - What is most challenging about living as a Muslim woman in the United States?

Samina - It's already difficult having grown up in both India and America to understand how to fit in to both places and it comes down to the simple things like how you dress. But if you add to that what has happened post 9/11 and the way Muslims are perceived and, unfortunately, the stereotypes that are perpetuated, then you have the added pressure of trying to exist and trying to live in a place where you are constantly being questioned. People are suspicious.It is the first time I've felt unsure about whether I belong.

Lishman– Where do misconceptions about Muslims come from?

Samina - I won't just blame the media. Clearly, there are a lot of things happening "in the name of Islam" that are not Islamic. They simply have to do with terrorism and they have to do with power. What I find particularly horrifying about the American media is that it's very sensationalist: all they want to do is sell the most newspapers. So rather than trying to figure out the truth and give a more nuanced perception they will scale it down and reduce it. They feed on people's fears. So right now, people are afraid of the Muslim community and the media continues to provoke that because their bottom line is to sell the newspaper. If you give a more nuanced view, it's not sexy anymore.

Lishman – As a writer, how would you combat the media effect?

Samina - I think it's going to take a long time, because what's happening is happening on such a grand scale. In America right now, there are a lot of different Muslim American organisations that have sprung up since 9/11. Everyone is trying to get the message across that there is a more tolerant Islam, and there are more tolerant Muslims. I try to do it with my book, and by going out and speaking. It surprises me that after everything that has happened I still get asked the most simple questions about Islam. Right now, there is such lack of knowledge about Muslims and about Islam that ironically, all you have to do to combat it at this point is simply speak at the most basic level and people are like, '0h my god, I didn't know that.'

Lishman – People point their fingers at the oppression of women under Islam, what do you see oppresses women in the West?

Samina - People always look at the veil and say it's an oppressive tool. This is an issue in Europe more than America. In America, we haven't banned the veil on any level. It's interesting, because it is always the woman's body that becomes a representation for what we fear, and so the veil becomes this symbol of Islam. And it becomes a symbol of what we in the West fear the most:terrorists. And here's this woman walking around in a veil. Well let's get rid of the veil and get rid of the terror, and then we'll get rid of our own fears. I don't see the veil as an oppressive tool if a woman understands why she's wearing it. If she understands her rights, and then chooses to wear it, then it's still an act of empowerment. If she doesn't understand it, and is forced to wear it, then, of course, it's oppressive. But it's the same thing with the bikini. You wear the bikini because you have to live up to all these expectations and you gotta look really good. Starting in March you have Vogue and Cosmopolitan saying 'Girls! Summer's coming. You got your body in shape? Cos you're going to be out there wearing that bikini'. So there you have that pressure and whether it's covert or overt, the pressure on women is still there.

Lishman – Can there be empowerment for women in Islamic countries?

Samina - In places like America and the UK, these are the places where Muslim women can actually stand up and say ‘let’s make changes happen’. And I think that those changes are going to have to start filtering back to the East. I don’t think any changes are going to come out of the East and go to the West. That’s just an impossibility. If you look at Turkey, in 2004, the president said ‘I don’t want a woman who wears a veil to even come to the ball to celebrate my election victory'. I think there are some countries that are equating the veil with Islamic backwardness.

Lishman – In Islamic countries is it merely their interpretation of the Qur'an that is oppressive to women?

Samina - Yes, it’s their interpretation. According to the Sunni tradition there are four schools of thought and those four schools interpret the Qur'an and they make the laws according to that. In the Shia, there’s the one school of thought, but in the Shia tradition, the right to continue questioning is still open. And so, you can continue to interpret the Qur'an and continue to apply it to your specific generation, so that whatever we have interpreted back in the 8th century, doesn't need to apply to the 21st century. The problem with those who interpreted the Qur'an is that most of them were male, there were some women within that but throughout history the female voices were censored. So the men who interpreted the Qur'an became more and more powerful, and women’s rights started to erode over the centuries. It became systematically male chauvinist. Now, women are finally interpreting the Qu’ran again and saying we have a right to do this. There are a lot of different verses that men have interpreted in their own favour.We are now going to reinterpret them.

Lishman – Is Tariq Ramadan right in saying the Qur'an should be reinterpreted to fit in with the laws of each country?

Samina - If you’re living within a country you follow its rules and its laws. It’s part of being a responsible citizen to uphold the law. The assumption of that question is that Islam and democracy can not coexist and but of course that’s not true. You can
be Muslim and still be American. Between the rights that America grants you and the rights that Islam grants you, there is no contradiction. But if you interpret the Qur'an in the ways that unfortunately a lot of these radical Muslims do, then of course you’re going to have problems. But those radicals have problems even within the Muslim community. And it’s unfortunate that they are the ones everyone talks about. They are the ones that make the news constantly. The average Muslim does not make the news.

Lishman – Feminist Naomi Wolf recently wrote an open letter to the press claiming the US was now a fascist dictatorship, do you agree?

Samina - People started saying that as soon as President Bush said 'You are either with us or against us'. It was a time when you really couldn’t come out and say anything because you would be seen as an enemy to the Americans. It was a huge issue because it seemed to be contrary to American values: freedom of speech and thought and of not being censored. And as a Muslim American, I can tell you when he said that, I thought 'wait a minute, I’m a Muslim and I’m American, and when you are saying I have to choose, I can’t choose'. I think the Muslim community thinks of it like the McCarthy era, when there was a lot of guilt by association.


BIOGRAPHY
Samina Ali was born in Hyderabad,India in 1969 and emigrated with her parents to America at the age of six. Growing up, she spent half of each year in India, where she attended school. In 2005, Ali wrote the novel Madras on Rainy Days, a semi-autobiographical work that follows the trials of a young Muslim woman who leaves America to take part in an arranged marriage in Madras,India.Currently, she lives with her son in San Francisco.