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In just a few months, Ibtihaj Muhammad — a sabre fencer and a Muslim woman — will be making history in Rio De Janeiro by being the first hijabi to represent the United States in the Olympic Games. Ibtihaj serves as an inspiration and shines a spotlight on many female Muslim athletes that have made great strides in their sport and shattered outdated stereotypes designed to hold us back.
When Kaltoum Alibrahimi moved to New Jersey from North Carolina in 2009, her freshman year of high school, she started wearing the hijab. The Moroccan-American had trouble finding a sport to participate in that wouldn’t jeopardize her commitment to wearing the hijab, but after seeing many young Muslim women on the tennis team, she gave it a shot.
“I felt very hesitant to try out for the basketball team, because I thought that’d be absurd to explain to everyone about having to wear long sleeves and leggings under pants or shorts,” Kaltoum told me. “So, sophomore year I met the high school tennis coach and started the on the team.”
She quickly made her way up the ladder by moving from playing doubles to second singles when competing at tennis meets. In her Junior year, she made co-captain. When I asked her about some of the difficulties of being a female Muslim athlete, she mentioned how it was extremely hard to fast during Ramadan — something many Muslim athletes have found a dilemma with when it came to big and important competitions in their athletic career.
“It was extremely hard for myself and a few other girls to keep the fast, but we did our best,” Kaltoum added. “I don’t think I would have been able to without a network of other Muslim-Americans on the tennis team with me.”
But like Ibtihaj, and many other Muslim women, Kaltoum felt that she was treated differently for wearing the hijab. Often times the Islamophobia isn’t so blatant, but prejudice is still a main factor. Many hijabi athletes feel that society sees them as a hindrance and doubt their athletic ability
“Whenever we’d meet with another team before a math, and my coach introduced me as the captain, the other (probably all-white) team heard my name or saw me with a hijab, they almost always looked surprised,” Kaltoum said.
Laila Khalil played basketball and softball for her high school team in Arizona. During middle school and high school, her coaches were hesitant in letting her play since being a hijabi she wouldn’t wear the uniform the same way her teammates would. Eventually she found pants and shirts that matched the color of the jerseys, but that didn’t stop from the occasional unnecessary comments from the referees.
“There were occasionally referees who would say that I’m not wearing the uniform or that no hats were allowed,” Laila said. “Mostly there were a lot of questions about ‘why do wear that if it’s so hot,’ and ‘do you wear that thing even in the shower?’”
Alaa Murad also felt alienated for wearing the hijab as a figure skater. Being a hijabi figure skater is difficult when a lot of the performance scores involve costumes, and Alaa would often have teammates and coaches have doubted her success in the sport. Alaa’s mother — who was a former gymnast for the Egyptian National Team — refused to allow her daughter’s decision to wear the hijab to hinder her chances in succeeding her figure skating endeavors.
“My coach, whom I love, was very wary of my mom (who wore an abaya and hijab) and didn’t trust her to make me good costumes for competitions,” Alaa told me. “I ended up having the best costumes on the team, because my mom is awesome. [My coach] ended up completely trusting her and even asking for her advice.”
Zainab Ismail, a movement therapist, says the way society reacts to the hijab is a big factor — but not the only factor — of many Muslim women sports enthusiasts. Ismail converted to Islam seven years ago and specialized her work with many Muslim female athletes.
When I asked what efforts needs to be made to encourage more young Muslim girls and women to participate in competitive athletics, she said it required involvement from both the Muslim and non-Muslim community.
“First and foremost, Muslim women need to have resources that are from other Muslim female instructors. Then, there needs to be fitness incorporated into the community whether it’s in Sunday school or through mosque sports program that encourage at young age,” Ismail said. “It’s not just about teaching the Qu’ran. It’s important to teach about their inner-self, but also their outer-self.”
With many global fashion companies like Dolce & Gabbana and Uniqlo shifting to the Muslim consumer market, Ismail said that if more athletic wear companies follow the model it would encourage more young Muslim women to become competitive athletes.
“Some companies like Nike and Lulu Lemon should be encouraged to adhere into modesty apparel,” Ismail added. “Those companies alone can offer great solutions to clothing for Muslim women who honor a certain level of modesty.”
While Ismail is certainly right that many female Muslim athletes face obstacles in finding a balance between adhering to their commitment to the hijab and not having their hijab-ified uniforms interfere with their performance, not all female Muslim athletes are hijabis.
More importantly, Muslim women within the competitive athletic field have truly exemplified how diverse and complex our existence is to society.
