My Life Of My Father

Mogahed is an Egyptian-American that started her career as an engineer. She’s a Muslim that decided to wear her head covering by the age of seventeen. In the Ted Talk “What Do You Think When You Look At Me?”, Dalia Mogahed discusses the predicaments and accusations Muslims have encountered, including her personal experiences. Through the use of all three rhetorical appeals, pathos being the dominant appeal, Mogahed skillfully conveys her message to the audience that 1.6 billion Muslims shouldn’t be shunned because of the actions of a minority.

As a child, I didn’t think my life’s situations and experiences were too different from others being a Muslim in Canada. I only came to the realization of this as I grew older. Living as a Muslim we celebrated different holidays, wore different types of clothing, and valued things differently. I grew up in Cambridge, Ontario, and only moved to Mississauga in the ninth-grade grade where I realized how much differently I was treated. It wasn’t always ignorance; they were just unknowledgeable and unaware and I couldn’t blame them as I was apart of a religious minority. I looked at the understanding of my life’s events being apart of an Islamic subculture from a conflict theorist’s perspective where social life was looked at as “privileged groups

Muslim women living in North America and Europe often face scrutiny over their choice to wear the veil, even though many Western people do not fully understand the practice.

At the age of 11, my life took a turn. To others, immigration was moving from country to country, but to me, it meant leaving my friends and family behind. On August 7, 2012 we moved to Canada. With all the challenges I was facing from immigration the biggest challenge was finding my identity in which I felt comfortable and knew I belonged. When I came from Pakistan I wore hijab. I was born in the year of 9/11 and that time my dad used to live in America when I grew up, my dad used to tell me what happened to Muslims in America after 9/11 so when my parents told me we were moving to Canada I was frightened to even though I knew that Canada is a different country and it both accepts and respects people of different origin. So when I moved to Canada I knew I had the decision to make, a decision about my identity, decision about who I want to be seen as.

While wearing a metaphorical mask helps a woman hide the ugliness nobody wants to see, a literal mask conceals too much. Men want to see women, especially if they are the correct size with the correct amount of curves; if they reach the right size, arrogance or pride will take away from the physical attraction. The Middle East takes the right to flaunt their beauties away by participating in the custom that most know as veiling (the act of covering with a light gauze cloth). The practice alone seems unimaginable but even scarier, the girls seem apathetic towards the demeaning tradition. Much like India, they brainwash girls to believe in a repulsive custom. They choose to believe they help men resist the temptation of a woman’s body. In Behind the Veil by Elizabeth W. Fernea, a woman attempts to clarify the lack of self-respect: “If I wanted to take it all off (her ababbayah and veil), I would have long ago. It wouldn’t mean as much as it does to you.” (Behind the Veil, Robert Fernea). Covering up the problem does not present triumph, but among the wreckage and turmoil of this wretched tradition, hope remains. They have a stronger force on their side; America will save them from their

The bombing of the Twin Towers turned America’s focused toward the Middle East. The War on Terrorism began in earnest. This war has brought about more than one conflict. As a nation, the United States is unique. The government is not run by any particular regime or religion, there is freedom. Yet, this is our unique brand of freedom. The Middle East is full of peoples with their own way of life that do not necessarily agree with the way we see freedom. Lila Abu-Lughod discusses one of the many difference between the United States and the Middle East, the use of head coverings and the burqa, in her article “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” She examines the cultural significance and different types of veiling.

I start feeling I’m not in my country after the the Islamic revolution. Our country got more worse the first thing that change now we have to wear the veil at school. That's so bad because they don´t give us any chosen about if we want wear or not . I hated to wear the veil. We didn’t really like to wear the veil especially since we didn’t understand why we had to to wear it we called it execution in the name of freedom. I wanted to wear the veil but at the same time I don´t wanted to wear.It’s was everywhere in the street there were demonstrations for and against the veil, my mother was there with the women who did not agree to wear the veil I was proud about what she did. That revolution happened in our country change the rules for our country. Now the country is more religious there’s no freedom. The year before the Islamic revolution they were in a french non religious school, where boys and girls were together. And then suddenly

