Muslim Women’s Experiences of
Higher Education in Britain

Fauzia Ahmad
Abstract

I explore British South Asian Muslim women’s experiences of
higher education and how it impacts identity construction and
negotiation. Through semi-structured interviews with thirty-five
undergraduate and post-graduate Muslim female university stu-
dents, I reflect on their perceived and actual experiences. By
stressing how representations of them influence their participation
and experiences, I analyze how individual subjectivities are medi-
ated and negotiated while reflecting common experiences. I also
consider their accounts of the social and personal benefits they felt
that they gained during their studies, as well as to the more dis-
turbing and racialized aspects of their experiences. They differen-
tiated between three overlapping forms of beneficial experience:
academic, social, and personal. While instances of anti-Muslim
racism were rare or subtle, certain university structures and expec-
tations of what being a mainstream student means often con-
tributed to a noted sense of “othering.” I conclude by highlighting
how their accounts of their university experiences directly chal-
lenge those stereotypes that misrepresent educated Muslim
women as “religious and cultural rebels.” 

Introduction

I think everyone should go to Uni, for the experience of it, for the social, if
not for the academic. (Amber, 24, PGCE, BA history and Urdu, Pakistani.)

Very little is known about British Muslim female undergraduate students
and graduates, their motivations to study, experiences of university life, and
the influence their experiences have had on their relationships to their fam-
ily as well as religious and cultural identities. By focusing on this group, I

Fauzia Ahmad is an honorary research fellow within the Department of Sociology, Bristol
University, the United Kingdom.



seek to shed light on a relatively recent and, as such, under-researched indi-
cator of social change.

One key objective of such research is to draw in voices that disrupt
hegemomic conceptualizations of “Muslim women” as a category of analy-
sis and discourse. By studying their experiences with higher education and
its impact on their attitudes toward their religious and cultural identities, I
argue that Muslim women and their families increasingly view higher edu-
cation as a personal and social commodity and a means for upward social
mobility. The value that Muslim women place on these experiences chal-
lenges the stereotyped representations of South Asian Muslim women’s
identities and their families. It also questions the legitimacy of deterministic
and racist binarized discursive formations.

Growing Islamophobia in the West, the tense political situation in the
Middle East and western foreign policy interventions there, 9/11 and the
resulting war in Afghanistan and the “war on terror,” Guantanamo, the sec-
ond war against Iraq, and, most recently, the London bombings on 7 July
2005 have all played a role in constructing various Muslim discourses.
Tyrer’s detailed analysis of stereotyped and uncritical pathologizing dis-
courses around the imagined threat of extremism and Islamic fundamental-
ism on university campuses notes that fears concerning the influence of cer-
tain radical groups are often exaggerated and configured around racialized
referents that construct Muslim political identities as hostile toward others.1
Although many of these types of discourses are directed toward Muslim men,
such recent and highly publicized controversies as a London university’s
decision to ban the niqab (face veil) because of the London 2005 bombings
clearly defined certain images of Muslim women within such boundaries.

Research on British Muslim female university students and graduates is
limited; however, they have been included in several analyses of South Asian
Muslim women and labor markets.2 A few studies have included Muslim
female college students in studies on black women3 or British South Asian
women’s identities.4 Pickerden,5 while describing a project exploring lifelong
learning issues and widening participation strategies directed toward mature
Muslim female students, ironically offers little information about their quali-
tative experiences of the project. Archer’s critical study on the constructions
of young Asian Muslim men and women and the choices they make after
turning sixteen problematizes discourses suggesting that Muslim women
have limited choices due to their cultural or religious backgrounds. She sug-
gests that the issue of choice is situated within the production and reproduc-
tion of inequalities and is both emotive and inextricably linked to gendered
and racialized Muslim identities.6

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 47



Although there is now a wealth of research on Muslim women in rela-
tion to identities, arranged marriages, and careers, much of it is limited to
studies on Muslim schoolgirls. In comparison, there is a dearth of literature
on Muslim women in higher education, their motivations, identities, and
experiences at the university level. The relatively low participation rates of
Muslim women in higher education may be partially responsible for the
absence of such research. 

Among studies that have focused on Muslim women’s higher education
experiences, an earlier publication by Ahmad7 focused on their motivations
and experiences behind university study, while Housee’s discussion on
South Asian women’s university experiences after 9/11 highlighted areas of
commonalities and differences among seven South Asian female students,
three of whom were Muslim.8 Christine Asmar’s survey of Muslim student
experiences in Australian universities represents how Muslims, as a student
group, display a strong commitment toward academic achievement and,
especially in the case of women, toward their faith.9

Significantly, though, this body of work, which is based on a broader
study done by Proud and Inge, noted how some Muslim students, espe-
cially hijab-wearing Muslim women, felt excluded and alienated from the
campus drinking culture and experienced some discriminatory attitudes.10
Some of Asmar et al.’s findings resonate strongly with the research
described here and make for an interesting contrast. Newer ongoing research
on young British Muslims and social capital is beginning to address links
between their appropriation of Islam and the value of higher education.11

For the most part, though, the experiences of Muslim women and their
identities in higher education remain subsumed within broader studies on
issues centered around inclusion, exclusion, and widening access for non-
traditional entrants based on social class and (to a lesser extent) ethnicity.12
For instance, Tett’s work on the gendered experiences of higher education
shows that university experiences are often interpreted as positive and trans-
formative, especially if school experiences were interpreted differently.13

Although these studies do not explicitly deal with the issues and expe-
riences of Muslim women attending a university, they do provide a useful
context within which to discuss their experiences of higher education and
identities. Of particular interest are how debates on widening participation are
framed by exploring accounts of working-class and other non-traditional
students’ identities and experiences of feeling “othered” or of not fitting in
with the campus culture. For some, and without attempting to over-privilege
the place of religion in their lives, this can translate into more specific issues
related to living away from home, drinking, relationships, and the lack or

48 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



availability of provisions on campus to meet the needs of a diverse student
body.14 In addition, it can refer to their various perceptions of racial and reli-
gious discrimination.

From the late 1990s, South Asian Muslim women’s participation in
higher education has been framed in at least three main ways. The first one
focuses on statistical realities, noting that women from Pakistani and Bangla-
deshi backgrounds, while showing a small increase in their higher education
participation rates, remain among the least successful across minority
groups.15 Despite doing better than men on the national-level school exams,
their success is not yet evident upon university entry.16 Here, the emphasis is
on exploring why such disparities may exist. While earlier analyses posited
that Muslim women’s lack of participation in higher education and the labor
market were due to “cultural factors” (viz., Islam), more recent research indi-
cates that these disparities are more likely due to a combination of racism and
discrimination, social deprivation and poverty, timing of migration and local-
ized dynamics, and similar factors. There is also evidence of social change.17

The second model frames Muslim women’s presence on university
campuses within the contexts of Muslim student extremism on campus18 and
discourses of Muslim male criminality. Claire Alexander’s work is particu-
larly instructive here, for it reveals how social policies continue to objectify
and pathologize young Muslim men.19 Discourses of extremism have also
been used to frame Muslim students based on the frenzied media debates
around Islamic schools, particularly in the context of the July 2001 riots in
northern England,20 and of school uniforms for Muslim schoolgirls.

