 Free Dating Advice for Secure & Fun Dating
Dating can be fun. The best part about dating is that you have the perfect excuse to plan interesting outings.
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Did my mother show you the stuff about Yasmeen?
My father keeps a whole file on her and brings it out now and again to show people. If you really want to see some neat pictures, you should ask him to show it to you.
His tone changes to one of disdain.
I don’t know why they even keep the stuff. My mother is constantly videotaping the fashion shows on TV and then calling me to watch them when Yasmeen’s on. I couldn’t care less. But my mother and father are somehow obsessed by her.
So is the rest of the Muslim community in Montreal. Unlike the dichotomy of growing up between two cultures, which many parents refuse to acknowledge, Yasmeen continues to hold the attention of the devout. At the dinner parties where the elite socialize, parents lament the degeneration of religion and culture, and envariably cite the example of Yasmeen Ghauri.
But Yasmeen’s story is not about polarizing the tightly knit Muslim community of Montreal alone or for that matter, its counterpart in Edmonton, where her appearance on the cover of this August’s Flare fashion magazine caused a local imam to denounce her during a Friday-prayer sermon.
It also has had its impact on her home and her parents, whose separation, some say, may have had a hand in a headstrong Muslim female deciding to strike out on her own.
Yasmeen’s mother, Linda Ghauri, is of German descent and her father, Moin, was the imam or religious leader at the ICQ, or Islamic Community of Quebec. Her upbringing was typical in some ways — she was constantly encouraged to excel in school and, like other Muslim children she attended Islamic Sunday school classes, where children are taught taught Arabic — the language of the Koran, the holy book itself, and stories from the Hadith - - sayings and acts of the prophet Mohammed — the second source of Islamic law.
Her growing up saw racial taunts and a feeling of deprevation. In one published interview she says “Kids called me `chocolate-cake face’ And when you’re eight years old you know…I wasn’t poor but we didn’t have any money. When you see kids who are rich — their houses their clothes — you see what you’re missing.”
But, by the same token, Yasmeen was always complimented for being pretty when she was growing up. Many remember her as a shy girl.
Her strict Muslim family stressed traditional Islamic values coupled with tight parental control. The daughter of the religious leader of the ICQ, Montreal’s main mosque and hence one of the most prominent spiritual leaders for the city’s and suburb’s 35,000 Muslims, was expected to be an explarary role model for her peers.
But there were other happenings in her life. Her parents’ marriage had begun to break down and there was constant bickering back at home — one reason put forward by a close friend to explain Yasmeen’s decision to become a model.
The friend, who requests anonymity, says Yasmeen’s self- reliance is a direct result of her parents’ failed marriage. Linda Aunty basically got fed up with her and Yasmeen being left alone at home all the time while Uncle Moin was at the mosque.
Linda Aunty felt he was married more to the mosque then he was to her, so she left him. Besides being German, she wasn’t accepted very much by the community and Yasmeen was always picked on by Muslim kids because of it.
Yasmeen refuses to grant an interview through her agent, and when a reporter calls her in New York, she says only two words, “Fuck off!”
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