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- Gigi Hadid said she and Zayn Malik plan on teaching daughter Khai aspects of different religions.
- She believes it’s a “beautiful thing” to explore different interests and religions with her daughter.
- Hadid and Malik also plan on teaching Khai about Islamophobia and the struggles they’ve faced.
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Gigi Hadid said she wants to raise her 4-month-old daughter Khai around all different kinds of cultures, religions, and spiritualities.
“I felt like I was allowed to learn about every religion when I was a kid. I think it’s good to take different pieces of different religions that you connect with, and I think that’s how we’ll do that,” Hadid told Vogue on Thursday.
“I think that just giving your child the opportunity to explore different interests is such a beautiful thing,” she added.
Hadid also wants to make sure Khai, who she shares with boyfriend Zayn Malik, is ready to confront Islamophobia, which is something the model and her brother Anwar Hadid had to deal with during their childhood.
"My brother, when he was in elementary school, someone said to him, 'Your dad's a terrorist,' because that was after 9/11," she told Vogue.
"I think that [Zayn and I] both want our daughter to understand fully all of her background - and also we want to prepare her," Hadid continued. "If someone does say something to her at school, we want to give her the tools to understand why other kids would do that and where that comes from."
The 25-year-old model grew up in a family of two faiths - her father, Mohamed Hadid, is Muslim and her mother, Yolanda Hadid, is Christian - so she is no stranger to being immersed in diverse cultures at once.
Hadid also plans on exposing her daughter to her family's diverse cultures through the names she intends on using for Khai's grandparents.
She told Vogue that her dad Mohamed will go by "Jido," which is Arabic for "grandpa" and Yolanda will be "Oma," which means "grandmother" in Dutch.
Malik's father, who is British-Pakistani, will be called "Abu," which means "father" in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan.
Khai will also be picking up British slang, such as "Nini" (British for "Nana"), which will refer to Malik's mother.
Malik has also previously spoken about how being exposed to different faiths has helped guide his beliefs.
In November 2018, Malik told British Vogue that although he doesn't call himself a Muslim anymore, he is still glad he once followed Islam and will carry those personal lessons with him.
"I believe whatever people's religious beliefs are is between them and whoever or whatever they're practicing," the former One Direction member told the magazine.
"I just believe if you're a good person, everything is going to go right for you," he added.