Asalamu aliakum wa rahmat Allah wa barakatoo,

Niqabis Studying

Imagine. 20 girls jumping up on their desks, screaming because a mouse just went scurrying across their classroom. Do you see it? Do you hear it? The shrieks, the laughter, the confusion? Yeah, it was utter chaos, but it was a lot of fun, too. It really happened to my class back when I was in high school. And gosh, I miss those days.

Now, I’m in university. And yes, I am perfectly aware that there are perverse stalkers on the internet, which is why I’m not usually one to speak about my private life online. But, today, I’m going to be a little daring and say a detailed fact- I live in the UAE and I attend a segregated university. You’re thinking, “big deal”? Pretty ordinary. Well, it is a big deal. I finished 12 years of schooooool…a big deal to me! No, seriously, it’s more than that. It’s a bigger deal than that because a lot of the world has this image of Muslim/Arab girls being the oppressed daughters, the lowly wives, the uneducated girls…And you know what? We’re not.

In fact, hmm…well, wait. Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down because we wouldn’t want you to faint…

Thousands of Muslim women attend university. In the UAE, there are even universities made exclusively for women, such as Higher Colleges of Technology for Women. Think about that. Universities just for women. What does that mean? It means that women must be attending university, must be learning, graduating, getting degrees…if women weren’t going to the universities, the universities would have to have been shut down because let’s face it- in the end, universities run on the tuitions of the students, don’t they?

But that’s not all. Going to university isn’t really the “big deal.” The big deal is when we, Muslim women, earned our rights to get an education.

Take a wild guess…

A couple more guesses….

Okay, enough guessing. Time to spill the news. Wait, I just have to check one more time: you’re still sitting down, right? Sitting properly in your chair? Not balancing on only one leg of the chair? Good, good. You’re ready!

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