1

Sargam Choudhury

Dr. Shahla Haeri

AN355

8 May 2023

AN355 Mini Ethnographic Study

Amira Adawalla is my roommate’s mother. My roommate and I quickly became friends

after moving in together (we had not known each other prior to our random assignment into our

on-campus apartment) and had spent many a night talking about anything and everything. Our

conversations often turned towards religion and philosophy, and I learned quite a bit regarding

her family’s religious beliefs and how she was raised. My roommate, Lojean, is Muslim, and she

grew up in a family that she claims was quite religious. When I learned of this project, I knew

right away that her mother was someone I wanted to have the opportunity to interview. With her

permission, Amira and I sat down to conduct the interview on Eid, when she came up to Boston

to visit Lojean.

Amira is a 47 year old woman from Alexandria, Egypt. She lived there for most of her

life, having moved here only about 13 years ago with her husband and two kids due to political

and religious tensions in Egypt. Her marriage to her husband was arranged; her brother’s

coworker happened to be looking for a wife, and after meeting, they decided they liked each

other enough to get married. Although there is not much to be said about romance in their

relationship, Amira considers them to be great friends. In the questions I asked about her

occupation and education, I understood that she was a very well-studied and bright woman.

Amira is a physician specializing in Internal Medicine, with about five degrees under her belt.
 2

Her MSc, PhD, and MBBS were completed in Alexandria, but her MPH and her MD were

accomplished at Yale. Currently, she is an internist at UConn Health.

Although her husband was in the United States at the time she made the decision to

permanently move, the plan was always for him to come back to Egypt. However, this plan was

already rocky due to political and religious tensions. It wasn’t until Amira herself stood in the

face of death, that she had decided once and for all to move to America. Amira and her two

daughters were stuck in their apartment building one day, which was under lockdown due to

ongoing issues with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic fundamentalist group in Egypt that had

gained political control in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. All she wanted to do was look

out the window to see what was happening, only to be met with an armed man about to break the

window open, telling her to get down or he’d shoot her. For the safety of her children and for her

own peace of mind, the decision to move to the United States was final. All of Amira’s family

still lives in Alexandria, but as of right now, she has no plans of moving back. Her permanent

residence is in Connecticut, and she often travels back to Egypt to visit family; her dual

citizenship status allows her to easily travel back and forth whenever she pleases.

Amira chose to identify herself as an “Arabic-speaking, Egyptian, Muslim woman” and

as the interview progressed, I continued to notice how her background influenced her religious

beliefs and practices. As a devout Sunni Muslim, her knowledge of the Quran was extensive; she

had read the entire holy book multiple times and had memorized parts of it as well. Arabic is her

mother tongue, so reading and learning from the Quran was not as difficult for her as it is for

many Muslims outside of North Africa and the Middle East. She also received formal religious

education as it was required by her high school. Currently, she prays namaz daily, but because
 3

women don’t normally go to Friday prayers, she does not attend. She also does not go to the

mosque that often – only on big holidays like Eid.

We then discussed beliefs and practices beyond prayer. First, I asked her of any specific

rituals of birth, marriage, and death that she and her family practiced. While there are no birth

rituals she follows, she said that her marriage was very formal; her father and father-in-law had

to shake hands, as if they were making a business deal. Amira said she and her family were most

ritualistic about death: they are not to be buried in coffins or with makeup, and must be laid to

rest in special cemeteries, wearing all white. Her answer made sense to me; as per my own

understanding, a lot of the practices outlined in the Quran are required to ensure entrance to

Jannah, so death would be an extremely important and revered ritual.

Next, we talked about her dressing habits. Amira dresses very modestly and is veiled,

wearing the hijab. She absolutely agreed that her state of dress is connected to her degree of

piety: “Dressing modestly is a religious requirement,” she said. Her mother did not actually want

her to wear the hijab, especially because she was deemed to be too young when she expressed

interest in wearing it, but Amira thought it was an exciting transition into womanhood. All the

girls around her, both at school and in her neighborhood, had begun veiling themselves, and she

wanted to join in. While most girls start wearing the hijab around the time they start

menstruating, she started wearing it long before then. She never received pressure from her

family to wear the hijab, but she did feel obligated to wear it due to religious and cultural

reasons. “In Egypt,” she said, “It’s more unlikely to see people not wearing it.” Because of this, it

was never an issue to be veiled when she lived in Egypt, and if anything, it was a completely

normal part of life. Since moving to the United States, she’s been faced with stares and weird

questions about forced or her reasons for wearing the hijab. It makes her incredibly
 4

uncomfortable because she believes it is all people see when they see her. “It didn’t matter how

many degrees I had,” she said. “Everyone assumes that I am uneducated and know nothing

because I was both foreign and religious. Some people even consider me to be a stay-at-home

sheep that doesn’t have her own thoughts, but I am who I am because of my religion. I am a

smart and educated woman because Allah has given me the power to be.”

It was clear to me after this portion of the interview that her state of dress was crucial to

her religious identity, so questioning her modesty and veiling was akin to questioning God in her

eyes.

