How an American Woman Became a Muslim Scholar | Dr. Tamara Gray

I learned there was something in the world called the sh and I was I was fascinated if you don't know Arabic and you're trying to learn your religion it's almost as if you're a tourist in your own religion it's really well documented that women bring forth culture that we carry forth culture so when you cut off women from solid Islamic learning when you just give them fluff they're only going to be able to bring forth fluff for many of us life is a challenge and to find comfort in our war stricken and AI controlled World it helps to ground ourselves with a Timeless tradition that has the answers to all the hard questions and that is Islam but how do we know what's islamically right or wrong and what pleases our creator and displeases him the answer is through seeking knowledge and many Muslims in history have reached the peak of Islamic knowledge shaping them into our well-known classical and contemporary Scholars and and that's both male and female Scholars to unpack the niche of female scholarship especially in the Modern Age We invited dror Tamara gray an Islamic scholar author and translator who holds a master's degree in curriculum Theory and instruction and a doctorate in leadership and spent 20 years in Syria studying the dean and today we asked her what does scholarship for Muslim woman really mean keep watching for her enlightening response [Music] a warm welcome to Our Guest all the way from the states Dr Tamara gray assalam allum it's so good to be here how are you feeling today alhamdulillah wonderful are you enjoying down under that's the real question yes very much yes very very much enjoying Australia alhamdulillah we're very excited because we've been very inspired following your story uh we know that of course Subhan Allah conversion in the ' 80s and then following up with that 20 years in Syria and coming back to your hometown and coming back to America and spreading your love for the dean and the education to women especially um and eventually you founded so what is the story behind what does it mean to you and maybe what is so unique about it that sets it aside from the other Islamic organizations so in 2012 when I left Damascus I left thinking I was going to be away for just five months I was very attached to living there I plan to live there the rest of my life I plan to die there and be buried there and so with the War I had to leave and I arrived in Minnesota that's where I'm from that's where my family lives and I moved into a little yellow house rented next to my next door to my brother and I had my son with me because he was was a high schooler and I thought we're going to be there for 5 months I'm going to see my family we rented the house not right away we rented the house a little bit later when the writing sort of became clear writing on the wall so to speak and so as I realized I was going to stay two things happened one is I started looking for a job that's on one side things had changed a lot 20 years I hadn't lived in America and the way to find a job had changed Dr ically plus I didn't know anyone all of my skills and all of my speciality was built either in Damascus or in the Emirates or in Qatar or in places like this on the other hand during that summer some of my students arranged a speaking tour and so during the month of Ramadan I traveled all across the United States North America really and I gave 69 talks during that time I met Muslim women and I was actually really taken aback that the Muslim women in America in the 20 years that I had been away their situation in community there so much just hadn't changed it just hadn't changed and so in September when I was in my little yellow house and I was I had not been able to find a job because I didn't know how to do it and I was thinking about this situation that I was in I was really grieving Syria I missed it so much I I wanted to go to go back just I yesterday I mean and I couldn't I ALS and I had my son like he was now registered in high school and I had to take care of him my husband had gotten a job actually in Scotland it was really complicated because when you leave we weren't refugees but we were because I had gone back to my own country but it was just we were displaced yeah we had a new a whole new situation to deal with so at that point I was really reflecting on the state and the situation that I had met that i' had found Muslim woman in I was reflecting on my own grief of having had to leave Syria and I was reflecting on everything that Syria had given me and while I knew I couldn't do anything to help Syria and get back to the healthy country that I had once lived in I I felt like I could take what Syria had given me and offer it to the Muslim women that I had met so when we first I first talked to some of my students and we first talked about this we had different ideas and one of them was this whole idea of online learning which is way before people were doing online learning and for me it was just bizarre like it was so new I had never done anything like that living in Syria meant that I wasn't even online in so on any social media way I was older so my my youth was not like yours was not like most people today I I'm not a digital native I'm a digital immigrant so I didn't have that sort of background but that's where we started and the word robot is actually it's a funny word to give to an organization because it's a root word but originally I wanted that root word to be the name of the organization and then I thought every project would be a derivative like rot robita morabit Etc Robata and I had it was very clear so our very first project was ribat