Seeing through the Hijab

In my world there are not really many Burkinis, or Burkas, being worn around the show. There are not many Hijabs being worn either.

No – hang-on– there is, there is – my really good friend Jas*, who I’ve known now for 13 years, wears a Hijab.

But only on weekends.

She is too frightened to wear it to work (she is a senior associate in a high profile law firm), although her highers-up have told her she’s welcome to wear the Hijab if she chooses.

Jas is no pushover. She’s a litigator and she’s really something to see in the courtroom. She does it with a real softness though, it’s difficult to describe.

If she wants to wear the Hijab it’s not under the direction of any husband. Besides, her ex-husband ran off with another woman about 9 years ago, leaving her with two young children. He has no say in what she wears anymore and I’m not sure he ever would have.

My friend’s face lights up like a precious diamond when she talks about how it feels in her heart to wear the Hijab. Jas is a really beautiful person inside and out so, when she describes this feeling, she goes from stunning to spectacular at the drop of a hat.

Jas once told me her husband didn’t rate her very highly when they were together all those years ago. She once rated herself as a 5. Her ex-husband told her, often, that she was a 2.

As far as I’m concerned she shot from a 2 to a 10 at the drop of a husband.

Jas often shows me photos on her phone — they are of her in her Hijab. I don’t always recognise her, not because of the Hijab but because she looks electric — she looks 20 years younger than she is. She tells me she feels it, too, and I believe her.

Her teenage children (one girl, one boy) are in the photos. I’ve known them since they were little. They’re doing really well, these kids, they’re happy and healthy and they’re now at university and she’s putting them through herself, on her own, through sheer hard work and long hours, proving herself to her supportive firm.

The pride in Jas’ face when she talks about her kids is apparent, yet it doesn’t come within cooee of the expression she gets when she talks of wearing her Hijab on weekends within the four walls of her home.

Jas is Suni Muslim. I Wiki’d it to get the spelling right for this piece.

It said ‘Suni Muslim’ then in brackets ‘(Sunni Islam)’.

Today after reading this piece of Parisa’s, I phoned Jas and I asked her about being Suni Muslim. ‘Hey, Jas’, I said, ‘how full on are you with your faith — you know, how far up or down the ladder are you? Like, you know how there are different levels of faith and all that, where do you sit?’.

She said if she tried to describe it in layperson’s terms, she’d say she was one rung down from extreme.

Well. What a shit friend I’d been. How can one know a person for 13 years and not know this stuff? I mean, yeah, the Hijab is a big clue, I accept that (genius that I am) but I didn’t know bugger all, did I?

Why was it not until I read Parisa’s article that it occurred to me to ask? To me, my friend is just ‘Jas from the block’ and same for me to her. For 13 years we’d had hugs and hardships and tiffs and laughs and all the stuff you have with your good friends. But how come I didn’t know much about her faith? Her beliefs? Why hadn’t I asked?

Clearly my rating on the ol’ friend scale wasn’t looking too spectacular. Stunning, maybe.

I asked Jas about this. I got upset. I told her I loved her and I felt I’d not paid enough attention to this major part of her life. My voice wobbled a bit.

She laughed in that way she has — like a hand caressing one of those glass prism things from Pollyanna (chinkle-chinkle-chink) — and said with a smiling voice, ‘Jules, it’s ok, my friend. Oh, you are a funny girl. I don’t know the first thing about what your faith or belief system is either, eh? It’s ok. We love each other. These things haven’t come up. That’s ok, right?’

I asked my friend ‘Why only on weekends? Why not wear it to work? You’re welcome to, they’ve told you so. Why won’t you?’

‘The train commute’ she says. She says she doesn’t want spit and food scraps and blood on her Hijab. She says she wants to live to see her beautiful kids graduate. To survive long enough to love her future grandkids.