Interview: Huma Abedin, author, Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds – “My faith has helped me find my inner strength”
A memoir about being an American Muslim, and her relationships with mentor Hillary Clinton and ex-husband Anthony Weiner
As a child of South Asians, do you feel like your family is a case study for the American dream?
Absolutely! My parents got some wonderful opportunities in the US. They came from generations of strivers. That’s why I chose to open the book with my grandmother, who, in 1912, living in Hyderabad, told her parents that she wanted to go to school. This was when women and girls in her community did not go to school. She was just eight years old, and demanded an education. She grew up to raise five daughters and three sons. My mother was one of them. She became a Fulbright scholar. When she came to the United States, she met my father who was from Delhi. He too was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. They’ve had an extraordinary life, and I feel lucky to be their daughter.
You still have family in India and Pakistan, don’t you?
Yes, my father’s sister and so many cousins still live in Delhi. I also have family in Karachi and Lahore. My mother’s family moved from Bombay at the time of Partition.
What does your mother say about Mumbai?
Oh gosh! Where do I begin? She talks about her Bombay years as the golden years. She lived there in the early 1940s at this place called the Great Western Building, near the Gateway of India arch. It’s pretty close to the water, isn’t it? My mother says that she went to a Catholic school, and the building where she lived had this amazing culturally diverse environment. There were all kinds of people – Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Zoroastrians. After Partition, there were economic hardships. There was more work for Muslim families in Pakistan, so her family decided to go to Karachi as refugees. I love visiting all these cities. Each one seems to carry a piece of home, a reminder of family.
Speaking of family, Hillary Clinton once said, “I have one daughter. But if I had a second daughter, it would [be] Huma.” Do you think of her as a mother figure?
She has been very much my mentor and a friend in addition to being an extraordinary boss who has taught me so many things and taken me on so many adventures over the years. In fact, a few years ago, we came on a girls’ trip to India and travelled mostly in Rajasthan. We have had the most amazing experiences together. We are working on many projects together, helping democratic organisations in our country. She also has a production company now, as part of which she is making television shows, and I am involved with those.
You’ve been to a lot of universities to talk about your book. What excites you when you walk into in classrooms and interact with students?
Let me begin by telling you a little about the time when I was at university. There was really so much that I didn’t know but I was so curious about the world. I would like to give credit to my parents. They didn’t push me to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. They told me, “Do whatever you want. All we require is that you get educated.” I was able to explore different subjects. I wanted to be a journalist, so I took political science, theatre, African American literature, South Asian literature, and creative writing. I enjoyed all that. When I meet young people in classrooms now, I tell them, “It’s okay to pursue many different things. It’s okay to not know what you will do for the rest of your life. I didn’t know. I tried things out. I worked really hard. And eventually things fell into place. They will for you too.”
Who are the authors that you enjoy reading?
There are so many of them – Nelson Mandela, Trevor Noah, Nuruddin Farah, Wole Soyinka, Alice Walker, Tayeb Salih, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Rabindranath Tagore, James Baldwin, RK Narayan, Shonda Rhimes, Anita Desai. Sorry, it’s a really big list! Some of these were part of courses I took, and there were books that my parents introduced me to. Since I grew up in Saudi Arabia, and then in the US, books became a really important source of connection to my South Asian heritage. I didn’t want to lose that.
How do you feel when you encounter Islamophobia in the US and India? Do you feel responsible in some way to challenge this toxic narrative?
Yes, certainly! That was one of the reasons behind writing this book. In 2012, when I was working with the State Department in the US, I was accused of not being a patriot because I am a Muslim. There were fake news videos about me and family. Untrue stories were circulated, suggesting that we were associated with extremist groups. Five members of the US Congress made this accusation. I was investigated. It was utterly shocking for me.
I could not believe that, in 2012, there were people who could hold such regressive views about Muslims. What made it worse was the fact that these were members of Congress! Back then, Senator John McCain – a Republican senator from Arizona stood up to defend me and my family. Also, President Barack Obama stood up to defend me. In doing this, they were also, of course, defending the values our country was built upon. People are free to practise whatever religion they want to. It’s an essential part of living in a democratic society.
You must have heard of the Muslim ban in America five years later, which was a dangerous idea based on the view that Muslims are scary; Muslims are terrorists, so they must be kept out of America. There should be no place for such hate. I try my best to explain to Americans what our faith and our belief system as Muslims is all about. I hope I can make a difference.
What role has faith played in your life, especially when the breakdown of your marriage became an ugly public spectacle?
I was raised in a family of practising Muslims. My parents did not force us. They showed us by example. They would go to the mosque, pray, encourage us to follow, but there was no compulsion, from what I can remember. Faith has always been a beautiful part of my life. I grew up in the Middle East, so faith was always associated with a sense of community. What is Muslim prayer at the end of the day? It is a form of meditation. It is stepping back from the world for a singular conversation between you and a higher power where you are thinking about your actions and intentions. Prayer always brings me peace. It resets me in a good way, especially when I am having challenges of the kind that you just described. A lot of shame is attached to broken marriages, wherein women get blamed unfairly regardless of the specifics of a situation. My faith has helped me find my inner strength in times like these.
Popular discourse around Islam often revolves around Muslim women’s clothing. There has been much heated discussion about the hijab in India recently. We have also seen this in France and the US before. What are your thoughts on the hijab?
I think that the hijab, at the end of the day, should be a choice. There are members of my family who wear it, and there are members who do not. I respect their decision, and hope that they respect mine. I do not wear it. I know people who didn’t have the choice, and I also know people who made the choice themselves. There are people who wore it, then took it off.
There is a story about how the hijab came to our faith. Some men made this allegation that Ayesha, who was the wife of Prophet Muhammad, had been unfaithful to him while they were travelling. This accusation was troubling especially because Ayesha was quite well-regarded in the community. Shortly after this event, a new verse of the Qur’an was revealed asking wives and daughters to cover themselves. The practice was meant to protect women from false accusation. Men too were asked to be modest in their appearance but this part is often not highlighted as much. People are known to interpret holy texts in different ways.
Some parts of these texts get used for political ends in unfortunate ways. For example, in Europe, this has taken on a very strident turn with people calling for a ban on the hijab. In the US too, we’ve had similar debates about Sikh soldiers in the military not being allowed to wear turbans. I think that physical signs of religious beliefs and practices should be respected.
Chintan Girish Modi is an independent writer, journalist and book reviewer.