It was the night before the first day of 8th grade, and I couldn’t sleep. I lay there thinking about how little I’d been learning in school for the past four years. I thought about how my teachers insulted and hit the students. Then I thought, “If I stay for one more year, I’ll kill myself.”
The summer after 4th grade, my parents decided I needed to go to school at a Musjid, or mosque, across the street from our house. It was legally considered homeschooling. Before that, I went to a charter school.
On my first day of school at Musjid, I discovered there were no other 5th graders, so I started with the 4th graders. When they finally got me a 5th grade book, I had to figure out all the new content on my own. There was no 5th grade teacher.
In Musjid, academic classes were held only two or three times a week, and they were easy. The rest of the time was spent learning Arabic, studying the Quran and the life of the Prophets, and praying. If you disobeyed, teachers hit you with sticks, or with books or their hands. They also gossiped about the kids; I heard teachers calling middle school girls “whores.” I told a teacher something in confidence once, only to find out she’d told other adults.
My family lives in a tight-knit community in Brooklyn with other people from Bangladesh. My parents moved here in their 30s, and my older brother and I were born in New York.
Though my father wasn’t raised religious and my mother had drifted from Islam, they folded themselves into this Muslim community after they arrived in the U.S. My parents say that you can only be comfortable when you’re around your own people.
At the end of my 6th grade I attended the graduation of the high school kids. It was in the fluorescent-lit basement of the Musjid, decorated with party streamers and ripped tinsel. The principal gave each boy a plaque and spoke about the Islamic universities abroad that they would be attending. The girls got certificates, not plaques, and no speeches about their futures.
I looked at the girls in their graduation gowns and wondered: Were they happy? Is this what they went to school for? Could I be content with this life myself?
The Future for Girls
My brother went to Brooklyn Tech, a competitive (specialized) high school, and then to Baruch College. Up until the middle of 7th grade, I thought I had the same freedom to go to a public high school.
My parents had spent about $10,000 on tutoring before my brother took the SHSAT, the test to get into a specialized high school. One evening in October of 7th grade, my dad was watching YouTube and laughing, so I decided to take advantage of his good mood. I asked in Bangla, “Baba, can I go to a tutor? I want to take the SHSAT!”
“Absolutely not. Noshin, ma, you are not leaving the Musjid,” my father said in a warning tone, and I tensed up.
When my father gets angry, he would scream at my brother and me, or hit us with a “beating stick.” He’d get angry and yell, for example, if the water was not filtered. Over something bigger, like not praying, he tended to slap, choke, or beat us with the stick.
I looked down and formally said goodbye, then walked away.
But as afraid as I was of his rage, I was more scared about my future. So over the next two months, I kept asking, “Baba, why can’t I leave Musjid school?”
“Being with Americans will just make you bad. Also, what would the community say? They’ll think so low of you for leaving an Islamic path to go to a secular one.”
“But what about what I think? What about my future?”
“Your future is being a housewife and a mother. You’re a woman, you can’t work.”
“Ma is smarter than you! She got a master’s degree while you barely passed high school.”
“And where did she end up? In a kitchen. Now stop asking me, I won’t change my mind. You don’t have a future out there. I love you.”
My eyes filled with tears. I didn’t even know what I was crying about: his erasing my mother’s hard work; his not letting me go to tutor; my predetermined future as a housewife; or that he could say all of that and still claim to love me.
“Professor”
Since I was 4, my parents and aunts and uncles gave me money at Eid. A month after my dad’s first refusal, I got up in the middle of the night and counted the money in my savings envelope: $2,000.
A few days later, I went to see a tutor from the community whom everyone called “Professor.”
“Salam,” I said, entering his office, “How much does the SHSAT course cost?”
He looked at me and laughed. “Where are your parents?”
“They sent me; they didn’t have time to come themselves.”
“$2,500 usually, but if you pay right now it’s 20% off.”
I had the exact amount, which felt surreal. “I can do that,” I said and threw the envelope of bills on the desk.
