Speed Date a Muslim to ask those niggling questions

If you’ve ever had a question about Muslims but were afraid to ask, a Brunswick cafe owner is here to help you.

Chef Hana Assafiri is holding free fortnightly Speed Date a Muslim events on Sunday afternoons at her Moroccan Deli-cacy cafe in Lygon Street, as her own contribution to world peace.

Rather than a traditional romantic speed date, it’s a forum for non-Muslim men and women to ask Muslim women about their faith and their culture. With free coffee, tea and sweets.

“The idea is in keeping with the spirit of speed dating, the open heart and mind that’s necessary to get to know another,” Ms Assafiri says.

“A bunch of Muslim women sit opposite non-Muslims, for an hour, and you can ask them whatever candid question you want, in the hope that this can go some way towards developing a more sophisticated dialogue, instead of a divisive, simplistic one.”

Subjects range from “Do you sleep in your hijab” to, “is ISIS representative of Islam” and “how does Islam lend itself to the empowerment of women”?

“Nothing is off the table,” Ms Assafiri says, “provided it’s respectful dialogue, and we’re doing this as a way of taking some responsibility as women.”

On Sunday, Alycia Eicke, 15, and Cesca Falcini, 14, who go to Catholic and Methodist schools, asked Sareh Salarzadeh whether she had gone to a Muslim school, and what was life like growing up Muslim.

Ms Salarzadeh, 40, now an Islamic school principal, went to state schools as a child. Her Iranian parents were non-practising Muslims, so she didn’t wear a hijab at school. “I knew nothing about Islam growing up.”

Her mother wears western clothes, including “three quarter pants and a singlet”. Ms Salarzadeh chose to wear a hijab at age 23, but since then, while driving, she has had eggs and a beer can thrown at her, and was once almost run off the road.

Ms Salarzadeh said the event was “a good platform for people to come and meet a Muslim and to openly ask questions from us, rather than getting it from the media”.

“Get to know who we are before you have your assumptions about them. If you see a Muslim in the street, go up and say hello. We don’t bite. We’re actually quite friendly and we’re willing to answer questions.”

The next Speed Date a Muslim is on February 21 at 3pm. Ms Assafiri said the response from the three sessions so far indicated “that there’s an appetite for these sorts of conversations”.

She said she adored male Muslim media commentator Waleed Aly, but “there needs to be a number of speaking positions alongside one another which reflect the diversity which is Islam”.

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