For Many Muslim Students, College Is a Balancing Act

Campus life consists of frequent conflicts and occasional compromises with secular culture

By BETH McMURTRIE

Amina Fahmy grew up in Egypt, in a devout Muslim family, accustomed to a society in which single men and women do not hug,

ALSO SEE: At a Session for Arab and American Students, Friction and Friendliness

let alone date. When she arrived at George Washington University, she discovered she had been placed in a coed dormitory reputed to be one of the most promiscuous in the country.

Samiya Mohiuddin's mother did not want her to wear a hijab, or head scarf, fearing her daughter would be subject to the kind of discrimination she had faced as a young Indian doctor. Devout, but afraid of becoming an outcast, the younger Ms. Mohiuddin sat in her car for three hours at the beginning of her freshman year, a hijab wrapped around her head, before she gathered the courage to step out.

Yasir Qureshi liked to party. Raised in a nonobservant family in New York, he became curious about Islam after a friend quit drinking and began praying. But he was turned off by the more observant Muslims at George Washington, whom he felt were narrow-minded and judgmental. He drank, but wasn't he Muslim, too?

Islam is often portrayed as monolithic, insular, and extremely conservative -- a view reinforced since the September 11 attacks. But the truth is as complex as the lives of the people it enfolds.

Less than 1 percent of American college students today are Muslim. About half of those are from predominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan and Egypt -- some the children of wealthy businessmen, others political refugees. The rest are American, often the children of immigrants.

Although Muslims are the most visible religious minority on college campuses, their conflicts -- with society, their faith, and each other -- are rarely noticed by outsiders.

For many, Islam requires modest dress, a ban on alcohol, prayer five times a day, and limits on dealings with the opposite sex. Even handshakes and eye contact can be off-limits. Such constraints turn daily life into an obstacle course. Meanwhile, those who do not abide by religious laws often feel pressure from Muslim peers to conform to orthodox teachings.

States with large Muslim populations, such as California and Texas, tend to attract the most Muslim students. The District of Columbia is no exception: George Washington University draws about 900 Muslims students from the United States and abroad. They are comfortable in this metropolitan area, which is home to 150,000 Muslims and more than a dozen major mosques. "You can't walk the streets and not see women wearing head scarves," says Anisah Bagasra, a senior from New Jersey.

Each Friday afternoon, a Presbyterian church on the campus's edge opens its basement for Jumma, a weekly communal prayer service that draws about 300 people. The student union houses a Muslim prayer room, allowing students to stop by between classes for any one of five prayers required daily. Nearby markets cater to students who eat food prepared according to Islamic law. And during Ramadan, a holy month in which people fast between sunrise and sunset, the Muslim Students Association holds a group dinner several times a week.

Yet even on a campus with so many accommodations to Muslim life, challenges abound. When Ms. Fahmy discovered where she had been assigned to live, she almost refused to move in. But her father reassured her that she could handle it.

Now happily ensconced in Thurston Hall, Ms. Fahmy says her adjustment was easier than she expected. She credits her multidenominational roommates -- one Greek Orthodox, one Jewish, and one not religious -- who aren't bothered by her dawn prayers, or her refusal to date or drink. But they don't hesitate to tease her about her sheltered upbringing.

"We like to shock her all the time," jokes a roommate, Lauren Bacalis. "We watch Sex and the City."

"Oh God! I still can't believe that!" Ms. Fahmy says, jumping up from the couch in her dormitory room. A collection of videotapes of the graphic HBO series, which depicts the sex lives of four single women, sits on the bookshelf behind her.

She admits to watching the show. But when it gets too racy, she says, "I make little excuses to go into the closet."

Ms. Fahmy has adapted in other ways. She downloaded a program onto her laptop computer that issues the call to prayer several times a day. She is used to seeing men visit her roommates, although she's not quite comfortable with the idea.

If anything, her faith has deepened. In a predominantly Muslim country like Egypt, she says, religious devotion is taken for granted. Here, she must be deliberate.

"A lot of people here are really put off by religion or God, whether it be Islam or Christianity or Judaism, and that really surprised me," she says.

Their notion is that "religion and being an intellectual, or someone who actually thinks rationally, don't go together. I was like, no, I don't want to become [like] that."

The tight-knit Muslim communities found on many campuses are both a refuge and a source of stress. Students say it's a relief to be around others who intuitively understand the nuances of being Muslim -- at George Washington, men get together to play basketball every week and women gather to study or talk. At the same time, there's more pressure to conform.

