Girl with headscarf is featured on London billboards. Shari’ah Law is taking over. The Muslims are coming. Run!

The drab tube commute to work is every Londoner’s nightmare. It’s far too early in the morning, some people have no understanding of personal hygiene and others are simply incapable of following one clear instruction: do not lean on the (f*cking) doors.

If you work in the West End, you’ll be well-acquainted with the onslaught of ads that greet you at the prime location stops along the Central Line. I work on Oxford Circus, so I’m always prepared for the visual assault as I reluctantly climb the stairs from the platform in my early morning slumber.

This week, however, I found myself jolted into consciousness as I reached the top of the stairs. Before me, plastered everywhere on the tunnel walls and on the digital screens along the escalators, was the face of Hana Tajima. A British-Japanese Muslim, Tajima is pictured dancing and pulling faces against a luminous yellow backdrop. Fully-clad in items from her own collection designed for fashion label Uniqlo, Tajima is radiant in her navy blue headscarf, complemented with a statement red-lip.

Just an intelligent, creative, successful, young Muslim woman, wearing a headscarf in a national campaign for a leading fashion brand, plastered over Central London billboards — no big deal, nothing to see here.

Except it really is. I live in London — the ultimate melting-pot. People of all colours, races and faiths meet and congregate here; we work together, eat together, heck some of us even sleep together (I know, the horror). And yet, somehow, hateful and racist publications like The Sun remain the most widely read. Bigoted groups like EDL and Britain First have hundreds of thousands of followers. Following the attacks in Paris, anti-Muslim hate crime tripled in the UK. Friends of mine have been spat at, had their headscarves yanked and received a barrage of vitriol.

I, like thousands of others, have witnessed a notable shift where the word ‘Muslim’ has become soaked with stigma. Islamophobia is real and as far as I can tell, it is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Regardless, I find myself regularly explaining and appealing to people’s better judgments, growing tired of the need to explain and appeal, turning bitter and defensive, until finally crawling back to explaining and appealing.

To the naked eye, I’m “not even Muslim”. My ethnicity, though not remotely diverse, is largely deceiving at face-value. With light-skin and dark (uncovered) hair, I can fall pretty much anywhere on the ethnicity spectrum: Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Arab (most if not all), Caucasian — I’ve been assigned them all (though the latter is a ridiculous stretch even by my standards). I am simply not privy to the abuse my friends have had to face in the rise of Islamophobia.

As a first generation British-Pakistani Muslim, I have never really had to resolve my identity. Married within me were the values of both cultures in equal measure. One was instilled through the example of my beloved grandmother, who insisted I speak Urdu with her, listen to the poetic art of ghazals and value my vast and extensive family. She taught me to be kind to others and said I should always try to do good like the Prophet. The other was instilled through the example of my beloved teachers, who allowed me the opportunity to fall madly in love with literature and theatre, to appreciate and respect different perspectives, who encouraged critical thinking and debate and who through their own actions, insisted on kindness, tolerance and understanding.

It is only until recently that my previously harmonious identity has been rocked, mainly by the growing Islamophobia that appears to have gripped the planet. An entire people held accountable for the actions of some (too many, still) who are the very antithesis of what they claim to be.

But just like “those” some, there will be a few others here (too many, still) who think Hana Tajima’s radiant face plastered over Oxford Circus means the end is nigh: Shari’ah Law has arrived. The Muslims are taking over. Run!

But to others, myself included, Tajima’s presence is a reminder that our beloved city is a delightful, crazy and altogether magical mix of human beings, who deserve respect and love in equal measure. Her presence reminds me that to some extent, the explaining and appealing won’t forever be necessary. A girl in her element, loving life, with a statement red-lip is just that — Muslim or not, headscarf or not.

As I stood mesmerised before the posters earlier this week, a tall blonde woman passed me by. “Those pants are amazing” she exclaimed. The pants? I hadn’t noticed them. But yeah, they’re pretty fab too, I thought.