03/10/2022
You know for a long time I didn't understand hijab myself.
I mean, I always wore it, whether in Africa where I'm from because my community wore it as a part of our culture, and then here in the States where I grew up, clutching on to my Islamic identity post 9/11. For a long time, I too had a reductionist understanding of the hijab, about the male gaze, about it being part of culture, about following in the footsteps of my mother.
It was during the pandemic where things really hit me deeply. I spent more time reflecting and in prayer, in the confines of my home. One day, as I was ruminating in the prayer mat where I often like to rest my eyes, I looked down at my hands which were loosely covered with my polka dot chador. I examined myself, how comfortable I felt, how beautiful I felt from inside, light, airy, completely covered, natural. I was bare faced, but veiled from head to toe, with not a male in sight. I was as my Lord wanted me. Modest, even infront of myself. Shy, in the presence of my own soul. Respectful, of own personal space and body.
It was then that I began mourning what I once was. The hijab was not about the male gaze, it was about my own gaze. I was not my face, or my nice clothes, or the things I owned, or even my name. I was a soul, created by my Lord, and the only thing I would leave this world with was my soul. Nothing else mattered.
The hijab in and of itself is such a powerful system that demands looking beyond all that distracts us, even if that distraction is ourselves. It is an obligation, despite what others may say or think, because in it lies our holistic success. And as long as women and men champion it as a symbol of faith and piety, it will always be a threat to the ones who seek to chain us with unending distractions and pursuits of the Dunya.
