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When Khadijah Sharif-Drinkard, 35, took a job as in-house counsel at MTV Networks, she did so looking forward to helping youth from her beloved childhood neighborhood in Harlem with access to mentoring, jobs, and other opportunities at a corporate level. It was her way of giving back to a community she enjoyed growing up in as well as practicing values of kindness and equity as a Muslim.
But at a network whose prime target audiences are young, hip teenagers, sticking to her faith sometimes meant missing opportunities to negotiate and broker some of the biggest — usually the raciest and most controversial — projects. With the help of a supportive supervisor and colleagues who understood what her personal faith meant to her, she was able to hold onto her values while developing a successful career as an entertainment attorney.
Granted her workplace wasn’t always perfect. When a colleague first found out Khadijah was Muslim, she reacted: “Oh my gosh, you’re too smart to be a Muslim. Your husband must have like, 10 wives.”
But Khadijah knew better. “Islam says to me that I have a right to education, respect, dignity, and to be equal in a relationship,” she says. She adds with a laugh: “Women are natural leaders, they govern a family. During prayer, men stand in the front, because they need to be pushed there.”
Khadijah credits her strengths and beliefs to her mother, who single-handedly raised Khadijah and her siblings after their father was arrested for civil disobedience. Now married with two young daughters of her own, Khadijah raises them as her own mother did: to grow up to become strong, independent Muslim women who are entitled to their personal interpretation of the Koran. They learn how to pray, but are not forced to wear headscarves — unless they choose to.
“I don’t think wearing hijab is prescribed,” she says, “The Koran asks all of us to be modest, and to me, the best modesty is to have the right character.”
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