The Muslim Experience in Minnesota project aims to capture and convey the Muslim experience in Minnesota through oral interviews and photographic portraits. This Minnesota Historical Society funded project documented 40 Minnesota Muslims chosen carefully to represent a diverse collection of experiences.

Continuing in the series of interviews from the Muslim Experience in Minnesota project, in this entry, I feature Abdulwahild Qalinle, a Somali American who is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. He also directs the Islamic Law and Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the Law School.
Transcript of Prof. Abdulwahid Qalinle interview: My name is Abdulwahid Qalinle. I am an American of Somali origin. I immigrated to the United States eleven years ago. Somalia has suffered severe civil strife and civil war in late 1980s to early 1990s. My family and I were displaced. We ended up in a refugee camp in neighboring Ethiopia. I then ended up in Pakistan, where, which was the only country to which I would get a visa at the time. And in early 1990s I went to Pakistan and enrolled in a university there and was living there under the mandate of the United Nations as a refugee. And after I finished my education, in fact, I did graduate from the International Islamic University with a law degree and, and after I finished my degree, the United Nations arranged a resettlement program for all the refugees in Pakistan. And I was among those lucky ones who were able to obtain a resettlement in the United States. I arrived in the United States under the sponsorship of the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and I arrived here as a refugee, came here to a welcoming hand by the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, who helped me settle down, provided me with housing, and few help here and there to cover my expenses. And that's how I ended up here. One afternoon in my hometown of Borama, which is the northwest of Somalia, right at the border with Ethiopia there was a, there was a rebel group that was approaching to the city, and they ended up invading my city. And since we were defenseless civilians, we ended up fleeing on foot to cross the border into Ethiopia. In Pakistan there were a sizeable Somali refugees who ended up there just like me as refugees, came from all parts of Somalia. We went through a process where you would, your name would be presented to a number of countries and those countries, based on their own criterion and their own eligibility grounds or, you know, grounds for admission or accepting refugees, they would choose from among those refugees a number of people or families that they want to accept or admit as refugees. So, I was interviewed by an officer from the then INS, Immigration and Naturalization Services of the United States, at the offices of the United Nations. And having been satisfied that there was a bonafide case for refugee and that I was, in fact, a genuine refugee, they then decided to grant me a tentative, you know, refugee status pending, you know, medical checkup or some other procedural things. And after I finished those and I completed all those processes, I was given a, a plane ticket and then I was put in touch with the Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, who then arranged my trip. And I, along with a number of other refugees, came to America. And upon arrival at JFK airport in New York, we were divided into groups, each group heading to the state where their hosting agency or family members are located. So I ended up in New York City, and then I have to take another flight across the continental United States all the way to the West coast in Las Vegas, to Las Vegas, and that's why I ended up there. I read a lot about America before coming to America. So I had prior information, I would say, you know, fairly significant information of the American education system, American way of life, and everything American. I will say that I only needed to see it personally or to see the physical America. And, and nonetheless, I couldn't imagine that I would be so surprised to see that, you know, seeing it is much more different than reading about it or seeing it through TV or movies or so forth. In terms of the weather, Vegas was very similar to where I came from; very dry, hot and so forth, and desert as well. But as, when I, even before I came to the United States, I knew that Minnesota attracted a very large Somali refugees and that they were making it home here. After I arrived here I was able to get employment from the local county here, so I became a county worker at Hennepin County here in Minneapolis. And I've worked there as an eligibility officer in the Department of Human Services. And while working there I began to go and attend law school here at the University of Minnesota, from which I graduated in 2004. And so I, I was able to finish my law school and then immediately after that I started teaching at the law school as an adjunct professor of Islamic Law. In Pakistan, I had a dual training. I had training in both the British Common Law as well as the Islamic law. So I did have a professional background in Islamic law; in fact, I had my Masters degree in Islamic law, or Shariah law. And so I began teaching at the U of M law school since 2004. I traveled back to Africa, to Somalia, in fact, as a consultant for the United Nations and to also help rebuild the justice sector in the northwest part of Somalia where I am from. And I spent quite a, over, nearly 2 years there as well. And, and I came back here and I established, helped establish a project on Islamic law and human rights, at the human rights center at the U of M law school. I am leading that project right now. And I do, I do focus on the issues of, or the intersectionality and the merging of Shariah law or Islamic law and the human rights and international principles of rule of law. Through the Somali community I also was able to get in touch with the Muslim community in general. And typically we would meet in a mosque, that's where you meet all different kinds of Muslims as you, Muslims pray together regardless of their ethnicity and, and, and there are no separate ethnic-based denominations in Islam, so Muslims pray together from all countries. So I would meet Muslims originally from Egypt, or southeast Asia, or Turkey, or all kinds of places, or from Africa as well. So I did end up becoming a member of this community here. One of the issues that I, I was pleasantly surprised about was the fact that many employers were willing to accommodate those religious obligations that Muslims have and would allow them to pray few minutes and take that from their work, work hours. So, that is something that I, I thought was very interesting. And also the allowing Muslims, for instance, to, you know, display their own cultural identity whether it's the dress code, whether it is the, that Muslims had based on their religion and culture. So the welcoming and reception and hospitality that Muslims received here was something that was breathtaking, I should say. I found that I was treated fairly, I was given a good, you know, a fair