My father’s career moved my family to a new place every few years, totaling at five countries and four U.S. states before I turned eighteen. My first memories are of the ocean in Australia, although I was born in the deserts of New Mexico. Four years in Singapore remains the longest stretch I have spent in one country, but I have spent the longest cumulative time in the Middle East. I am an American, both by my passport and my parents, but I am not an American from America. My belief system was forged by my Filipino baby sitter, my Danish best friend, Omani women who invited me into their homes and gave me tea and halwa and painted henna on my hands. The

Cultural relativism is the view that we should seek to understand other cultures within their own context, rather than through the biased understanding of our own cultural beliefs. When Americans see Bedouin women wearing veils, they are likely to view this practice in the context of their own culture and see it purely as an act of male oppression—an idea that would be very confounding and offensive to Bedouin women themselves. To say that, in the future, Bedouin women might “be free to not be veiled” undermines Bedouin culture because it fundamentally misunderstands the practice of veiling, speaking about it in an American context rather than a Bedouin context.

Homa Hoodfar addresses the misconceptions the western population often makes towards Muslims, especially, Muslim women. Hoodfar focuses mainly on the misunderstanding of the veil and its symbolism. Western ignorance has led us to believe for years that the veil is a sign of oppressive religion, patriarchal home life, as well as illiteracy as a result of their oppression, when in reality, this stereotype is the most detrimental to the female Muslim population. People don’t see the women defying the de-veiling act to devotedly follow their religion. They don’t see hardworking women, receiving an educations and searching for a job. Western culture sees one thing: the veil. Because their religious beliefs differ from ours, and because of

1. Abu Lughod argues that the “liberation” from burqas, wanted by American women for Afghan women, is an extension of colonialism and western domination because the western women fail to understand what liberation is for the Afghan women. Western women think that the Afghan women are unhappy with their religion because it physically restricts them. On the contrary, Afghan women like their burqas because they feel it brings them closer to Allah. They also culturally disagree with the openness of American fashion. The idea that western women do not take into account the Afghan woman’s perspective on life, and automatically assume that they are trapped by their way of life, can be compared to America’s way of “helping” nations that they believe

I entered the mosque tentative about keeping my arms covered and taking off my shoes. As the group came in, my heart was racing. I was surprised to see that not all of the girls had scarves covering their hair and most of them were dressed in “regular” western clothing. Words were exchanged between mother and child in Arabic,

Growing up in a home with both my parents, I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of quality time with my father. We used to go out together and play soccer, baseball, and ride bikes. I remember we used to play a lot of old school video games and my mother would get pretty upset at the hours we spent playing and not doing anything productive. In my point of view, our relationship was perfect; our bond was strong like any father and son. I was only four years old when my world was turned upside down. My life changed the day that my mom and my dad separated, I felt alone. The process of a divorce was too much for a child that age to handle; it was a hard time for me. Although I had no father figure for about 12 years because my dad moved

Among other studies done on young Muslim women who hijab, one women said “"I lived in a co-ed dorm and it was really the first time I had to deal with unwanted attention from guys. I guess that was the first time I really understood why it was necessary to wear a scarf, because as soon as I did, all the idiots left me alone” (Ali, 2005). Another woman’s view was “because I began to realize that what people think is nowhere compared to Allah, and so, how could I blatantly disobey an order because of 'standing out?” (Ali, 2005). It would also surprise many that in some of these women’s cases, their choice to hijab was not only not forced, but also not even supported by family members. Some of these women’s parents had hard times coping with their daughters taking up this wardrobe.

The hardest time in a person's life is often following the death of a close family member. Death is hard, losing someone you love and see on a daily basis causes great grief and sorrow. For me that special person I lost was my Dad. My father died when I was twelve and it was no doubt the hardest time of my life. Our relationship was indescribable I was his little buddy and we went absolutely everywhere together, and when he died it was like he just disappeared from my life forever. As a young boy you really do not know how to react to such a terrible situation. Neil Ibrahim a father of four dies young and it's just you and your brother left to carry the family name. Throughout the grieving process one learns who really cares about his or hers well being and the upbringing of their children without a father, losing your father makes you more responsible and a more humble person because you are all they left behind.