My Senior Project essential question: How are second-generation Arab Muslims negotiating Islamic interpretation regarding gendered clothing? This question has provided a consistent framework for my project. It also allowed me to focus on a group of people that I am usually surrounded by and has led me to question the idea of interpretation and where that comes from. I think the idea of interpretation comes from how the culture surrounding Islam talks about the specific general concept from the Quran. While I’ve read the Quran and analyzed different temptations described in the text, I definitely noticed that the Quran was made to provide guidelines for how to live a Muslim life. Instead, the answer to my essential question has become more about defining societal norms instead of specifically stating what guidelines to incorporate into my life.
The answer to this question is not straightforward. There is no one answer. The answer to this question is up to the individual. Islam sets the guidelines for how Muslims are supposed to act and dress but it is personally determined how they express themselves. The definition of terms like modesty and respect is a combination of finding those concepts inside of yourself and showing them on the outside.
During this senior project, I interviewed several people and worked in a mosque. I definitely noticed the struggle and sort of the challenge was managing my time with other people’s time in order to make sure I was getting their answers correctly and having enough time to flush out these questions. It was definitely a struggle to rearrange schedules because some challenges came up, like a Covid spike or when I had to shift from meeting that person in-person to an online meeting or on a phone call. In addition to that struggle, another challenge was writing down everything and organizing my thoughts from my readings, and figuring out how to present them to a wider audience. A lot of people said things that may not be agreed to by a lot of people at LREI. Those key moments when I heard those controversial opinions and wrote them down to communicate to a bigger audience that may not be aware of these struggles. These moments are what I am most proud to reveal. The ability to hear those perspectives and build those challenges was extremely useful because it allowed me to give me more time to prepare my questions. It gave me the opportunity to take a step back.
A key theme throughout the project and one that was constantly brought up in the interviews has to be: the idea of how one adapts to their surroundings, and how to balance between yourself and society. That balance of adaptation is very crucial to the idea of Islam and personally, for me, it’s the concept of how do you how do adapt to society yet retain individuality? The ideas and “restrictions” from Islam are guidelines that Quran says need to be taken in moderation. That idea of moderation is about how do you balance your spirituality and religiosity with a society that is not Muslim majority? From this theme, a question that grew was how to how do we adapt everything about Islam to modern times and how should interpretation and translation be handled to represent correctly what the Quran is talking about. There is a clear distinction between translation and interpretation as every translation is an interpretation but an interpretation is what the author is describing about the Quran. Another question that began was about the rules for men and women and whether there is any distinction between genders. A lot of older interviewers would argue there are no rules separating gender but the definition of what rules to follow comes from the individual. From both questions, there was an argument about who is communicating these rules. It is a combination of society, culture, and misinterpretation.
Exploring gender clothing in Islam motivated me to further explore other pieces of my religiosity. Senior project allowed me to merely scratch the surface of gender roles in Islam. Islam is a set of guidelines for Muslims to use in their lives. This project has opened my eyes to many misconceptions about Islam. A key misconception about Islam is the idea of modesty versus male and female guidelines. Modesty is a fluid idea that describes how a person should act and wear what makes them comfortable and respectable. Both the male and female guidelines are interchangeable. Both genders can not wear body-conscious or skin-tight garments or immodest clothing.
The surprising part of this project was the struggle to keep the interviews at the time we agreed on. Those moments during the interview when I did not agree with the interviewee was extremely hard to compose myself and respond in a way that was neutral. From the Senior project, I believe I could have done more interviews but Covid and scheduling were a huge hindrance to it. If I did a Senior project again, I would change it by doing it in non-Covid times because Covid stopped in-person gatherings and made scheduling difficult. In contrast, the most rewarding aspect of the Senior project has to be developing my answer to the question and the relationship I have made through these interviews. Getting the answer has helped me form connections from working at the mosque. This project has opened my eyes to what is next in my religious journey. The audience will be exposed to an essay that breaks down my answer and the path I went on for the six weeks. The answer to this question seems simple but holds an answer that pushes beyond Islam. The idea of gendered clothing is flexible and supposed to be a guideline. Guidelines are made to interpret situations around us. As a result, the definition of modesty is up to the individual. It means to maintain respect for themselves and for the person in front of them. Clothing does not involve just clothes but includes how you act and show your identity. There is a balance involved when approaching this topic, It is a two-way street where one direction is the theory and the other is practice. The answer I’ve been looking for has become something bigger than just religious identity.