This reminded me of the “On Orientalism” film specifically, in which the generalizations

that westerners make of Islam is discussed. In the film, it is suggested that there is an aura of

orientalism in American film; Muslim men are always portrayed to be vicious and oppressors of

women, forcing them to abide by religious practices, and Muslim women are helpless and need

to be rescued. However, Amira put this assumption to rest with her confidence and authority in

herself. She also told me that one of the most important parts of Islam is that it cannot be forced

upon someone; her own daughters do not want to wear the hijab, and although she believes that

they should, she also must maintain their autonomy and understand that faith is a personal

matter. Of course, there are Muslim women in this world who are forced to be veiled; the

ongoing tumult in Iran is a direct result of the Islamic regime forcing women to be veiled even

when they do not want to be, but according to Amira, women have the right to choose whether

they are to be veiled or not, and being forced to do so is impious. To say then, that Islamic

extremists actually believe in and practice the fundamentals of their religion, would be

completely incorrect.
 5

We then broadened our discussion and I asked her about her attitude towards marriage,

having and raising children, and household economics. Amira believes that everyone should be

married, jokingly saying that that’s the only way to live with a man anyway. It doesn’t matter

when you get married and have kids, according to her, as long as your education is completed. In

terms of household economics, “equal distribution is a requirement,” she said, “but religiously it

is decreed that the husband is the main provider.” When I asked her if this is true for her own

family, she laughed and said that she was technically the breadwinner of her family, but her

husband worked harder than her and made sure everyone was taken care of all the time, and that

is what being a provider meant to her. I understood that what she meant by “provider” was more

than just financially providing for the family. Her husband was the leader of the family, she said,

and although they equally distributed the work of building a home and raising a family amongst

each other, he was even more emotionally invested than she was; he would always do whatever

needed to be done to ensure the wellbeing of his family. I can attest to that with my own

experiences with Lojean’s father; every time she feels stressed about an upcoming exam or just

needs a break from school, he drives up the two hours to bring her flowers and some chocolate,

no questions asked. It was refreshing to hear about their family dynamic. Beyond religion, the

cultural influences of household economics and family dynamics often lead to patriarchal and

almost tyrannical structures, but it was clear to me that equality was an important pillar for their

family.

This was consolidated in the next part of our interview, when I asked Amira about her

thoughts on womens’ roles in family and in society. “Women should be the primary caregivers of

children because children are automatically closer to their mothers,” she said, “but there should

be equal responsibility for the mother and father when it comes to raising children; it should not
 6

fall only in the hands of the mother.” In society, she believes that women should be able to do

almost anything that a man can do in society. The key word here is almost, which she expands on

by saying that women can do anything, but there are some things that they are not meant to do,

like “physically strenuous or scandalous jobs, because they are dangerous in the long run.”

Thinking back on it now, I should have asked her what she meant by dangerous, especially in

terms of “scandalous” work. I know she must have meant in general it could lead to danger, but I

wonder if she also meant it was religiously dangerous.

I then asked her about her personal experiences of interactions with members of other

faiths. While I did want to hear about her interactions with Christians, I was most interested in

hearing what she had to say about Jewish people. During my research prior to the interview, I

learned of the rivalry that many Egyptian Muslims had with Israeli Jews specifically. Amira

spoke more of American Christians when I first asked, stating that most Christians did not

understand Islam or why Muslims do the things they do. “Even though our practices are so

similar, they view Islam as extreme and unmodern,” she said. When I asked about her

interactions with Jewish people, she hesitated a little before she spoke; I could tell this was

something she wanted to be diplomatic about. “As Muslims we don’t support Israel,” she said. “I

don’t hate Jews, but Israel is very often linked to Jews, so there are a lot of tensions.” This made

sense to me, given the constant back and forth between Palestine and Israel. She told me of the

recent attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque, citing the atrocities that so many Muslims have to go through

because of Israel. “How can we not hate them for what they do to us, especially during our holy

month?”, she said. It was clear to me, from this statement, that Amira thought it was not her

faith, but rather her religious brothers and sisters in danger. Her statement was also a bit of a

turning point for me; I immediately thought of the persecution and atrocities that my Hindu
 7

family and friends have faced in Bangladesh from Muslim extremists, especially during our

major holidays. I thought to myself that in this world, religious fundamentalism is nothing more

than finger pointing and the blame game. It just so happens that oftentimes, this cycle includes

unspeakable acts and the commitment of violence.

I learned quite a bit from my conversation with Amira. By definition, Amira is what I

would consider a fundamentalist, but as we discussed in class, fundamentalist is not really the

correct term in this case, as all Islamic ideologies and practices are considered to be fundamental.

Rather than using the term fundamentalists to describe certain Muslims, I think there should be a

differentiation between extremists and non-extremists. Religious Muslims like Amira are

fundamentalists, but they do not condone the use of violence for control and oppression; rather,

they are victims to it themselves. It is extremist Muslims that hide behind the veil of religion to

further their causes, calling it religious fundamentalism. There is a large difference between

someone who is scared and frustrated about the danger that their people face and someone who is

scared and frustrated about the danger that the dominance of their faith faces. Faith is a very

personal matter, so the concept that one’s faith can be in danger seems to be almost entirely

internal in my perspective. For religious extremists, the fight is more external than it is internal.

I also noticed Amira’s constant emphasis on education, and it displayed to me a key

difference between actual Islamic fundamentalism and the ideologies of extremist Islamic

fundamentalist organizations that actively work to take the right of education away from girls

and women. This was a common theme I’d noticed throughout the interview that laid the

foundation for my understanding of fundamentalism versus extremism. I thought this was a very

interesting contrast; Amira is very clearly someone who knows, understands, and believes in the
 8

fundamentals of her religion, but her beliefs are so entirely different from the people that

participate in Islamic fundamentalist groups like the Taliban.

Discussing Amira and her faith was a very eye-opening and thought-provoking

experience. I enjoyed every minute I spoke with her, and it was really refreshing to hear a

woman’s thoughts on what many people may claim to be a suppressive and backwards religion,

especially for women. My conversation with Amira taught me that the people who believe in the

fundamentals of a religion are not necessarily all wanting to reverse the clock and revert to a

primitive way of life. Rather, there are people who believe in the fundamentals of a religion and

shape it to fit modernity, believing that faith and progress can be easily intertwined.