Until recently, I have been an athlete for almost my entire life. For fourteen years, I have been a competitive swimmer. I’ve qualified and competed at the Missouri Grand Prix with Olympians like Ryan Lochte, Rebecca Soni, Garrett Weber-Gale, and Eric Shanteau. For most of my childhood, I was sent off to swim camps where Olympian Michael Phelps and legendary coach Eddie Reese. When I was 14 years old, I even qualified and represented Morocco in a junior Arab championship meet in Casablanca where I competed against swimmers from countries like Jordan, Lebanon and even Iraq.
Before graduating high school, I was just a few seconds shy from making the Olympic Trial cut for the 100m Backstroke ( but dropping those few seconds off in the sport is harder than one can imagine), and eventually signed on to a NCAA Division I college swim team.
But my collegiate swimming experience didn’t last long when I was forced to quit when the team would engage in hazing rituals — that are contradictory to my religious convictions — and I refused. With a blink of an eye, with the help of inflexible NCAA by-laws and neighboring collegiate swim coaches refusing to let me transfer, my swimming career was over.
There’s this notion that Muslim women are raised by their parents to be oppressed, married off young, and dependent on men. It’s true that a patriarchal structure is embedded within Muslim culture — just like many other societies — but it’s lazy and problematic to assume that women do not have their own self-agencies. Moreover, it’s even more damaging to assume the parents of Muslim women don’t have the best interest of their daughters.
My father and mother have spent years, time driving and the limited money they have to ensure that I could succeed in my swimming career in hopes to pay for my college. They have more than willingly paid for the $500 Speedo technical suits (that are only good for 3-5 races to drop milliseconds off) when my coaches pressured me into doing so for big championship meets. So it was disheartening to see all those sacrifices go to waste when my college swim team refused to respect my religious principles.
There’s also this misconception that non-hijabi Muslim women who engage in sports aren’t as religious or are more “modern.” This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Growing up with devout Muslim parents, I still fasted during Ramadan — despite competing in some of the most important championship meets. It did get tiresome to constantly spit water out while swimming to avoid breaking your fast.
And one of the main reason my father — the one who been the most encouraging in my athletic career — was rooted in Islam. Prophet Mohammed has encouraged Muslims to teach their children how to swim, wrestle, horseback ride and take up archery.
My dad, a Mixed Martial Arts Coach that has trained UFC fighters and even the first professional transgender MMA fighter, was always a feminist in his beliefs and motivated me to take on sports that even most non-Muslim women would even consider.
In high school, I would join the Rugby team. Eventually with all the years my dad coached me Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai Kick-Boxing, I joined the wrestling team and well earned my respect as a wrestler. Being a Muslim women, I tried to adhere to the modesty by wearing leggings and a long-sleeve shirt underneath my uniform when wrestling against other high school boys.
When we lived in Japan, I used to get piggy-back rides while he was on his way to the Judo dojo. When I was born, he had a dream of me becoming a Judo champion, but then learned there are barely any college scholarships for women in Judo — until he saw how I could hold my breath for a dangerously long time, for a toddler, when I would pick up quarters from the bottom of the community pool — and decided that swimming was the next best option despite the sport being overwhelming white and upper-class.
Often times the most successful ways Muslim parents can ensure their daughters make a space for themselves in society or help them combat Islamophobia is by encouraging them to become athletes and to continue shattering stereotypes. And I think my father has set an example that many Muslim parents can learn from.
Growing up in Morocco — a country infamous for its lack of opportunities for the youth — my father felt like the only way to succeed and make a difference in the country is by making a name for himself as an athlete. The Olympic Games itself is no stranger to making historical and powerful statements for racial justice and peace. So despite running with broken shoes or with barefeet, he became a high-ranking marathon and cross-country runner with college scholarship offers from prestigious American universities until a tragic accident shattered his dream. But regardless, he’s made a name for himself, and has dedicated himself to promote athleticism and sports to several Muslim countries while encouraging female participation.
When discussing young Muslim women and athleticism, it really comes down to for the global community to understand that we are far more complex than the xenophobic narrative of being oppressed or terrorism-prone. Even within the niche of Muslim female athletes, we are diverse and different in both on how our upbringing has influenced our athleticism and experiences on the field.
We are fencers, figure skaters, wrestlers and swimmers. We are hijabi and non-hijabi. We come from Arab, Asian, black, and Hispanic families. We are independent, strong and talented.
This is something that we have shown, through our own actions, for so many years, but it’s now depends if the rest of the world will accept it.
