Date of Interview: 2/12/2010 Interviewer: Meagan Diedolf (MD), Patricia Mosier (PM), and Anne Sinkey (AS) Interviewee: Muhktar Voss (MV) Transcriber: Allison Lester AS: This is Megan Diedolf, Patricia Mosier, and me with Muhktar for the current interview. We are going to go ahead and get started. So, I d like you to tell us a little bit about your background. MV: Okay. I was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia. My mom is Moroccan, and my dad is American. And, I come to Emory primarily to study business, but I switched my major to economics and Arabic is my minor. As being a part of Muslim community, there wasn t a strong Muslim community in Columbus so I wasn t very involved then. But then, I came here, and there is actually a strong Muslim community here at Emory. So I became very involved, and now I m treasurer for the Muslim Student Association. And, is there anything else? That you want to know specifically? AS: I don t want to ask girlfriend questions. Everyone: (chuckling) AS: So what was the community like in Columbus? MV: There weren t very many Muslims mostly Christians, and so I had a good deal of Christian friends. I was even involved in an organization called Teen Advisors, which basically helped teens make the right choices and things like that, and it was a Christian organization. But So I had a wealth of Christian friends, and the Muslim community wasn t very strong at all. It wasn t very large, so I personally did not know too many Muslims in Columbus. There were two mosques in there. But as I said before, they aren t very big at all, you know not very big communities or anything. I didn t personally I wasn t personally friends with too many Muslims. The only one that I knew in particularly was because I went to high school with this guys when we were kids so they were the only ones I really knew personally. That s about it. AS: Did you miss not having that Muslim community there? MV: Well, first I actually I didn t know what it was like to have a Muslim community. I didn t really mind not having it, but I did find out that part of coming to Emory that it felt good to have people that share the same beliefs with you and everything. Well, same exactly. My Christian friends all pretty much were pretty similar in terms of beliefs to mine so it wasn t that bad, but it was kind of a breath of fresh air to come here. AS: So being Muslim in that community where there is not a lot of Muslims around, did you feel sort of set apart or did anybody make you feel set apart? MCCA Interview 2010 1
MV: No, not particularly. I personally did not know as much about my religion as some Muslims do. I did try to protect my religion whenever somebody said something about it, but I didn t know a whole lot of specifics and where I I don t know if it was obvious that I was Muslim. So not too many people really tried to, I guess, say anything or anything like that. But a lot of times, I just tried to explain my religion to people as well as I could, and mostly people were pretty good about it. AS: What kind of questions did you get? MV: Well, there s one question that I got that I remember specifically where a friend of mine after class asked me, So do you agree with all of the things that Osama bin Laden is saying? And, I was like, No. (chuckling) Not even close. And that was probably the one question that I got that was a little weird. But nobody really outright came up to me and said something that was actually like hateful or anything like that. AS: So they were all pretty good experience? MV: Pretty good experience. AS: Okay, so was your family a very devout family? I mean how would you rate their level of practice? MV: It s not a very high level of practice between either of my parents. My relatives on my mom s side some of them are very devout. My uncle teaches a Sunday school, and my grandmother is also very devout. She prays five times a day. PM: Is this family that has moved to the U.S. or are they still in Morocco? MV: Yes. They were from Morocco, but they moved to the U.S. As far as my dad, he converted, and he used to be a very devout practicing Muslim. But now, he doesn t practice as much, but he still believes the same things. And it s pretty much the same thing as my mom. So they are both devout in beliefs, but they just don t go through all the practices and everything. AS: Can you talk about your dad s conversion a little bit? MV: Well, my dad went through a few phases in his life where he tried different types of religions. He was first raised up as a Christian. And then, he tried Jehovah s Witness, and he was a very culturally-inclined person so he went around and traveled to different places and everything. And he studied abroad in France for a year during his college career, and he became pin pals with my mom, who was in Morocco. And, I think that was and when he traveled to Morocco to meet my mom, I think that is when he really found out more about Islam. And he became very observant very studious about it. So he took some Arabic classes studied the Arabic and everything and read the Quran and things like that. And, he eventually converted. I don t really know any deep specifics about it, but that was basically how it was. And he was in the military after his time there. And even in the military, he was very devout and everything. He prayed five times a day and things like that. MCCA Interview 2010 2
