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A Matter for the Heart
I am 39 years old and I have been wearing hijab since the age of 20, which is
nearly half my life. I
decided to wear hijab after many, many months of contemplation. I had been
thinking about life, the purpose of life, the natural spiritual equilibrium that
the soul craves, the giving up of the self and a newly found devotion and love
of the Divine. That, mixed with my rebellious nature, led me to the hijab. Was
it an easy decision? I would say the decision was in me all along and the
manifestation of it came to fruition at that particular point in my life. In
many ways it was a natural progression in my spiritual development at the time.
There
was a mixed reaction from my family after I made my decision. Friends were
supportive but some family members
became quite irate. There was a long period of time where I wasn’t allowed to
wear it in my family home. I would have to leave the house through the backdoor,
put my hijab on and leave through the garage. Returning home, I used to take my
hijab off in the garage before entering the house. Negative remarks and
disdainful looks came my way on a daily basis even though I was raised in an
Albanian-Muslim family. Until this day, much to the surprise of many people who
make the assumption that all Muslim women are ordered or forced into hijab, I
remain the only female in my entire extended family who wears the head scarf.
I
have never felt uncomfortable wearing hijab in public although I have been
surprised on a number of occasions at the reaction some people have towards me,
from smiles and warm greetings to outright disdain and abuse. There are times
when I wonder why people react negatively. Nevertheless, the hijab is a part of
me…
I
don’t think that wearing hijab makes you a more ‘authentic’ Muslim woman
than a woman who doesn’t. By the way, these days my Mother (who is also now a
wonderful grandmother) is more than happy to see my hijab come through the front
door. I understand now that at the beginning she thought I was making an
arrogant statement about my ‘superior’ spirituality; she thought that by
wearing hijab I was being haughty and openly declaring to all and sundry that I
was a more devout Muslim than other women who didn’t ‘cover’. Even today I
sometimes think that women who don’t wear hijab are sometimes more
judgmental towards women who do (the ‘hijabis’, as we’re called) rather
than the reverse as is often implied.
Devotion is a matter for the
heart and I would never consider myself more, or less, devout than another
person. My mother wasn’t able to understand why I would want to give myself
‘a hard time’ in life because as a mother she worried that people wouldn’t
like me if I wore the scarf; she worried that they wouldn’t employ me or treat
me equally in a non Muslim country.
Some people wonder whether the
hijab makes a Muslim woman more ‘authentic’. Well, the only thing I can say
is this—hijab may not make me more ‘authentic’ but it definitely makes me
more identifiable as a Muslim. And I like that I am.
Nur Shkembi
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