Why Do Muslim Women Wear Hijab?
(Hint: It is not to save us from sexually out-of-control men.)
Years ago I gave up wearing hijab for about three months. I stopped covering my hair. I gave up wearing the scarf. At first, it was glorious. My hair was… so free. And fun. I tried different hairstyles I would not normally do because they would not work under a scarf. It felt pretty. I felt normal.
I had stopped wearing a headscarf because I didn’t know why I was wearing it. I felt like a fraud. When people asked me, I had canned lines from Muslim websites and memes I could regurgitate. But none of them rang true in my heart. It all felt hollow and forced. It was affecting my faith.
Let me be clear, I chose to put the scarf on in the first place. I wore it before I even met my husband. If it was up to him, I would not wear it in America. He feels it is unsafe. So why I wear it is entirely my decision. He has no right to dictate if I wear it or not. No husband has that right in Islam. Allah told women to wear it in the Qur’an. He did not tell husbands to have their wives put it on.
(Men have hijab as well. Check out another article I wrote to learn the rules for both genders.)
