MY HIJAB STORY

Asalamualaykum Warahmatullah, 

For todays blog, I thought I would write about my story of how I began wearing the hijab and what I faced as a result of that. 

Hijab is a veil that is worn by muslim women to cover their head and their chest area. Hijab also represents modesty and is linked with loose clothing that does not show the figure of the body, and it also should not draw the attraction of others. 

One speaker mentioned, that some people are using the hijab as a tease, where the way the hijab is now worn in a way that contradicts the meaning of the hijab.

 Rather, we are supposed to aim in order to progress to better the way we wear the hijab - which is to ultimately protect our bodies by covering them, and not give anyone the right to wonder what our bodies would look like. 

One of the most common questions regarding hijab is who gets to see the hair of a hijabi?

The people who are allowed to see the hair of a woman who wears the hijab are those we call "mahram". 

They include: father, brother, uncle, grandfather, son, grandson, father-in-law...

Basically anyone who we cant marry. 

Growing up, I lived in a majority white area where there were no muslims to look up to and no hijab that you would see except my mother unless we were to go to a mosque or an auntys house. 

But for some reason, I always wanted to wear the hijab because my mum wore it. 

My mum used to let me wear it out here and there, before the age of 6. I remember the summer before year 3 my mum asking if I would like to wear it, and I said yes. So the beginning of year 3 I wore it to school. I vaguely remember crying so  much when I reached school, maybe I was developing cold feet. 

The thing is, it didn't make me take it off eventually I got used to it and carried on wearing it. 

I remember at first, there was a boy who asked me if I was bald and I became really upset because I thought that was an insult. Oh the innocence of childhood! 

I don't know if it was because of my hijab that some girls in the year weren't too keen to keep me in the friendship group or because of something else but there was trouble in the girl department of things. 

In year 7 when we had to change schools to go to a secondary school, it was okay initially. There used to be comments such as rag head and so on, but I used to shake those comments off. 

I remember one instance where I had to do a speech in assembly, and then afterwards everyone seemed nice about it, but then this boy in my year was going around with a jumper on his head saying that he was me lool which made me really angry. 

Anyways, as time went on, the beginning of GCSE really, hijab was no longer something that people saw me as. Rather, people just saw me as me and school was enjoyable. There was something satisfying about people literally liking you for you and not just seeing this strange thing on your head and focusing solely on that. 

Hijab became something that I was proud of. Not in a 'i'm cool because i'm wearing the hijab' kind of way, but a 'actually I am stronger than I think' and if I went through certain situations, I am now way past the idea of taking it off, so insha'Allah no-one can influence me to take it off. 

I do believe that wearing the hijab earlier has probably made my life easier, in that I cant remember what its like to leave without the hijab on. Its like a protection in a way that I wouldn't know what to do without. When you are older however, there are more things that come into play, such as wanting to be sure, wanting to be ready, wanting to make sure they are up to date with the latest trends. 

Hijab is something that we should prioritise before anything. If we want to know more about it then thats fine, but if we are avoiding it for the materialistic reasons, then what are we here for?