Doctor who is Muslim becomes ambassador for her faith

Doctor who is Muslim becomes ambassador for her faith

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In the weeks and months after 9/11, Dr. Mahjabeen Hassan experienced some awful things.

But she won't say what they were.
"I don't like to talk about it," she said. "I am a positive person."
She could have removed her hijab, the head covering often worn by Muslim women as a sign of modesty. Then she would have been just another middle-aged Westchester woman, a doctor with a warm smile and gentle demeanor, instead of an emblem of a mysterious and often reviled religion.
"I would think, 'I can just take it off, and things will be so easy,' " she said. "But I had to survive, to be who I am. The only way Americans will understand Islam is by meeting American Muslims. That is who I am."
It was during the same dark days that Hassan started on a unique and profound journey. She was invited to speak about Islam at an Irvington church. Then other churches. Temples. Libraries. Colleges. Anywhere.
She accepted each invitation, several a week at first, and evolved into the most familiar face of Islam in the region. By talking about her faith again and again, answering a sea of questions and presenting herself as an eloquent, accomplished, modern, hijab-wearing Muslim woman, she has touched the post-9/11 world.
Hassan, now 61, could hardly be better suited for the role. She comes from a military family in northern Pakistan, near Afghanistan, so she grasps the diplomatic dimensions of the "War on Terror." She was educated in Catholic schools by nuns. She is a plastic surgeon who gets to know her patients, whether she is patching up accident victims in the dead of night or removing lines from suburban faces.
She is a divorced career woman dedicated to a calling as an ambassador for a forgiving form of Islam free of foreign cultural trappings.
"Something drew me to America, like an inner voice saying there would be a purpose to my life," she said. "When 9/11 happened, I knew why I was here. I said to myself, 'Whatever little I have, I will give it all.' "
Learning to talk
On the first anniversary of 9/11, Hassan gathered with more than 200 Jews, Christians and Muslims outside the Westchester Muslim Center in Mount Vernon to reflect. She said she was ashamed of having not reached out before Sept. 11.

"It is tragic that a tragedy of this nature has brought us, finally, under this tent," the Pleasantville resident said.

This has been a starting point for Hassan at her more than 500 presentations: that people of different faiths have to look into each other's eyes and talk, question, pray, eat, kid each other a bit.
"I am shaking in my pants," she said at the start of a recent program about pluralism in White Plains, using a slightly confused idiom to express her apprehension about following a rabbi and minister.
Hassan usually speaks third, following a Jew and a Christian in the chronological order of the three Abrahamic faiths. She is often the only non-clergy person to take part, as there are few imams around with the time and gumption to explain Islam to skeptical audiences who may know more about al-Qaida than how Muslim families live in Briarcliff Manor or Valley Cottage.
Hassan often begins with a prayer from the Quran: "Ease my task for me;/And remove the impediment from my speech./So they may understand what I say."
Then she explains that the prayer is attributed to a familiar prophet named Moses. But there's more, she says: Islam recognizes all the prophets of the Torah. Islam believes Jesus Christ to be the messiah (even if the Quran does not include the crucifixion or resurrection). Islam believes there is truth in other religions.
Hassan covers Islam's core beliefs — there is one God, Muhammad was the last prophet and one must pray five times a day, give charity, fast during Ramadan and make the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
She does not speak from notes, but feels where to go.
"We have to remember that there is a will of God, there is a plan of God," she told an interfaith group of Ossining teenagers in 2004. "We may not understand it."
Hassan keeps her comments general and waits for the Q&A period to raise the usual stuff: why women can't drive in Saudi Arabia; the lack of religious freedom in many Muslim countries; all sides of terrorism. She tries to explain that cultural practices in Muslim countries are different from what Islam really teaches.

"It is our biggest hurdle, to separate culture from religion," she said. "I had to answer for female circumcision before I knew what it was. It is from African culture. It is not part of Islam."

In the weeks to come, Hassan surely will be asked about the recent fracas at Playland Amusement Park. Fifteen people were arrested after Muslim women were asked to remove their head scarves for certain rides.
Hassan wasn't there, but said it sounded like the police overreacted and the Muslims involved failed to grasp Playland's safety rules and lost control of their emotions. She said that some Muslims may be sensitive to being singled out after years of feeling that their community is targeted.
"A feeling of victimhood is a very negative feeling," she said. "It brings the worst out even in simple matters, and I think this may have been the issue."
Anees Shaikh of the Upper Westchester Muslim Society said Hassan has been a pioneer whose counsel is sought by many.
"She was one of the first people in our local community who recognized the need, and made the effort, to engage the broader faith communities," he said.
Some observers have questioned whether Hassan focuses too hard on what the faiths share and downplays their differences.
But the Rev. Paul Egensteiner, pastor of Emanuel Lutheran Church in Pleasantville, who has come to know Hassan, said that she tackles complex issues in little time for broad audiences.
"She's so devoted to sharing things in constructive ways," he said. "She makes her faith sound beautiful and such a great guide for her life. I mean, if you ask me about the history of Christians and Jews, I'm not going to talk first about the church's persecution of the Jews. I'll talk about how things are better now."