AS: Did your extended family accept his conversion pretty well? MV: Oh, yeah. They did. PM: So is that how you got to Columbus? MV: Yes. PM: Through the military? MV: Yes, through the military. AS: How about your mom? When did she come to America? MV: She came to America in the eighties about when she was twenty years old maybe a little older, I don t remember quite well. But she PM: She married your time at that time or was it? MV: Oh, yeah. They became married in Morocco. And so, she kind of she moved around with my dad as he was stationed in different places. And eventually, they stopped in Columbus and that s where I was raised. AS: So do you have any overall perceptions of what the South is like? MV: Overall, southern people are very hospitable. They as far as I can tell by being in Columbus, they weren t very judgmental in terms of your religion or anything. A lot of people didn t know about Islam, so they kind of took it as a learning experience. As something they heard about, and they kind of batched it or whatever. Some southern people tend to be ignorant. Actually, a lot of southern people can be ignorant. I might be generalizing here, but this is from my experience. And so, I did a lot of explaining to people, but I never thought about it as a bad thing. Part of my religion is to explain my religion to other people to have others understand and accommodate me so that s kind of how I took it. AS: What kind of questions did you get? MV: Just in general, they didn t know anything about it so all the basics of the religion and everything. The differences between Christianity and Islam and everything. And they were basic kind of questions - nothing very specific where I ve had to actually think about it. MD?: So why Atlanta? Was it just Emory? MV: Yeah, it was just Emory. MD: Yeah. MV: Emory was a very good school. It had a very high ranking business school and a graduates program. And that was the primary reason why I came here. It was not because I was in a Muslim community. I figured that most universities would be pretty descent MCCA Interview 2010 3
Muslims communities so it wasn t that I picked a certain university for that reason. I kind of took my academics more seriously than the community. And in fact, I didn t really research the demographics at Emory. I just saw Emory, and I came to Emory. And nothing to do with like who was here and that. AS: Did you have any expectations of Atlanta when you first came? M: Expectations I don t know. Not quite as south of Columbus, I expected it to be a lot more diverse. In Columbus, it s not very diverse at all in fact. There are two billboards in Columbus, for instance, that say, Trust God. And there s not advertisement or anything, it just says, Trust God. And I found that kind of funny because Atlanta wouldn t have anything like that. As much as Atlanta is the South, it s not quite the South because there s people all over the world that go to Atlanta. There are different types of communities there. There are Indian communities and black communities, white communities, and Mexican communities - and things like that. And so, it definitely wasn t like Columbus. AS: So what kind of communities are you involved in? MV: I m pretty much involved in whatever communities that are friendly and things like that. When I first came here, I actually tried different types of communities than just MSA, which is Muslim Student Association. And I didn t really like it too much because for one thing when I was in Columbus and all of my Christians friends were there, I they all believed in the same kind of things as I did: don t drink, don t party, just don t get yourself in trouble and things like that. PM: So your moral standards were compatible? MV: Right, my moral standards were in line with them. When I came to Emory, a lot of people didn t share those same moral standards. For one reason, it is more diverse. There are benefits, and there are not so good things about diversity. But so, I kind of found out that I didn t really wanted to hang out with too many crowds from Emory. And I found that MSA was probably the only one that I felt most comfortable hanging out with because of course, they shared all my beliefs and moral standards. And so, you know, that s kind of how that came around. As far as being in communities outside of Emory, I honestly don t venture outside too much. But wherever I do venture out, it s normally just with my relatives or to different mosques or something but not too many different types of communities. AS: Do you to the 14 th Street mosque a lot? Is that where you normally go? MV: I go there for - mainly for ree prayer, which is the one of the two holidays they have a prayer in the morning. And it s really nice there, because it is a very beautiful mosque. And, but whenever I am visiting my uncle, I go to the one that s by his house. We don t have a mosque here, but we kind of have congregation here so we just I go here, of course, so it s basically those three those main ones. AS: Is there an ecumenical space here on campus like where any religious group could come together? MCCA Interview 2010 4