The third and most relevant model is the critique of South Asian family
structures, cultures, and religions as oppressive and excessively patriarchal.
These factors are thought to act as significant barriers to women’s participa-
tion in higher education or employment by invoking discourses of “degrada-
tion and despair.”21 One manifestation is portrayals of female Muslim univer-
sity students as “rebels” and “tear-aways.” This can best be exemplified by
reference to media articles on such women, where representations of their
experiences are sensationalized and fetishized, thereby replicating stereo-
typed notions of a “culture clash” and “double lives.”22

Drawing on quotes from female Muslim students, these articles seek to
show that once the secular freedoms of university life “liberate” them from
their oppressive families and religion, they enjoy these freedoms to excess by
drinking, sleeping around, taking drugs, going to raves, wearing what they
want, and so on. These realities or caricatures are then contrasted with gener-
alized references and quotes from Muslim women who have “escaped” from
strict “cultural traditions,” “growing up under lockdown” with strict “moral

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 49



directives” and “pressures to safeguard familial honour,” all of which feed
into popular racist stereotypes about Muslims’ alleged backwardness and
incoherent identities.23

How representative are such accounts? Do realities live up to expecta-
tions? What academic, social, and personal benefits of higher education do
Muslim women feel they gain? Are there any negative aspects? Do they feel
that their needs as students are being met? What influence, if any, does a uni-
versity have on their identities? Fixing our gaze on a particular subsection of
Muslim women, as well as remembering how highly contested and loaded a
term Muslim woman is, reinforces parents’ fears and anxieties about the influ-
ences to which their daughters might be exposed. This type of pathological
framing also suggests a perceived and distinct lack of women’s own agency
to create alternative subjectivities and spaces within which to articulate their
identities. This imagery encourages us to question the influences that univer-
sity or campus cultures have on their identities. It also links into criticisms of
modern vs. traditional binaries24 and interrogates the influence of stereotypes
on their participation and subsequent experiences of higher education.

Earlier research has documented Muslim women’s high motivation to
get a higher education for several reasons and how they drew on the support
of their parents, other family members, peer groups, and Muslim and non-
Muslim role models.25 These findings have been backed up by more recent
research on their experiences of higher education,26 although these aspirations
have not always been acknowledged or supported by schools, colleges, and
teachers. I draw on detailed semi-structured interviews with thirty-five under-
graduate and post-graduate British South Asian Muslim university-educated
women and their experiences while working on their degrees. I describe their
accounts of what social and personal benefits they felt they had gained while
studying, highlight some of the more disturbing and racialized aspects of their
experiences, and consider how university experiences are linked to their
thoughts about their religious and cultural identities.

Muslim Women’s Experiences
Any analysis of Muslim women’s university experiences that is sensitive to
how, as Avtar Brah advocates, “structure, culture and agency are conceptu-
alised as inextricably linked mutually inscribing formations,”27 needs to con-
sider how individual subjectivities are mediated and negotiated as well as
reflect commonalities of experience. When considering their experiences of
higher education then, how representations of Muslim women influence their
participation and experiences of university life must also be analyzed.

50 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



Therefore, I have consciously avoided classifying experiences as either
positive or negative. This reflected the ways in which women spoke of their
experiences as highly subjective and contradictory, as contingent upon a
variety of competing factors. Instead, I differentiate here between three
forms of experience: academic (the practical knowledge-based aspects to
degree study), social (the friendships formed), and personal (increased con-
fidence and communication skills). Although many of these experiences
were mediated as benefits and overlap, I have drawn these distinctions
because they most closely match the experiences reported by the research
participants.

For instance, positive learning experiences were juxtaposed against sub-
tle manifestations of racist discourses from lecturers, biased course material,
or other awkward feelings of not fitting in with the mainstream, bar-oriented
student culture. Joining certain faith-based (e.g., Islamic societies [ISOCs]) or
ethnically-based (e.g., the Pakistan or Bangladesh societies) student societies
also produced mixed feelings and responses, depending on the nature of indi-
vidual ISOCs. But at the same time, the women spoke of the lasting friend-
ships they had formed across and within diverse ethnic and religious groups
and the value they placed on their experiences in these student societies.

When they spoke of not enjoying their time at a particular university, fur-
ther probing revealed dissatisfaction with its location or reputation, the qual-
ity of its lecturers, or regret at the choice of subject studied. However, they
also identified positive aspects to their overall study: a range of such practi-
cal benefits as preparing themselves for future careers and employment, an
increased knowledge base in a subject area of their choice, the value of inde-
pendent learning, and a broadening of horizons.

Among the personal benefits frequently cited were greater confidence,
self-awareness, and self-esteem. The social aspects of university life – inte-
grating and socializing with a diverse group of students, making friends, and
learning to live independently (to varying extents) – were further examples of
their positive experiences. Many valued the “independent” or “personal time”
spent on campus, whether they lived on campus or at home, for it enabled
them to form friendships across racial, ethnic, religious, and gendered bound-
aries. These friendships, which were distinct from those of their family or
existing social circles, presented some women with new chances to develop
friendships and relationships with Muslim and non-Muslim men.

Academic Experiences: “Getting the Knowledge”
Naheed, a Master’s student, was one of the many women who spoke of her
university experiences as “really great.” She described how her writing skills

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 51



had developed since the time of her first degree and how she had learned to
read around the subject area:

Reading around the subject, I’ve learnt a lot, comparing writing skills as
well – I was having a look at one of my essays from my first degree, and
the style of writing. I think I’ve developed as well. (Naheed, 24, MA inter-
national politics student, p/t, Bangladeshi.)

Halima cited the practical value of her B.Ed. and how it had encouraged
her to think about specializing and studying further:

The course was brilliant … it wasn’t boring, it wasn’t the same thing
every year, it was different things and it sort of really helped to develop
myself and to become a more effective teacher with more awareness. …
I could now go abroad and teach … the degree has given me the base to
go further with this idea to do children’s psychology and maybe go into
the NHS. (Halima, 23, B.Ed, recent graduate, Bangladeshi.)

Khaleda, a recent history graduate, was eager to stress how much she
enjoyed learning in-depth about an area for which she had a passion and of
being taught by a “bunch of very good lecturers … bringing in new life,”
even if she was less happy about her university’s location and the commute:

I mean you go to university, you study more, you develop your knowl-
edge, and you widen your horizons … It’s getting the knowledge, finding
it, and like developing your own mind. I mean there are so many things
you do at university. I mean you do your own independent research,
whereas as at school you were taught to how you had to do this essay. At
university, you are taught to be independent and to think. (Khaleda, 24,
BA history, recent graduate, Bangladeshi.)

