http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=543324&category=REGION&newsdate=12/10/2006
Fulbright scholar offers key to Islam at college Hadeer Abou El Nagah translates her culture at SUNY Cobleskill By CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY, Staff writer First published: Sunday, December 10, 2006 COBLESKILL -- Hadeer Abou El Nagah translates books and magazine articles from Arabic to English and back, and she trains others how to do it. Now, from a small office in the basement of a SUNY Cobleskill building, El Nagah is a different sort of translator. She translates Muslim culture. El Nagah is an Egyptian poet, professor and Fulbright scholar. The Fulbright award brought her to Cobleskill, where she chose to spend the semester. She figured she'd make a bigger impact at a small school. She certainly stands out. El Nagah wears a hijab, a long scarf that covers her head and wraps around her neck. She speaks perfect English with a soft accent. El Nagah left half her family behind in Egypt to take the Fulbright, an honor she said she could not pass up. Her husband of 20 years, Maher Nofal, a professor of mechanical engineering, is watching their two oldest sons, Ibrahim, 19, and Mostafa, 18. El Nagah brought her three youngest children to Cobleskill, Mozaynah, 16, Yosef, 12, and Mawadah, 4. The children attend Cobleskill schools and have adjusted quickly, more smoothly than El Nagah. "My transition into the community was not as easy as it was into the college," she said. "People are surprised to see me living here because they have not been exposed to diversity, or people from different places." El Nagah has written 10 pocket-sized books that explain Islam to non-Muslims. She thought of the idea after living in Alabama for a few years in the late 1990s. She was surprised by how little Americans knew about Islam. Then the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks occurred, and Americans learned many new things about Islam, much of it, El Nagah said, was wrong. "My intention is not to eradicate the misconceptions about Islam. It's more of developing bridges of understanding between the two peoples and cultures," she said. "If the Americans are able to understand Islam from its people -- from the people who really know about it -- they will know by themselves, without me telling them, that it has nothing to do with terrorism." El Nagah founded a Muslim Student Association at Cobleskill, which has about a dozen Muslim students from all over the world. At 7 p.m. Monday, she will present the basics of Islam at a "night of Islamic culture and art" at the college's Bouck Hall Auditorium. El Nagah, 42, is the daughter of a lawyer and history teacher. Born and raised as a Muslim in Egypt, she was schooled in an Italian Catholic grammar school where English, Arabic and Italian were spoken, opening her world to linguistic and cultural diversity at an early age. Her father encouraged her to travel, which she did as a member of the Egyptian national track and field team. She competed in the high jump, long jump and 100-meter sprint. She received her bachelor's, master's and doctorate from Al Azhar University in Cairo. Much of her career has been devoted to translating. "The idea of translation to me is a mental exercise, and it's a crisscross between cultures," she said. "I see myself as being the middle passage between two different Translating is more than converting words into a different language, she said. A good translator captures the culture behind the text. She applies the same philosophy to her work as a Fulbright scholar. "I feel that Fulbright scholars should not be just professors. They should play a more crucial role in developing mutual understanding between the culture that they came from and the culture they were sent to," she said. "If I am here just as a professor of English literature, many people could do this job." Cathleen F. 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