and that's our online learning for online academic learning for Muslim women after that project and we started we wanted to move into publishing one of my board members she said an say you know if you if you use all of these different terms then the person who doesn't speak Arabic is not going to be able to differentiate between the projects so we dropped my original idea and our next project was Daybreak press so very different we just went right in straight into English to make it clear but nonetheless robota as a I think that as a root word it it implies all of those other words so it implies all of those other meanings all of those other things about bringing together the connection to one another the connection to Allah theat which after some research means a lot of things not only the front lines which I think we are in the front lines of the cultural Wars I think that's exactly where we stand especially as women in education but it also has been used in places like Iraq to mean uh women's shelters I didn't know that when we first chose that name but it's a fascinating history to look at how words have been used historically so that's a maybe a quick summary of how things started back in 2012 the Arabic language has such a complexity that it can be used in so many different unique ways and I think that stems from like you know the the beauty of the language in in the way that the words kind of have different meanings have different connections um and they can they can really like be so expanded um into different language yeah 100% that helps in when in a very complicated organization like Roboto where we're really when since our mission is positive cultural change culture is not something that you attack or that you address with one project so we are we have multiple projects multiple programs and so the Arabic language is really helpful because as you said one single word can have multiple meanings and so I love it I think it blankets in a very cozy loving way all of the work we we're trying to do what a beautiful language that Allah selected for the people of Jenna and for his uh final Revelation if we're looking we're looking at the importance of Muslim focused you know education and education and institutes you moved as a American Reaper in the'80s from America to Damascus to Syria what sort of change was that for you and what prompted that that transition or that that move okay that's a great question and to answer it I have to take you back into history to the 80s which I know is a long time ago for for both of you and for many people when you think about the 80s it's like how I used to think about the years my own mother was in university in the 80s to be a Muslim in the united stat Muslim woman in the United States was a frustrating experience if I'm honest with you uh we didn't have access to learning we had the the books that were written about Islam or about Muslim women were very frustrating to read either the English language itself wasn't good or the tone was very uh um derogatory towards women uh it was just a very it was a frustrating existence to go to the Masid was frustrating you didn't feel part of the community and so I as a convert now converts often really struggle with culture and so in those early years I really struggled I mean I had I was blessed I met some Malaysian women that were a great blessing to me and a great help to me m the Malaysian culture is such a soft and spiritual culture that that really came through and really helped me but nonetheless I was living in Minnesota I wasn't living in Malaysia and so I was frustrated and I it came to a point where I remember standing on a street corner actually Grand and selling and just appealing to Allah for help that I needed someone to help me someone to set me on a way that I would not be in this frag agile place I was with my faith now I've always been sort of an academic type I I loved learning even as a child and I still do I I'm I would be if if it was free in the United States to be in school I just would never quit I would always be studying something new that's great but so that has been my sort of go-to to solve many of my deeper questions and deeper issues and so I I thought okay I have to study well where am I going to study and that was 1985 was rid nowhere yeah there was nowhere so I was really blessed I met a woman who was who had studied overseas and she had studied in Syria and she was Syrian and my experience with her was just like whoo this is so refreshing in one week I had a 100 pages of notes on about about desia about some of the some Sierra some companions just incredible incredible week of work I was pushy I admit God bless her but uh but she was also so willing and so giving and so generous in her learning and so through that conversation I learned that there was something in the world through that week of conversations I should say I learned there was something in the world called a sheh H yeah that there was a that you could add to the end of that word and I was I was fascinated and of course there are sheas all over the world but that was the first time in my life I had heard that there was such a thing at all and she was Syrian so I determined that I would marry a Syrian and get myself over to Syria and so I did beautiful Subhan Allah do you think there was a big difference like when you got to Syria and you were in that education culture what was the role and position of women there in leadership in education I well there was such a difference such a difference first of all in the United States we're talking about very sincere people I definitely know that but very sincere people coming from not from backgrounds