Amber, a graduate from a working-class background, encapsulates the
complexity and ambiguous nature of her experiences. In what could have
been a potentially negative learning experience – she felt that her course-
work was based on pro-colonialist assumptions and biases – she asserted her
developing academic skills to prepare intellectual arguments defending her
readings and interpretations of texts. As she says here: “If you don’t get the
negative, you can’t fight against it”:

At [X] a lot of lecturers teach you in a certain way, that the British were real-
ly good and things like that. I must have been really naïve, because I didn’t
notice it too much actually (!). Perhaps because of the history that I did, I’m
not sure, but I just used to just listen to what they had to say, read the books,
and read books I chose to. My project in my final year was, “Were the
Muslims Responsible for the 1875 Mutiny/Rebellion?” And I read a lot of
books by Asian writers of the time (1947), about what they thought. So this

52 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



whole essay that I did was really pro-Muslim, and how the British did this
and that. I found it really positive actually. I think academically it was pos-
itive for me. Perhaps for other people they noticed that the lecturers teach
in a certain way and give certain impressions out, but if you don’t get that
you don’t know any different. If you don’t get the negative you can’t fight
against it. Everything I got out of it was positive; I’ve learnt so much. I’ve
touched upon a lot of things. I think I’ll have to read up on it a lot more; my
Urdu lessons were excellent actually, because we had English teachers
teaching us Urdu which was really like, “shame”(!) embarrassing, but they
were really very good. And it was really nice to see white people [get] into
someone else’s culture, even if it was probably negative if I thought about
it. But it was great, it was like, “Oh wow man, you can speak Urdu, you can
probably speak Punjabi as well,” and they were really in with things. I liked
it. (Amber, 24, PGCE, BA history and Urdu, Pakistani.)

Her statement linked the academic benefits she gained (e.g., a greater
knowledge base, an increased interest in the subject, an ability to critically
appraise published material and academics, and the confidence that this
engenders) with her personal experiences and gains. Both fed into each other
and contributed to her overall positive sense of achievement and identity.
Although Amber was a naturally positive and enthusiastic person with a
strong personality, she mediated this potential “othering” aspect of her study
experiences as part of the learning process.

She was not the only student to feel that there was a degree of colonial
bias in her degree course and reading lists. Sadia and Arifa, also studying
arts- and history-based courses, concurred. Yet they, like Amber, also talked
about how they learned to engage with the course material and began to feel
confident enough to challenge certain assumptions and offer alternative per-
spectives to those of the lecturers or the published works. Although intellec-
tually she generally enjoyed her course in social anthropology and took an
option in South Asian literature, Arifa was uncomfortable with what she per-
ceived as the hegemonic authority that some lecturers exerted over the sub-
ject matter – a “white male bias” in relation to the curriculum that she felt
neglected South Asian writers:

Intellectually I really enjoy it, although there is a white male bias even
though they pretend otherwise, I still notice it and I get angry about some
things we are studying.
[Interviewer:] Such as?
South Asian literature – we did a lot of literature written about colonialism
by Forster. We did Ruth Praver Jhabvala. We could have done lots of South
Asian writers, but we concentrated on colonial writers. Kipling, we did.

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 53



There’s a space for them, but I want to get away from colonialism. That’s
all we ever talk about, neo-colonialism, post-colonialism, colonialism. I
think there is something else out there. (Arifa, 26, BA social anthropology
student, Pakistani.)

This was clearly a source of frustration and disappointment for her, as
she felt that she had “fought” to enter university but did not feel intellectu-
ally challenged or that her lecturers had opened any new avenues of learn-
ing for her:

I’m at university. I feel lecturers are supposed to guide me. If they guide me
in a particular direction and I feel in my waters that there is another answer,
I don’t know where to get it from. I feel that I’ve fought for my place in uni-
versity and had great hopes. But when I got here, I just thought: “Wow, its
just same old fodder that they’ve been teaching me since I was at school,
and that’s white male history.” … We could have done stuff on partition. We
could have looked at contemporary views on colonialism. We did some
South Asian writers, but they were old writers. I wanted to do contempo-
rary writers. (Arifa, 26, BA social anthropology student, Pakistani.)

While these are examples of how course material could contribute to stu-
dents’ perceptions of being excluded or “othered,” or that they had wasted
their time, other examples rooted in key social relationships pointed out how
Muslim women’s university experiences were racialized and gendered (see
below). In general though, most women, even when highlighting areas of ten-
sion, focused on the positive aspects of learning at the degree level.

Personal Development: Communication and Confidence
The women enthusiastically described the various ways in which they felt
their degree study had equipped them with specific skills and furthered their
personal development. Among the key qualities that they felt they had gained
were learning how to communicate more effectively (both in written and ver-
bal contexts and to a diverse group of people), how to work with people,
about other cultures and lifestyles, and self-discipline and self-motivation.
They also talked about how they felt they had developed in terms of per-
sonal maturity, gained independence (“standing on my own two feet”), and
learned how to take personal responsibility for their actions. The following
quotes were indicative:

I would advise people to go to university not just because they get a
degree at the end of it, but because it just teaches you about life. You learn
so much from your peers. You learn so much about standing on your own

54 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



two feet that I really feel it is a social learning experience. (Sabia, 27, BSc
biology, PGCE, school teacher, Indian.)

I think it definitely matured me coz I had to be independent even though
I was living at home. I became more independent. Knowledge, definitely
– three years of studying – you do pick up a lot of things. It just devel-
oped your mind. It made you think in different ways. It made you more
aware because we had a lot of foreign students there, so it was not just
educationally, but socially as well. (Khaleda, 24, BA history, recent grad-
uate, Bangladeshi.)

These positive interpretations of learning experiences are mediated
through personal understandings of gender, social class, and what it means to
be an Asian or Muslim woman. Talk of personal change as a result of univer-
sity experiences are necessarily related to and influenced by the fluctuating
nature of identity positioning at both the psychic and structural levels. These
positive changes also legitimated the students’ ownership of their right to a
place at the university. It is helpful to consider again Amber’s statement that
“If you don’t get the negative, you can’t fight against it.” Rehana, an under-
graduate student of Pakistani origin and the first woman in her family to
attend a university, spoke of how her mother, in particular, but also other fam-
ily members and friends began noticing changes in her personality as she
became more confident in asserting her opinions:

Once my Mum said: “You’re not the same girl that was sent to Uni.”
When I came back from [studying] at Uni, I was more outspoken about
my views and stuck to my guns. At home I used to step back from my
brothers and sisters. But when I came [home] from Uni, I stuck to my
guns. But that’s coz I think it made me more confident, and that confi-
dence my parents saw as change. Whereas before I used to be a painfully
shy person – I can still be — but going to Uni made me more confident.
Even though I didn’t notice them, my parents, my friends, my cousins
started to notice – I acted the same, but my views were more outspoken.
(Rehana, 21, BA English and history student, Pakistani.)