MV: Basically, it s call Canon Chapel. It s primarily Christian, but it s meant for all different religions so for instance the Hindu Student Association held their Evali, which is one of their holidays. They held it there. And we hold our Friday prayers in the Brooks Common, which is kind of the lobby area. And so it s a very open community. People are very understanding, and allow others to go in. Otherwise, there would be more of a call to have a separate building specifically for Muslims or anything, but we don t have anything like that here which is pretty nice. AS: You are chairman of the MSA? MV: Treasurer. AS: Treasurer. Okay. How did you get to be that part? MV: Well, the MSA here is one of the most active student organizations on campus. It s fifteen years old and started by the Muslim Chaplin, who s actually here now being Muslim Chaplin. And he started fifteen years ago going on sixteen years. And when I came here, it was very, I mean it was active. We hold social events every single week - religious events also every week kind of like educational events, and a lot of really big events as well. And so when I became more a part of it, it was almost like being part of a family because everyone was so close together and everything. And so my freshmen year, I went and I ran for treasurer because that s kind of what I wanted to do in the organization. And I didn t make it, but I was kind of happy that I didn t make it because being treasurer is a really big job for MSA because it s such an active organization. And so the following year, I began treasurer for two different organizations kind of learned the ropes and everything. And then the following when the next election cycle hit, I ran for treasurer again. And, I got it. And I have to say if I had become treasurer before, I would not have been to handle anything. AS: Yeah. (chuckling) MV: So I was very happy that I didn t make it the first time around. AS: We wanted to ask you about the Children of Abraham. Do you know anything about that? MV: Yes. Actually, my best friend he and another good friend of mine decided to come together for something because Strangely enough, there s an organization that I started with my friend that is kind of pro-palestine and everything. There s a very high pro- Israeli side on this campus and everything, and we wanted to offer a prospective of the other side. But unfortunately, that kind of caused unintentionally tensions between religious groups, which it shouldn t have done because it is not a religious issue. But we wanted to rectify that by starting the Children of Abraham thing, which is a basically a partnership between us and the Jewish student group, Hillel, where they would make create a special chair for us, and we would create a special chair for them. And they would basically come together and create events together. And so, we ve had our first event was an Ishtar, breaking of the fast during the month of Ramadan for us, and all the Hillel students came here learned about Ramadan and Islam and everything. And then we had another event about the a Jewish holiday as well. We went there it was called MCCA Interview 2010 5
like Shake it in the Suko or something, and we learned about different things among that. And we got together and talked about personal experiences and everything. Those were really enlightening experiences, and I got a lot closer to some of the Jewish students here. And then we had another event where it was a film screening of a movie that is basically about a man who goes around to different communities as a Muslim guy he goes around different communities, and he just answers everybody s questions about Islam and everything and tries to clear up misconceptions. And there s basically part of a national event called The Weekend of Twinning, where mosques and synagogues come together, and they do things together as part of a communal thing. And we took part in that basically by the Children of Abraham thing. And I think it s actually a really huge step forward to have this kind of thing going on because too often we see that there s not a lot of people coming together and or Jews and Muslims specifically coming together. There shouldn t be so much there s a lot in common between two religions who shouldn t be so much fighting about it. So we want to kind of set an example and a standard, and I think we did. And the other chair not our chair but the other chair part of Hillel, he got he was awarded one of the they pick certain people for the humanitarian award, and he was one of four or