Finding God in a cell

Growing up, Hassan went to Catholic schools popular with military families. She was a passionate athlete, captain of her cricket team and a top squash player with pro potential.
But Hassan wanted to be a doctor since childhood and attended medical school in Pakistan. She then secured a surgical residency with the Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens.

It was a tumultuous time in her life.

She was briefly married after college, an arranged marriage to a man she did not know, but was divorced before she came to the U.S. in 1977.
She also had found faith while in medical school.
"I was studying the human cell, its structure and its functioning," she said. "I sat back and said, 'There has to be a God.' It is so intricate it had to be planned. It cannot be an accident."
After four years in general surgery, sewing up stab wounds at 2 a.m., Hassan took a colleague's advice and tried plastic surgery. She knew it was the right fit.
"Plastic surgery requires patience and an eye for beauty," she said. "Every patient who comes in has a unique condition. When you do the right thing, it's the best feeling you can have."
She now has a private practice with offices in Sleepy Hollow, Yonkers and Dobbs Ferry.

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Beyond 9/11

Hassan made her pilgrimage to Mecca in 1996. She was so moved that she began teaching about the Quran to Westchester Muslims. She started to wear a hijab during the late 1990s. She even gave a few talks about Islam at the Pleasantville library.

Then came 9/11.

She headed downtown in case surgeons were needed. She removed her hijab on the way, replacing it with surgical attire. She heard medical personnel make disparaging remarks about Islam before heading home.
Hassan had always taken her visiting relatives from Pakistan to the twin towers.
"I felt like part of me was hit," she said.
Hassan then endured harassment in public, becoming an enemy in her adopted country. She became a U.S. citizen in 1983.
She won't divulge details, but said "the pain was too severe to bear."
Then she got a call from the Rev. Charles Colwell of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Irvington. He had heard about her and hoped she would visit his confused and distraught parish.
"I couldn't believe they wanted me to talk at a church," she said. "I was overwhelmed."
The church was packed that day, a month after 9/11.
"My people didn't know any more about Islam than I," said Colwell, now retired. "Dr. Hassan came and was mesmerizing . She was so friendly and open to us, just electric. She is a true woman of peace, and we sensed it."

Hassan's phone began to ring and ring.
She would make about three presentations a week for years after 9/11. She still does two or three a month, accepting every invitation.
"Even if we would have 10 or 15 people, she would say not to look at the numbers but at what people take away from it," said Fozia Khan of the American Muslim Women's Association, a local group Hassan co-founded. "In our community, so many are motivated by her."
Hassan's appeal is due to her genuineness, said Caren Ellis Fried, co-chair of interreligious outreach for the American Jewish Committee's Westchester chapter.
"She appeals to the intellect, but also speaks to the heart," Fried said. "There is a certain truth behind what she says. You feel that."
Hassan believes that many have listened because she is a doctor. So she talks about life in the O.R.
"I take up the skin and look inside," she said. "I see that we truly are all the same. It's in the mind that we are different. I believe you can have multiple paths to (God). We have different religions but we are talking about the same thing."
Hassan plans to talk for as long as people will listen.
"Every invitation, it gives me energy," she said. "The human face is my specialty. I read faces when they come in and when they leave. I see them changing."

Hassan's phone began to ring and ring.

She would make about three presentations a week for years after 9/11. She still does two or three a month, accepting every invitation.
"Even if we would have 10 or 15 people, she would say not to look at the numbers but at what people take away from it," said Fozia Khan of the American Muslim Women's Association, a local group Hassan co-founded. "In our community, so many are motivated by her."
Hassan's appeal is due to her genuineness, said Caren Ellis Fried, co-chair of interreligious outreach for the American Jewish Committee's Westchester chapter.
"She appeals to the intellect, but also speaks to the heart," Fried said. "There is a certain truth behind what she says. You feel that."
Hassan believes that many have listened because she is a doctor. So she talks about life in the O.R.
"I take up the skin and look inside," she said. "I see that we truly are all the same. It's in the mind that we are different. I believe you can have multiple paths to (God). We have different religions but we are talking about the same thing."
Hassan plans to talk for as long as people will listen.
"Every invitation, it gives me energy," she said. "The human face is my specialty. I read faces when they come in and when they leave. I see them changing."

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