By A.R. Raazol
I grew up in a practicing home. My father is highly involved in dawah and my mothers are hijabis and niqabis. When I was a kid, there were no issues with this and I couldn’t really grasp any strange regard against Muslim garb, from the outside world. Or at least, I didn’t think I could.
When a girl wears the hijab, people may look at the parents as villains. What comes to these people’s minds automatically is that the girl is being forced into wearing the hijab. However, another girl without the hijab is considered not forced into conforming to her parents’ traditions. Nevertheless, all parents raise their children and pass on their own traditions and practices. This is not an enforcement; rather, this is education. For example, birds do not know how to fly until their parents have encouraged them to spread their wings and try.
My sisters also wore hijabs when they were young and we went to a Christian primary school together where they were the onlyones with hijab. This did not deprive them of any school activities nor did it prevent them from being the best in their classes.One of my sisters and I were in the same class and we often achieved the first position between ourselves all the way until graduation.
Despite these feats, there is this unreasonable and unrealistic idea that’s been shared with regards to women or girls with hijabs. When people ban hijab, they deprive these women and girls of their basic rights to show their skills beyond physical appearances. For example, they say that their hijab is preventing them from growing up, but it is the hijab ban that can risk the prevention of intellectual growth for hijabis. In other words, the hijab is not only a symbol of modesty or one’s obedience and submission to the Lord, but also a means that allows the personality to shine.
We live in a world where the idea of emancipation was born in the last century, when women rose up to fight for their rights, which is, in fact, detrimental to the respect the women deserve at large. In other words, for thousands of years that humanity has been in existence, women have been either unaware that they were being oppressed by men or that they were too weak to speak up for themselves. Naturally, they had been oppressed, regardless of the hijab or not. The problem is that we have the egoistic Eurocentric tale that tends to subject the other part of the world to its own version of history to date.
In truth, we have intolerant people ruling over us, making laws as it fits their ideals. They pretend that they are watching out for the wellbeing of a woman or a girl, that they are freeing her from the shackles of her own family and a particular society. On the other hand, isn’t such an enforcement a deprivation of liberty, itself? A Muslim woman chose to submit to her Lord, yet people might say that she is not free.
If the lack of freedom is the subject matter, then in reality, who is truly free? All freedom is limited; we, human beings, are all subject to one thing or the other: either to the Creators of the worlds or His creation, or even yet, to our own selves, to our own whims and to our own desires. The Qur’an said something on this regard, which was translated thus: “Have you (Oh Muhammad) seen the one who takes as his god his own desire? Then would you be responsible for him? (Qur’an 25:43).”
I know that it seems difficult at times to stand out of the crowd and that it feels different…even strange. But, “glad tidings to the stranger” is what the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم said 14 centuries ago. The more difficult it seems to you, the more rewarding it will be for you when you undergo it, thereby overcoming it. You must not allow other people who are putting you down, to win over the choices that you have made for yourself!
Therefore, the hijab ban behooves every one of us to seek knowledge and to understand why we are doing what we are doing in order to be able to give responses to criticism. Each response may be different, but it comes from the heart. We are fighting a mental battle with people who think that they know us better than we know ourselves, whereas we may know nothing about them: “Whoever treads the path seeking knowledge, Allah makes it easy for them the path toward Paradise,” said the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. Therefore, it is important to try tounderstand people and in doing so, we hope that they understandus.
In short, I would like to say to the hijabi sisters out there: continue being you and obey your Lord. May Allah guide us. May Allah protect us. May Allah give us the strength to obey Him, Ameen.
About the Author
A.R. Razol is a published poet and writer, who is now working on a fiction novel. He is a pathology technician by profession in Paris, France. His goal is always to seek knowledge.