 Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa rahmatullahi. I'm Sarah Qassir from Lebanon. In Lebanon, we define whether from the south or somewhere else. I'm from the south of Lebanon's surd district. I'm currently a director, actor, and storyteller. I work in the field of media. I study different fields, where I majored in radio and television and also theater. And I'm currently continuing my master's studies in actor management. Since I was young, I had two titles. The first one is the Petty Fogger, and another one was the Sheikha. The former was because I was truly a writer. I was raised among three boys, so I had boyish tendencies. This creates adventures, courage, and self-confidence. This was obvious when I grew old with my field of studies. Sheikha was formed because I read a lot of religious books. You may be astonished, but by the age of nine years when I wore my hijab, I was reading the books of Sayyid al-Khu'i as a religious reference. I was also reading books for Sheikha al-Kummi, the child between heritage and raising. There are sophisticated religious books I read back then, ones I couldn't fully understand. But I was able to start these readings. So anyone who had a question at home, I was able to find an answer because I had this reading ability. When we were young, we didn't have this religious atmosphere at home. I mean, it was there, but it mostly was innate. When we were young, we didn't have this religious atmosphere at home. It wasn't a lot. It was mostly innate, but it wasn't strong. By time, my father's brother was murdered, my uncle. He created the state of piety at home. It's a blessing for martyrs coming from before and after martyrdom. So mom wore the hijab, and dad became more committed to religion. And this created a certain state at home. This also affected me, where I became part of the scouts at my village. The latter was an Islamic institution. It had great part in helping me realize Ahlul Bayt, or the relationship with Al-Hujjah, even in arts. They were the reason why I headed towards this field. Ever since I was young, at 10 and 11 years old, I formed a small artistic group. This group, which consisted of six young girls, of course, they were from my age, I used to write the poem, tune it, and train them on its performance. And train them on its performance. And train them on its performance. And we became the official singing group for the village and surrounding the villages of the entire district, where we participated in Islamic occasions with the singing group. Then I started participating in theater. I performed plays in the village and its surroundings. So here you see that the relationship with Ahlul Bayt was both religious and artistic. So both were related. And there was always an artistic expression for Ahlul Bayt. Whether by writing, symphony, theater, or even when I stand on stage to give a speech, it was a relation of that sort. It was always of that sort. As I said, I started an artistic journey when I was young. And this evolved until I reached a changing point where all youth stop at, what do I want to major at college? Here, I honestly had this dilemma of choosing between what I wanted or what my social environment and parents wanted. And excuse them. I wouldn't say that they made a mistake from their stand. I want to clarify that when you're living in an environment, especially in Lebanon, theater, doesn't take into consideration the hijab. There's a huge suffering for women with hijab to study theater. So that's why I studied theater with a hijab. I wore it even before studying and I remained the only women who studied theater while wearing a hijab in Lebanon. I don't know anyone who dared to take this step or pursue this adventure. A lot may register for one year, get exhausted, and then bail out. I thank God I was able to finish my four years of studying and continue my master's degree so this was divine grace. I reached a point where I wanted to choose my major. I finished high school with a degree of science so I can choose medicine or engineering, which is something my parents wanted since they are specialized in these fields. Their studies are in sciences. At the time, I figured out that my personality doesn't support office work or hospital. My personality is creative and artistic. They asked me, what do you want to major in? I answered in theater. There was great refusal for that since they thought that it's a useful profession. Also, it creates big problems for a girl with hijab. So I told my mother the sentence. I said, mom, I feel that in our Islamic community, there isn't anyone who has studied theater. I'm aiming to do an Islamic theater, something truly respectable and not in the public way. So her reply was the following. She replied, are you bearing the weight of the Islamic umma over your shoulders? I remember she told me that. And I said, I don't know, but I like to go major in that field. I feel like I can succeed in it. Eventually, they accepted reality and accepted my point of view. I finished my major and studied media with it