When Arjumand Shafiq was 14 years old, her father told her it would always be her choice to wear a hijab. 

She was considering wearing a headscarf as the next step in her religious journey, but wanted to ask her father questions to learn more about the practice and risks involved. 

"You can wear one if you want to," Shafiq remembered her father saying. "It's your choice, but there are bad people out there." 

A few years later when Shafiq, a chemistry and biochemistry sophomore, was a senior in high school she decided to wear a hijab, but worried what becoming visually Muslim might mean for her safety. 

According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, about four in ten Muslims (38%) — including about half of Muslim women (49%) — said on a typical day there is something distinctive about their appearance, voice or clothing that people might associate with Muslims. Of those whose appearance is identifiably Muslim, 64% said they have experienced at least one type of discrimination. Among Muslims who say they do not have a distinctively Muslim appearance, fewer report these types of experiences (39%).

"When I became aware of Islamophobia, or it was something that I was truly afraid of for myself, was … when I decided to put on the hijab," Shafiq said. "Beforehand, I wasn't really too worried about it, to be honest, because it was like, I look American enough. Why does it matter?" 

Widely held beliefs about Islam, which tend to generalize and simplify the religion, cause many Muslims to face judgment and hostility due to some people’s negative perceptions, particularly towards those who are visually so, Shafiq said. 

‘Make sure you ask a person who's wearing the hijab to see if they feel oppressed.’

Some of the most pervasive generalizations about Islam, Shafiq said, are that the religion is misogynistic and Muslim women are forced to wear a hijab. 

"Those people out there who are being oppressed, like in strictly enforced (and) government-ruled areas, or the people who are getting told that Muslims are bad because of the experiences that they had with some of them, …  it hurts inside a little bit, because it's just kind of like, that's not true," Shafiq said.

David Vishanoff, OU religious studies professor who teaches an Introduction to Islam class, said Islam is interpreted differently all over the world. In some countries, such as Iran, Islamic law is strictly enforced and it is required that Muslim women wear the hijab. In other regions, Muslim women, such as Shafiq, may have a completely different experience. 

"That was something that my dad never taught," Shafiq said. "He never forced my family to wear the hijab. He just wanted us to be safe."

While many view the hijab as a symbol of oppression, Shafiq said wearing the headscarf has allowed her to have more freedom.

"It's just one less thing I have to worry about in terms of being in public," Shafiq said. “I wanted something new (and) to do something more than what I had been doing (in) the past."

The hijab may represent something different for people on opposite sides of the globe, Shafiq said, which is why it’s important to recognize Muslims as individuals with their own experiences. 

"Make sure you ask a person who's wearing the hijab to see if they feel oppressed by it or why they choose to wear it," Shafiq said.

Ashton Cook, a freshman economics major who took Vishanoff's fall 2022 Introduction to Islam class with Shafiq, said she used to assume women wearing hijabs were forced to because of their religion. 

After taking the class and talking with Shafiq, Cook realized this is not always the case. 

"Some women wear it as a personal choice, and I think sometimes they can even think of that as empowering because they really take modesty seriously and they want to wear that," Cook said. "(Vishanoff's class) took away one of my assumptions about that, just assuming that everybody feels like that."

‘They were trying to keep it so I wouldn't get hurt.’

While discrimination against Muslims existed before 2001, Vishanoff said that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks there was an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted ahead of the 20-year anniversary of 9/11 in 2021, found that 53% of Americans have unfavorable views toward Islam, compared with 42% who have favorable ones. 

In a 2017 survey, Pew Research Center found that 41% of U.S. adults believed Islam encourages violence more than other religions and 35% believed there is a fair amount of extremism among U.S. Muslims.

"Muslims have been systematically, negatively portrayed by a lot of people for a long time," Vishanoff said. "When we hit 9/11, (that) was a big turning point." 

Though Shafiq, who was born in 2003, was not alive during the attacks she has grown up under the shadow of 9/11. 

For years, Shafiq said her father, who moved to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1999, couldn’t find employment because of discrimination. 

"He had just graduated from college in Pakistan and was moving to the United States for a place of opportunity (and) to get married," Shafiq said. "He went to the U.S. without any problems, got citizenship and everything, but after 9/11 happened, … it was really hard to find a job (or) even find housing."

