Saifa Hussain
Q: Where are your roots deepest? What is your story? How did you get involved with your work?
A: My roots are deepest in my spiritual practice. I come from a Muslim household, and I was born and raised in Chicago. I definitely had the immigrant experience in America as a child of immigrant parents. I was raised with very strong values within the Islamic tradition and used to dress in traditional religious clothing. Because of this, I always felt marginalized and otherized. I was also very deeply spiritual, and I still am.
I became very interested in Sufism, which is the spiritual and mystical branch of Islam. I began studying with different teachers and doing Sufi practices for over a decade. I also became interested in the environment, connecting to the Earth, and living more intentionally with nature. My partner and I moved to Vermont for that reason. He built a tiny house on a plot of land that my in-laws had. We lived in Burlington, but then we ended up moving to a farm in New Haven where we worked and lived for a few years.
It was an opportunity for us to understand the landscape of sustainability, organic farming, and alternative lifestyles and what that looks like—growing food, picking food, and then eating the food with the community. All of that was very interesting and profound, but also had its challenges. I eventually started working at the college, and I’ve been trying to integrate all those experiences as much as possible in my work.
With chaplaincy, a lot of it is allowing students to feel heard and making spaces for them, but also facilitating programming around religious identity and spiritual community. When I heard about New Perennials, I became intrigued by their mission, and I found it very promising to support local, sustainable communities and agriculture. I definitely believe in supporting local efforts, especially if it’s attached to institutions.
Q: How does your mission align with New Perennials?
A: My understanding of the Prophet Muhammed, Sufism, and of all wisdom traditions that I studied is oftentimes they are quite radical when they’re introduced in their times because they are trying to undo systems of oppression that are intricately layered, stemming from the unintegrated self and projecting outwards to the collective, ultimately causing suffering. For whatever reason, the human condition has attachments to that suffering. We have enough food to distribute to all people, so why isn’t that happening? Why is there so much poverty, violence, oppression? On some level, the collective is attached to certain ideas and certain paradigms that reinforce systems that create hierarchy and separation.
I believe strongly that things need to be unlearned, and we need to rethink the way we’re doing things. I think it’s returning to a more—you can call it egalitarian—heart-centered way of being. It’s about returning to practices and ways of being that are in harmony and are non-hierarchical. I believe we need to draw from collective wisdom, and that’s what I mean by non-hierarchical. When we think about Middlebury College and we use the term an “elite” institution, what is the energetic charge of that term “elite”? When I hear the term “elite,” I hear exclusionary. Maybe not everyone hears that, but there is history at Middlebury that is at the expense of some and in the interest of a few. What if we were to think about Middlebury College, not as elite, but as a leading institution that lives its values well?
On one hand, you can look at the planetary crisis that we’re in from a place of despair and fatalism, but on the other hand, you can look at it from a place of opportunity where things aren’t working, and now is the time for real and lasting change. I feel like that is very in line with my deepest spiritual commitments.
Q: What is one recent learning, unlearning, or relearning you have experienced or explored?
A: The more I learn about disability justice, the more I think, Why aren’t we building a society where buildings have accessibility? The more I learn about it, the more upsetting it is that there is a whole segment of our population that we just sort of want to tuck away—out of sight, out of mind—and just how much oppression is in that and how I’ve inadvertently been complicit in it.
I’m also neurodivergent, and it took me a long time to say that. I didn’t have enough knowledge about neurodivergence, and now, I finally understand why I’ve struggled at times in work and school. It’s because we use systems that aren’t meant for diversity of ways of being. I’m done with that. I’m done with feeling not enough. I don’t want to support systems that create that scarcity and oppression for people.
For me, I’m thinking a lot about ecojustice and disability justice. For instance, how do we live more in harmony with nature in a way that allows all people to experience and access it? That also relates to environmental racism. When we think about the environmental movement, it’s often very white, and those are the demographics that can access this information, organizations, and systems. How do we expand it to all people? Again, this is about dismantling systems of suffering. I continue to unlearn false programming and explore the exciting possibilities of integrating abolition work, wisdom traditions, and eco-spirituality.
Chaplain Saifa supports the Muslim Students Association, Mosaic Interfaith House, and queer students of faith at Middlebury College. She completed her BA in religious studies at DePaul University, with a focus on Islam and Hinduism in South Asia. She worked as a community organizer in Chicago and Vermont. In the last few years, she explored sustainable models of living and is an excited team member with the New Perennials Project of Middlebury College. She is completing a Master of Divinity degree in Islamic chaplaincy at Bayan-Chicago Theological Seminary. Saifa performed the Hajj pilgrimage several times and draws deeply from the wellspring of Sufism and other mystical traditions. She is passionate about nature-based spirituality, sacred activism and community building, and transforming culture through the arts. In her free time, she likes to explore local dance communities and nature, and enjoys films and music with her partner and cats.