so that I would be able to take hold of the major from both ends, theoretically and cinematically. So it was, I continued until now and I currently have several movies. One of them was about the hijab. It received an award from, it received an award from a Sahwa festival in Iran back in 2013. It took the first prize. I also have several plays. One of them about Sayyid al-Zahra, Aleyhi Salam, Ashura and teaching prayers. The suffering as a girl with the hijab I'll tell you from the start. When you go inside a community where there isn't anyone with a hijab, I mean that the entire campus, with its four floors, I was the only one wearing the hijab in all majors. Also now in master's degree, there isn't anyone. The community didn't have anyone wearing hijab. It feels as if it's a weird place to be at. Especially here in Lebanon, there's this aerial sectarian separation from example, where example this sect enters this campus of university and that sect goes to that campus. Where I went, there weren't a lot of Muslims. I mean there weren't a lot of Muslims. So this was the first suffering. The second suffering was the origin of the artistic community. Unfortunately, unfortunately, since art community isn't pious or religion, they see art as a complete liberation. I mean, you're entering an environment of madness that has no boundaries. It's good artistically speaking, but bad when it comes to morals. They have no problem saying full words, doing certain actions or to do implications of any sort. They have no problem saying full words. I wouldn't say Islamic, but morally and humanely unacceptable. They consider it liberation and creativity. We as women with hijab, as religious people with a message and a purpose, art isn't for the sake of art. It has a purpose. When you say art is for the sake of art, you can't say anything. You should place boundaries on it. You can't say anything. You should place boundaries on limits. This is the second suffering. The third suffering is the material studied. I mean that there are certain elements at university that use such as choreography, which is body expression. I was asked to wear tight clothes from head to toe, like scuba divers. Of course, I couldn't wear like that. And the professor refused to accept me in class. I then talked to him and we reached an agreement to solve the issue, like, of course, wearing baggy clothes, but we solved it in a hard way. What hurts the most that Muslims, whom have decided due to their thinking and their thoughts, approved to be Muslims by name. But they don't believe in anything you believe in. They're the people that fight you the most and hurt you the most, because they believe that they're fighting the negative phase of Islam. But as for me, I see that you're the negative phase of Islam. So he would come and attack you in the middle of class, saying you're closed-minded, conservative, ignorant, and how could you not accept sleeping on the ground? There were exercises where we sleep on the ground. There aren't people who reject wearing tight clothes. There aren't people holding onto this. I mean, I'm sorry, this piece of clothes. A person, when this person insults you like that, this Muslim that should aid you the most, you'd see that the injustice of the closest is the worst. That's what applies to this. As for the image of the women in Hijab, this is an issue of importance to me. I consider myself and others as well that I'm doing something that sheikhs and clerics are incapable of doing. Of course, which is the following? Working in an unreligious environment, and un-Islamic, if it was religious, as I mentioned that it is in the, of course, as I mentioned that in the artistic field, it's rare to find a religious and pious atmosphere. Now, of course, especially that my work isn't in a small environment, but in Lebanon and abroad. I do a lot of traveling and participating in global festivals, but not in an Islamic environment. So I go to these places, but imagine that the first impression I hear is that they don't believe that there's a girl wearing a hijab coming from Lebanon and studying theater, and their biggest shock is that when they try to shake my hand, and I do like this. So imagine the shock for them. Now, at first, they'd be astonished and dazzled, and they'd confront me where I can take advantage of that. And they'd come confront me, and of course, that's where I take advantage of and show them my intellect and my Islamic background. And at the same time, that nothing stands, and at the same time, I prove to them that nothing stands in the way of the hijab. Hijab is not an obstacle, but we have to put ourselves in the right place with the hijab. And another thing I'd like to say, take a look. All the people who say that we, who wear hijab, that we can't do anything, look at what we have done. That we cannot innovate, look what we've done. We can't work in art, look what we've done. On the contrary, we live our lives normally, and we are not an outcast nor ignorant because there's a bad stereotype. And that stereotype says that we