Read the review and want to know more about Asma Hasan?

The self-proclaimed “Muslim Feminist Cowgirl” is the author of American Muslims: The New Generation and her latest, Why I Am a Muslim. She has been a columnist for The Denver Post and The Pakistan Link newspapers. Her op-eds have been published in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Beliefnet.com, and The Dallas Morning News among many others. She is also a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel, particularly Hannity & Colmes, From the Heartland with John Kasich, and The O’Reilly Factor. Hasan graduated from the New York University School of Law in May 2001. She is also a 1997 graduate of Wellesley College , magna cum laude and a Durant Scholar.

In an interview with Divanee, here’s what Hasan had to say about her image, being Desi and a feminist, and the future of American Muslim politics.

DM: You’ve dubbed yourself the “Muslim Feminist Cowgirl.” How did you come up with that?

Hasan: After college I took some time off to write my first book, Muslims in America, which was based on my senior thesis. I didn’t think that there was anything out that reflected who Muslims really are in America. What was in literature at the time was that they were either these sort of Amish people, sort of alienated - not part of the mainstream, or that Muslims were terrorists. Nothing really described who I felt I was as a Muslim.

For a long time after I wrote my book, I couldn’t find a publisher. No one was really interested, in the meantime I thought I’d better go to law school, start looking for a real job. While in law school I still kept pitching my book to publishers. Finally I thought, I need to do something that will get people’s attention. So one day while sitting in a cab I thought I should call myself a “Muslim Feminist Cowgirl” because it was a catchy title. Obviously the Muslim part is reflective of my being Muslim, and then the feminist part is my belief that I am a feminist - I believe in equal rights for men and women (sometimes superior for women!) - and then the cowgirl part is from being from Colorado and being independent and self-reliant. I think the American cowgirl is the ultimate symbol of women’s freedom in America and of a woman’s independence.

I figured it would be a sort of fun thing to put in the cover letters to publishers - “please publish my book…I’m a Muslim Feminist Cowgirl…” (laughs)

It just turned out to be one to those titles that people seemed to like a lot. I think part of the reason people like it so much is because it debunks so many stereotypes about being a Muslim and a woman at once.

DM:Growing up as an American, as a Muslim, as a Desi, and as you were saying as a cowgirl and a feminist how have you been able to balance the cultural and ideal differences?

Hasan:I've had three influences in my life - being American, being a Muslim, and being part of Desi South Asian culture. People could say those three things are in conflict with each other, certainly between Islam and Desi culture there is a lot of disagreement. The religion is very much against patriarchy and treating women unequally, there are many aspects of South Asian culture that favor men and are patriarchal. I think on the other hand though, Islam, in its most ideal form really compliments American culture very well - when American culture is living up to it’s ideal.

Many Americans will ask, how can you possibly say that America is at all like Islam? They see Islam as this religion of tormentors and a religion that justifies violence. What I always say is that there is the best of Islam and there is the best of American culture; as Muslims and Americans we struggle to live to the ideals of our belief systems. Even though America is an egalitarian culture we still have Americans who are racist and sexist and engage in discrimination. Likewise, though Islam is a peaceful and moderate religion, we have Muslims that are extremists.

At first glance when you read that I am an American Muslim of South Asian descent you would think there’s lots of conflicting things going on for her. But the thing is I’ve lived it, and I’ve come to my own understanding and found my own balance between them. When you get beyond the surface and you get deep into all of the influences in my life the main purpose behind all of it is just to be a good person - Islam wants you to be a good person, America wants you to be a good person and South Asian culture, in the end, wants to make you a good person.

DM:Have you ever felt any sort of discrimination for being of South Asian descent or being a Muslim woman either here or even, within the Islamic community itself for being too Americanized?

