Interview by Brett Hammerman ’25 and Katherine McKenzie ’25.
Noor is a 30 year old Arabic teacher from Salamiyah, Syria currently living in Milan, Italy with her husband. Her family is part of the Ismaili sect of Islam and Salamiyah is one of the places where this sect is most concentrated. Noor attended Ittihad Private University in Al-Raqqah, Syria, studying biology. In 2013, an offshoot of al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, gained a stronghold in the city. Ultimately, when she returned to university for her final year of studies, ISIS had won various skirmishes against this group and took over the city. Studying under desks for bomb protection, lacking internet connection to call home, and carrying a fake ID card to hide her Ismaili identity, Noor made it through her last year of university earning her bachelor’s degree in biology. After university, Noor lived in a refugee camp in Lebanon under a travel visa until, eventually, this visa expired, making it hard for her to make a living. After a long, arduous journey, Noor found solace with Natakallam as an Arabic teacher located in Milan. She continues to embrace her passion for teaching languages as well as biology in Milan with hopes of creating permanent roots to settle down.
Listen to her story, below:
Transcript:
The first two years was great. After that was terrible. It’s small university, new university, so the doctor knows almost our name, okay. So it’s a good relation with the doctors with the professors at the university, it’s very nice. But after that it become terrible because ISIS enter to Al-Raqqah. The war started, ok, in 2013, started with not ISIS but other, another Islamic groups where they have a problem with Assad, with the government, Syrian government, so we called it, I think Jabhat al-Nusra or something like that. So it is not like Daesh, simi- it’s quasi- almost similar like Daesh, but better a little bit, okay. So I went to there with only with hijab. It’s not obligatory but because I am afraid. I am an Ismaili, so I am afraid from these group okay. So I put a hijab. After that there is a, the war between al-Nusra and ISIS. So when ISIS control all Al-Raqqah its obligatory to put hijab and a burqa with a abaya with a black dress and also I change my- I have a fake identity, ID card, fake, not mine, because if they read on the ID card I am from Salamiyah they know, that I am- they know I am from uh, I am Ismaili. Because almost the people in this city is Ismaili, okay. Yeah, if they know that I am Ismaili maybe they kill me. I don’t know what, what–you heard about Daesh and what they do, yeah, the things that they do, its yeah, or in Syria or in Iraq or in another countries yes, so… but I said no I have to go because I want to finish for the last year, okay, the last exam and the last year when Daesh controlled all the city. So I said no, I want to go, because I want to finish my university.
I remember when I went the last time to Al-Raqqah, my mom and my dad they were crying, because maybe they thought that I am, this is the last time they can see me. Thank God when I finished everything and come back to to our city, ISIS do, when a woman asks the people in the Pullman or on the uh Pullman or in the bus to speak. Because you know, before, if I am woman or a girl, the man can’t speak with me in Islam, okay, for ISIS, Islam of ISIS — not all the Islam, ok. So when the women, if they speak to me and to my brother as in the ID they understand the different accent. Thank God that happened when I am in Salamiyah. If that happened when I am in Al-Raqqah and any these, these women hear that my accent not accent from Al-Raqqah, I don’t know what, what, what would happen, yeah.
