By Naaz ModanOne day my daughter will drink air for the first time. And I will wonder if her lungs turned a little blacker from the world we’ve polluted with dying screams and gunpowder. And maybe her heart will constrict from the chains they’ve tied around thousands of her brothers’ wrists. I wonder how she will hear…
By Naaz ModanMarah Bakeer was on her way home from school when she was shot. It was one of those normal days that everyone speaks of after the initial shock of a life-changing event recedes; Marah, 16, left the gates of her high school, boarded the school bus, and stepped off at the stop just outside her…
By Naaz ModanOn Thursday, Laurence Rossignol compared Muslim women who wear the headscarf to the “American negroes” who supported slavery. The French Minister for Women’s Rights’ statement was followed not long after by a similar claim by fashion designer and partner at Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Berge. “We must teach (Muslim) women to revolt, to take their…
By Naaz ModanEgyptianAir Flight 181 was following route from Alexandria to Cairo this morning when it was hijacked by a man said to be wearing a suicide belt. The aircraft landed instead at Lacarta airport in Cyprus, carrying 56 passengers and seven crew members in addition to one EgyptAir security member, who were all held hostage for…
By Naaz ModanIt has been six years since I began wearing the hijab. I still remember fumbling with the sharp pins and struggling to get the folds just right. I still remember that one time my grandmother saw me wearing it for the first time and asked in a strained voice, “But how will you get married?”…
By Naaz ModanThere is a poem in Urdu literature written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz titled Tanhai. For those who do not understand Urdu, this has been roughly translated as “solitude” over the years. However, those who are familiar with the language know it means something entirely different. Tanhai is akin to loneliness, the longing for companionship that…
By Naaz ModanThe sea has stories to tell. Ravenous greed, lost lives and unfettered ambition all tumble among its waves, and, somewhere in between its tumultuous rage and eerie calm, is the story of Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori. He was among the crew of 600 men that voyaged from Sanlúcar de Barrameda port to the…
By Naaz ModanEarly yesterday President Barack Obama announced a plan to permanently shut down Guantanamo Bay, taking another step towards fulfilling a promise he made to the American people at the dawn of his eight years in the Oval Office. Controversial since its inception during the second Bush administration, the detention facility has seen about 780 detainees,…
By Naaz ModanI sit in the same seat of the same bus that I have taken every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the past few months. I usually spend this time watching the passengers and the way their different lives intersect over unexpected conversations. Sometimes I doze off. Today, though, my eyes are glued to the photo…
By Naaz Modan“The moment I love most in my daily life as a doctor is when I arrive at the clinic and see rows of patients waiting to see me. To know that people trust me and that there are so many I may be able to help makes me feel like nothing else — it makes…
By Naaz ModanHalf of me is American. I subscribe to Harper’s Bazaar, come home to a white picket-fence house and revel in my daily Starbucks. But the other half of me lives in India. I slip in and out of my native language, know how it feels to rock back and forth in rickshaws to the point…
By Naaz Modan“It’s not a good thing when you have a family and you are supporting your wife, your kids,” Abdinasser Ahmed told The Denver Post. While this is the story of thousands of immigrants across America, Ahmed’s experience is a little different. He is one of the 190 Muslim workers who were fired late last month…
