1444H / 2022
To mark International Women’s Day, guest writer Amena Matcheswala – a Senior at Athens Drive Magnet High School in Raleigh and Editor In Chief of the school newspaper the Athens Oracle – speaks to women in her community about how their faith has helped them to succeed in their chosen paths.
The women of Raleigh’s Dawoodi Bohra Community are like many others in America: they go to work, they spend time with their families, and they strive to balance their social lives and careers. However, they do all this while keeping alive the flame of tradition that makes a Bohra unique. This International Women’s Day, we celebrate the Dawoodi Bohra women of the Raleigh community, who have successfully played these important roles throughout the generations.
Maleka Qayumi was born and raised in Raipur, India. She relocated to the United States, spending 15 years in Virginia before moving to North Carolina and establishing the Raleigh community nearly 35 years ago. During that time, her success as a medical professional includes time spent in residency, 10 years of medical work with the army, and finally a switch to the private sector. Qayumi’s career successes are matched by her continued involvement with the Bohra community.
“We were the only Bohra people there when we came to North Carolina. When I was in Fort Bragg, we were the only Bohra family, but we started driving an hour and a half to Raleigh when we found out about the community here, and eventually, we moved to Raleigh which made it easier,” said Qayumi.
Qayumi’s admirable achievements are even more laudable in the face of an ongoing crisis of work-life struggle faced by women. Pew Research Center has shown that 51% of mothers with children under the age of 18 find that parenthood has made career advancement more difficult, as opposed to only 16% of men.
Zainab Qayumi, Maleka’s daughter-in-law, has also seen the ways in which balancing tradition and trailblazing the path towards being a modern woman can be a delicate structure to uphold. Zainab has walked this fine line, finding pride in the way she and her partner find balance in the burdens of parenting while she pursues her career.
“We find ways to have events where we can get together; do a beach trip or picnics to have a community sense,” said Zainab. “It may be different than the other Jamaats because we’re smaller but we’re able to have events with the whole community. It’s more intimate!”
On another continent, Rashida Abdulali faced her own journey, this time from Nairobi, Kenya. She spent her time there raising her three children while her husband worked at a tin shop before the family moved to the United States. Here, they found educational and work opportunities they couldn’t pass up. However, with the new country and a small community came a change.
“It was not the same as in Africa,” said Abdulali. “There, they had friends when going to the religious gatherings, but it was a new normal here. I tried to teach them at home whatever I knew but if they had been there back in Africa they would have gone to a school or religious classes and it would have been a bit different and easier.”
After years of staying at home to take care of her children, Abdulali now had to balance her care for her family with the new strains of running a restaurant with her husband. She had to see to it that her children pursued the educational opportunities that came with the family’s relocation to the United States. Among all this, she successfully instilled into them an understanding of the Bohra Faith that still stands strong within them. Today, her children and grandchildren are part of Bohra communities in Canada and the USA. However, the roots of their love for their community will always tell the tales of the Raleigh community of Dawoodi Bohras.