five people who got it. And so PM: So that was the Islamic student who went? MV: No, no. PM: It was the Jewish student who was kind of an ambassador to the group? MV: Yes, kind of. And he got it specifically because of the Children of Abraham events and everything, and that was a pretty huge thing because that shows that we had an effect. And he invited us to all to come to the reception and everything because he felt like it was more of the entire Children of Abraham thing than of just him. And so, that was it was pretty big very big deal for us. We hope to just continue this Children of Abraham series as we go on. And hopefully, the Hillel community and the MSA community can get even closer in the future. AS: How big is the turn outs do you think you have? MV: Basically, core groups of both Hillel and MSA generally go. There s about twenty people for each organization. But we ve had up to eighty people come out to the events. SO we do have a pretty large turn out, which is very nice that people actually want to learn about the other religion than just stay in their homes and keep to themselves. AS: Very interesting. So when the Israeli-Palestine topic comes up, there s probably dealt with more religion? MV: For MSA, we decided not to have anything to do with it. We don t want to tie MSA with being pro-palestine or being political at all. So that s often the topic of discussion because a lot of people feel licensed it s a humanitarian issue that the MSA should be involved, but we feel that it would do more harm than good to be involved. And for the efforts of building community between MSA and Hillel, we decided to stay out of it. A lot of people connect it as a religious issue, and there s nothing we can do about that. So it s much better which is not having anything to do with it. MCCA Interview 2010 6
AS: So what do you think the average American knows about Islam? MV: I think it really depends on where you re from and what kind of education you ve received and what kind of people you ve been exposed to. So if I had to put it on average, I would say that the average American doesn t know too much about Islam. If I had to pick out a random sample from different areas I would say the more diversity there is, then the more they know about Islam. And the more education there is, the more they know about Islam. Generally on university campuses especially the ones that are more higher ranked, then you get more diversity and more people that know something about Islam. And so PM: And probably for your generation, there really has been in some religion class that you might have taken in high school. Where as the generation before yours MV: Exactly. PM: It wasn t true, so you run into that ignorance. MV: That s another thing. A lot of times parents propagate ignorance, and so it really takes someone coming to an educational community, such as Emory, to really find out for themselves because they do a lot of self-learning here. And so, I would say that PM: It challenges those families. MV: I would say that the average American doesn t know too much about it only because they weren t brought up in the same way. They weren t brought up in the same generation. And they weren t brought up in the same environment. And so I don t really like to make judgments on who does not know anything about Islam and everything, but the one thing is that I can kind of say with some reasonable certainty that the next ten years it will probably be if like twenty percent of Americans knew this much about Islam, then the next ten years forty percent will know. And it will just keep going more, and in general the way to do it is to just teach different people. PM: Are you part of that process? M: Right. The more you teach them about it and the more you set an example, then the more they accept it and reject all the lies propagated by either the media or just bad people in general. AS: Do you think the media plays a pretty big function in propagating the negative opinion of Islam? MV: Right. Well I do just not because they need to because they re all Islamaphobes or something, the only reason why they do is that there s a lot of people like to see things that are worth watching of course. The media likes to gain higher ratings, and there s no nothing against that. That s just capitalism and free enterprise and things like that, and there s nothing wrong with that. It s just people s mind-sets have to be changed with what they actually want to watch in order for things to change. So basically what happens if Osama Bin Laden comes on TV and says something where he sent a video to some MCCA Interview 2010 7