Rehana’s growing confidence, reflected in her movement from being
someone who was self-described as “painfully shy” and the reactions of
those around her to her new assertiveness, shows how higher education
exerted a profound effect on her negotiations about her identity. As a young
mother of a three-year-old, Sara experienced several personal difficulties
and constraints during her university career. However, she believes that her
higher education contributed to her growing self-confidence in her abilities:

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 55



I gained self-esteem. You know, it actually made me realise that I can
actually achieve something now. […] I’ve never done very well at college
because I had a lot of personal problems and I’ve always thought, you
know, I’m not good at it, it’s just not me, doing something like studying
and things like this. So, you know, it definitely helps me to actually realise
that everyone is capable of doing it if they give the effort and time. So yes,
I’ve gained self-esteem and it’s made me realise that I can do a lot of
things that I actually thought I couldn’t. (Sara, 22, BSc social policy and
management student, Bangladeshi.)

The responses described above show how women felt that their univer-
sity experience had allowed them to undergo a personal “reinvention” and a
transformative process. This did not mean to say that they abandoned exist-
ing identifications (see below), but rather that they were offered an avenue
for personal development and the realization of untapped potential.28

Social Benefits: Friends from Other Places
Although Shabnum lived at home while studying, she was very positive
about both her academic and social experiences at the university. Here, she
contrasts the diverse range of people she met there with her prior experiences
at a sixth-form college, where there was a large concentration of female
Bangladeshi students:

Social life at University was extremely, well, it was really great for me.
I’ve learnt a lot through my degree. When I was doing my A levels, I was
doing it in a 6th form full of girls, no mixing. And the people that I was
doing it with, mostly it was people from my own culture, which I already
had. But when I went to Uni, I mixed with people from all over the world.
Like friends came from different countries and they go into the Student
Union, mixing there, going out for lunch. It was really nice. I learnt a lot
not only academically, but also through the people I mixed with.
(Shabnum, 24, policy and research officer, Bangladeshi.)

She went on to stress the value of integrating and mixing with students
from diverse backgrounds and learning about cultural differences, which she
felt was important for future roles and relationships.

There was also a sense of social responsibility along with wanting to
challenge stereotypes and work across cultural and religious differences
between fellow students and lecturers (see “Sadia” below). This attitude also
demonstrates that South Asian Muslim women’s awareness of their identities
and sense of responsibility were not simply restricted to family obligations
and domestic spheres, but extended into social interactions at the university,
one’s place of work, and other areas. In this sense, their feeling of social

56 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



responsibility offers a real alternative to the stereotyped notions of Asian
Muslim women. Other women also spoke of the diverse students they met
and with whom they formed friendships:

I learned to respect people more in the sense that I was exposed more to
other people, their cultures and backgrounds. It was a good way of learning
about people, not just from what I read in books, but actually meeting peo-
ple on an every-day basis, looking at their different experiences, and trying
to appreciate that every one is different, basically. (Sadia, 26, MPhil student,
South Asian area studies, Bengali literature and gender, Bangladeshi.)

Sadia’s comment is also significant in the context of her experience of
feeling discriminated against and “othered” (see below). Here we can see
how her ascribing of “difference” is apparently based on qualitatively differ-
ent terms to the ways in which she herself experienced “being othered.” Like
many women in this study, Sadia appreciated and valued the opportunity to
meet and socialize with people from different backgrounds and learn about
difference in a positive way. Furthermore, the desire to engage with non-
Muslims is another example of how Muslim women are challenging stereo-
types that portray them as self-segregating. In contrast, however, some
aspects of the university experience for some students contributed to domi-
nant discourses of “not belonging” (see below).

Attending a university with students from diverse backgrounds, includ-
ing a number of other Muslims, also enabled them to share an alternative
space to that provided by the student union (SU) bar at lunchtime or in the
evening. For students who did not have ready access to such a network or
group of friends, their choices were limited to going to the SU and choosing
either to participate in activities there or to seek refuge in other spaces with-
in the university, such as the refectory, canteen, or library.

Involvement in student societies, such as the ISOCs or the PakSoc, was
another means by which women could feel connected to other students from
similar religious or cultural backgrounds. However, these societies were
experienced differently by women in my sample and, in addition, could act
to regulate those who “belonged” and those who did not.

Living on Campus: Girls away from Home … Freedom?
For many female students, attending a university presents them with their
first experience of leaving home and coping as an adult: juggling finances,
feeding and caring for oneself, and being responsible for one’s own free time
away from the parental gaze and one’s own independent study. My sample
contained a mixture of women who both lived at home and on campus while

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 57



attending a university. Many of the latter group spent their first years, as most
students do, in student halls and the following years in other accommodations
(e.g., houses, flats, or privately rented properties with friends). 

Another key question that this research sought to address is whether their
experiences at a university contributed to or acted in any way to “dis-locate”
them from any religious and cultural influences with which they might have
been raised. Did living away from home encourage them to experiment with
pushing religious and cultural boundaries? What was the nature of these
boundaries? Did they feel like they were leading double lives?

Contrary to some media reports,29 many women in my sample did not
appear to lead the much-hyped double-life of alcohol, sex, and clubbing.
While accepting this may well have been a product of my own sampling –
volunteers responding to my flyers out of a desire to challenge stereotypes or
from women wishing to present a “sanitized” version of themselves30 – other
emerging studies in this field appear to support the general findings of my
research.31 For several women I spoke to, who were well aware that living
away from home would leave room for suspicion and gossip in some quar-
ters of their local Muslim communities, the opportunity to live on campus
was, nevertheless, a significant consideration. As the extracts below show,
their reasons for and experiences of living away from home did not necessar-
ily indicate their intention to abandon or sever cultural or religious links and
practices. For example, Shamim spoke of how her experience encouraged her
to regulate her behavior and strengthened her self-confidence and her faith:

I lived with all females, obviously, but I kept myself pretty much to myself.
I wasn’t, I was quite, you know, I practised my faith. I didn’t go clubbing,
boozing, or pub crawling, or any of those things. And I didn’t really have
my family checking up on me every 5 seconds, saying where are you
going? I didn’t have that, and because of that again, I think I sort of prac-
tised my faith more than maybe some other people. (Shamim, 28, BSc
pharmacy, MRPharmec, pharmacist, Pakistani.)

The absence of a “watchful eye” over her actions, she felt, contributed
to her own sense of religiosity and practice. Currently working as a hospital
pharmacist, she highlighted her desire to experience life away from home
and talked of how her experiences contributed to her personal development
(of which others also spoke, see above) and maturity.

