Burqa rapper makes no veiled statements

When I started trying rap during my college years,I was not trying to register a political message or social protest. It was more about teenage ideas like creating an identity. Even the crowd was not right for our songs about Islam. Along the way,somewhere,I started talking about myself.

Ashraf hates her faith being attacked and is annoyed about how her religion is hyphenated with terrorism. She talks about this through her lyrics,from behind the black burqa that she started wearing five years ago,which even inspired her mother to follow her footstep.

The significance of her appearance is not lost on her. Art speaks for itself. But in a way,the burqa helps create shock value. I doubt if I would get the same response if I went out to rap in my jeans,T-shirt and bling. Thats is how the whole Islamic rap identity came about.

But Ashraf insists that her burqa is more than an exercise in image management. I didnt make a conscious decision to rap in a burqa. Rapping is something that I did and the burqa is part of my identity. Eventually both of these combined,which I didnt want to let go of.

If there is any contradiction in being burqa rapper,it is based on a misconception,says Ashraf,who tries to convey the message through her lyrics.

According to her own admission,it was not anything life altering that made her wear a burqa. She tried it during an Islamic convention and found it convenient and functional. To those who cannot see beyond their own veil of fundamentalism or fundamental secularism,she asks in one of her songs: Is this all you see?

The youth in her community,she says,are losing their identity. They think as Muslims we should stay away from other communities,or conversely,we have to ostracise ourselves from our own community to be part of society. This is what I want to disprove. You can be Muslim,and you can be cool.

In her view,the present perception about Islam is also due to the moderates among the community who do not take on the challenge of disproving common misconceptions of about the religion.

When a non-Muslim sees a man chanting Allah Akbar whilst chopping off another mans head,how does he know this is not the real Islam? So,as a Muslim who has read the Quran and the Hadith,it is my duty to go to them to say,this is not Islam,which is an old,beautiful religion.

What does her family feel about the outspoken young womans rapping career? Her businessman father and social activist mother,along with extended family,are supportive but do have their apprehensions,says Ashraf. Actually they want someone to speak up,only that they dont want their own daughters to do it, she laughs.

But Ashraf also wants to stick to tradition and plans to get married as soon as her family finds a suitable groom. The only time you can ask me for a date is Ramadan,reads one of the T-shirts she designed.I have to think of the social implications of my decisions on my family. Yes,I am bound,I am tied. But it also gives me a certain level of security. Its my freedom,its freedom from fear and loneliness.

Ashraf treads a middle path,in which different worlds seem to converge. She is too liberal to be fundamental,but too conservative to be a rebel. She loved The Motorcycle Diaries,the story of Marxist rebel Ernesto Che Guevaras journey across South America,but is waiting to be a homemaker and raise her own family; she is too orthodox to shake hands,but asks,in one of her T-shirt quotes,A true Muslim is a mirror to another arent you lucky that I am hot?.

She sums it up: I am not a radical,I dont see myself breaking rules. I think I am a liberal,or a conservative liberal,if there can be such a thing.