website or whatever, the media will eventually like immediately go and get the video and show him and like freak everybody out. And everybody will be freaked out basically. And they will connect Osama Bin Laden with Islam like regular Islam that I practice and that all my friends practice. And so that s how it propagates that kind of Islamaphobic opinion. But as far as but if people actually wanted to see Muslims standing up against these hateful things that the extremists do around the world, then they could very well show it. And it s very easy to. There s a lot of things that are going on. A lot of the times when I talk to people, they tell they ask me, Oh, I just wanted to say a very serious question. I don t mean to say anything by this. But if they were not following true Islam, then how come regular Muslims like you aren t saying anything? We are saying things! (chuckling) The problem is that a lot of times like for me, I can t get on Fox news or CNN very easily and just go out and say my opinion. It s very difficult to do that. When that does happen, either the media doesn t show it or it gets shot down by somebody else. A particular example, I have two examples for that, one time I actually wrote an editorial for the Wheel, which is Emory s newspaper. And it was basically condemning the tax on at Fort Hood, and it was very there was nothing wrong with the paper or the editorial or whatever. Somebody got the editorial and forwarded it to a very far right website, and then I found it by searching the editorial. I found it, and then all it was was somebody positing and then like fifty people attacking me personally without even knowing who I was or they were calling me by my name and everything. They didn t know who I was or anything, and they just said hateful things about me and Islam and saying that I don t know anything about my own religion and things like that. And that was after me trying to condemn the attacks. So it s like, you know, if Muslims come out and say something then they get attacked, and Muslims aren t going to come out and say anything anymore because they ll just get attacked. Another thing was there was a guy on Shawn Haddidy. He Shawn Handidy said something like, Oh blah jihad, blah, blah, blah. Jihad doesn t mean holy war as a lot of people like to think. It means struggle, and in most instances it s talking about struggle within or struggle to make things right. And so and the guy represented Hezbolah, which sounded very happy organization, he represented Hezbolah, but he said, No, jihad does not mean holy war. It means struggle or something. And Shawn Handidy said, No, it means holy war. Then it went to the commercials. (chuckling) AS: Oh, geez. MV: So, it didn t give him a chance to really defend himself or anything. And so, it s just things like that or so there s two things, either of them. If Muslims say something, they get shutdown, or they say something and it doesn t get reported very much. Like for instance when the guy who tried to bomb the aircraft by lighting himself on fire PM: On Christmas. Yeah. MV: Yeah, the Christmas bomber. He when he was going to court, there was a huge Muslim protest against him, like saying he doesn t represent Islam and everything. And that got on the news, but it s like, you know, you had to watch it on the day of the court in order to see it. It didn t go on to all the talk show hosts and say like, By the way, there was a huge Muslim protest. What do you think? You know nobody said anything like that, they just said, Yes. He was going to the court, but some Muslims were protesting MCCA Interview 2010 8
outside. And then, here s what happened at the court thing. So they don t expand upon that and therefore no American actually really knows about it. So there are a lot of things going on. It s just nobody knows. AS: Does that really frustrate you a lot? MV: It frustrates me in the sense that it that people can be really stubborn about what they want to see and things like that. And they can also be a little bit they can rant about how they talk to me and ask me or ask me why Muslims don t say anything. But I figure it s just one of those things like just like I don t mean to equate my situation to like the Civil Rights movement or anything like that. I don t think it s quite to that degree. Actually, I don t think it s near that degree. But it s kind of like that. It took a really long time for people to accept black immigration to different places. And PM: You are talking several generations. MV: Right, yeah. It s several generations, and the reason why they didn t accept it at first is because it just wasn t the norm. And it wasn t something they wanted. They were comfortable where they were. They didn t want to change. And I think that s that always happens. But as we grow older, societies become more liberal and more accepting. And eventually, I think there is going to be some time where everybody just going to like each other regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or anything like that. AS: So do you think that portrayals of Islam have changed since 9/11? MV: Excuse me? AS: Portrayals of Islam change since 9/11? MV: I personally didn t know what it was like before 9/11. I mean I was only eleven years old. Actually, I was twelve, but I wasn t very old. And I didn t really watched the news or anything. I would say that people were more aware of what Islam was, but in a lot of ways they were not portrayed a very happy image of what Islam was. Primarily because 9/11 got a lot of news of course, because it was a very terrible attack. So the terrorists just used that as a way for them to just to keep on propagating more hate against the U.S. As resulting just got worse. AS: Do you have questions? PM: Not right now. When you go home is your family happy that you have embraced, you know, so much of your heritage here on campus? Or do they think that s not such a good idea? MV: Yeah. PM: You know what I m saying? MV: I know exactly what you re saying. PM: Yeah. MCCA Interview 2010 9