in Islamic Studies from backgrounds in whatever engineering medicine professionalization that they had really sincerely building Islamic institutions and opportunities or lack of opportunities for women based on whatever cultural experience they had had in Syria I met women who were who were like that was something normal I met women who were working on their later on while I lived there I met women who had finished the the the degree or the isaza and the seven books of Hadith I we're talking about women who were deeply studying in the tradition of like really solid no sort of halfway it wasn't this idea where men are going to really learn the heavy curriculum but women are going to just kind of learn a few little things no it was really an understanding the way I looked at it is it was an understanding that women carry forth culture and interestingly later when I did my doctorate and I looked into the idea of Muslim women at in religious leadership one of the things I learned in the in just reviewing the literature is that there it's really well documented that women bring forth culture that we carry forth culture so when you cut off women from learning when you cut off women from solid Islamic learning when you just give them fluff they're only going to be able to bring forth fluff and so the whole colonial era and so many things have affected Muslim women's learning across the board but I really think that I was able to witness and experience women who were very serious yet very excited and joyful about this religion and about their faith and it wasn't sort of a a a downer to be around them it was joyful and it was to for me as a convert as well there was a lot I needed to learn about loving the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam I a lot I needed to learn about early history things that I had learned incorrectly that as a non-muslim I needed to unlearn and relearn and all of that happened both in the classroom but also in just meeting people interacting with them understanding how to live certain Hadith how to live the interaction of Hadith together how to live because our faith is not individual our faith is not oh here's aith now you have to follow it our faith is an interaction with the body the Corpus if you will of Hadith the Quran and all of this the The Works of our early Scholars that has given us a way of living a beautiful culture there is no one in the world is as generous as a Muslim 100% even a non-practicing Muslim is still going to be incredibly generous that's culture that culture that's an attitude we've learned learned that has got brought been brought forth from the time of the Prophet s wasallam and so I mean the experience was completely different I I remember once in Syria thinking as an American woman I had been raised to think that but that you know American women are The Confident women my experience in the Muslim world is that sorry American women but is that American women are like not confident at all like Syrian women mashallah and KU women oh my God like mashallah I spent a year in Kuwait and that I mean the Kuwaiti woman is just an amazingly capable woman as our Syrian woman M and of course I'm sure you as well but I that was I have I had actual lived experiences with these two Malaysian women I have lived experiences with them as well so that was also really good for me I think because some of the myths that I grew up with you don't always recognize the myths you grew up with with so the fact that I grew up with myths I was able to identify them unpack them and replace them with truths was really important to my growth and I think it's one of the things that helps me when I talk to people because I recognize the myths that they might be in and I've had that experience of identifying unpacking and and reworking sort of the myths that have been given me yeah I think being around women who are kind of in that uplifting uh and you know really pursuing education and being joyful and excited for that is really empowering as well within women I know in my personal experience the teachers that I had sometimes I look at these you know female AAS and sheas that I've had and I look at them and I'm like how do I kind of get to the same level and I think a lot of women right now that I've see um the younger women middle-aged women who are um you know in the west right now are kind of on that journey of seeking knowledge but are not sure where to start or how to get motivated to kind of you know get started get that first thing kind of done what kind of advice would you give to them well that question has a few different aspects one is what is the first thing like what is that first thing that a woman would want to do and then the other aspect is how do you start on a journey of learning I think I want to answer those two differently on one hand what we need to learn we need to we all need to start on a journey of the Arabic language and if we look across the Arab world forgive me Arab world but there's a real dir of Arabic language learning even in the Arab world like in in the countries where Arabic is a native language we find that schools are heavily bilingual or International nothing wrong with the bilingual international school but there's something wrong with our children not learning Arabic not growing up with a strong connection to the Arabic language and I've worked in bilingual schooling before but the Bilingual School I worked in was very sure and very careful to know that the children were learning Arabic well when you come then to the the wide population of Muslims we're not all Arab obviously we come from many many different countries and one of the ways to separate