MSA (Muslim Student Association) Elects First Woman President

Within the Muslim community I have often found something that disturbed me, the discouragement of women being in leadership roles. This disturbed me because from what I have studied of the Prophet(AS) is that his wifes had huge roles in the establishment and implementation of Islam at its beginnings. Never have I read or come across anything where he discouraged their roles. I strongly feel that Muslim women should be choosing more active roles in their communities. I still have reservations with a woman leading an army, I think that job is better suited for a man. But there are numerous other positions within the Muslim community that women are not doing simply because they feel they shouldn't be,

because the "Muslim" cultures they grew up in frown down upon it.

This needs to be changed.

And as an American-Muslim, I am glad that change is happening here.

Excerpt from Islamic Horizons September/October 2004 issue...

For the first time since its establishment in 1963, the MSA National has elected a woman president, Hadia Mubarak, a native of Florida. The election results were announced June 25, 2004.

The outcome of this election is representative of a growing trend within the more than 500 MSA chapters in the U.S. and Canada, in which an unprecedented number of recent chapter presidents have been women. MSA welcomes the election of its first woman president on a national level as a significant step toward the greater participation of women in leadership positions across the continent.

With the coming of age of a second generation of Muslims in the 1990's, the membership has shifted from predominantly international students to second generation Muslims, a majority of whom are born and raised in the U.S. and Canada. MSA National has always been diverse and even today boasts a membership that is rich in racial, ethnic, cultural, socioececonomic and gender-based diversity.

"As an organization built on grassroots support, it was only a matter of time before the National MSA elected its first female president," said past President Altaf Hussein (1997-2003). "In the past three terms, starting in 1999, Muslim women have been elected to at least half of the positions on the national executive committee."

"The election of a female president is a positive step toward reviving the egalitarian principles of Islam, such as gender equity and merit-based leadership," said outgoing President Tarek Elgawhary (2003-2004).

As a former Female MSA chapter co-president at Tennessee State University, it does my heart good to see this huge step in Muslim women taking on more leadership positions.

In Hamza Yusuf's new book, Purification of the Heart...

"If we examine the trials and tribulations all over earth, we’ll find they are rooted in human hearts. Covetousness, the desire to aggress and exploit, the longing to pilfer natural resources, the inordinate love of wealth, and other maladies are manifestations of diseases found nowhere but in the heart. Every criminal, miser, abuser, scoffer, embezzler, and hateful person does what he or she does because of a diseased heart. So if you want to change our world, do not begin by rectifying the outward. Instead, change the condition of the inward. It is from the unseen world that the phenomenal world emerges, and it is from the unseen realm of our hearts that all actions spring. . . . We of the modern world are reluctant to ask ourselves—when we look at the terrible things happening—“Why do they occur?” And if we ask that with sincerity, the answer will come back in no uncertain terms: all of this is from our own selves. In so many ways, we have brought this upon ourselves. This is the only empowering position that we can take." — Excerpted from the Introduction