Hasan: Definitely, I’ve felt at times I’ve been discriminated against for being Muslim and because I’m South Asian, more because I’m Muslim. I think most average Americans don’t understand the difference between South Asia and the Middle East, so I can’t say that I’ve been discriminated against on that basis because people don’t really understand it enough to discriminate. (laughs)

But definitely, when I meet people, and they realize that I’m Muslim, they do apply certain stereotypes to me, and they think I’m going to react a certain way. Working in an office, for example, as soon as you say you’re Muslim, everyone wants to know your opinion on the Middle East. It’s sort of difficult, even for me, my area of expertise is not the Middle East, I write about Islam in America. I don’t hold myself out to be a scholar of Islam or a scholar of the Middle East. For me growing up as a South Asian, I didn’t really hear a lot about the Middle East, I heard a lot more about Pakistan and India. We all seem to have to have an opinion on the Middle East, to supply our co-workers as soon as they demand it, we may not really have an opinion on the Middle East, may not want to get involved, but when you’re cornered by people in your office, you give an opinion, you’re branded a certain way, that well that person hates Israel, even if that's not what you said. I think that’s a very subtle form of discrimination we all face, as Muslims.

Within the Muslim community, I definitely face discrimination, because I don’t wear hijab. The vast majority does not wear hijab, nor do they believe that it is required. But a lot of our leadership in our American Muslim organizations do believe that hijab is required. They will only let certain types of Muslim women speak to their organizations. I go to Muslim conventions and events, I look at the speakers and none of them have published two books, none of them have gone to a top five law school, none of them have the resume that I have, not even close. They speak on all kinds of topics, but they would never have me speak in a million years, because I don’t wear hijab, because I’m not subscribing to this bare-minimum standard that in their eyes a woman must have. These are usually men making these decisions. It’s very rare that a Muslim woman wearing hijab says anything to me. Muslim women who wear hijab are very open-minded generally, I feel like it’s the men that push that [hijab] more.

DM:As a desi, you usually have two career choices - medicine or engineering - what did your parents think about your liberal arts major?

Hasan: (laughs) I don’t think my parents knew about engineering because they always pushed lawyer or a doctor. Law was actually my own choice. I enjoyed reading and writing and research and so going to law school was kind of a natural choice. I think for awhile I did want to be a journalist - I worked as a reporter for Pakistan Link, a Pakistani-American newspaper, when I was in college.

Benazir Bhutto was visiting the United States, I really wanted to get an exclusive interview with her, I was young and idealistic, I didn’t realize how these things worked. She was protected by secret service and was giving a speech in Princeton, NJ, which I covered. I knew she was in this one room after her speech, so I hung around out in the hallway outside the room, there were a lot of reporters there. The secret service came out and told everybody to leave and they all left, I just stayed. Little while later she came out of the room and I got a quick little interview from her, a little one-liner. I was so excited that I had snuck past secret service or at least infiltrated them. (laughs) A few days later she went to Washington, D.C. to meet President Clinton and I got to go to the Oval Office with the other reporters. At that point I had had a couple other journalistic experiences, and pretty much felt like I did it all now, I was in the Oval Office and I snuck behind Secret Service.

Around the same time I was taking a class on law, which I thought was really interesting. Somewhere around there is when I decided I wanted to go to law school, and that I had sort of accomplished everything I wanted in journalism. (laughs)

DM: In terms of Muslims going into the media, and getting involved in politics etc, how do you think the Muslim society now is changing, especially the younger generation, do you think it’s changing in dealing with the responsibility with of Islam’s image to the world, and going into media going into politics, getting more involved?

Hasan:Definitely, you see more and more Muslims who are committed and interested in politics and the media because they want to rehabilitate the image of Muslims that people have, they feel like it’s their cause, and they’re sort of less focused on making their parents happy by going to medical school (laughs).

I meet a lot of people who are my generation, who are my age, who are so frustrated with the way Muslims are portrayed in the media, even non-Muslim Desis like Hindu or Sikh, they are frustrated with the news, it doesn’t really say what’s going on in other parts of the world, it doesn’t accurately report things. One of the things I say to them, is it’s our own fault, we never really encourage our kids to go into journalism and media, we don’t encourage our kids to go into filmmaking. There are very few South Asians who are in filmmaking; we’re lucky that one of the biggest filmmakers is this Indian named M. Night Shyamalan, so the one who we have is a heavyweight. I’m sure that there’s some more, but we need more. We need more Muslim artists and more South Asian artists. It’s good that we have doctors, lawyers and engineers because we need professionals, we need them to support the different philanthropic causes and to buy the writing that other South Asians do (laughs).