“OK, come on Saturday at 1:30.”
I had 10 months until the entrance exam. I told my parents I had started taking an extra class at the Musjid on Saturday afternoons, but soon Professor mentioned our sessions to my father at daily prayer.
I pray in the staircase where other students are rumored to have sex; I say no to school lunch because the meat isn’t halal; and I skip hangouts where kids drink alcohol. I can be Muslim on my own accord.
I was caught in the rebellious act of getting tutored. I expected rage, but my parents let me and Professor continue. Despite their desire to keep me in a traditional woman’s role, my parents respected learning. They also seemed to like showing off my smarts to other parents.
Professor’s SHSAT prep class had 12 students, 10 boys and 2 girls. He focused on math and ELA and gave me worksheets to do at home to catch up with the others. I used the 10 months to the fullest. Besides my sessions with Professor, I tried all the test prep books. Doing the worksheets taught me math concepts I was missing at school, like probability and inequalities.
My parents said I could leave Musjid only if I got into a specialized high school. My brother said he’d buy me the newest iPhone if I got in.
I took the SHSAT in November, with the other homeschooled students. Later, when I logged into the SHSAT website, I looked in the mirror at someone who got herself into Stuyvesant, the city’s most competitive school! I started jumping up and down and silently screaming.
Islam on My Terms
When I told my dad, he jumped up, and for the first time in my life, he kissed my cheek. My mother was silent: Till this day she has never congratulated me. I sent my brother a picture of my results and he responded with “No wayyy congrats.” (He didn’t have the money to buy me the iPhone.)
But I still had to convince my parents to let me go. My dad called a family meeting. My brother was on my side.
My father presented his case for keeping me in the Musjid. “You’ve shown us you can work, but will you continue being a good Muslim after going to public school? Do you really believe you’ll still pray, read the Quran, and stay modest? That you won’t get wrapped up into drugs?”
“Being Muslim is about yourself, not others nor your surroundings,” I responded. I had learned in Islamic studies that a religious person can stay that way even in the wild. And from observing adult behavior, I knew not everyone in a Musjid is righteous.
My dad then turned to the community, that is, the men with the highest status. He told them that he worried about the bad influences at Stuyvesant. Most of the men agreed with my father that New York City outside the community was dangerous.
The assistant principal of the school, however, said to me, “Stand for prayer in the night and ask Allah where you should go. Maybe going to Stuyvesant is what will bring you closer to God. We’re His servants, we don’t know.”
So that night, I prayed, “Oh Allah, guide me to wherever I can be a better student, Muslim, and person.”
That was more than two years ago. Now I’m starting my third year at Stuyvesant. Neither the transition nor the school were or are easy for me, but I can see a future I couldn’t see before. I now believe I can go to college and be a nurse to help others. Because of the way I grew up, I want to be a spark of light for someone, anyone, who might feel silenced.
My parents aren’t physically abusive anymore, and they let me have a job and friends from different backgrounds. Now, I can have conversations with them about what I want, and they understand I work hard because I care about my future. My mother says we should stay within the Musjid because, “When you listen and see others praying, you end up doing it too. That’s how you stay religious.”
But that is not true for me. In my big American high school, I feel closer to Allah than I ever did in Musjid. I pray in the staircase where other students are rumored to have sex; I say no to school lunch because the meat isn’t halal; and I skip hangouts where kids drink alcohol. I can be Muslim on my own accord.
In the Musjid, I was taught that it’s against Islam for a girl to stay out late or to plan her own future. But I’m still Muslim when I stay out later to do extracurriculars like writing or make college plans. I don’t care about Allah any less because I’m making friends and talking to guys for class. It took Stuyvesant for me to learn things like this.
The toxic elements of my Musjid actually pushed me away from Islam, as the negativity and religion started to blend as one. I found myself lying and pretending to stay safe.
Today, I am free to pull Islam out of the words taught to me and make my own belief that grows as I grow.
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