Several students at George Washington say fellow Muslims lectured them after they were seen in bars or spending time with people of the opposite sex. Mr. Qureshi, who graduated last summer, was one of the few less-observant students contacted who agreed to be identified in print. "I consider myself Muslim," he says, "but not practicing every day."

Shania Flagg, a senior at George Washington, is not surprised by that reticence. "A lot of people don't want to reveal their lifestyles because they don't want to be criticized or ostracized," says the New Jersey resident, who stopped drinking and dating when she converted to Islam as a teenager, but has male friends and goes to bars to shoot pool. "It's kind of like the 1950s. Everybody pretends it's all good and happy and everybody's religious."

To non-Muslims, the Islamic community can appear closed off. Angela Caras, a convert to Islam and a law student at the University of Texas at Austin, explains that it's hard to be devout without observing some social limits. Having lived among Muslims for several years now, the Texas native is struck by how much her non-Muslim classmates talk about sex. "I feel almost like an outsider," she says.

Relationships between men and women can be particularly complicated. At a conference for Muslim students held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last month, the liveliest session was "Men Are From Marwa, Women Are From Safa," a play on a popular book about relationships, in this case referring to two sacred hills in Mecca. Seated on opposite sides of the room, men and women poured out their confusion. Is shaking hands OK? Can a woman ask a man to help her with her homework? Is casual conversation sinful?

One young woman complained that Muslim men often avoided Muslim women yet joked with non-Muslim women. "It's like: You're wearing a hijab, get away from me," she griped. A young man said that it was the women who were skittish. "The moment the aura of marriage is in the air, Muslim women run away with leaps and bounds," he said, to laughter.

Asma Syed, a junior at the State University of New York at Buffalo who attended the session, says that especially for women, it is hard to find the line between being friendly and compromising one's beliefs.

Ms. Syed, who moved from Kashmir to New York when she was 13, has to explain to men why she cannot shake hands, and tries to gently deter non-Muslims who attempt to tell crude jokes in front of her. In movie theaters, she turns her head during romantic scenes, and she has had to tell more than one flirtatious male classmate that she simply does not date. "We have to do a lot of reasoning every day," she says.

Yet she is hardly shy. The former president of the Muslim-students association at Buffalo, she once ran after a male classmate to chastise him for not saying hello. He explained that he was afraid she would consider him too forward if he greeted her.

For many, college is a time for social and sexual exploration. But some Muslim students face a different kind of pressure, as their parents urge them to marry. Because dating is discouraged, many students are eager to comply in order to find companionship, says Ms. Bagasra, who is in charge of outreach for the Muslim Students Association at George Washington.

Traditionally, parents play an active part in finding a mate, although Ms. Bagasra says it's not unusual for college students to meet someone they're interested in, then notify their parents. Once that happens, the couple is allowed to become acquainted in the company of chaperons.

Arranged marriages, however, are not uncommon. Ms. Mohiuddin, the George Washington student who agonized over wearing a head scarf, got married during the summer after her freshman year. Her husband proposed through a relative, after viewing Ms. Mohiuddin, a Maryland resident, while she was on a family trip to India. They had never talked, although he was a friend of her cousin's. After her parents made some inquiries, she went back to India and spent two days with him before she agreed to the marriage.

"My roommate was, like, you just talked to him and said yes? But it's more than that," says Ms. Mohiuddin, shy and giggly, as she sits in the small apartment she shares with her sister. "I know my parents wouldn't have chosen him if he was not good for me."

In Islam, she explains, love does not precede marriage but grows out of it. "The whole thing about religion, I think, is that once I'm married, I'm automatically going to love him because we're going for the same goal."

Islam has gained a reputation as being hostile to women, an idea Muslim college students constantly try to refute. Sanam Nowrouzzadeh, a senior at George Wash ington, has become adept at fielding questions on whether her head scarf is a sign of oppression. She says it is simply an "outward symbol of faith" and notes that Islam grants women the rights of inheritance and divorce, and the right to pick her mate -- pretty revolutionary ideas when they first appeared, in the seventh century.

Although some double standards remain -- men are more likely to date than women are -- others are dissolving. Women frequently hold leadership roles in Muslim campus organizations, for example. A generation ago, those groups were dominated by men.

While some Muslims try to maintain conservative traditions within the liberal culture of college campuses, others want to make room for individuality within the orthodoxy.