MV: They actually don t think it s a very good idea. They don t think it s very safe for me. PM: So you could put yourself at risk perhaps? MV: Well, they think I am. I don t really think I am that much. I have a little bit more faith in people than my parents do, but they have a little bit less faith in the government than the people I think. I think they are really more afraid of the government than other people. I tend to look at it statistically. People say things a lot of time. They write editorials saying start organizations, and they don t all get detained or something for mysterious reasons. And I certainly have never gotten checked at airports or anything like that like the typical Muslim thing to do is to get checked out at airports and also get, you know, asked interrogated by the FBI or something. But I ve never experienced any sort of thing like that. I think maybe because my last name is German. It s not Arabic. I think if I were Muhktar Ibanasalaf blah, blah, blah, you know I think it would be a little bit different. But they both my uncle and my mom have said things like, you know, Don t bond yourself too much with the conservative Muslims. Don t, you know, say too many things - kind of stay to yourself and everything. You can make friends and everything like that but don t get too serious. (chuckling) And they do that with the right attention because they re just worried about me in general. But I don t know. I feel like it s one of those things. It s a religious duty to tell people religion and also defend it. And it s also a religious duty to condemn the attacks on So Islam is a religious duty. It s okay for me because, you know, if something happened or whatever, then that would just be me being a good person and everything. And as a result, something happen, but it s always fine in my religion because I did what my religion told me to do. And so that s why it s okay. PM: Could you describe your interaction with people here at the Emory campus as is it like 80% among the Muslim people on campus and 20% non or 50/50? Do you know what I m saying? MV: Yeah. PM: Just for you personally, you ve made choices as you ve have navigated the campus and you probably found a comfort zone, and so could you describe that for us? M: Sure. Yeah, I would tell you something similar to that. Most of my friends are Muslims. I, in fact, live in a house with three other Muslim housemates. PM: I wondered if you MV: So we all I don t know. It s less disagreements in the house, really. PM: Yeah. MV: My freshman year I lived with somebody. He went out and partied, and one time he came back drunk and stuff. And I ve never been in that position where I had to like take of somebody like that. And I just I don t know it s not very kind of a hassle to have to worry about that. And then, my sophomore year I roomed with a Muslim, but his sweet mates were not Muslim. And they went out, and they partied and things like that. And I MCCA Interview 2010 10
don t know. There a lot of awesome things about being Islam is being really clean like Muslims just like to be clean. It s traditional to be really clean. Because back in the day, you know, like people we didn t have the same kind of hygiene as before. And so it kind of, you know, Muslim communities back in the day really had high amounts of hygiene, you know. They used a stick called the muswaa stick that was used for brushing your teeth, and it contains certain minerals, I don t know, or something that actually do help your teeth. And PM: Before the toothbrush. MV: Right, before the toothbrush. And, you know, so typically Muslims tend to be cleaner than your average non-muslim. PM: Especially in your college years. AS: It s not always a high priority. MV: And of course, if you re inebriated, you won t think about being clean. So, you know it s always better for somebody to not be inebriated. PM: Not that attentive. MV: But it might actually be like, you know, not just Muslim people are really clean, just like religious people are typically cleaner than non-religious people. (chuckling) And so there s just easier to live with, you know. If I of course have really good strong Christian friends or strong Jewish friends, they would also be fun to live with and everything because they still hold the same moral standards as I do. And but that typically that s I interact with mostly Muslims. I do have some non-muslims good friends. Just