Similarly Amber, who convinced her parents to allow her to live in halls
with slight exaggerations about needing to study late in the library, drew a
comparison between the skills she felt she had gained with one of her sisters
who did not study at a university and lived at home:

58 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



Yeah, that changed me. I moved out. I know it sounds funny, but you can
get quite cushy at home. It makes a difference. Like I said, I learnt to live
with other people, made my best friends there. I’m different from my sis-
ters in that sense, especially my middle sister, because she hasn’t gone to
Uni. She’s quite naive about certain things and she hasn’t ever lived out.
She wouldn’t be able to cope. But I think I have learnt from it. (Amber,
24, PGCE, BA history and Urdu, Pakistani.)

Both examples also highlight how living at home, far from being the site
of oppression as stereotypes suggest, was perceived as the “cushy” option.
Studying in an environment that promotes individual thinking and living
away from familial and community influences did not encourage those
women who participated in this research to exhibit the extremes of loose
behavior suggested by some media accounts.32 As Naheed notes: 

I think in popular perceptions you can either be one way or another, but
you don’t have to. From what I gathered, a lot of people think that if you
go to this university, you’re gonna be really Anglicised, or whatever. She’s
gonna run away, or she’s gonna put on a hijab. But there is another way.
There are a lot of people like me, so I can’t understand the idea that you
have to be one or the other. You can be a practising Muslim, and people
will [still] huff and puff and whatever. It’s for you to decide and be happy.
(Naheed, 24, MA international politics student, p/t, Bangladeshi.)

A few women cited parental concerns around daughters “going wild” at
university, but stated that they were often able to reassure their parents. Even
so, within a general spirit of encouragement, parents still instilled a sense of
foreboding in their daughters regarding the possible adverse effects that expo-
sure to western secular education may have. The women I interviewed were
well aware of their parents’ anxieties around how they could change, as well
as of the possible “Anglicising” effects of university life. As Aswa points out:

Nowadays, if a girl wants to be educated and go on to university and col-
lege, there is a fear that she may become too Westernised. But that really
depends on what type of background you’re coming from. If your parents
are very liberal, yeah, then that shouldn’t be a problem. Your parents will
be all too willing for you to go forward, get an education, and be success-
ful in whatever you do. 

While sensationalized media stories of Muslim women and their behav-
ior can be viewed as another example of how discursive and hegemonic rep-
resentations define and constrain Muslim women’s agency, Aswa’s words
highlights a real parental concern perpetuated by irresponsible, unbalanced
journalism.33 As highlighted elsewhere,34 the impact of pioneering role mod-

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 59



els did much to ease negotiations on entry into a university for some women
and their families. Realizing that the extreme examples featured in the press
or circulated via gossip networks were perhaps exaggerated, as well as being
able to compare these with examples of well-adjusted educated Muslim
women, significantly allayed parental fears.

Overall though, women were eager to stress the multiple benefits they
had gained as a result of degree-level study. Apart from practical benefits, one
of the significant aspects was the positive influence that this experience had
on helping them think through and articulate their religious and cultural iden-
tities and notions of agency. In this sense, their testimonies are a powerful
challenge to stereotyped representations of Muslim Asian women as caught
between cultures or having fixed identities.

Therefore, based on the experiences reported during the interviews, this
research does not support the conclusions drawn from other studies that high
levels of education are associated with renouncing such traditional values and
practices as arranged marriages.35 Rather, it signifies the wish to experience
student life and gain a degree of independence during term-time, at least,
away from the parental gaze. Many of the women I spoke with described
Ramadan, Eid, and similar occasions as being times when faith could be
shared in a supportive environment provided by the university. In this con-
text, freedom does not necessarily equate with abandoning traditional cul-
tural values and practices or religious requirements. In fact, for these women
it actually signified that here was an opportunity to explore and practice their
beliefs in ways that matched the milieu in which they were now located – the
elite, racialized, and gendered domain of higher education. 

Recognizing this, some universities have become increasingly aware of
the diverse needs of students from various religious backgrounds and are
trying to better accommodate their needs.36 Leaving home, then, is signifi-
cant for some daughters (and sons) and their parents; it is just one of the
ways in which parents manifest their trust in their daughter’s sense of
responsibility and `izzat 37 (honor) while away from home.

Staying at Home
For some women, the comforts of home, cooked food, clean clothes, and
fewer financial worries were significant factors in their decisions to not live
on campus.38 However, other women saw this choice as a strategic compro-
mise designed to appease parental concerns about studying at a university
and the potential influences of its secular environment on their cultural and
religious obligations and attitudes:

60 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



I wanted to move out when I was living at home. I was travelling three
hours every single day. I couldn’t argue with my parents. They put their
foot down and said: “You have to go to a university in London.” I didn’t
have a choice about leaving, as my brother did. He could go anywhere in
the country. Obviously my parents would prefer him to study in London,
but he was allowed to go outside of London, whereas that was not an
option for me. If I wanted to study, I had to do it in London. (Sabia, 27,
BSc biology, PGCE, school teacher, Indian.)

Sabia was quite frustrated at the relative freedom given to her brother.
But she eventually got her way, although only for her final term and after
convincing her parents that it was necessary given the amount of time it took
her to get there. The women’s negotiating skills when faced with such ten-
sions played a key role, especially for those who were university “pioneers”
in their families. Some women in my sample (e.g., Amber) used imaginative
means to convince their parents to acquiesce to their wishes. But it is impor-
tant when saying this to also note, as I have done above, that the desire to
leave home did not necessarily indicate a desire to lead a double-life that was
bar-influenced or secular. It could reflect, instead, a natural process of matu-
rity as one grew into adulthood and individuality. As Tasleema states below,
she wanted to “differentiate my life from that of my family home.”

Other women offered more nuanced responses. Freedom thus became a
contested notion that held a qualitatively different significance to its “every-
day” meanings that are often used in racist pathologies of Muslim women.
They also appreciated and valued not having to worry about financial con-
cerns and fending for oneself before they felt emotionally ready. Shabnum,
who preferred to live at home, says that she shared this view with her parents.
She rationalized her desire to remain at home due to her close relationship
with her parents and the knowledge that marriage (an expected conse-
quence) would naturally result in her leaving home anyway. She said:

I wouldn’t have liked to move on my own for definite! … I’m too close
to my family and I know women in our culture: once you get married,
that’s it really. You don’t see much of your family, and I know as a
Bengali woman I would have had to get married before the age of 25 for
definite, if not before the age of 27. And so I wanted to spend as much
time as possible with my parents, really. And in a way I wanted to give
them back what I had, because I know once I get married I won’t be able
to do that. I will, but not to the extent as I would have been able to do then.
So that’s why I wanted to stay with my parents really. (Shabnum, 24, pol-
icy and research officer, Bangladeshi.)

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 61



In this extract, Shabnum hints at the “sell-by date,”39 with respect to the
marrying ages about which so many women talked. The expectation that
marriage was an early inevitability that would restrict the amount of time she
could spend with her parents was an interesting perspective on the expected
nature of marriage. A small number of other women also mentioned it.

