Me .... as a liberal & Muslim Arab woman

I never complained or tried to strip from my roots as an Arab and Muslim woman, I never saw that as an obstacle because I looked at the full half of the glass and never gave much attention to the other empty half, that’s how I was and will always be. But with time passing and with all the events and moments I had to experience I felt the obligation to clarify the idea of me as a “liberal woman” in the Muslim Arab world.

There are a lot of stereotypes about the liberals in the Muslim world not only women; men as well, beside that we suffer a lot to practice or even express what we believe in, living in conservative society puts a lot of barriers in front of any person who would like to have ideas or live outside the social and religious norms, what gives the image of either oppressed or rebellious person; though that might not be completely true. sometimes it becomes really hard to explain who I am, because I don’t present the usual stereotype of a Muslim Arab woman, for a lot of non-Arabs I create a lot of confusion,  I have been asked A LOT if I am a Muslim and when I say yes then the flood of question overwhelm me, why you don’t wear hejab? Why you are here by yourself? Is your family ok with all of that? Is being a liberal means you don’t practice Islam? And even more questions that I have no space to present here .. but the point is, nobody really understand how liberalism can be combined with Islam because all the world knew about Islam is being an extreme religion, because that’s what most of the Muslims and international media present. For me Islam is part of my identity but it shouldn't define who I really am, I still stress every time that I am pretty much a Muslim, maybe not to conservative Muslims and absolutely not to Extremists, but I can say with confident that I am a liberal Muslim and a Liberal woman, I believe in a peaceful, flexible Islam where everybody should care more about morals and behaviors more than the empty practices, where you do the good to everybody “not only your religious group” because that is what our journey all about, I believe in Islam where the inner good and humanity is more important than praying 5 times a day, where you pay Zakat not because you are obligated but because you want to help others have a decent life. In short, I believe in liberal Islam where what you practice doesn't contradict with who you are as a person and human, Islam brings out the good in you and make you a better person, modest and humble.

For me coming from the Middle East, specially the Arab World, especially specially Yemen is a privilege, because I am the descendent of  one of the greatest and oldest civilization in this world, having the blood of Sheba in my veins make me walk taller, feel more proud of who I am. Though I have this positive attitude that doesn’t mean I didn’t suffer from traditions and social restrictions, usually when people see strong Arab woman they don’t imagine how much I have to go through to be just myself; not only me put a lot of other liberal women, we have to face our families, friends, society and the whole structure to just have our own freedom to choose what is suitable for us, we had to lose in the process a lot of things, things we should allow the society to take away from us but we had to compromise, to get where we are,  sometimes we had to lose the family love and support, sometime we had to lose our loved ones, sometimes we had to lose it all, but the most unfortunate when you have to lose yourself or part of it! Don’t be fooled by my smile or my steel external look because that what every single liberal women I know developed during her life in the Arab world, we had to create a shield to protect ourselves from the world we live in, we had to face traditions and people just to be humans. Though I believe we should carry our heritage with us and never forget our roots but I think of myself as a human first and last, a person who would like to leave a mark in this life and do good. Coming from a place like the middle east give me a sense of obligation to achieve what my ancestors achieved once, it never was enough to just brag about our history and tradition, because traditions come with responsibility; to keep them but  in the same time balance them so they don’t overwhelm our lives with unnecessarily complications, yes we should keep our traditions but without forcing them on everybody, without feeling superior to anyone else, having traditions and long history is not everything; we should keep up with the world and development and don’t allow ourselves to be trapped in the past.

To sum up, being a liberal and Muslim Arab, formed me as a person no different than any other liberal person from any other religious or cultural background, I just needed to do more work to get where other people started, without even they realize how privileged they were to be where they were ... being a liberal doesn’t necessary mean that I am always rebellious, because sometimes I will be but sometimes I won’t, as well doesn’t mean I am oppressed, yes I had to face difficulties and loses as everybody in this planet. I just want to create a balance between who I am as person, who I am as a part of social and religious