 The Long and Windy Road of YasmeenThe uproar over Yasmeen’s high profile has left her an outcast in her hometown community and has shifted accross the generations in her family and beyond — creating an irrevocable schism between her father and the mosque he led for 22 years.
Nothing is sure to please an elder more than word that a child of the community has gone on to fame and fortune. But in Montreal’s Muslim community, it the accompanying visuals that have created an uproar reverberating between generations.
Daughter of an imam, or religious leader, Yasmeen Ghauri’s foray into modeling was almost accidental. But her beauty quickly caught the eye of the fashion world, where her spectacular success puts her in the same league as supermodels Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell.
Images of her are a continuous presence in leading fashion magazines, and she commands as much as $10,000 a day when she graces the runways for Chanel, Armani, Valentino and Europe’s other leading haute couture houses.
But at home, her accomplishments are greeted with a mixture of fascination and fear, as parents and children of a religion whose practices are nurtured far away grapple with the strains imposed by their host culture.
According to the standards brought decades ago from the Muslim world, Ghauri, known professionally simply as Yasmeen, is considered to flout the importance Islam places on modesty.
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