Fighting cultural misconceptions towards Muslims | Khalila Writes | TEDxSantaBarbaraSalon

i'm from london it's just it's wonderful to be here with all of you i am i'm when we first met we met a little while ago and i was really taken with um i hadn't ever had an extended conversation with a muslim woman we've we've been to dubai and we've done business but i hadn't had a chance to really get to know someone and so you were in one of the programs we had and i i appreciated your your energy in fact i think i told you even though i couldn't see your smile you really smile with your eyes i'm curious about knowing a little bit of your story because you weren't born muslim right yeah i wasn't yeah and you know what just to say you know i was really grateful that you've reached out and that's a really big message to everyone if you do come into contact it's wonderful to just have those conversations but yeah no i wasn't born with them um i was a party girl living living living the crazy life i was i was quite um wild in my younger days and it was 2007 when i became muslim i was 19. i'd been looking into it for a year and at first i was like no no no i don't want to hear it but my heart opened up to it and i i fell in love with it and who wouldn't have thought i'd be sitting here dressed like this with you today it's just a 360 for me so tell us a little bit about how you're dressed okay um so as a believing woman we we believe in dressing modesty and for me it's powerful because as i said i was a party girl i was someone who was in the western world considered as free you know and so to dress like this to me i now feel free i feel free because i'm jo i can be i'm judged for my intellect i'm judged for other things and that for me is powerful and you know it's a choice and that is something i think people will be very surprised to hear you know it's a choice and under this i still have a very big loud clear voice you had explained that the face veil whereas the the religion um part of compliance if you will is that you that you have the head covering but the face covering is in fact a choice why did you make that choice yeah yeah so that you know there's there the what we are uphold to wear is the covering of our hair right and to wear the face veil this is for me just that extra step of modesty where i i wholeheartedly believe in my faith and i feel i feel liberated it's very it's very hard to comprehend but i'm here to show you that um you know to dress like this i do feel free and it is challenging because i'm outwardly visible right you can't miss me my mom always says that to me she's like you know you want to be modest but you're so we can't miss you but you know for for us it's it's a strength and it's something that we hold to be beautiful and it has a lot of meaning to us so to me it's absolutely a strength i have a friend who um talks about um when you walk into a room you want people to feel as if you have a an energy is walked into the room someone you don't you just feel something different and that's what i'm getting from you i'm curious um with your focus on on really helping muslim women in business because i i don't normally put those two things together in my head but you've added another thing that doesn't fit in my head which is party girl in business so why don't we start there how how did what was it that changed for you where you found this interest because i'm guessing you weren't entrepreneurial by nature oh no absolutely not um i am creative i was a performer i was a host i was in the performing world on stage this is prior to me becoming muslim i was a public speaker i was an activist i was very vocal and so that's my line that's what i was prior to becoming muslim and when i did become muslim i actually got a huge opportunity and my agent at the time called me and this was a few days after i'd just become muslim um and he said you have been given this opportunity to tour with a massive celebrity who's like a multi-million dollar record label owner and i would have been hosting and it was a huge opportunity but i knew i knew you know i wasn't dressed like this at the time but it was it was you know a step i knew that was the direction i was going towards and that party girl hanging with the celebrity life it just couldn't fit and it was it was a really big huge huge i mean i cried i cried so much because that was what i'd been working so hard towards and i knew that i couldn't do it but you know now i didn't see i didn't know how to bring that part of me into being a muslim so for 15 years i did nothing but you know getting into business becoming an entrepreneur this is where i've been able to find my voice and find you know that speaking up is powerful and that's kind of how the journey has been for me so probably that thread from being an activist is that's one thread that you've been able to pull through so would that be fair to say absolutely absolutely can still speak up as a yeah absolutely so i'm i'm thinking of the the person who's listening right now and and how you find the inner strength to hold on to a core belief even if that is a new belief what i'm gonna guess there was some faith there yeah i mean yeah when you embrace a huge change um a drastic change there has to be a strength and a belief um it's not really an intellectual thing for me it was my heart felt full um you know in my heart felt full i felt as if the puzzle pieces had been connected and if i felt right but of course you know the whole entire world is not designed um particularly when you put on media it's you know it's not what you see there's not always good representation but when you believe something i think that's that's your strongest ability to be able