For others, the financial benefits of living at home were tinged with a
sense of an unrequited experience that living on campus led to expectations
that were never fulfilled. As Tasleema, another home graduate, said:

I guess I wanted some freedom to find myself more than anything else.
To differentiate my life from that of my family and see where my beliefs
and my attitudes began and where they ended. (Tasleema, 23, BSc psy-
chology, MSc, forensic psychology, mental health officer, Bangladeshi.)

The discussion of living on campus or at home was a pragmatic choice
for many women. Although living on campus undoubtedly contributed to a
qualitatively different set of shared experiences and ways that women
thought about themselves, some of these experiences unsettled their assump-
tions and expectations of what they would find at a university. This caused
some to question whether they could ever fit in.

“Being One of Them” and “Fitting In”
There were relatively few negative accounts of university life. Most com-
plaints centered on heavy workloads and course expenses, with young moth-
ers in particular being challenged by combining course work with childcare
and domestic responsibilities. 

A few students and former graduates spoke of racist, sexist, or Islamo-
phobic comments while at the university. There are broadly two main ways
in which they were made to feel excluded: academic experiences and student
social activities. For example, Halima, 23, who had recently completed a
B.Ed from a new university and described much of her course as “brilliant,”
felt her experience marred by one (in her opinion) prejudiced lecturer:

The lecturer was so rude. It was like she didn’t think we knew answers.
She used to pick on us when we used to go to lectures – as if we couldn’t
speak English, as if we wouldn’t know the answers. And the way she
would pick on us, it was like, even if you knew the answers you couldn’t
tell her because it’s like – you know when someone starts to pick on you,
you forget answers, you’re gob-smacked. … Everybody used to talk
about that, and it was also like that for prayers – we used to start at 1.30
pm, and other lecturers knew that we used to go for prayers so we’d be
there at the lecturer theatre for 1.35 pm. But she would give us a dirty look

62 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



when we used to come in. Other people would walk in half an hour late
and she never used to say anything [to them]. But because she could see
us as Asian persons, we used to dress in a certain way so we used to stand
out in the crowd … it was really obvious that she was doing it [staring].
It wasn’t normal. (Halima, 23, B.Ed, recent graduate, Bangladeshi.)

Despite having enjoyed her time at the university, Shamim also felt sub-
jected to Islamophobic sentiments from one of her tutors and noted how other
students made little effort to learn about her cultural background and faith:

I’ve had loads and loads, but my pre-reg tutor who was where I did my
years training. He used to make lots of comments about Saddam Hussein.
He said: “Oh I’d better not say anything because you are Muslim.” I said:
“No, you are quite entitled to put him down because I don’t like him at
all.” And he used to always refer to Yasser Arafat and all these other Arab
personalities and think, you know, and say: “Oh sorry,” you know, and
think that he knew more than me, rather than trying to discover what I
actually felt about anything. He just had this assumed knowledge that this
is how I would feel, and he stereotyped me into that kind of way of think-
ing. (Shamim, 28, BSc pharmacy, MRPharmec, pharmacist, Pakistani.)

Other examples focused on how the construction of academic dis-
courses (“using long words”) within a seminar session reinforced middle-
class hegemonic authority over students from working-class backgrounds.
Sadia spoke of perceptions of racism from some of her tutors, but also of her
surprise at confronting racist stereotypes from lecturers whom she held in
high esteem. In the extract that follows, she speaks of her growing realiza-
tion that regardless of her academic achievements, she still felt she was sub-
jected to an “othering” process:

… As the years progressed and I got involved in University life, I realised
that even the lecturers themselves, so-called educated people, they have
their own pre-conceived ideas to us. And, as you try and progress, I felt
that I was, however subtly or however directly, I wanted to challenge their
ideas. I felt that it was up to me – it was my responsibility to break down
stereotypes. I would not directly approach them and say this, this, and
this; I would do it by doing my best at university myself and hope that my
educational achievements would speak for themselves. […] 

When probed further, she mentioned a conversation she had had with
her supervisor. That this particular university had an international reputation
of expertise in area studies added to her initial surprise about the more gen-
eral stereotypes she encountered from other lecturers. It also contributed to
her overall perception of a university as a place where racism and sexism
went unchallenged:

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 63



When speaking to my supervisor, actually, we were discussing something.
He was asking me about my background, about being Bengali, and during
the course of the conversation he made the statement: “You people” [her
emphasis], and I was a bit taken aback by that and thought that this must
be stemming from somewhere. This must be stemming from a stereotypi-
cal image that he has, because you do not use the phrase “you people” so
easily. To me it implies that he has the impression already about us, and I
was surprised, because I thought that as he was a lecturer at X, these ideas
would have been dismantled ages ago. But, of course, they are still there.
I think slowly I am beginning to realise that it is not all ideally fixed as it
should be – that is the best way I can describe it. (Sadia, 26, MPhil student,
South Asian area studies, Bengali literature and gender, Bangladeshi.)

In terms of social relationships, ignorance about the women’s religion
and cultures, a sense of not “being one of them,” and notions of what was
“normal” for students infiltrated into these women’s otherwise positive uni-
versity experiences. Some felt uncomfortable with the highly secularized stu-
dent environment, particularly the social scene that emphasized clubbing and
drinking, described by some as the “English” or “secular” way of life.

Many women responded to this tension by forming their own groups of
close friends who were religiously and culturally similar. For several women
I spoke with, this invariably meant finding friends who shared their cultural
backgrounds and religion. This is despite their feeling a sense of social
responsibility to form friendships across racial, cultural, and religious differ-
ences. In addition, this indicates that other students, those who can be said to
represent the majority of university entrants, may not have thought of their
friendships in similar ways. Amber’s friendships with other Muslim students
developed after she felt excluded by “English” students:

Well if you’re not going to drink they’ll probably go: “Oh why can’t you
have a drink? That’s really sad, go on have a drink, take some drugs.” But
if you’re not about that, it’s better to hang around with people that you’re
more comfortable with, that do the same things as you.
[Interviewer:] So did you find that there was an element of students who
you just didn’t find anything in common with because their student life
was centred around things that didn’t concern you?
Oh yeah, student life, you can just imagine a “typical” student life; a lot
of English people are like that. … I mean that’s what people are like, and
fair enough, I’m not knocking it. Do what you want, but how can you sit
round in a room with a whole bunch of people, and they’re all drinking
alcohol, and that’s what they’re gonna do? ... You’re gonna be bored out
of your mind. Its just practical common-sense things. It’s not a conscious
decision I made; it just ended up that way. The Muslim thing really hap-

64 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



pened because of the Islamic Society and things like that. It just ended up
like that. (Amber, 24, PGCE, BA history and Urdu, Pakistani).

