I'm a hijab wearing Muslim woman, ask me anything!

[hijabijabi]

Happy to answer all questions, but most comfortable with questions about my experiences - I can try to answer questions about Islam but am no expert, and other Muslims may hold different opinions.
I'll only be checking the thread intermittenty, so my answers might not be immediate.

I don’t really think it’s softer but then maybe that’s because I’ve got a very dark mind. Physical pain is nothing compared to how we can mentally torment ourselves.

What happens after death is nothingness/unknown and it's a scary prospect. Thus humans have come up with comforting afterlives, according to their understanding of the world's at the time and to keep people "behaving well" out of fear. Control and comfort in one. What's not to an ancient ruler to like!

Thank you for your kind words. You have probably guessed it's a subject very close to my heart. Being an Iranian Muslim immigrant, I am so lucky to have made England my home. England allows me to practice my sex freely without shame or condemnation.

I want the women in Iran and other oppressive Islamic regimes to have the same freedoms we all so freely enjoy. I want my female cousins to be free of the veil and everything horrible that it represents.

My family all hate wearing the veil but they are forced to. They have no choice. OP my cousins would love to trade places with you and rejoice in being able to express their feminism trough dance, clothes, makeup, hair, career promotion and progression, merit based reward etc etc - all the things we take for granted every day.

Also it's pretty awesome to live in a country where you are able to want and enjoy sex without being labelled a whore or if someone does you can tell them fuck off and mind their own business. In Iran your soul doesn't belong to you - it is the property of the Islamic police. They dictate how you should behave. Of course showing a man your hair is surely enough of a sin for an eternity of hell and brimstone - who knew hair could be so controversial.

Best to cover it up!

Hawks post interesting.

I have an Iranian born friend, let’s call her A, who actively embraces the freedoms she has here for herself and her son. Her Dh recently joined and agrees. Makes them no less Muslim.

Other friend, let’s call her B, born /bred Uk of Iranian background. Non Farsi speaking, wealthy and privileged but far more religious (not in dress). Friend A completely nonplussed that friend B is so overtly observing.

They have zero in common.

Do you think perhaps that people not so near to a culture or who change to that culture/religion tend to towards the evangelical? I’ve certainly seen that with newly identifying Christians.

Also, is this a relatively new thing? I grew up in 70s and as a family we mixed with many Pakistani people. All far more integrated together back then (I’m from mixed english/ Asian background) with others and 40 years on I feel the majority of people generally are self withdrawing into their own ethnic and religious groups and trying to highlight their relative ‘uniqueness’?

Is this partly political (not necessarily about Islam, but everyone)?

Howrude it's interesting. I have a Bangladeshi friend who says that she knows of Bangladeshi families third/fourth generation who are far more observant and conservative than those back in her homeland.

I don't know why it is but I think it's fascinating and would love someone like Louise Theroux to investigate and do a documentary on it.

I'm particularly interested in people like the OP who wear their scarf like a badge of honour without realising really what that badge represents. The scarf is an ugly ugly thing when worn in the context of Islam. It really is a badge of misogyny, hypocrisy and in many many cases a sign of female suffering. It also separates us as women.

Also why the fuck should anyone apologise for being sexual - that's the crux of it. That's what makes me so very angry. I am a woman. I have breasts, I have a vagina, I have legs, I have hair and all these albeit aesthetic things make me beautiful. I want to show the world my beauty. Why would I ever want it to rot under a cloth of fabric.

In case of the Bangladeshi immigrants, it might be a case of feeling like religion is an important link to their roots and makes it feel serious in a different way.

@HawkinsIndiana

Thank you for your posts.

HawkinsIndiana, you’re beautiful. Ah. Well spare a thought for those of us who aren’t. I think I’d find it liberating in some ways for it not to be weird and social unacceptable to hide in the outfits of a medieval person.

DieAnt I think Hawkins is saying that the female human body is something beautiful and not to be ashamed of.