For nearly 10 years, Shafiq said her father worked for their cousin's business in order to save enough money to own his own store. 

"Even after that long of a period of time, the only way he was able to get that job or get those businesses was through family," Shafiq said. "Otherwise, without it, who knows how long it would have taken?"

A 2006 study conducted at the University of Tulsa, which surveyed 147 Muslims in Oklahoma, found that 91.2% believed religious discrimination against Muslims in the U.S. had increased since 9/11, 0.6% believed it had decreased and 8.2% said it remained the same. 

Despite the hardship their family faced, Shafiq said her parents did their best to shield her and her sister from the effects of Islamophobia.

"My parents tried to make sure that I was always just kind of like an American kid. You know, just have the same toys as everyone, have the same phone and watch the same TV shows (and) hang out with white people," Shafiq said. "They were trying to keep it so I wouldn't get hurt."

'(Islam is) an ongoing historical argument'

The perception that Islam is a misogynistic and violent religion dates back to the Middle Ages and originated with the Quran, the religious book of Islam, and the prophet Muhammad, Vishanoff said.

"The Quran and the Muslim biographies of the Prophet Muhammad do contain material that was easily perceived and interpreted by Western readers as violent and misogynistic," Vishanoff said. "The Prophet Muhammad was a male religious and military leader in a patriarchal conflict within a society. … There it is, violence and patriarchy are right there."

It boils down to how the messages are interpreted, Vishanoff said. Some interpret the text literally and use it to justify discrimination against women, while others say the prophet's message is to disrupt patriarchy.

"Everything is complex," Vishanoff said. "The misperception is to think of Islam as one thing or another rather than an ongoing historical argument in which Muslims have throughout history argued with each other."

According to the Pew Research Center, 64% of U.S. Muslims say there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of Islam, while 31% say there is only one way.

Among U.S. Christians, the balance is similar with 60% saying there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of Christianity and 34% believing there is only one way, according to the Pew Research Center.

During his class, Vishanoff said he often sees students wrestling with this complexity and how to interpret Islam with their own modern beliefs and morals. 

Growing up in Yukon, the nearest mosque 30 minutes away, Shafiq said she didn’t have a large Muslim community around her, which is part of why she chose to take Vishanoff's class to learn more about Islam. 

According to a 2017 Oklahoma Muslims Demographic Survey conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, Oklahoma, Muslims make up approximately 1% of Oklahoma's population and there are only 12 Islamic centers and mosques in the state, six of which are located in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

"There wasn't a single Muslim (in my school). Me and my sister were the only two out of … two grades," Shafiq said. "So my dad was the main person that had an influence on me. … The only things I really knew about (Islam) were just from what my dad had taught me."

Before taking Vishanoff's class, Shafiq said she believed there was only one true Islam, which was a Middle Eastern version of the religion. 

"Reading through the Quran and going through the class and just kind of taking note about the different types of Islam there are made me realize that I'm not just bound to believe in one God that someone else envisioned," Shafiq said. 

Throughout the course, Shafiq and Cook, who is a Christian, had frequent conversations about their religions and how to follow their faiths on a secular campus. 

"We're kind of in similar situations because we're a part of a belief system that's contrary to popular culture. There's a lot of things in Christianity and Islam that we share as moral guidelines for our life," Cook said. "I definitely took that away too, like, hey, that's a similarity between Christian and Muslim students."

Vishanoff and Shafiq said education and building relationships are the keys to improving relations between Muslim and non-Muslim people.

According to a Public Religion Research Institute report, most Americans say they know little about the Muslim religion. As of 2015, 57% of those polled said they do not know much and 26% said they know nothing at all about Islam and its practices, compared to 16% who say they know a lot. 

Those with less education were also reported to have less favorable views toward Islam, according to the Pew Research Center. 

"If you're not desiring from the get-go to get beyond the shallow knowledge you have of another person, and you're clinging to that stereotype, which many people in Oklahoma are, then you're refusing to treat them as a human being who can speak for themselves," Vishanoff said. "American society as a whole needs to develop bigger ears (and) become better listeners."

This story was edited by Karoline Leonard and Teegan Smith. Nikkie Aisha copy edited this story.