What My Hijab Should Mean To You
By: H F Sylaj
Tags: Women, Diversity, Religion, Muslim, Hijab

What My Hijab Should Mean To You

It is probably not what you think.

Photo by Ifrah Akhter on Unsplash

I wear a scarf on my head. I cover my hair. It is really not a big deal. Yes, I am Muslim and I wear a piece of clothing you don’t wear. That is all I feel it should mean to you.

But that is not reality. People make many assumptions about what my scarf means. And the majority of them are wrong. But people still make the following assumptions (and more) without knowing anything about me. Simply because they see the scarf on my head.

People assume…

That I am not from America. I was born and raised in Wisconsin. I had never even left North America until about a few months ago and even then I went to Europe.

That I do not speak English. I do not speak any other language well enough to claim. I am learning my husband’s language, but it is slow going for me. Albanian is not easy.

That my husband makes me wear it. He likes it. He was raised that it is a good thing for a woman to wear. His mother wears it. But he sometimes fears for me and tries to convince me not to wear it. Especially when the news has a new story that makes us all look bad. He feels that in America I am not safe with it on. But overall, he is supportive of my decision to wear it. And regardless, it is not his decision to make.

That the rest of the women in my family wear it too. I am the only Muslim on my side of our family. And for my husband’s family, only my mother-in-law and I wear a scarf. None of my five sisters-in-law do. It is not unusual to wear it in my husband’s country or culture but it is not required either.

That I don’t believe in the same God they do. Allah simply is the Arabic word for God. We believe in the Torah and the Psalms and the Gospels in addition to the Qur'an. We believe our God is the God of Adam and of Abraham and of Jesus (pbuh).

That I am rejecting the culture of America and want to change life here. My scarf is for my religion, not my politics. I enjoy a rather normal Midwestern life with bingo and pancake breakfasts and funeral potatoes (just minus the bacon, please.)

That I agree with the ideals of ISIS. Can we please recognize that ISIS is trying to further a political agenda and that they are using religion as a weapon in that fight? “Let there be no compulsion in religion.” — trans. Yusuf Ali, Qur'an 2:256

That I follow whatever Saudi Arabia tells me to do. Saudi Arabia is not the head of our faith even though our holiest cities are in that country and it is where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born. Currently, there is no head of our religion, or Caliphate. Each Muslim follows the leaders of their own country.

That I believe in violence. In Arabic, the word “Islam” is the root for the word peace, salaam. Each time we greet one another we say Assalamu alaikum which means “Peace be with you”. Yes, there is violence in the Qur'an. No more than in the Bible. Our growth as humans through cultural evolution has made our modern day society more sensitive to violence than people were in the past. Let us continue to move forward and leave war and violence as unneeded and a part of our history.

That I believe in the repression of women. Islam was the first religion to give women rights. The rights to education, property, inheritance, safety. Yes, Muslims in many places of the world do not follow the Qur’an in this respect. But there are many of us who are working hard to reverse this.

That I am anti-LGBTQI. God made everyone; and in making everyone He has allowed all of us to have our challenges as well as differences. People who do not fit into a heterosexual lifestyle have a very hard time in modern Islam (this is actually quite an understatement in some countries). I believe this was not always true and that all people have a place in the Ummah (the society of believers). I pray our faith will find its way to accepting the beautiful diversity of all Muslims around the world.

That anything I said above is the same for all Muslims. There are over two billion Muslims in the world. We come from all six populated continents.

Islam is a wonderfully diverse religion with many ways of following and interpreting the guidelines we have been given in the Qur’an and by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Even though we come from different lands and cultures and speak dozens of different languages, we always agree on the basics of our faith, which are the Five Pillars. Anything else cannot be assumed.

Photo by Ifrah Akhter on Unsplash

Note from the author: I chose to use Wikipedia articles for many of the above references as I felt they are the most unbiased and are not coming from any one single Muslim viewpoint.

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H F Sylaj lives in Wisconsin with her husband who is an Albanian-Kosovar Muslim and who always makes her laugh. She converted to Islam 16 years ago. For her undergraduate, she studied Theology and Visual Arts. Later she went back to school and earned degrees in Fine Jewelry Repair as well as Gemology. She is mom to a 10" goldfish named Bubbles as well as step-mom/grandma to some awesome people. ♡ Check out modernhijablife.com to see what else she does.♡ Sign up here to be notified of her new articles.