American women SHOCKED to Learn about Rights Given to MUSLIM WOMEN

um so you were saying of something about the posters that you know what you see in the posters may be different than what the media is saying can you elaborate on that um i i have i have heard things and seen images on the media that that uh i think give a little misinformation that women don't have some of the rights that i see here that they actually do have such as the right to initiate divorce keep your last name um i i had i had thought that there were more restrictions than women and is the reality right right and i see i think education is is emphasized more than i thought it would be okay i'm here at the islamic center of dekalb with the sister janine right and we are having a mosque open house first and foremost we want to welcome you it's our honor that you are here our fellow americans fellow brothers and sisters are here you came with your family yes yes it is so important especially not just for us our youth to understand and next to me sister michelle so how did you hear about this open house um i'm i'm the executive director with the dekalb county history center and i met with one of the people that belongs here manal and at the history center we're trying to do a better job of gathering the history of all the people that live in dekalb county and the muslim community is certainly one of the communities and so i just came here today to learn some more and to continue that dialogue so we can help document your history in our community wonderful and i was mentioning to you and others one of the purpose we are having this open house is to make sure that people may have many questions about islam about our history our contributions and sometimes there may be misconceptions based upon what they see in the media what they see some uneducated people doing so we want to make our fellow americans our brothers and sisters realize that there are so many things in common that we have and we want to educate them about the realities of islam compared to the myths people may have in the books or in the social media so at the end of the day we will realize that there are so many commonalities and based upon the commonalities we can work together to make better societies so what have you learned so far coming here well i just got here but i have felt very welcome and i'm just excited about this opportunity to again to learn more i think that's um our job too um so i think we're both on the same page is that the the more we get to know each other the better off that we'll be so welcome come back over here again and let's work together for better societies wonderful thank you so much for having us today okay thanks michelle for coming take care and you were mentioning something about the posters that you saw about women in islam they're beautiful first of all so but i i met a couple of different facebo quite a few facebook groups around the area one being hate has no home here the other one dekalb county takes the united stand against hate and i would love to share those flyers in the both of those facebook groups so the people who have more exposure who weren't able to come today so why do you think uh what about the contents in that poster that wants you to share them to other people um i think it's just it makes it more personal because the media makes everything seem so terrifying and they want to polarize everybody against everything this brings it home and makes it familiar and it's very short little details about people and i think they're perfect they're beautiful anything specific that you saw in the posters that you want to share so i love the part i grew up catholic and um i love the part about mary and making that be um just a part of of both religions you know i mean how it can bring people together and we have a lot of the same belief systems and we're not as different as the media would like us to think that we are exactly if there is like one message you want to share with our fellow americans you know people have so many misconceptions not every person may come here today so what would you say to them about your experience here i think it's been fast and everybody's been so welcoming and so friendly and uh just kind of give people a chance to get to know your neighbors and get to know you know maybe they can become your friends so welcome thank you thanks for coming have a seat and we have a guest our neighbor who came here to visit the mosque and we are so honored to have her here and what's your name linda kerr okay we have sister linda over here and you are one of the first people to come here and you mentioned that you saw the posters and these posters are about women in islam so some of the rights that islam has given to women as you mentioned the right to gain education it's not just a right in islam it's an obligation okay that's good yeah yeah so muhammad peace be upon him who we consider as the last and the final prophet he mentioned that it's an obligation for both males and females to gain education so getting empowered by that obligation that education you'll be surprised to find out that women of the past muslim ladies they were the initiators of hospitals pharmacists and universities i heard that yes a muslim woman started the first university is that correct yes according to the guinness book of world records and unesco the oldest continuous university in the entire world its foundation was laid by a muslim lady and where was this this is in morocco in the city of fess in the year 859 and the name of the campus i'm not sure if it's here uh university of harawain way before harvard and oxford and penn state uh oh yeah yeah over here there you go yes see these are the facts people may not know it so one of the reasons we are having the open