can't do all these things. I consider myself, thank God, a messenger without a tongue. Be messengers of us without your tongues, I'm being that. And my mere existence, I will tell you this incident. I was invited to a festival of storytelling at an Arab nation that I won't mention for the sake of the relations. I stayed at the airport for nine hours, pregnant in my eighth month for nine hours, just for one reason. He saw me passing through the security gate. He couldn't understand that there's this person coming from Lebanon, an actor and then storyteller here to participate in the festival. He couldn't understand that this hijab this baggy and long veil is coming from Lebanon. He couldn't believe that. He saw me and left me to go. I reached there at 3 a.m., imagine. Until 9 a.m., they were calling to make sure I arrived until they went to the airport and found me. I had to calling them, I tried calling them, but their lines were closed. So imagine just because of the idea that there isn't an artist, that's religion. So imagine that just for the idea that there isn't an artist, that's religious found in our Arab world. This is really a huge problem. I blame us for this because we didn't dare to break the boundaries to enter this field. We never took the decision to do that, to break the boundaries. I won't hide this from you. My relationship with the Ashura Council since I was young, I don't know if it's right or wrong. It was audio and visual. I remember I'd go to councils when I was around nine or 10 years old with my parents. I wouldn't just listen to the content. I wouldn't just sit there and listen to the content. I'd stare at the place and see the banners and decorations, the voice, the performance of the reader. Is he giving me a correct image? I mean, I remember I would really go to these councils. I'd stare more than I would cry. I would feel bad and think I don't have spirituality. But I then thought that, no, I mean, this is not bad because I might getting more attached to Ahl al-Bayt but in a different way. Of course, I discovered that by time I was able to ignore certain artistic visuals and focus more on the council to cry and give what I should be giving with all my heart. Of course. The image that stick to my mind the most and makes me spiritual and internally attached to the occasion. You'd say that this human, if I wanted to talk in a realistic way, you'd say that this person was martyred and that's it. That she was martyred, suffered and so, and that's it. But her suffering ended with the martyrdom. But this great human and person, I don't know how to describe her more, she suffered before and after she was martyred until the last breath she stayed suffering. So this image doesn't leave my mind, especially when she's honored and special amongst her siblings. So I imagine myself that if I want to talk in something closer to the people, that I suddenly lost all my brothers and my family. I'm responsible for everyone and all of a sudden that I was once protected, now I'm a protector. It's very hard and she's really the mother of the sufferings and always when I want to work on Ashura theater, I'd always love to play the role of Sada Zainab. I've played her role more than once, whether vocally or in performance. Although this would prevent me from direct contact with the crowd since we covered the face of Sada Zainab. But even though once I place the black abaya, cover my face and say that I'm playing the role of Sada Zainab, I feel sacred and I feel a certain aura. I stay for a couple of days after I take my performance clothes off, I remain feeling this piety that say the Zainab has. So I love playing her role on stage. My choice exactly for the profession of theater, which includes combined directing and acting in Lebanon was an insistence of heading towards directing. Honestly, I would say that as a woman with a hijab, I have little chances of acting and that's due to the big opportunities that others have because I'm veiled. Lebanese drama isn't satisfied to have a woman with a hijab on the screen with the latter's conditions. They'd screen them but with different conditions. So it's rare to take roles. Thus I focused more on directing. As you know, artistic work is better to be saved in one's memory and the subconscious in education and behavior than merely talking because of course in our media rule, a picture speaks a thousand words. So how if you're showing an image with music and feeling and awareness? You're entering the mind of the recipient and all of his sensory organs. Here I can give a great importance to artistic work or movies or acting that serve the idea of ahl al-bayt. Now look, eventually, whether I like it or not, if I love to do something, I do it for that service, especially when it comes for the preparation of al-Mahdi's arrival. Since he's the one alive and he's priority in our work. We're all trying to prepare for the arrival of our Imam. I feel that I have this motive. Here I started thinking and I see that the companies that support such works are the ones who started