Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Page 37

Personality

Muslim Mom Who Has It All

By Pat McDonnell Twair

Los Angeles Times columnist Robin Abcarian lamented last month that it's impossible for a woman to do it all: pursue a successful career, have a happy marriage and raise well-adjusted children. For example, Abcarian observed Helen Gurley Brown was successful in her marriage and as publisher of Cosmopolitan magazine—but she didn't have children. And so, Abacarian opined, the goal of having all three may be an impossible dream.

The columnist might change her mind if she were to meet Dr. Ragaa Mostafa Hathout. This clinical pathologist has been happily married to cardiologist Maher Hathout for 35 years and is the mother of a physician son and a prosecuting attorney daughter. What's more, the family is actively involved in Islamic studies and activities. In fact, most Los Angelenos have seen Dr. Maher Hathout, the spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California, speak on television whenever a crisis breaks out in Muslim countries. Daughter Samer has made numerous public addresses on the plight of Muslim rape victims she has interviewed on three fact-finding trips to Bosnia. But, outside of the Muslim community, Dr. Ragaa is lesser known.

Appearances can be deceiving, however. Dr. Ragaa may wear the head scarf and modest dress required of a Muslim woman, but she is as liberated as Gloria Steinem.

A case in point was when she was involved in a fender bender with another woman motorist. As Dr. Ragaa emerged from her car, the woman shouted at her: "Why don't you go back where you came from?"

Dr. Ragaa answered, "This is my home, I'm an American."

The woman shouted: "You don't look like an American to me."

Dr. Ragaa retorted: "And you don't look like Pocahontas to me."

This small-statured woman has always stood up for her convictions—even as a teenager when she told her father she wanted to go to college and select the man she would marry. The eldest of six children, she became the first female in her family to finish high school, despite complaints from grandparents that she should marry instead of going to college.

"My father told me I could seek higher education," Ragaa Hathout recalls, "but only on condition that if I ever had a problem, I would go to him and discuss it with him as I would with a friend."

A Medical School Courtship

While studying medicine at Cairo University, young Ragaa met another medical student, Maher, while they were dissecting a cadaver. "He came to class late, so I coached him a bit on the techniques," she remarked. It was different from any movie romance, but their courtship began in the dissection lab.

After both graduated from medical school in 1961, they were married in 1962. Son Gasser was born in 1963. From 1962 to 1968, Regaa was an assistant professor at the medical school and earned master's degrees in histology and medical physiology and a Ph.D. in medical science. Her husband earned degrees in internal medicine and, in 1968, they moved to Kuwait where their daughter, Samer, was born. In 1971, the family moved to Buffalo, NY, where Ragaa completed a residency in pathology and Maher did the same in internal medicine.

Dr. Ragaa says she took one year off from medicine to help her children, then 8 and 2 years old, to adjust to a new country and a new language when they returned to the United States.

"There were enormous changes," she recalls, "we had no extended family to help with the children." Fearful that their youngsters would feel intimidated because they were foreigners and looked different than most of their new playmates, the Hathouts told their children to be proud of their differences. The family spoke Arabic at home and started teaching Gasser and Samer the Qur'an at a very early age.

Fortunately, Regaa said, most Americans were impressed with their Egyptian origins and often asked questions about the pyramids, ancient Egypt and Islam.

A blizzard in 1977 prompted the Hathouts to move from upstate New York to the sunnier climes of Southern California in January 1978. While he opened his practice in Pasadena, she launched a 19-year career as chief of laboratory services with the Veterans Administration in downtown Los Angeles. She retired a few months ago. Her research into cholesterol and the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes has been published in pathology journals.

Did her children ever rebel against growing up Muslim in Southern California?

"Not that I know of," she replied. "From the very beginning, we have had open communication with them. We didn't forbid their going out with friends on picnics, for instance, but we did make it clear that premarital sex was absolutely out of the question. Our policy was that once we entered the home from work—there was no nanny or babysitter—evenings and weekends were spent with our children."

It worked. Gasser, a radiologist, is married to Muna, an attorney, and they have two children. Samer graduated from USC School of Law and is a prosecutor in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. She is married to Muktar Abdelnabi, a computer specialist.

Any advice to other Muslim parents new to the United States?

"Too many immigrant parents—no matter what their religion—fail to make an effort to understand that their children are growing up in a society completely different from the one in which they grew up," notes Dr. Ragaa Hathout. "The lesson I learned from my father is the importance of listening to your teenagers, talking with them, and exchanging ideas."

Now that she is retired, Dr. Ragaa plans to spend more time studying Islam and writing on marriage and family issues. "I hope to write articles that will impart a better understanding of Islam among youth and non-Muslims," she declares.