to continue forward um so for me there's there's no regrets i have found true fulfillment now for the last two years we've all now you're a moms you've got some young ones at the house and with covid we've all been indoors so we're not out in public but um i have to ask because i have to feel that in these charged times that we live in that there's there's now you live in the uk which feels very much more progressive uh around um diversity if you will whether that's ethnic or religious or gender diversity it just feels different than here in in the states um has that been a challenge for you yeah i mean where i live in london um it's very diverse i've always grown up it's not it's not segregated in other parts of the uk it absolutely is but where we live it's completely diverse it's not segregated it's just everybody is part of the society together um of course with the pandemic became the change of everything moved virtually and as horrific as the times were and as trying as the times where i do think the positive for women like me was that shift of you know at the touch of a button do you have the ability to be on a stage like i say social media is a stage you have the ability to be on a stage worldwide and that's how doors are able to be open um for us to be vocal to you know meet and and come on tedx and santa barbara and other opportunities um such as that that wouldn't have opened before the world became so virtual now pardon my ignorance but um i have one picture in my head of like in a mosque where the the men are on one side and then maybe not one side but the men are separated from the women and that there's still quite a bit of that prevalent the question is um do you feel any kind of pressure locally to not be in business and let's say you know stay at home and be a mom that is a really really good question um yes in mosques it is segregated but to us that's not something that we feel sad about because we're there to to pray and we don't need distractions which which we can be we're just there to kind of focus so for us it's a spiritual place to be um absolutely to tell you the truth there are even cultural ideas towards a woman being vocal um that's where i'm going yeah yeah but if we actually look into the you know the stories of the women around the messenger we have khadijah and she was the first wife of the prophet and she was an entrepreneur she was a businesswoman she was actually his boss that's how they met each other right but we don't hear that we don't hear that and that gives me and other women like me strength to know that you know being a muslim woman it's not a weakness you know when you see us many people think well i mean the most common word i get is um ninja how can you see how this is this is it how can you see and i say well i could understand how can you speak but you can see my eyes right exactly muslim women are are powerful interesting intelligent once you get to know us so can you give me an example of um someone who you've worked with where you've taken them from maybe not confident to very very confident in fact are are there some things that you have to maybe do differently to promote this sense of leadership yeah i definitely think it begins with a lot of self-worth and self-work because as i've said you know in media there isn't that much representation of us um vocally and getting more but as a general there isn't that much for us to look to to look up to so first we have to get really really confident in our own skin and you know a lot of the women that i work with they have to go right back and do the inner work to know you know it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what the world thinks it's not about what other people think especially when you have a gift a skill it's just about showing that and actually you find that when you do that self-healing work and you have that confidence that other people start to say okay well actually you are really good and okay that's not going to be a barrier anymore for me i think there's a we talk about the stories we tell the stories we're told and then the story we tell ourselves and what i'm hearing from you is there's a there's an opportunity to change the story you tell yourself because i think one of the common things we find is in anybody is this sense of an imposter syndrome and um i'm sure that's that's part of it and i think we're we're layering on um i'm a very very big champion for women in business women in technology women in i mean i i work very very hard doing a panel in a couple of weeks just exactly that so i'm really curious in um well here's a question um do you feel that there is a an opportunity for an outreach to young muslim girls i'm going to say 13 14 15 years old to talk about the opportunity and potential for them and and kind of paint a picture of possibility for them yeah yeah i mean so my eldest daughter is and i hear from some of her friends they're like mommy um her friends on instagram and um it's great for them to see that representation that you don't need to sacrifice your values in order to get success and i think that is a great great message for our young daughters and sons um to really see and know that there are there are so many more opportunities for them um the way the world is changing that that definitely is a positive i can see that's such a perfect little button right there that message i'm so glad you have decided to take this step not only for yourself but to help women like yourself thank you thank you so much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 5,012

Keywords: Business, Communication, English, Life, Religion, TEDxTalks

Id: qLnOg6hPxYY

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022