when they go and party and things like that, I don t really have anything to do with them. But PM: But it would be more because you are interested in business and you re pursuing certain studies and things together so MV: Right. Well, you know, I have to interact with them sometimes. PM: Yeah, yeah. MV: But there are really good people to interact with a lot of the times. One of things about being with a bunch Muslims is that a lot of times, you know sometimes they can be too conservative and some said you don t want to have any fun or they want to kind of have lame fun where is like AS: (chuckling) MV: It s kind of weird concept. It s weird concept because, you know, a friend of mine were talking about it. And we re kind of on the same level of like religious devoutness or practicing or anything PM: And perhaps this is the time in your life when having fun is kind of at, you know. When you can get real serious after MCCA Interview 2010 11
MV: Exactly, exactly. But my friend and I were talking about it, and he was like, Have you ever noticed that the conservatives just tend to be really, I don t know, kind of lame? Like with their telling jokes and things like that? And they are actually pretty lame. (chuckling) MV: most of the time. And, I don t know. And so, you know, a lot of times non-religious people will be much cooler to hang out with sometimes. And so, I do have some really good friends that are non-muslims, but most of the time I hang out with Muslims. Some of them are lame so they re really fun to hang out with. PM: We have interviewed some pretty pretty sharp and zippy people so far. AS: Yeah. PM: So, yes, so. Yeah. MV: It s really the far conservative people tend to be not too much fun to hang out with, but I really enjoy my best friends and everything. PM: well that would be probably be true of the most conservative aspect of any religion. You know when you take it to, you know, level then you re eliminating MV: Doing certain things. Saying certain things. PM: And that temptation would be evil. The world can, you know AS: Well, I was interested when you said your family is not where you would like them to be with your interaction with the Muslim world. Why do you think they feel that you might be in danger? MV: Once again the media. The media talks about constantly about on both sides like people get detained and things like that. People like to hear that other people get detained. It s just one of those things. I forgot what the word is, I think it s in German, that describes that phenomenon where people just like to see catastrophe and see bad things happening and stuff. But it s it s just one of those things, you know. It s my mom and my uncle they re very caring for me and stuff. They don t see any harm in me not saying anything, because then I just won t be in any danger at all, you know. The percentage of me something happening to me will be much less. Of course, I don t know. This tends to happen with all generations, you know. When they re younger, they get they re really, really outgoing and they do lots of things. In the sixties, you saw people always a lot of activists and everything. And there s always college students. They were like sixty year olds. And so when you get older and everything, you become much more tame. I guess, I don t know, maybe older people are tired, and they don t want to like (chuckling) MCCA Interview 2010 12
MV: They don t they aren t bustling with energy to go and do something crazy. And so from their point of view, it s better to safe than to be than to do something crazy. And I think that s the primary motivator behind my mom and my uncle. AS: Did your dad feel the same way or no? MV: No, actually my dad is kind of a different specimen of human being. He s just he pretty much supports everything that I do no matter what it is as long as it s progressing myself intellectually. And he ll we have discussions all the time political discussions, religious discussions, and everything, and he And I basically know how he feels about everything, and he s in pretty much in line with how I feel so if I am fighting for something or doing something like intellectually stimulating then he s going to support it. And that s pretty much the bottom line. AS: Do you think your relationship with him is different because he s a convert to Islam? MV: No, I wouldn t say so. PM: He s just a man. (chuckling) MV: He s just a different type of person. AS: Yeah. MV: He s much more relaxed, much less worried. He doesn t have a lot of anxiety about these kinds of things. He puts a lot of faith in me and my ability to make a decision. And that s basically where all that stems from. PM: Do you have brothers and sisters at all? MV: Yeah, I have one brother. PM: And is his life a lot like yours or is it different? MV: No, it s a little bit different. He s completely opposite from me. So he s very individualistic. He s he likes to keep to himself. He works on music and everything. He isn t he goes to college and everything. He goes to Georgia Tech, but