us from our faith is to separate us from our Heritage books whether that's the Quran Hadith or any of the books that were written in the early days if we don't have Arabic then we are dependent on a translator or someone to read them for us and so while we're always dependent on teachers and we want teachers we really need to have Arabic so that's one thing start your Arabic journey start it and don't be frustrated by it it doesn't you don't have to be a scholar of the Arabic language to have Arabic as your tool of assistance to help you learn and I think that's a really important differentiation because some people are so overwhelmed by learning Arabic so if you remember that okay I don't have to be an Arabic scholar that's a wonderful thing if you're excited about that but I just need to learn Arabic so that I can read I can understand what I read and I can have an independent interaction with that book yep second the second part of the question which is how do I get started how do I walk on this journey for women this question is very important because women have different seasons of life and it is often much more difficult for a woman to devote sort of full-time studies for 20 years because she might have little children that are taking from her time or her physical energy so when you're thinking about that Journey just sort of step back and relax into it and know that it's a long journey it should be a long journey I studied for 20 years and I'm not done I'm still working I just finished uh haditha uh last summer so I mean and I'm I'm trying to start a new one so I mean this should not be we it never ends y the learning never ends so don't get nervous about am I keeping up with the the man or am I how fast am I going or how slow am I going it's not orientalists know our religion I just want to orientalists know Islam they have studied they know Hadith they know Quran they know all sorts of things but they're not Muslim y so they learned it quickly we don't have to learn it quickly what we want is to learn it and to digest it so to speak and to live it to make it practical for ourselves for our families for our community so the for the journey just get started now a lot of women think that a YouTube video here a YouTube video there is going to help them learn yes it will help you learn but it's not what it's not learning it's not The Learning Journey you need to register in a program get in a program where someone has studied them the curriculum has set a curriculum for you so there's a beginning a middle and an end of course we have our program rebat which we have spent a lot of time really looking at we have four levels the introductory level Islam Iman with the idea that we're following the Hadith of Angel but we added this introductory stage because so many people are brand new to the religion and also sometimes because of the Arabic we need to we need to do some broader learning before we get more specific in our program you don't have to have lurgical Arabic if I can use that word until level four so you have time to sort of match them together so you're learning Arabic learning Islam and then at one point they converge and you begin to learn Islam with the Arabic and I think that works well for Western for Western women one more thing about the journey is it's okay to have a lighter semester and a heavier semester it's okay to give yourself that on and off time as long as it's never fully off there should always be some amount of learning so you don't get out of practice or begin to think about yourself that you're not a student we always want to be students we want to be serious about that and really enjoy that process and enjoy that learning and enjoy that growth that happens and one more thing for Muslim women I really recommend that you do at least part of the learning is from women yeah the perspectives are different the the sort of way of explanation can lighten the heart there are some things that are still out there that if you read them with a with a 21st century mind it can be painful or damaging to the faith to read that the explanation of something a woman teacher can help help you because she knows she's been there she's been through that someone's explained to her in this idea of Senate and she H can explain that in a way that becomes a joyful thing instead of something that is difficult or painful and learning is fun learning is uh a path to Jenna isn't it so seeking knowledge and especially drawing on your point starting with the Arabic language I've actually got an uh an Arabic Mentor uh who says this very interesting quote that if you don't know Arabic and you're trying to learn your religion it's almost as if you're a tourist in your own religion so it's very interesting to hear your story and how you successfully learned the language and Subhan Allah may Allah bless you continue to learn the Shar so the question is is it far more Superior to learn in arabic speaking country or in a more islamically traditional so the whole you know studying under a scholar in that method or is it better to complete an Islamic degree in a West country for instance okay well those are very different things and an Islamic degree in a western institution in the United States if it's an academic degree not a seminary so in the United States we have seminaries a seminary is a place where you can study your religion as a practitioner okay at the University any Western University you're almost any you're going to have you're going to be studying your religion as a Critic so that's I mean not everyone can survive that it's a very difficult journey and if someone is going to do that I think they need to have traditional