The Story of Amwaj

I met Amwaj at a summer program at Carleton College in Minnesota. I arrived several hours earlier than she did. Before her arrival, I saw the name tag on our dorm door. This is a Muslim name, so she must wear hijab.

But when she finally appeared, she had her hair down, immediately challenging the assumption I had made.

We were roommates for the next three weeks of the program, both taking the same course about the Renaissance, though in different cohorts. As we got to know each other, she told me a lot about her life.

Amwaj was born and raised in D.C., and her parents divorced when she was young. Her parents were both deeply religious: her father is a Palestinian-Jordanian Muslim living in the States, while her mother is a devoted Christian from Montana. Her childhood was split in half; sometimes, she would follow her mom to church and sing Christian songs about Jesus, while at other times she would accompany her dad to practice Islam, praying at the mosque while celebrating Islamic festivals.

Her relationship with religion was especially complicated. Though she had always identified herself as a Muslim, her father and mother would frequently find themselves at odds over her religious upbringing.

“My dad was more concerned with me being raised in the wrong religion by my mom, while my mom was more afraid of making me feel pressured in terms of religion. She feared that I was being pressured by practicing Islam.”

The collisions of the two religions could be seen throughout Amwaj's life. She claimed to find beauty in Islam, particularly in wearing the hijab. When she was in fifth grade, she would secretly wear the hijabs that her father brought from Jordan to school, taking them off just before her mother picked her up after school.

On a day in fifth grade, her mother saw her wearing a hijab to school because she had either intentionally worn it to test her mom's reaction or forgotten to take it off. This agitated her mother, who asserted that wearing a hijab was an act of oppression against women.

Later, her mother officially earned custody after nearly 10 years of battling, so she could not visit her dad anymore. In embracing her religion, she found an indirect way of maintaining that bond despite the physical distance between them. Amwaj continued to wear a hijab now and then; her mother slowly accepted this. By seventh grade, she decided to wear a hijab every day.

“I really, really wanted it. This is what I want, and seventh grade was the big time.”

Amwaj in her hijab.

Amwaj wore a hijab every day, but in an American society where many people still remain Islamophobic, she is viewed as different from others no matter what.

“Throughout this time, my mom eventually got used to it. However, it was still hard for her. Early on during the process, I heard her cry because of me wearing it. For her, it was like her little girl didn't get to wear her shorts while playing sports. But for me, I was like, why can't my mom just love it because I love this?”

One day in ninth grade, her friend, who is interested in Islam, bought Amwaj several hijabs at a market in England as an Eid gift, which caused her mother to burst into anger. Her mother assumed that her friend was trying to intervene and enforce Amwaj's practice of Islam, so Amwaj found herself in a huge altercation with her mother after this incident. She decided to stop wearing the hijab to see what her life would be like without Islamic traditions at the end of ninth grade. She slowly grew more distant from prayer, but occasionally went to Islamic festivals.

When asked about her relationship with her father, whom she has not seen in several years after her mother gained custody, she mumbled, “I feel like I have grown distant from my own religion, but it is still a part of me. My relationship with my father is very much the same as my relationship with my religion.”

Amwaj is currently studying at a small private school in D.C., with a little over 300 students from sixth through twelfth grade, where she established the Muslim Student Union along with several other Muslim students.

Throughout her life, Amwaj often found herself caught between forces larger than herself: her parents’ beliefs, society’s perceptions of Islam, and institutions that made decisions without hearing her voice. Her school becomes an institution where she finds herself powerless. She told me that sometimes the school is a mirror of society. Her school sometimes had policies, such as the yearbook distribution time, that students disagreed with, but they just couldn't do anything about them.

Amwaj also recalled that there was a time when a celebrity donated money to her school, and the school's new athletic center was named after him. The celebrity gave a speech at the school, which Amwaj later googled, realizing that the celebrity is a Trump supporter, a Zionist, and was mentioned once in the Epstein files. 

“You are just helpless; you just couldn't control anything in your life.”

Amwaj at her school prom.

This was the last night I spent with Amwaj at the summer program. After that night, the program would come to an end. She would fly to Montana to visit her grandmother before returning to D.C., while I would fly back to Shanghai. Our conversation ended with these words:

“Sometimes, I do say this quietly to myself now and then: ‘أَشْهَدُ أَلَّا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا ٱللَّٰهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ ٱللَّٰهِ,’ which means, ‘I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’”