Zafar Shah, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, was raised in a devout household in Texas, but has largely rejected the conventional practice of Islam. He dates, he does not fast, and he rarely associates with other Muslims. But, he argues, he is no less Muslim than his classmates who pray five times a day. He says his activism on behalf of the poor, immigrants, and gay people -- even though homosexuality is a sin, according to the Koran -- is a reflection of those aspects of Islam that espouse tolerance and equality for all.

"Being Muslim to me, in the United States, it's about believing in opposition and in struggle, and it also incorporates a sense of being part of a community," he says. "The things I do, in terms of social-justice activism, I don't look at that as being separate from being Muslim."

Yet Mr. Shah says he feels rejected by more traditional Muslims. One painful episode occurred in a course he took last spring on the practice of Islam in the United States. "Everyone was Muslim. Everyone was very pro-Islam," he recalls. "I was the only naysayer in the entire class."

During one session, the class discussed The Satanic Verses, a novel by Salman Rushdie that many Muslims find offensive. Of 65 students, Mr. Shah says, he was the only one to defend Mr. Rushdie's work. The professor flippantly asked if he had ever been to a mosque. Mr. Shah realized that his professor and classmates probably assumed he was not even Muslim. "It really hurt me in a way that I didn't think was possible," he says. "I feel marginalized in the mainstream society, and I have to feel marginalized in the Muslim community."

Despite their small numbers, Muslim students' clout on campuses is growing. Dozens of colleges have built prayer rooms. Dartmouth and Mount Holyoke Colleges have dining halls that serve halal food. Syracuse University suspends classes for Eid Ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan.

That influence extends to political activism. Many students have spoken out on behalf of Muslims in Chechnya, Iraq, and the West Bank, to counter what they view as hostile actions by the U.S. government. At the University of California at Davis, for example, a student group for Palestinian rights erected nearly 500 cardboard tombstones on the campus last spring in memory of Palestinians who had died in recent clashes with Israel.

Some international students say they are disappointed by how little their American classmates seem to know about the Muslim world. Rida Barakat, a senior at George Washington and a Palestinian who grew up in Jerusalem, says Americans are quick to associate his countrymen with suicide bombings, yet don't bother to learn much about the conditions that would inspire such extreme action.

Other students, particularly those raised in America, focus on giving Muslims a voice in domestic politics.

Fatima Khan, a senior at Boston University who interned last summer in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's office, hopes to work for a nonprofit organization dedicated to human rights or environmental issues. She says people need to understand that being Muslim and American are not mutually exclusive. "I feel as a public servant, as someone trying to help the environment, that is Islamic," she says. "But that is also American."

A session on political activism at the MIT conference reflected the ambivalence among many Muslim college students toward the U.S. government. Several people were openly skeptical of evidence blaming Middle Eastern Muslims for the September 11 attacks. Others wondered whether they could get involved in politics without becoming complicit in U.S. foreign policy, which they saw as anti-Muslim.

Since September 11, many Muslims say they have noticed a tremendous surge of interest about Islam.

Samrana Ihsan, a senior at the University of California at Davis, says the Muslim Students Association there usually has to beg people to attend Islam-awareness events. These days, the group is "overwhelmed" with requests for information.

Although a number of students have reported incidents of harassment in recent weeks, by and large, they say, college campuses tend to be islands of tolerance.

For the many Muslims who have relatives in both the United States and abroad, this is a particularly confusing time. In mid-October, Ms. Bagasra, the George Washington senior, received an e-mail message from her husband, who lives in Pakistan. He asked her permission to fight a jihad, or religious battle, against any nation that sent ground troops into Afghanistan.

His request was not unexpected. Ms. Bagasra had visited Pakistan a few weeks earlier, and knew that Islamic clerics there were telling people that they must defend their Muslim brothers and sisters against foreign invaders.

She wrote back, explaining that a jihad does not require one to take up arms, and that he could do his religious duty by helping Afghan refugees. She feels conflicted, she says, because she is both American -- her mother is German-Irish -- and Muslim.

As she tells her story, Ms. Bagasra sits at a table in the small Starbucks inside George Washington's student union. She thinks a minute about the incongruities in her life. Her classmates are agonizing over midterms, while she faces the continuing possibility that her husband will go to war.

How did a religion that had been so personal to her become so political? Her friends keep asking her what it all means.

"You know, I really can't say right now," she later admits. "Because I'm still struggling to figure things out for myself."

Easy-to-print version

E-mail this article