You wouldn't actually enjoy having to swathe yourself in layers of stifling dark fabric in 30+ degrees, no matter how ashamed or self-hating you feel about your body.

Hawkins I echo the poster above who thanked you for your posts.They are very enlightening and it needs to be said - especially when white Westerners willingly take on symbols of oppression without understanding the context.

Lighhouse.. Ah I knew I would find you here.. Exactly what I thought.

@ILoveHumanity

Well of course I'm here, that's why I mentioned it on the other thread!

You're complaining that I thanked Hawkins for her comments? Many of us have done so, I'm grateful for them and will show my mum the posts tomorrow.

Op.. Im a hijabi too.. never mind the people who are trying to force their opinion on us in the name of liberating us... oh the irony

Im a born muslim, raised in a muslim country.. and i 'chose' to wear the headscarf at the age of 7 to the surprise of my parents. They kept inisisting i take it off till puberty but I threw tantrums. As there is a teacher I loved who wore it and I just loved how it looks. Also because alot of the cartoons I watched had cute girls wearing it and I found the 'virgin MAry' Look so pretty and captivating.

I never regretted it. My parents still offered me to take it off at the ageof 10 and I said no.

I received alot of hate for it as I grew older... and It became a sign of my freedom.

My question is, how did your friends and family take it when you wore it ?

The scarf is an ugly ugly thing when worn in the context of Islam. It really is a badge of misogyny, hypocrisy and in many many cases a sign of female suffering. It also separates us as women.

What a stupid thing to say.

@HawkinsIndiana

Why should the OP be made responsible for the actions of other countries who may be oppressing some of their women? Just because hijab may be used by some tyrants to enforce tyranny, why should that make you think that OP should stop wearing hijab?! That doesn't make any sense at all.

Also your views against the hijab are medieval and frankly offensive. You can't seem to distinguish between the actions of an oppressive regime who are using the hijab as a tool to oppress women, and the hijab itself. You accuse Muslim women of not being intelligent enough, but frankly your intelligence is questionable.

I've not RTFT but I find something you said quite contradicting -

1 - that in wearing the hijab you feel closer to Allah etc
2 - that you wear it due to freewill.

Don't you accept that you've been conditioned to believe that wearing it identifies you as a Muslim and is , in your own words, obligatory? In which case it isn't really freewill is it, it is indoctrination, brain washing and manipulation.

If you were never made to believe that it's what you should do, then you wouldn't. No freewill involved.

@namechangemaestro she makes the choice out of her own free will whether she wants to be close to God or not. (I assume she chose YES). Then out of her own free will she chooses whether or not she wants to wear hijab. Simple.

Lost people looling for "answers" are more vulnerable to influences and influencers, so their free will is not completely "free", IYSWIM.

This applies to political groups, cults, religions.... Any kinds of groups with a strong culture, community and rules.

It's not free will though, she wears it because she believes she should as a good Muslim woman. It's either out of fear, or guilt.
Of course the true art of brainwashing is only successful if the brainwashees are unaware of it.

Lost people and children, I should have said, just in case someone has a point related to them.

ilovehumanity thanks for sharing your own hijab story. My family found it quite hard, but accepting it was my decision and seem fine now, having had many tears to get used to it. Friends mostly really positive _ I was lucky I think many converts have it much harder.

namechange it's simply my belief. We could all sit here and accuse each other of being brainwashed. It doesn't have much meaning.

But why would putting a piece of material over your head make you closer to a fictional being in the sky?

OP, would you say that theres much tendency in muslims in the UK to judge western women in their summer outfits etc?

Ive wondered this a few times and if its just down to individual people.
I speak to quite a few muslim women at the school etc and I sometimes wonder if they think of me as some sort of harlot in my summer dresses and tattoos and stupid hairstyles, but they never appear to and are perfectly chatty. Ive never felt able to ask.
I also wonder whether muslim women that dont wear the hijab are judged more harshly than non muslim women, or less harshly

namechangemaestro it's not about pleasing God, it's about pleasing men who try to control women and police their sexuality.