The Huffington Post:
She looked the part of a fine arts major, with the gold spangle in her nostril, the streak of purple in her jet-black hair, and her bespoke clothing. Her diminutive form and high voice gave no hint of the feisty energy that would pour forth whenever she spoke up in the weekly meetings of the Student Interfaith Council at the University of Southern California. Born to Pakistani immigrant parents, she didn’t fit anybody’s stereotype of a Muslim woman.

When she showed up in my office at the start of her second year, she was wearing the hijab. She found herself going deeper than ever with her religion during the summer. She told me of profound mystical moments she experienced while doing the five daily prayers. She put on the hijab to reflect this new seriousness about her faith. But it was not just any Muslim woman’s headscarf. “Some of the other Muslim girls give me a hard time, Jim,” she told me. “They think my scarf isn’t modest enough.” The one she wore was a bold blue with golden threads and tassels that matched her nostril pin. “But I ask them, where in the Koran does it say anything about what hijab should look like?”

At the University of Southern California, we see a lot of women in hijab. They usually conform to the style that prevails in the countries of their origin. But this young woman’s hometown is Portland, Oregon. In a country where the term Muslim covers a multitude of cultures and sects, there is no one way to cover one’s hair, nor is there an automatic assumption that one will. She made up her own way.

It may be a Muslim who chooses our next president.

American-born Muslim young people, growing up post 9/11, are more marked as just-plain-Muslims than they are as Ismaili or Sunni or Shia or Ahmadjyya or Sufi Muslims. Or Turkish or Syrian or Jordanian or Saudi Muslims. They’ve been thrust into a wide realm of choice by historical circumstance. There’s no one way to do their faith, and for some this opens the door to creative expressions of their religion.

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