all this without them, I couldn't have thought of such works. So I started 10 to 12 years ago to do an Islamic theater that's conservative, that we have an Islamic theater that you could watch which relates to thought, originality, and intellect and piety. Then we evolved more and tackled certain notions such as the hijab, general moralities, such as honesty and good behavior, something like that. Lately I've done something concerning the attachment of youth and children to what's up. And they're distancing from Islamic spirituality. It's not wrong to technologically connect but we shouldn't be far from Islamic spirituality. The work that's very dear to me and I aim to improve in it is the TV drama. I have done that which talks about the two kids talking to each other. The work that's very dear to me and I aim to improve in it is a TV drama that I've done that which talks about two kids talking to each other and relating it to Ashura through a storytelling. Now, there was a program then involves a storyteller and the drama, two things that I love working on. There are also prayer related theater breaks. I also try to insert comedy even inside Ashura because through a smile you can attract and inform better. Because seriously, through a smile you can really attract and inform better. There are religious acts like prayers and so, you can insert, inform the viewer by comedy and laughter but it'll shock him and makes him think, am I like that? Like someone is praying, he's praying but I show him that he's doing everything with prayers. I show him how he's eating, talking on his phone, moving and giving signals during his prayers. I mean, you'd laugh at him first but then you'd be shocked that you're like that because when I'm thinking of them, I'd be like that. The role is the sister of Imam Rida, Sayyida Hakim. She's a wise character. She managed things in the absence of Imam Rida and also in the absence of Imam Al Jawad. Since the latter took authority when he was five or seven years and yes, he was young. So she was the patron, the responsible, the mother and the sister in all of these aspects. It shows the importance of the women's role in life. It's important and this makes Islam and this makes Islam special in all places, in all religions. It gave the women importance but in the right way, not in the Western way of liberation, rebellion and equality with man. She's not like that. She's not like that at all but here the role of women is shown correct. It was fun to take this role. It was an honor to take the role of the sister of Imam Rida. Now they've covered our faces because when we shot the movie, we had no facial cover. It could be an honor or it could be a precautionary that she's the sister of Imam Rida. It's normal and of course it happens. She's the daughter of Ali Al-Hadi, my caliph, my advisor, and the next step. I don't know what to say. She's the mother of Allah's will. She doesn't have the honor of being an Arab or to have the blackest hands except in Taqwa. May Allah bless her and bless her, mother. I will bless her, mother Jataeem. May Allah bless her walt of Miha. The storyteller is something that I really adore. And thank God I was able to prove myself in this domain as well. And I became a female storyteller. I wouldn't say I'm the only one but in professionalism in Lebanon I could be in this domain. The main source is the public stories. Those that are told by elderly people. This matter is a preservation of public heritage. I always choose useful stories to tell. I choose stories that describe conviction, value of love, value of brotherhood. There is course in our public sphere and it's related to our Islamic ideology and our values because it's not separated from the public thought because Islam isn't isolated from it. In another place, there's the Ashura storyteller. If we could take the style of presentation, if we could take the style of presentation to tell the Ashura notion and its story, of course we'd be succeeding greatly, especially with kids because kids wouldn't understand everything at the council from phrases and jargons they may not like the way of the narration. If you sat a kid on your lap and you told him a story, he'd ask you to say it again and again and again because they love to hear stories. So we did a special and a good step in Lebanon. What we did is that we trained around 150 females, another trained 150 males in all of Lebanon from north to south, wherever there's a person who wants to recite Ashura at council. There are people who practice Ashura storytelling and narration performance. You'd see them, they'd gather these children from four to 17 years of age all under 18. They are being exposed to this method of presentation to Ashura. Here we'd be affecting these children and placing certain seeds in them. In addition to that, this idea can be implemented on elderly. I've tried it with around 50 adults from our age and even more. I've done an Ashura storytelling. They interacted and cried as if they're hearing a council and they were very comfortable with the