Articles

Let Me Wear My Headscarf

By Ayesha Ahmad
Muslim American Society
Feb. 12, 2004

Over the past two years, I’ve lost touch with a good friend of mine, a girl from the south of France with whom I shared a flat in Edinburgh when we both studied there in 1998.

I was fresh out of college and thrilled about living abroad in Scotland; she was still an undergraduate, but we were both there to study English literature. That was not the only thing we had in common -- we adored all things Celtic, preferred the woods to the city, enjoyed hikes to shopping sprees, and loved singing folk songs in languages neither of us knew.

She taught me bits of French, and I corrected her English.

Our friendship grew out of these shared passions, but it was not until well into our year together that I discovered she had looked unfavorably on my Islamic headscarf, or hijab.

She was an atheist; angry at all organized religion for all the blood that’s been shed over faith. It was only after we had come through some tensions over religion that I told her, once, how upset I had been to hear about two Muslim schoolgirls in France forced to remove their hijabs while in school. She admitted to me, then, that she and her mother had approved of the move at the time, seeing the hijab as an injustice to women.

I would love to know what she thinks now. I wonder if, while reading of her country’s new ban on hijab and other religious garb, she remembers me -- a devout Muslim who wore hijab of her own accord and saw it as a liberation rather than oppression, whose faith enhanced, rather than limited, her ability to live to her fullest potential.

Most of the time, I feel like I’m screaming this opinion soundlessly into the void of public debate. I read statements from commentators and political experts, from Muslim women who don’t wear hijab, from Muslim religious leaders who hedge and hesitate in their reactions -- but I hear very few saying what’s in my heart.

My only disclaimer is that I’m aware of, and understand, the vast range of opinion, interpretation and analysis out there. I know -- much more so after September 11 -- that some Muslims do not see the hijab as a religious requirement, for various reasons of historical understanding and textual interpretation of the Qur’an. I understand that France has a secular tradition very different from the manifestation of church-state separation here in America, and that aside from any political reasons Jacques Chirac might have to promote such a ban, France is only looking to protect what it treasures in its national tradition.

I know that in some Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, women are required to wear hijab whether they choose to or not. And for years, I’ve seen hijab debated as a symbol of this or that, a fundamentalist designation, a token of repression, an emblem of all that is backwards and dark and sexist about Islam. I know that to a non-Muslim unfamiliar with Muslim women - or one who approaches with biased eyes -- hijab may necessarily mean all of these things.

None of this has anything to do with why I wear it.

Sure, it serves some public purposes for me -- it identifies me as a Muslim, which I absolutely love about it; and along with modest clothing, it generally protects me from unwanted sexual attentions. On a spiritual level, it reminds me of my duty to God when I need reminding. But I wear it for this reason only -- because I believe that God commands it, and my responsibility as a Muslim is to obey God. It’s a form of worship, not unfamiliar to Christianity and other religions. It’s a communication between my Lord and His servant, and the thought that anyone would assume the right to legislate what happens between God and I is, well, flabbergasting.

Hijab is not a symbol of anything but a religious obligation. Even here, I feel like there’s nothing I can really say to explain how appalled I am by the French initiative -- as well as similar moves in Germany, Muslim countries like Turkey, Egypt and others, and even the actions of at least one Oklahoma school, where a middle-schooler was suspended for wearing hijab. In all these situations, Muslim women are beginning to have to fight for their right to clothe themselves modestly.

I get incensed about this when I imagine myself in the position of a hijab-wearing Muslim woman in France. What if I walked onto my public university campus, and was told I had no right to an education unless I exposed myself in a way I would consider indecent?

We’re not asking for the right to perform human sacrifices, or to chain people to the ground and beat them until they become Muslim. We’re not even asking for everyone who sees us to approve of our hijab, or agree with either our reasons for wearing it or the political statement it may seem to make. We simply expect the basic right to practice this part of our faith which does not impose on anyone who has a modicum of tolerance and awareness of people who don’t look like them.

The debate does shift to what exactly these religious articles of clothing do in the public sphere; some in France, including Chirac, say hijab is an "aggressive" manifestation of religion, or that it might encourage the spread of so-called "fundamentalist" versions of Islam. Without taking on the semantics of that word, may I suggest that women who wear hijab are simply trying to follow the fundamentals of their faith? That a ban on wearing it in schools and government offices would put them in direct contradiction with their religious convictions, forcing them in their own eyes to place Chirac, or any other authority figure, above God? Many will end up staying home from school, segregating from the French community, quitting their jobs or even leaving the country, rather than submit to this humiliation.

One French Muslim commented in a news article about "so much fuss" being made over a piece of cloth. That’s how I’ve often felt growing up; and post-9/11, when Oprah’s "Islam 101" show extended into an hour-long aftershow almost entirely centered on hijab, I was just as frustrated. People around me wear everything from purple Mohawks and tongue rings to cleavage-dropping necklines, from black Matrix trenchcoats to thigh-high leather boots. And everyone has a message. Should nuns also be required to remove their habit when entering a school or government office? Why does anyone care if I wear a piece of cloth on my head? It might as well be a do-rag or a bandanna, as far as anyone else is concerned. It’s nobody’s business but mine.

The issue often gets far more attention than necessary even among Muslims. I can’t tell you how many times I have talked to Muslim women who do not wear hijab, and have been threatened or pushed away by more conservative Muslims at the risk of pushing them out of the Muslim community. Yes, it has more meaning among Muslims -- but only Allah can judge us, and we have far, far more serious problems facing our community than a woman whose head is uncovered but whose heart and faith are sincere.

I hope that when my French friend and I parted in Edinburgh six summers ago, I left with her a better understanding of the humanity of a Muslim woman, no matter how she chooses to dress. I know that despite some disagreements, our friendship remained strong and flourished even when it had to cross the Atlantic . I just hope that now, when she sees the struggle between freedom and secularism in her own country, she remembers that a Muslim woman can wear a headscarf without posing a threat to society.

Americans’ awareness of Islam has certainly leaped high since September 11, but there is still much that people are uncomfortable with and ignorant of. Still, there is one very fundamental facet of our society that underscores what people learn about Islam -- it’s in the First Amendment, and in the very reason for the founding of this country.

Perhaps "freedom of religion" is not as high up on the ladder as "secularism" in other countries, but I have faith -- despite what I do see as the relentless chiseling of some of our freedoms -- that the idea of repressing basic rights in the name of maintaining secularism will remain unpalatable to the American people.

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