Champion Newspaper
Written By: Website Administrator, Daniel Beauregard
Categorized in: DeKalb News, Education
Cecilia Kuehnel gets ready to go out in a hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women. Photo by Leela Goshorn
For an entire week Decatur High School senior Cecilia Kuehnel wore a hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women that covers everything but the eyes. She also awoke at 5 a.m. each morning to pray.
“I was praying with hundreds of thousands of people at the same time. It’s really empowering to know that we were all saying the same words with the same message,” Kuehnel said. She also refrained from eating pork and different types of meat—but she isn’t Muslim.
Kuehnel, who has been studying Arabic for the past two years, said she considers herself a Christian. However, for her senior project she decided to live as a conservative Muslim woman for a week, as a social experiment.
“I realized that I can’t learn the language if I don’t know the culture. The senior project opened up this whole opportunity for me—a period of time where I could do anything as long as it benefited the community,” Kuehnel said.
Part of Kuehnel’s project was to give a presentation to a class of seventh graders at Renfroe Middle School about her week masquerading as a Muslim woman. She said she wanted to spread awareness of Muslim culture to the children.
“Nowadays you can’t really afford to be ignorant and you need to know different cultures and ways of life, especially in Decatur,” Kuehnel said.
The students sat quietly in the library at Renfroe Middle, occasionally raising their hands to ask Kuehnel a question about her week. One student asked why she didn’t eat meat. “Because in the Koran it says Muslims are forbidden to eat animals with hooves,” she told him.
Kuehnel told the students that during her week wearing the hijab, every day was like studying for a test because each time she made a mistake saying a prayer in Arabic, she had to start all over.
“One time I was praying and I had my prayer rug facing mecca—you’re not allowed to have cats or dogs in the same room while you’re praying because it’s considered unclean,” Kuehnel told the students. “Before I knew it my cat had laid in front of me on my prayer rug. I had to wash the rug, my hands and my face, before I could pray. I missed about two cycles of prayer and had to redo them later in the day.”
One student asked Kuehnel what she would do differently if she could live her week wearing the hijab over again. She told him that she would surround herself with Muslims.
Originally, Kuehnel wanted to wear the hijab for an entire month but her teachers and parents thought that was too extreme.
“Even after I had sat down all of the Muslim students at my school and had them approve it, everyone thought it was too radical so I shortened it to a week,” Kuehnel said. “I guess the people who felt most uncomfortable with the project were mostly White Christians.”
Kuehnel said the majority of her time spent in public wearing the hijab was pleasant and many Muslim women came up to her and spoke to her in Arabic, which she was thrilled about. Kuehnel said the experience opened her eyes and her religious beliefs are now a hybrid of Islamic and Christian values.
In September, Kuehnel will be moving to Morocco for a year to study. She said her week spent living as a conservative Muslim woman has made her feel more prepared for what she will encounter during her stay in Morocco.
“I’m also more excited about learning the language than I ever have been before. I’ll be living with a host family in Morocco and every seventh day we’ll be going on a field trip. I think the first one we’ll be going on is a camel ride,” Kuehnel said.
Comments (5)
#5
Rahaf Hammai
Said this on 4/13/12 at 12:14 pm
Very nice idea for a senior project to promote intercultural understanding. I agree with Sam though that some of what Kuehnel imposed on herself are really not required by any means in Islam. One more thing he did not mention is that meat except for pork is absolutely allowed- you can buy Halal meat from many cultural stores and it is basically similar to the kosher meat. Also covering the face except for the eyes is not required in Islam although some women adhere to that way. Al Islam is a religion that encourages the easy middle path in living. A verse in Al Qur’an says to the effect : God wants the easy not the difficult for you.
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#4
Sam
Said this on 4/13/12 at 11:50 am
I applaud her efforts. I actually did not know much about Islam, but I had a lot of misconceptions, that is until I was assigned a Muslim roommate in college. However, a few things came to my attention.
“One time I was praying and I had my prayer rug facing mecca—you’re not allowed to have cats or dogs in the same room while you’re praying because it’s considered unclean,” Kuehnel told the students. “Before I knew it my cat had laid in front of me on my prayer rug. I had to wash the rug, my hands and my face, before I could pray. I missed about two cycles of prayer and had to redo them later in the day.”
Dog’s–I’m not so sure. But for cats, I’m pretty sure that’s not true. My cats sit near and sometimes my roommates lap when she prays. I don’t believe it breaks their Wudu.
Also “each time she made a mistake saying a prayer in Arabic, she had to start all over.” –> I also asked my Muslim roommate about this. That’s not true either, at least from her experience. If you make an error, you correct it and keep going in the prayer. Sometimes even the person who leads the prayer makes mistakes; however, once corrected, they continue praying.
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#3
aleyamma
Said this on 4/13/12 at 11:40 am
Shoddy reporting. As the photo clearly demonstrates, a hijab shows more than a person’s eyes.
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#2
Cynthia
Said this on 4/13/12 at 11:32 am
in reply to #1
Clearly she meant that she believed her understanding of Arabic would deepen if she had a greater understanding if Islam. Every serious student I’ve known of any language has come to the conclusion that to truly speak the language well they have to understand it in a cultural context and in in this case at least that includes religion.
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#1
Frank Grimes
Said this on 4/13/12 at 11:23 am
“I realized that I can’t learn the language if I don’t know the culture.” Is she aware that Arabic language/culture and Islam are 2 exclusive things? You don’t have to be a Muslim to speak or be Arabic. The millions of Arabic Christians and Jews speak Arabic just fine.
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