Another form of group-belonging operated within such student societies
as the ISOCs or the PakSocs. Of the women I interviewed, their experiences
with these societies were varied and not entirely positive, especially for those
who regarded themselves as occupying the middle ground and practicing
Muslims but did not wear the hijab. Again, the issue of fitting in was signifi-
cant. Women felt isolated if they did not buy into the group’s ethos, whether
this was overtly connected with political Islam, as with some ISOCs,40 or with
the secularized and materialistic version of Pakistani culture promoted by
wealthy foreign students who dominated some PakSocs. Thus, “belonging”
is both complex as well as constructed and perceived differentially in Muslim
and non-Muslim social spaces.

Conclusion
For many Muslim women in this study, regardless of whether they lived at
home or on campus, their university experiences were viewed positively, and,
contrary to Bhopal’s assertions, were not perceived as “dis-locating” them
from their religion and culture.41 Rather, many of my respondents, especially
those with parents who expressed concern over the westernizing influences
of higher education, felt that their experiences had helped them to rationalize
their thoughts on their religion and culture in a positive sense.

The women spoke of the numerous personal benefits they had gained,
such as self-confidence, self-esteem, and improved marriage prospects, not to
mention the practical benefits a degree brought when preparing to enter the
job market. For those who entered higher education through circuitous and
alternative non-traditional routes, especially those who entered as mothers,
these personal benefits enjoyed a special level of significance. 

Opportunities to make friends from diverse backgrounds were cited as
another positive aspect of the university experience. What marks these
relationships as significant were the ways in which several women spoke of
having a sense of social responsibility when it comes to breaking down
stereotypes of Asian Muslim women. However, they also spoke of how they
sometimes felt “othered” by fellow students for not joining in drinking and
clubbing activities or by the white middle-class students’ lack of any effort
to learn about them. The Islamophobic or racist attitudes and comments
were also noted as a cause for concern. Some of the women studying arts-
related courses with an Islamic or a South Asian content were disappointed
at the colonial bias of reading lists. 

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 65



In many ways, these experiences contributed to their efforts to develop
closer friendships with other Muslim women with whom a sense of shared
solidarity could be enjoyed. Given the great personal investment placed by
Muslim women and their families upon higher education and its related ben-
efits, higher education institutions must make a greater effort to ensure that
they are seen as welcoming places by students from diverse backgrounds.

Endnotes

1. D. Tyrer, “The Others,” in Institutional Racism in Higher Education, eds. I.
Law, D. Phillips, and L. Turney (Stoke on Trent, UK: Trentham Books, 2004).

2. See, for example, H. Afshar, “Gender Roles and the “Moral Economy of Kin”
among Pakistani Women in West Yorkshire,” New Community, no. 15 (1989a):
211-25 and “Education: Hopes, Expectations, and Achievements of Muslim
Women in West Yorkshire,” Gender and Education, no. 1 (1989b): 261-72; A.
Brah and S. Shaw, Working Choices: South Asian Young Muslim Women and
the Labour Market, Research Paper No. 91 (London: Department of Employ-
ment, 1992); A. Brah, “”Race” and “Culture” in the Gendering of Labour
Markets: South Asian Young Muslim Women and the Labour Market,” New
Community, no. 29 (1993): 441-58; J. West and S. Pilgrim, “South Asian
Women in Employment: The Impact of Migration, Ethnic Origin, and the Local
Economy,” New Community, no. 21 (1995): 357-78; T. Modood, R. Berthoud,
J. Lakey, J. Nazroo, P. Smith, S. Virdee, and S. Beishon, Ethnic Minorities in
Britain: Diversity and Disadvantage (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1997);
A. Dale, N. Shaheen, E. Fieldhouse, and V. Kalra, “Labour Market Prospects
for Pakistani and Bangladeshi Women,” Work, Employment and Society 16, no.
1 (2002a): 5-26; F. Ahmad, T. Modood, and S. Lissenburgh, South Asian
Women and Employment in Britain: The Interaction of Gender and Ethnicity
(London: Policy Studies Institute, 2003).

3. H. S. Mirza, “Black Women in Higher Education: Defining a Space/Finding a
Place,” in Feminist Academics: Creative Agents for Change, eds. L. Morley
and V. Walsh (London: Taylor & Francis, 1995).

4. F. Shain, The Schooling and Identity of Asian Girls (Stoke on Trent, UK:
Trentham Books 2003); T. Abbas, “The Impact of Religio-cultural Norms and
Values on the Education of Young South Asian Women,” British Journal of
Sociology of Education 24, no. 4 (2003): 411-28.

5. A. Pickerden, “Muslim Women in Higher Education: New Sites of Lifelong
Learning,” International Journal of Lifelong Education 21, no. 1 (2002): 37-43.

6. L. Archer, “Change, Culture, and Tradition: British Muslim Pupils Talk about
Muslim Girls’ Post-16 ‘Choices’,” Race, Ethnicity, and Education 5, no. 4
(2002): 359-76.

7. F. Ahmad, “Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women and Academic
Achievement,” Gender and Education 13, no. 2 (2001): 137-52.

66 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



8. S. Housee, “Unveiling South Asian Female Identities post September 11: Asian
Female Students’ Sense of Identity and Experiences of Higher Education,” in
Institutional Racism in Higher Education, eds. I. Law, D. Phillips, and L. Tur-
ney, chapter 7 (London: Trentham Press, 2004), 59-70.

9. C. Asmar, “Internationalising Students: Reassessing Diasporic and Local Stu-
dent Difference,” Studies in Higher Education 30, no. 3 (2005): 291-309.

10. C. Asmar, E. Proude, and L. Inge, “‘Unwelcome Sisters’”? An Analysis of
Findings from a Study of How Muslim Women (and Muslim Men) Experience
University,” Australian Journal of Education 48, no. 1 (2004): 47-63.

11. T. Modood, “Ethnicity, Muslims, and Higher Education Entry in Britain,”
Teaching in Higher Education 11, no. 2 (2006): 247-50.

12. D. Reay, J. Davies, M. David, and S. J. Ball, “Choices of Degree or Degrees of
Choice? Class, ‘Race,’ and the Higher Education Choice Process,” Sociology
35, no. 4 (2001): 855-74; S. Ball, D. Reay, and M. David, “‘Ethnic Choosing’”:
Minority Ethnic Students, Social Class, and Higher Education Choice,” Race,
Ethnicity, and Education 5, no. 4 (2002): 333-57; L. Archer, M. Hutchings, and
A. Ross, Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion
(London: Routledge Falmer: 2003); B. Read, L. Archer, and C. Leathwood,
“Challenging Cultures? Student Conceptions of “Belonging” and “Isolation” at
a Post-1992 University,” Studies in Higher Education 28, no. 3 (2003): 261-77.
There are some problematic aspects to the term non-traditional students that
extend beyond my study’s context. To imply that students, especially those
from racialized minorities, are non-traditional can inadvertently create a pathol-
ogized reading of students who are not from white, middle-class backgrounds.
This, in turn, deflects attention away from structural issues of access to higher
education and refocuses it onto the marginalized group as lacking in the appro-
priate social profile. I am grateful to D. Tyrer for drawing this to my attention.

