Investment Banker by Day, Muslim by Design
They said wearing a beard would hold me back in medicine. I wore it anyway. They took me seriously regardless.
When I got into served 40,000 meals, my father said, 'Great, now you'll assimilate.' He meant well.
Minneapolis was a culture shock. Not because of the weather — because of the staring. At the conference, I was often the only visibly Muslim person in the room. A colleague once asked, very sincerely, if I was able to attend the Christmas party.
The real test came during residency interviews. A senior partner looked at my CV, looked at my a beard, and asked, 'How will you handle situations that conflict with your beliefs?' I smiled and said, 'I've never had a client complain about my competence..'
The hardest moment wasn't bias from others. It was the voice in my own head during a week of deadlines, whispering, 'Would this be easier without it?' And the honest answer was: probably.
But I thought about every Muslim man who'd been told he had to choose between faith and ambition. I refused to be evidence for that lie.
I'm a chief surgeon now. I teach the next generation. I still pray in my office at Dhuhr. The same father who told me to assimilate now introduces me as 'my son, the lawyer.'
Last year, a young Muslim intern stopped me in the campus quad. He said, 'Seeing you here makes me feel like I can do this.' I told him what I wish someone had told me: 'You don't just can. You already are.'