he s not really involved with the Muslim community there things like that. So he s more, I don t know he has a perspective that he thinks, or something, really deep inside everything. He tries to find it like that, but he is a very deep thinker. And he he s definitely not like me. His life is very unstructured compared to my life where I plan out my future, you know, fifty years in advance. So it s kind of how I do things. He does things very differently. PM: Interesting. So you are here in Atlanta. Both of you wound up in Atlanta, but at two different schools and two very different schools. Emory and Georgia Tech, you know. Even though they re only miles a part, they are so different. Very interesting. AS: Alright, I m going to ask you the last and most difficult question if you re ready for it. (chuckling) Everyone has the most trouble with this one, but what would you most like someone who is not a practicing Muslim to know about Islam? MCCA Interview 2010 13
MV: That is a good one. (chuckling) MV: The one I like most or the what do I want most A lot of times what I ll do is I will go online and kind of have online discussions with people about these sort of issues, and for some reason online people when they re not face-to-face their true opinions come out. So they tend to be a lot harsher and a lot less forgiving in terms of how they want to talk to me. And so as a result, I ve got in a very deep insight on what people truly think people who don t Islam, what they truly think about it and everything. And so the question was what I like what I want people to know about Islam Is this just an average person or is this person who doesn t like Islam particularly? AS: A non-practicing Muslim. MV: Just a non-practicing Muslim? AS: Anybody? Answer it twice if you like. MV: A non-practicing Muslim? Or a non-muslim? AS: A non-muslim? MV: Oh, okay. (chuckling) MV: Okay, okay, okay. I think probably people tend to get closer to those who are most like them, and I found that because people, you know, joined these different organizations and everything. I joined MSA. I joined Arab Cultural Association. I m half Arab. And I started other organizations and things like that. Other people they like politics, and they join an organization where people also like politics like them and stuff and are on the same political spectrum. So people tend to feel more comfort when they find commonality with others, and so the one thing that I want to stress is that Islam is not very different from the two close religions. We call People of the Book, and it s just Christianity and Judaism. It s very close to those. We have the same exact stories in our holy book as they do in theirs things like that same moral structure. If only they could get passed what they see in the media, what they see people doing, and get to know the religion for it s for just being a religion. I think they would be more comfortable about it. What makes them not comfortable is that somebody tells them that Islam is bad or something they see on TV that Osama Bin Laden is doing something or Al-Queda is doing something. PM: The concept of holy war. Yeah. MV: Right, yeah. And, you know, that invades their mind and kind of poisons them in a way. If I could just take a non-muslim and just kind of instill in their mind magically that Islam is very like the way I view Islam being common to the other two religions and everything, then I feel like there would be much more community in the world. I would MCCA Interview 2010 14
probably do the most good out of anything that I could get somebody to know in particular. AS: I do have one more question if you don t mind. So that when you are online talking to people, you find a lot they re a lot more frank. What kind of things do they say? MV: Well, a lot of times they just attack my religion like specifically they are a little bit more well researched than the average Joe on the street. And so I take that as a way for me to kind of show people about what my religion is all about kind of take out any or deflect arguments against my religion and also to learn more about my own religion because sometimes they give me arguments that I can t really answer right away. So I talk to my dad and everything, and my dad kind of explains it more. And then, I can come back to them and explain it in a way where they really can t say anything to me back to me. And so it s like at the same time like because they are being more frank I don t take it as personally as if somebody out in my face saying something to me. So it also works in that respect. So I it s easy for me to respond to people like that, and a lot of times I take it as a confrontational thing. But I try to resolve it and everything. So typically the conversation gets into a resolution. It doesn t turn into going back-andforth and just not ending. AS: Do you feel like you re changing their opinions? MV: Sometimes. AS: Okay. PM; Muhktar, this has been a great opportunity. AS: Yes, thank you so much for your time. MCCA Interview 2010 15