shot and that, for instance, given me also a window to observe how the employees, other employees were interacting with me, the opportunities for advancement and development which was available to me. And so I felt that I am being subject to the same rules that everybody else is subject to. My family life is a typical American family here in the sense that my wife is at the moment a stay home mom taking care of the two kids and I go to work. And our two children, who are ages of four and three, are just, you know, starting their life and are getting used to growing up. And it's a lot of fun to, to be a father, it's a lot of fun to be with them all the time. They are learning both languages; they speak English and they also speak Somali. Certainly 9/11 was a life changing event for many Muslims, I would say. And Muslims in the United States felt in the days following 9/11 that they are under siege. As soon as the news came out that the perpetrators of this heinous crime were members of a, an organization that is rooted in the Muslim, Muslim world, the reaction was, as expected, very negative towards Muslims. And the perception that the people had about Muslims in general was, in my view, in general, in general, understandably negative. Many people could not, in the US, differentiate between the tiny minority Muslims who are bent on destruction, whether that is a destruction of Muslims or non-Muslims and indiscriminate destruction, and the large and vast majority of Muslims who are peace loving and would like to just, you know, live their lives as normal as they can, law-abiding and so forth. So that confusion between the two and the use of the name of Islam and Muslims and having this name associated with the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations created a very set of, created set of challenges to Muslims here in the US. The fact is there are, you know, arguments that are so outrageous that people should not even be bringing up. For instance, questioning whether Islam is a religion or not, or it's cult as some people refer to it, sadly, was quite disheartening to hear because these are issues that anyone who has any knowledge about the world affairs and the history of the world and the history of the Middle East would be able to figure out. And if Islam being one of the fastest growing religions and one of the major Abrahamic religions that is very rooted and a very, very popular in many parts of the world and, you know, with, you know, adherence and members over one billion cannot be reduced to, to a cult-like, you know, organization with few lunatic members such as al-Qaeda who are misusing the name of Islam. It does require sorting out and really balancing the issues here. And so it does make me feel very uncomfortable that there is a degree of ignorance and there is a degree of misinformation, if you will, in many quarters in the U.S. about, about Islam, and that results in a very negative attitude towards Muslims. Muslims here are very productive, they are well off economically, and they are mostly professionals or business owners doing very well. I mean when, when compared to other communities here and in America, they are very wealthy and fairly integrated. If you compare to Muslims in America and the Muslims in Europe, it's a totally different story. I mean, Muslims in Europe are known to be living in ghettos and there is a systemic, I think, exclusion of Muslims from certain professions or certain, you know, you know, or at least, you know, the advancement or progress in Europe. In America Muslims are, are, you know, you know, preaching to all kinds of, of, of, of positions and they are fairly integrated into the community and society here in America. A number of state legislatures in the United States recently, you know, where the, where, well, a number of legislators in a number of states tried to, you know, come up with a, with bills that would prohibit the use of Shariah in the legal system in those states. It is, it is quite pointless in my view in the sense that because these, there is no such a thing as Shariah creeping into the legal system. There is no Shariah that's being implemented by the courts in America. For, in Oklahoma which has a very, very tiny minority Muslims, to insert or to put a constitutional amendment to ban Shariah is, I think, a waste of resources, is a waste of time and it's completely uncalled for. And I think it's, it's being motivated by a sheer confusion and misunderstanding of the Muslims and Islam and Shariah. In America we have a clear separation of the sate and the religion. So the government cannot establish or help establish any religion. And, and so it is very clear in our constitution that the introduction of any religion into the legal system, whether it is Islam or any other faith, is totally unconstitutional. So there is no threat, if you will, of any, you know, of Shariah becoming the legal system of this country, you know, in my view. So I don't think this is, this is something that's legitimate debate. It's not a debate that is, that should be had. It's based on nothing. There are no attempts to insert or to implement Shariah. Muslims who are here are subject to the American law. They would like to live by the, they came here by choice, nobody was here, brought here by force. We came here, for instance in my story, as a willing and grateful refugee who is, who understands and is grateful for the opportunities provided by this great country. And I am committed to upholding and abiding the laws of this country. And I have been doing that so far. And I am committed to that, and for me the laws of the United States and the constitution of the United States is the law that I chose to live under. And so are all the Muslims who are here. I think those legislators should be focusing on jobs, they should be focusing on education, on, on lifting the people up instead of, you know, making allegations, well, allegations about Shariah coming here, which is totally fabricated, I think, lies and misinformation. As a Muslim in Minnesota I think it has, it has been quite, quite an experience. I feel that I, I, I am home and I feel that I can exercise my religion the way I want, subject to the law that everybody is subject to. But I do, I do live a full life as a Muslim and I don't think there is any inherent contradiction between being a Muslim and an American. I think, you know, Muslims here do feel that they are part, they are this community, they are becoming part of this community, and that our children will even be more, you know, integrated into the American life and that they will be, you know, or, you know, having much, much greater role in shaping the events of this country. Muslims here are growing in number and in quality and that, you know, when you used to look at the University of Minnesota ten years ago and today, you can see the difference in terms of how many students of Muslim origin are enrolled. Those are becoming the doctors, the lawyers, the engineers of tomorrow and serving Minnesota, serving the United States and becoming, you know, you know, basically law abiding, you know, citizens of this country.