studies first so if you want to you need to be sure of your Iman sure of your as it is rooted in in Muslim opinion before looking at it because what you're studying usually in Western institutions is going to be opinion rooted in orientalist or sometimes even islamophobe or or academics who maybe they've done really great work but it's mixed so it can be it can be a challenge it can be a challenge now for me I think that we are tasked with offering Islamic education to people that is both founded in traditional learning but offers modern methodologies because it's a bar women and and Men I suppose who have gone to Western schools Western institutions they're used to a certain type of self-directed learning a certain type of thinking a certain type of writing and reading and much of traditional Islamic Studies is very spoonfed and that can be very frustrating and not feel stimulating enough for the Western student so I think it's important for people like me and others like me to understand that and to really set up systems and programs that both bring forth traditional foundational knowledge in a real and solid way but with modern methodologies so that our students can engage with the material can grow with the material and can become those Scholars of the future we need to be doing something to make sure that there are those future teachers and Scholars for the next generation and I don't so because your question was this or this I don't know I feel like I know for abim abim mad in England he has a program to help those who have done very traditional learning sort of understand English culture so they can apply it and if we can't apply the learning then yeah then how are we different than the orientalist even though we're Believers so I think all of us need to be thinking about modern methodologies and really finding ways to help our students learn what is traditional but put it into practice talking about you know modern methodologies of learning digital religion is something that's come up a lot um you wrote your desertation in digital religion Muslim women leadership in in digital in digital religion how do you think you wrote this before 2019 or in 2019 so you submitted it in 2019 Al Bic how do you think covid-19 and you know and lockdown changed the digital religion space because I I really do think it did yes well I'm just so glad I finished it in 2019 because had I extended it to 2020 I would have had to do new research because definitely agree with you that things changed and one of the ways they changed is that Muslims were forced to accept the concept of digital religion I think there's still resistance uh we we recognize the tools of the digital world as important tools but I don't think we yet understand the opportunities available to us and as especially women women are still more hesitant there are a few there are a few who are less hesitant but in General when when we sit in a here in in in in IRL so to speak in real life the we know from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the angels surround us we know that the Angels make Dua for us we know that the angels are seeking forgiveness for us that is a a circle of or a circle of when we sit in an online space whatever that space is maybe it's an Instagram video maybe it's a Zoom class maybe it's a uh a discourse Community when we sit in these spaces we have to remember that the online space belongs to allaha just as much as any space that we might sit in physically and so in remembering that and being really clear about it we can imagine I always I've been imagining this since the early days in fact it was this image in my mind that really made me jump from being a digital immigrant to being to trying to be digital citizen so to speak it was a big jump for me but I worked really hard at it because of this image which is the image that here we are sitting together and sometimes I'll have students around the world and so I'll imagine the globe and all of us sitting there and imagine Angels around us and because I'm I was in so much pain at the time for Syria and since then so much pain for all of our Muslim brothers and sisters in any place of pain and of course right now for when I I see it as a as a form of activism where we are in this circle and for that moment for that hour for that half an hour for that those moments of and the angels are surrounding the earth because they're surrounding us and perhaps during that time there's protection for all sorts of things on the earth that we don't know about it's part of the Unseen World of course but understanding the reality that the UN that the the uh internet world world is just as real just as it is a real world Allah is in charge of that world just as much as he's in charge of any other world any other world that we might interact in I think it changes perspective and it might help us interact with the digital world in in a more productive way and understand the opportunities that are there for us and having said that uh I guess in this IRL space may Allah accept uh our our work and may Allah reward you for coming all this way uh your you know your generosity of your time may Allah add Bara to your life and allow you to continue on that journey of seeking knowledge aan and having said that May the angels also ask Allah for our forgiveness and with that for your time and until next time

Channel: OnePath Network

Views: 128,989

Keywords: Muslim, Islam, muhammad, quran, mohammad, sunnah, religion, mohamed, Allah, onepath, onepath network, ummah, islamic reminder, islamic lecture, Dawah

Id: tcB76M3CC8c

Length: 31min 55sec (1915 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 16 2024