notion of Ashura storytelling. Also, here we'd be serving the notion of Ahl al-Bayt in an artistic way, far from banal and boredom. It triggers imagination. It has educational purposes and not only religious. In the issue of storytelling as well, there are stories from the Quran. There are certain stories in the Quran I used them in storytelling. In the issue of storytelling as well, there are stories from the Quran. There's a program that I actually went on of where I added all the Quranic stories. I used them in storytelling once upon a time in this method. I narrate the stories of Prophet Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all the stories of Ismael, Abel, Goliath and all the stories in the Quran that seem unclear. Ones that you need to do extra readings to understand it. You'd find someone standing next to you narrating it. This thing was a deep but in the Arab world. No one has done such a thing before and I made use of it at home. Even with my own children, I do storytelling. Like I'd narrate Quranic stories and Ashura. Even when my kid does a certain misbehavior. And of course, if I sat him down and said, Sajid, dear, this is wrong and so he may get convinced, but he'll still do something wrong. So I go towards acting or narration. I tell him the story of a kid that did this and that and show him the negative side of his actions. I didn't talk about Sajid or say Sajid did that. I talked about Sajid or Jamil or Ahmed, someone else. In this way, he visualized the story and he'd laugh because he knows that it's about him. But if he thought of doing something wrong, he'd come and say that, mom, if Sajid did that, what would happen to him? He'd relate the action to the story. So the narration is an educational matter, whether to the values of Ahl al-Bayt, indoor behavior, at least you've created a space of communication with your kids, which is of course something I talk about always. We're not communicating with our kids anymore, meaning that if my kids, for example, is talking to me and I'm using WhatsApp or Facebook, emailing, et cetera, my head is down and I'm not looking in his eyes, imagine what we've reached. Imagine this stage, you could be cooking. You can be cooking in the kitchen and you tell your kids in the other room to do this and that you didn't do this. You didn't do the eye contact. We're losing this thing. Of course over here, he'd hear your voice and see your body and facial language. He'd interact and communicate with you. We're afraid of having isolated children and to be isolated adults as well will be like that. The play of Sayyid al-Zahra, alaihi salam, is the dearest to me because it's artistically complete and it touches the soul, it touches the soul for real. It already starts by talking about Sayyid al-Zahra, alaihi salam. You're conversing her in this play and you're showing a great person. We started the idea by a play in front of around 600 people. They were all mukallifat in the age of maturity and they want to wear the hijab. So we thought of giving them a lecture that your role model is Sayyid al-Zahra and so on. We thought it would be advisory and this is something kids don't like. So we thought of doing something more artistic, something artistically. We asked from one of the poets, in addition, we got an old poem written around 13 years ago. Its owner is now deceased. He's a school teacher. We got this poem with the script and we combined them and we wrote all of its sequence since Gabriel descended on the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and told them that you leave Sayyid al-Khadija 40 days and you isolate yourself in Heirah agroto and he fasted for 40 days and broke it with an apple and returned to Sayyid al-Khadija until the creation of semen of Sayyid al-Zahra, alaihi salam. Until Sayyid al-Khadija got pregnant and suffered in pregnancy because no one was next to her. It was all embodied on stage and then Sayyid al-Zahra was born and how we are attached to Sayyid al-Zahra in our everyday life. So it was a perfect 20 minutes long piece of work and when I finished the act and descended the stage there were people crying and they said that it's the first time that we feel we are close to Sayyid al-Zahra. That phrase alone was satisfactory. It was fulfilling because they feel that you were able to present this matter in such simplicity and spirit and you were able to affect these people. Probably people are tired of listening and they want to see and feel. Our problem is that we move away from sensation. No, let us talk in sensation. Even the religious cleric when he takes the platform let him touch us in our hearts because if not, you'd feel that the idea would fade away. Something else will take its place. We should work on both mind and heart, intellect and sensation and art does that. This might answer the notion of why did you choose theater? Sorry and not only media. The latter is beautiful but for me I find it solid, solider than theater and acting. There is sensation in that. There is a feeling in that. There's a lot that you can do.