POINTED IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Ibtihaj Muhammad stares me down as I lace up my Puma sneakers and grasp my fencing sabre. One of us is a world-class fencer training for the U.S. Olympics team. The other has played a Star Wars lightsaber game a few times on Nintendo Wii.

The five-point match begins. I dash forward and my sabre grazes her side. I’m stunned I was able to score a point on her, but hey I’ll take it. The Slumdog Millionaire song “Jai Ho” reverberates in my brain as my head is temporarily filled with delusions I have a chance to beat her.

Next point, I take a brief second before I attack and notice an opening on her left arm. I lunge towards her with the hopes of striking her. I miss. My sabre whiffs in the air and she responds by essentially smacking me in the face with the broadside of her weapon.

The song in my head stops. I lose 5-1.

Ibtihaj takes a question from the eager audience.

The crowd.

Ibtihaj dons her mask with the help of her nephew.

Ibtihaj has gained massive attention as of late not only because of her skills but the fact that she’s a practicing Muslim and wears the headscarf.  When she travels around the world for tournaments, she’s often mobbed by fans such as the time she went to France last year in midst of the country’s whole burqa-banning bonanza.

“I was swarmed by the French press and literally had hundreds of kids asking me for my autograph,” she said. “I was almost ejected from the event because I was so busy signing these autographs.”

“When you go abroad, you think people are afraid of Muslims,” she added. “But you almost become an ambassador for the Muslim community here in America, whether or not I like to. I wear the hijab so people see the United States logo on my uniform and are curious more so than anything.”

One of the reasons she took on fencing was she wanted to play a sport that didn’t restrict her desire to dress modestly as a Muslim woman.  She played volleyball in high school but oftentimes felt awkward doing it.

“The fact that I wore hijab, I couldn’t wear the tank top that they wore for the matches,” she said. “ I had to wear long sleeves. I couldn’t wear the spandex they wore because I had to wear sweatpants. I stood out like ‘Here’s Team Ibtihaj and here’s the rest of the team.’”

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