Let me mention something about myself. I don't wear hijab. I know.. duh. But what you may not know is that I do not wear it because I do not believe in it. Before getting into why I don't believe in hijab, I want to take a moment to talk about why I think it's important to be able to discuss this controversial subject.
Months ago, I was approached by the webmaster of a really nice Islamic website to talk about why I don't believe in hijab. The website was conducting a "hijab project," which was soliciting stories from Muslim women explaining why they do or do not wear hijab. So I submitted a brief explanation about why I don't wear it, and they posted it on the website. Shortly thereafter it was taken down. Apparently, this brother was overwhelmingly harassed by Muslims who were outraged that he would post something (even though it was from someone else) that wasn't 100% supportive of hijab (even though the project guidelines stated that there would be stories from sisters who do and DO NOT wear hijab).
Since I converted to Islam years ago, I've found that out of all the problems that exist in the Muslim world, the one issue that seems to rile us up the most is that of hijab. Take, for instance,
Oprah's TV special on understanding Islam. When one audience member innocently and legitimately asked if it was ok for Muslim women to remove their hijab if they felt it made them targets of violence after 9/11, Muslims angrily wrote letters and Oprah was forced to apologize.
These two incidents say a lot about us as a community. Are we not capable of civilized discussion? Are we not even allowed to talk about certain subjects?
I would argue that it's important to be able to talk about this subject, for a couple of reasons. First, I'm not so arrogant to believe that I understand Islam so much better than everyone else, that I am right and all the Muslims who cover are wrong. I simply see no strong evidence supporting a mandate on hijab. Maybe there's something I missed. If I'm not able to talk about this without being chastised, shamed or insulted, I'll never find out, will I?
Secondly, this is a religion for people who think. This is something that led me to Islam, that the Qur'an is clearly asking us to be purposeful in our faith, and not just blind followers. I was raised Catholic, and I didn't buy into a lot of the stuff that was taught to me growing up. I'm not about to suddenly pretend I believe something I don't--not now, not after converting to Islam, which was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. If I don't believe that Allah is telling me to cover my hair, I need to honor that and not cave in to community pressure just so I can have "Muslim street cred."
Enough about that. I'll get into why I don't believe in hijab in a later post. But just to be clear, this isn't a criticism of people who believe in hijab, so please don't (miss the whole point of this post and) yell at me in the comments! I simply think we should be able to talk about it.
So the first three people who comment on this blog get a handmade gift from me, sometime within the next year. Those three people put the same post on their blog and make gifts for three people also, and so on and so forth...
So the first three people who comment on this blog get a handmade gift from me, sometime within the next year. Those three people put the same post on their blog and make gifts for three people also, and so on and so forth...