If you look at the history of America there’s always some group that the rest of society is always dumping on. If you look at Irish immigrants for instance, they went through a lot, even more than Muslims are going through, and at that time overt discrimination was not against the law, there was no EOC then, there would be signs hanging in store windows “Employees Needed (Irish need not apply).” Maybe people in America might have those attitudes towards Muslims or Desis but there’s no signs saying “Desis need not apply.” Part of the story of America is that there are communities that come here that aren’t accepted at first or have difficulties integrating, and eventually become more true to American principles then the people who claim to be “real” Americans have. Look at how much we’re talking about president Reagan, even Democrats are honoring him, he was Irish. There was a time when someone like President Reagan could never have been elected before, he was Irish.

DM:Many young desi women today are dealing with the pressures from family to get married while also trying get an education and pursue a career, what advice would you give them?

Hasan: Just remember that your family wants the best for you. That’s the only reason why they’re encouraging marriage. They’re not trying to get rid of you, and it’s not that they don’t think you’re smart or anything. Traditionally, in most societies, including here in America, marriage is seen as a form of security, as in you’ll have someone to take care of you. So they’re just trying to help you, so don’t be immediately defensive.

One way to deal with the pressure is just wait it out. After about five years or so your family is just going to give up. Like with me, my family has just given up, they’re always hopeful, but they’re not asking all the time, they’ve sort of realized, that’s private thing that’s up to me, and my parents maybe.

If your parents are arranging meetings, go to them, you may end up meeting someone that you really like, and if you don’t maybe the meetings can help you decide what you’re looking for in a life partner. I would do two or three of these meetings. If you don’t any potential, then I would say to the parents, we need a time out, let’s not do anymore meet and greets for a year, or I’m in college now and I want to finish, or I want to get more settled in my career. It is frustrating for your parents to be going on all these meet and greets and never going anywhere, just call a time out to be fair to your parents, and a time limit.

If you notice you’re picking on things like, well he had a unibrow, he seems really hairy. Those are things, that are up to an individual taste of course, but maybe you’re saying these little frivolous things because you really don’t want to get married, maybe you’re just not ready, there’s nothing wrong with that. I would just level with your parents and say, you know what I’m just too immature. Parents love it when kids just say they’re immature, because that’s what parents think all the time. I think your parents will appreciate your forthrightness and your honesty. They’ll appreciate that more than, well he had large feet, or he smells or something like that. That’ll drive them crazy, but if you give them some meaningful feedback, then they’ll appreciate that.

Don’t burn any bridges, don’t be mean to any of the people you meet on the meet-and-greets. In three or four years you may meet them again, and they may be perfect for you. If there is someone you really do like, and you see potential with, than ask your parents to look into it for you. If he's Desi also, your parents and his parents probably have friends in common. You can use the arranged marriage network to your advantage.

DM:Out of all the reasons you spoke about that make you a Muslim what makes you the most proud?

Hasan:I think I’m most proud of Islam’s stance on diversity. The Qur’an was so ahead of its time on so many things. What the Qur’an says about religious and ethnic diversity, it’s almost as if portions of the Qur’an were written today. One part of the Qur’an says - if we wanted to we could have made you all speak the same tongue and all have the same law. He purposely made you different because he wanted to test you. I’m very impressed with that, it’s very powerful to me, and very appealing to me as an American and as a Muslim. We were purposely meant to be different to see if we could get along, to see if we could be a diverse people and not attack each other all the time.

I also really like my chapter on Sufism, Sufism means to me that you should have no regrets in life and everything happens for a reason. Most Muslims believe that too. Sufis take that to another level. If something bad happens to you, something good is going to happen to you next, and you wouldn’t be able to have that good thing happen to you if you didn’t have something bad happen to you before that. I get a lot of comfort from that. It makes life a lot easier to handle, when you realize these things are happening for a reason.

DM:What do you hope your readers get out of your book?

Hasan: I want non-Muslim readers to feel good about Muslims and Islam, and to say that Islam is a very interesting religion, even, feel there are some aspects of the religion that can be applied to their own lives.

For Muslim readers I want them to be really proud of being Muslim, to feel good about themselves, to give themselves a pat on the back, and say hey, Islam is a cool religion. Islam is a fun religion. Islam is a neat religion. I belong to one of the world’s neatest coolest belief systems, and I’m proud of myself and I’m proud that I’m a Muslim. I’m happy to be a Muslim because Muslims are cool!