13. L. Tett, “‘I’m Working Class and Proud of It” – Gendered Experiences of Non-
Traditional Participants in Higher Education,” Gender and Education 12, no.
2 (2000): 183-94.

14. D. Tyrer and F. Ahmad, “Those Muslim Women Are at it Again!” Q-News,  no.
364 (November 2005).

15. M. Shiner and T. Modood, “Help or Hindrance? Higher Education and the
Route to Ethnic Equality,” British Journal of Sociology of Education 23, no. 2
(2002): 209-32; Modood, “Ethnicity, Muslims, and Higher Education.”

16. Modood, “Ethnicity, Muslims, and Higher Education.”
17. Brah and Shaw, Working Choices; Dale, Shaheen, Fieldhouse, and Kalra,

“Labour Market Prospects”; A. Dale, N. Shaheen, E. Fieldhouse, and V. Kalra,
“Routes into Education and Employment for Young Pakistani and Bangladeshi
Women in the UK,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 25, no. 6 (2002b): 942-68;
Ahmad, et al, South Asian Women and Employment; Modood, “Ethnicity,
Muslims and Higher Education.”

18. See the heavily criticized A. Glees and C. Pope, When Students Turn to Terror:
Terrorist and Extremist Activity on British Campuses (London: Social Affairs

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 67



Unit, 2005). For coverage in the British press, see P. Baty, “Glees Report on
Terror Riles V-Cs,” Times Higher Education Supplement (14 October 2005);
A. Fazackerley, “Police Anger at “‘Handbag War,’” Times Higher Education
Supplement (27 January 2006).

19. C. Alexander, The Asian Gang (Oxford: Berg, 2000); C. Alexander, “Imagin-
ing the Politics of BrAsian Youth,” in Postcolonial People, South Asians in
Britain, eds. N. Ali, V. Kalra, and S. Sayyid (London: Hurst and Company,
2006), 258-71.

20. An excellent report on the disturbances in northern England in the summer of
2001 can be found in C. Allen, Fair Justice: The Bradford Disturbances, the
Sentencing, and the Impact (London: Forum Against Islamophobia and
Racism, 2003). A summary of these debates can be found in Muslims on
Education: A Position Paper (Surrey: AMSS UK, 2004).

21. For an example of such perspectives, see K. Bhopal, Gender, “Race,” and
Patriarchy: A Study of South Asian Women (Aldershot: Ashgate 1997) and K.
Bhopal, “South Asian Women within Households: Dowries, Degradation, and
Despair,” Women’s Studies International Forum, no. 20 (1997a): 483-92.

22. An example of this media discourse can be found in S. Malik, “Girls Just
Wanna Have Fun,” Q-News, no. 36 (2005); and C. Coleman, “Amazing Double
Life a Growing Trend among Muslim Girls,” The Daily Mail (April 2005).

23. For a critique of the above, see Tyrer and Ahmad, “Those Muslim Women.”
24. See F. Ahmad, “Still “in Progress?” – Methodological Dilemmas, Tensions, and

Contradictions in Theorizing South Asian Muslim Women,” in South Asian
Women in the Diaspora, eds. N. Puwar and P. Ranghuram (Oxford: Berg,
2003).

25. Ahmad, “Modern Traditions.”
26. F. Ahmad, “Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women, Higher Education and

Identities” (Ph.D. diss., University of Bristol, 2006); D. Tyrer and F. Ahmad,
Muslim Women and Higher Education: Identities, Experiences and Prospects,
A Summary Report (European Social Fund and Liverpool: John Moores
University, 2006); Moving on up? Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Black
Caribbean Women and Work: Early Findings (Equal Opportunities Commis-
sion, 2006).

27. A. Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London: Rout-
ledge, 1996), 129.

28. Archer, et al., Higher Education and Social Class.
29. For example, see Malik, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and Coleman, “Amaz-

ing Double Life.” 
30. Having said this, I have no reason to question my respondents’ sincerity, as

they were all volunteers and assured confidentiality. In fact, some had revealed
personal details that, at first, would seem to question prevailing notions of
“Muslim women” (one was an unmarried mother). But even here, based on my
data the sensationalized accounts found in the recent Muslim and non-Muslim
media are hard to sustain.

68 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



31. Based on personal correspondence with D. Tyrer, European Social Fund proj-
ect director, “Muslim Women and Widening Access to Higher Education”
(Liverpool: John Moores University, 2005).

32. Interestingly, such extreme representations of female Muslim university stu-
dents “having gone off the rails” have captured the media’s imagination (cf.
Malik, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and Coleman, “Amazing Double Life”)
However, my study and others (e.g., the European Social Fund-supported
study based at Liverpool’s John Moores University) indicate that such a situa-
tion being the norm was particularly limited, if not absent. See D. Tyrer, Race,
Ethnicity, and Muslim Women Students’ Identities (Liverpool: John Moores
University, 2006). (working paper.)

33. Tyrer and Ahmad, “Those Muslim Women.”
34. Ahmad, “Modern Traditions”; Ahmad et al, South Asian Women and

Employment.
35. For instance, see Bhopal, Gender, “Race,” and Patriarchy and “South

Asian Women.” See also her “How Gender and Ethnicity Intersect: The Signi-
ficance of Education, Employment, and Marital Status,” Sociological Research
Online 3, no. 3 (1998): 1-16.

36. S. Gilliat-Ray, Higher Education and Student Religious Identity (Britain: The
Department of Sociology, the University of Exeter and the Interfaith Network
for the UK, 1999).

37. To briefly discuss the concepts of `izzat and gender at this juncture will not do
justice to their centrality and the multiple meanings they can hold when con-
sidering the present sample group. Instead, these are discussed in more detail
in F. Ahmad, “The Scandal of ‘Arranged Marriages’ and the Pathologisation
of BrAsian Families,” in Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain, eds. N.
Ali, V. Kalra, and S. Sayyid (London: Hurst Publications, 2005); F. Ahmad,
“Modern Traditions? British Muslim Women.”

38. It is worth noting that since student fees were introduced in Britain in 1998,
several white students have also opted to remain at home for longer.

39. Such self-imposed humorous terms adopted by female Muslim students are
further discussed in Ahmad et al., South Asian Women and Employment; F.
Ahmad, “The Scandal of ‘Arranged Marriages,’”; and F. Ahmad, “Modern
Traditions? British Muslim Women.”

40. Some ISOCs in the late 1990s were dominated by the Hizb-ut Tahrir Party
(HT). This non-violent political organization came under government scrutiny
after the July 7 bombings in London for its alleged advocacy of Muslim non-
engagement with non-Muslim society.

41. Bhopal, Gender, “Race,” and Patriarchy and “How Gender and Ethnicity
Intersect.”

Ahmad: Muslim Women’s Experiences 69