house is to educate our fellow americans our brothers and sisters you know realities compared to the myths sometimes the media propagates for their own you know purpose right right i've already learned quite a few things from from the tour and the the woman who was giving the tour uh i work at the high school as as a teacher and she's an ex-student of mine so it was really easy to to talk to her and ask her questions and i've already learned a lot so how did you hear about from your student she's the one who invited you um actually on on social media on facebook someone posted this and i've always i i've driven by this building and thought how pretty it is and i see muslim students at school and i wonder more and more about the religion and about what what happens here so do you think that uh you know muslims need to like have more open houses like these i do i think um there there'd be more more understanding and more and less yeah less confusion um and and i'm not sure i'm sure there are incidents of of some prob some some hate groups or some people not understanding i've heard that someone was it was attacked at one of the grocery store one of the women um and i think if they knew more about the religion and and what you guys stand for um well i think it's needed so not only the misconceptions will go people will find out there are so many commonalities we have as americans as people of faith as believers in god and as humans yeah i feel that yeah as you can see the posters all around here uh you know we have for prophets of god which are common also to judaism christianity and islam right there then the books that our jewish and the christian brothers and sisters that they believe in we as muslims were also supposed to believe those in those books in their original form given to moses and david and jesus and abraham peace be upon them so um if there is one i like the fact that education is an obligation and i've already met a woman who's who's a doctor here um yeah oh really okay she was a pediatrician in pakistan okay all right so women are highly educated and you know compared to what the media shows here there are more phd women doctors in pakistan right then all over the usa combined okay that's impressive so if there is like one question that you may be thinking you know what if i interact with a muslim let me ask that question what would that be oh okay the the question that i would ask you about why men and women have to pray in separate rooms so if i can also elaborate on that question you know there is a in a place of worship our mind should be focused on god it should be pure it should be clean our heart should be clean so sometimes if we pray together men women you know the the way that we pray we pray shoulder to shoulder like literally touching each other so it will not be appropriate that next to my daughter if a strange man is you know praying next to her she won't be comfortable i won't be comfortable right i understand that was explained to me and i understand that yeah and i yeah i have been in situations when i when i used to go to church where there would be distractions like that we weren't shoulder to shoulder but sometimes very close yes and uh and that's a valid reason i understand so this is the way prophet muhammad peace be upon him in his mosque used to have men used to pray in the area and women used to have their own area right purity of thought purity of mind even if you go to like a jewish orthodox synagogue they still have separation too that's true and orthodox the christian church right they also have separation so you know in a place of worship purity of thought and mind yes yeah yeah i agree that makes sense to me and you were asking for the food right or what food you have i i love middle eastern food so yeah and vegetarian food so i look forward to eating and maybe getting a henna tattoo oh yes they're doing that very soon so if there is one message that you would say to the people right because not uh 350 million people may come here in the mosque today what would you say to them suppose if you have more open houses like this uh that you're very welcoming it's a beautiful clean place everyone's very friendly and respectful and answering my questions um and i'm coming away with a lot of knowledge so um i think you should have more of these and we have free copies of the quran there i'm not sure if you read the quran yeah yeah so the original quran is in arabic okay and we have translation in english i mean 100 plus languages so you're free to take a copy we have a lot of brochures take more than one if you want to and you can always come here with your students or with some other teachers there are many uh tours that we give in many mosques around the nation so you're welcome to come back you know as a family as a school right individually and you can just drop in you don't even have to wait for a mosque open house okay that's nice to know yeah i feel very welcome thank you very much thanks a lot and uh hope you enjoy here i hope you learn here ask as many questions as possible may god guide and bless all of us thank you very much welcome thank you

Channel: Sabeel Ahmed

Views: 130,355

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Keywords: amazing hijab of muslim women, rights of muslim women, hijab, hijab story, headscarf, muslimah, muslima, modest fashion, against muslims, islamophobia, hijab in the bible, islam religion, yasmin mogahed, hijab tutorial, how to wear hijab, muslim women clothing, muslim women fashion, modesty christian, dr sabeel ahmed debate, muslim converts story, mosque open house, hijab fashion magazine, hijab in islam, womens rights movement, womens rights in afghanistan, taliban interview

Id: cw6c1Kmo7N8

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021