Blog 1: Race, Ethnicity, Culture, or Religion

By

Hassan II Mosque - Casablanca

As someone who is not Muslim, so this trip has been highly insightful into the various beliefs, practices, and traditions of the faith. As we have been in Morocco, I have begun to realize that most of what I know about Islam is from classes, but not from personal experience or by knowing someone who is very familiar with the faith. I had many questions coming in of whether I would be looked at differently for not wearing a hijab or if religious tolerance was common practice. I didn't realize until now just how many misconceptions I had because of my lack of personal observation and interaction experience. I thought it was beautiful how numerous guides emphasized multifaith coexistence emphasizing that people of different faiths live together peacefully without any issues. After doing some further research I even found that in 2019, King Muhammad IV warmly welcomed Pope Francis as a symbol of tolerance and coexistence. Although it is considered illegal to convert away from Islam, it is not criminalized. It seems as though there is an effort to maintain a uniform moral foundation within the society, but they also want to extend kindness and hospitality to those who might not think exactly as they do. 

One thing that genuinely surprised me was learning that Muslim women are not required to wear a hijab, it is entirely their own choice. Before this trip, I had mistakenly seen it as something used to hide women or limit them in some way. Interacting with so many hijabis here and hearing some of my peers share their personal experiences of choosing whether or not to wear one has completely challenged that assumption. I have found it to be quite the opposite. The women who wear it are confident, active contributors to their communities and fields, and it does not diminish their voice in the slightest. If anything, it seems to be an expression of it. What I had interpreted as a restriction turned out to say more about the limits of my own perspective than about the practice itself.

I have also come to see the hijab as surprisingly functional, particularly when it comes to sun protection. I found myself wanting to cover up more simply to protect myself from getting sunburnt, which made me think more carefully about the relationship between modesty practices and the physical environment. It has made me genuinely curious about whether climate and practicality have historically played a larger role in shaping these traditions than is typically acknowledged, and whether that dimension gets lost when the conversation happens far removed from the context in which these practices actually developed.

PreJean, C. (2024, January 30). Covenantal pluralism and religious literacy in Morocco. Religion and Global Society Blog, London School of Economics and Political Science. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2024/01/covenantal-pluralism-and-religious-literacy-in-morocco

Abdelhadi, M. (2022, July 20). Islamic veil: Why fewer women in North Africa are wearing it. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62215620

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Am I? Think Again. Exploring Authentic Identities

By
Image
  This video is part of the  TED Talks  series.  TED  (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a nonprofit devoted to disseminating "ideas worth spreading." I thought the idea of  creating authentic identity through failed imitation  was a great theme to begin the course as well as the blog. My hope is that you will step outside of the  status quo  and use your creative nature to complete the assignments and explore identity in a global context throughout this semester. What are your thoughts about Hetain Patel's presentation?
Read more

Motherhood & Morocco

By
Image
  Motherhood & Morocco All life comes from women. This is a fact we all know and see the evidence of daily, yet it is also a fact we choose to ignore or employ only when it is of convenience to society. Women are the backbone, the lifeblood, the prana, and the chi of all life. As we endure heartbreak, trauma, and illness, we call out for our mothers. As men die on battlefields and in army hospitals, they yearn for a touch of their mother. Across cultures, the mother figure is a respected tenet of the community, and in Morocco’s Argan Cooperative, the motherhood experience is respected and supported.  Though the history of feminism in Morocco is varied and contains times of both celebration and tension, yet the importance of family has remained a central tenet.  At the Argan oil cooperative, women bring the fruit from their argan trees into the cooperative, weigh, process and eventually, sell them for cosmetics and food oils. In this system, women own their own trees a...
Read more

Sexual Orientation or Gender Roles - Markeila Howard

By
  During my time in Morocco, I had the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the identity of Moroccan women. A  perspective very different from my own. What struck me most was the complex and evolving role of women in Moroccan society as they navigate the balance between tradition and modern change. Moroccan women live in a society deeply rooted in Islamic traditions, yet one that is also undergoing significant transformation. According to the World Bank, Morocco has made substantial progress in gender equality, particularly in education and legal rights. Throughout the trip, several people mentioned that women now have more legal protections, especially in the area of divorce. In most of the places we visited, it was predominantly women who were hard at work—doing the tedious jobs like cleaning and sorting out bad fruit—while men handled tasks involving heavy equipment. These women challenged the stereotypes I previously held about what life is like for women in a tra...
Read more