Article: Why Do Muslim Women Wear Hijab

One thing that have always been amazing is the lack of apathy when it comes to any issue related to Muslim women. One of these is the issue of Hijab. What we hear all the time in the news media is the anti-hijab bias. What is even more interesting is that nobody ever, ever asks a woman the simple question: Why does she wear hijab.

This is a series or articles with that question posed to random women who were seen wearing hijab. Why does she wear hijab. Here is one post verbatim. There are no changes made from the original response. The goal here is to present multiple responses over period of time and as the entries trickle in they will be presented with minimal change. Any change will be strictly for the purpose of brevity and/or severe grammatical problems. (if any)

This is a beautifully written response and I found it to be genuine and representative of thousands of women that practice wearing Hijab despite the hatred and negative connotation attached to it. This piece makes it very obvious that the distorted view given to us by the media is nowhere close to reality. Read for yourself and leave your comments.


This is the response in full without any changes:

I started wearing the Islamic headscarf --the "hijab," as it's transliterated from Arabic-- about a year and a half ago, as an act of modesty for my religion, Islam. The hijab is a symbol of modesty. Women have complained that they would rather be appreciated for reasons other than their physical appearance; Islam has a solution for that: modesty. The hijab is not directly mandated by Islam; it's merely choice. In the Qur'an, it is stated that no Islamic belief should be forced on an individual. The hijab does not make women inferior; it's a solution for women who want their minds to be stronger than their appearance. The head scarf wasn't even something new introduced by Islam. You're forgetting that, a few centuries ago, women covered their heads when they went outside. True, in this day and age, common people don't cover their heads anymore. In Islam, if something is hard to do, you don't have to do it. If a woman feels inferior wearing the headscarf, or has been assaulted for it, they don't have to wear it. By wearing the hijab you're not succumbing to anything except God's teaching; in fact, when wearing the hijab, you're not succumbing to the desire to show off yourself to everybody. The way I see it, men don't have to show off their looks to get things they want, but some women do. In that case, whose inferior there? The hijab is not a foreign influence. You've probably seen several Americans wearing the headscarf too; they just look Arab (I know this for sure, since my uncle married an American woman who wears the hijab now; she is often mistaken for an Arab).

I was born and raised in the United States, and almost none of my relatives --even the ones who live in Pakistan-- wear the hijab, apart from my mother, who actually started wearing it when she came the U.S. thirty years ago. None of my relatives really supported my decision to wear the headscarf. My own parents were almost shocked when I started wearing it. They've constantly reminded me that I don't have to do it. Even though they're happy with it, they think --and in this case, I hope they're wrong-- that I might stop in a few years. They know it's probably hard to wear it in America, but honestly it hasn't been that hard. I've been able to talk to people as easily as before. It's like I get to choose who to speak to now; most people who approach me are open-minded, kind, and non-judgmental: the type of people I'd like to be friends with. Generally, people don't initially approach me as often as before, but now I get to choose who approaches me by talking with them first. I do get glared at by strangers sometimes, and most people don't look at me in the eye anymore. However, I know they've been ill-informed by the media. Sometimes I do feel a pressure to always do the right thing. If I'm not constantly behaved at all times, or if I accidentally say something rude or offensive, there are people who would have a bad impression of Muslims because they saw one who wasn't perfect. After all, they have a bad impression from the "Muslims" they see on TV who do explicitly forbidden things. Extremism is forbidden in Islam...but that's another topic. The constant, reasonably good behavior has made me, undeniably, a much better person.

The hijab isn't a sign of extremism; it's really just an item of clothing to put, but on your head. And by the way, I've never, ever heard of someone getting heat stroke because of wearing the hijab (though if you get to that state, you really should take it off). In Saudi Arabia, men also cover their head to keep them safe from heat when they go out, and Saudi Arabia is mostly desert. Wearing the hijab does not signify extremism. Islam doesn't call for women who wear the hijab to necessarily be as religious or even as modest as nuns are. True, there are ways to be modest and restrain themselves from wrong things without wearing the headscarf, and I commend people who can do that. For me, the hijab is a reminder to act appropriately, and it's definitely saved me from making many wrong decisions I would definitely regret. I don't mind others --my friends included-- being immodest or immoral, because I would have been like that if I didn't really know about Islam. Every person I meet who treats me with respect --like a normal person-- surprises me, because I generally expect people to have the bad image of Muslims that the media and extreme "Islamic" groups feed them. Neither do I have any deference for people who glare at me, because I know they don't really know what I --and other Muslims-- believe in. And I know, that if I wasn't Muslim, I would probably treat Muslims like they do.