- My name is Reem, I was born in Kuwait.

I moved to Rhode Island when I was 12.

Growing up in Rhode Island, when I first came here, it was a little bit of a culture shock.

Maybe not so much that because it was Rhode Island, but it was just a completely different lifestyle.

Not many people really knew I was Muslim originally because I kinda looked, I guess I looked Spanish in some ways.

You know, I had curly hair and didn't wear the hijab then.

I don't think people even paid attention to Islam, period.

Growing up here, I don't think people ever really even asked me.

You know, it wasn't a conversation.

(gentle music) - My name's Abul (indistinct).

My mom is half Jordanian, half Syrian, my dad's Syrian, and I was born in Boston.

Honestly, I've never really looked at myself as any different than anybody else.

I never felt like an outsider for the most part.

You know, I've always been surrounded by great friends, whether they're Muslim or not, and I've always felt included and, like, you know, part of a community and part of a family.

- Being a Muslim is my life.

It's my lifestyle.

It's everything.

Everything day-to-day involves me being a Muslim.

Dude!

When I wake up in the morning, I wash up for prayer.

Before we eat, we say, "Bismillah," which is the name of God, you start a meal.

So everything in our life revolves around being a Muslim.

- As sappy as this is gonna sound, I think my religion gives me purpose.

You know, I don't think I'd be even half the person I am today if it weren't for my religion.

In a sense, it gives you something to work towards.

I'm a very goal-oriented person, you know?

And believing that, you know, there is heaven, there is hell, believing that God's always watching just gives me purpose, you know?

(tense music) - 9/11 was one of the scariest days in my life.

I remember it vividly.

It was my second year in college.

I remember chaos.

I went home, turned the TV on, and it was the footage of the first plane going in.

I'm getting goosebumps talking about this.

And then the second plane hitting the tower, and it kept going over and over and over.

And then finally a terrorist attack.

I feel like it was the first time I ever, maybe it wasn't, but to me it was the first time I ever heard the word terrorist so much in my life.

And then right next to it, Muslim, Muslim.

And as a Muslim woman, at that point, my whole life changed.

It was scary going to work, it was scary going out, it was scary leaving my house.

At that point, I was wearing a hijab, and I had people follow me, yelling, "Get out of our effing country, you terrorist!"

just because I looked like the other now.

- You know, if you're saying about, like, the bombers that bombed 9/11 as defining Islam, then that's the same as saying, like, KKK defines Christianity.

You know, it's not accurate, those are just a small minority of extremists.

'Cause when you look at the percentage of Muslims in the world relative to, like, ISIS members, Taliban members, it's a very small fraction.

It's there, but it's small, and that would just be the extremist minority - I feel even after September 11th, a lot of people looked into Islam and learned a lot about Islam, and turns out it was not such a devil, it was not such an awful religion.

The older I get, the more I learn about Islam, the more I dig deep, I love it more and more.

It is truly, it's beautiful, to say the least.