hijab

The nation has heard plenty of debate over racial profiling. But there’s a form of religious profiling that some young Muslim women in America say they endure whenever they voluntarily wear the hijab. The hijab, also known as the veil, is the headscarf worn by Muslim women around the globe. It’s a simple piece of cloth, but it can place young Muslim women in Western countries in difficult situations.
She doesn’t want your frosty public stares; the whispers behind her back; the lament that she’s been degraded by her father. What the Muslim high school senior wants you to understand is that she doesn’t wear the hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she is submissive.
“It represents beauty to me,” says Abdelaziz, the 17-year-old daughter of two Egyptian parents living in Old Bridge, New Jersey. “My mom says a girl is like a jewel,” Abdelaziz says. “When you have something precious, you usually hide it. You want to make sure you keep it safe until that treasure is ready to be found.”
Some hijab-wearers say that strangers treat them as if they’re terrorists. Others ask them if they’re a nun — or even allergic to the sun. In some cases, their worst critics are not Americans, but fellow Muslim Americans. The pressure on Muslim teenagers in the U.S. who wear the hijab may be even more acute. Their challenge: How do I fit in when I wear something that makes me stand out?
Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has written two novels about this question, says wearing the hijab can “exhaust” some young Muslim women in the West. “You can sometimes feel like you’re in a zoo: locked in the cage of other people’s stereotypes, prejudices and judgments, on parade to be analyzed, deconstructed and reconstructed,” says Abdel-Fattah, a Muslim who has Palestinian and Egyptian parents but was born in Australia. Abdel-Fattah says people should not assume that Muslim women who wear the hijab are being controlled by men. She, too, struggled with the choice of wearing a hijab when she was a teenager.
“When it comes to the hijab — why to wear it, whether to wear it, how to wear it — there is theology and then there is practice and there is huge diversity in both,” says Abdel-Fattah, author of “Does My Head Look Big in This?”
The surprising history behind the hijab
Some women say the hijab makes them feel like they’re locked in a cage. But others say it leads to personal freedom.
Sarah Hekmati first wore the hijab at age 15 growing up in Detroit, Michigan. She is the daughter of Iranian parents who left Iran in 1979 during the Islamic revolution. Hekmati says the hijab liberated her from some teenage angst: Does my hair look good? Am I cute enough? Should I lose weight? “It gave me a sense of identity,” she says. “I really liked the purpose behind the hijab — a woman covering herself so that a man should know her for her mind, not her body.”
That purpose can be traced back to the Quran, Islam’s holy text, which encourages women to dress modestly, says Faegheh Shirazi, author of “The Veil Unveiled.” Some Muslims take the Quran’s advice as a command for women to wear the hijab, while others disagree, she says. “The Quran is very ambiguous about whether you have to wear the veil or not,” Shirazi says.
The hijab, however, actually predates Islam, Shirazi explains. The first known reference to veiling (Shirazi uses the term hijab and veil interchangeably) was made in an Assyrian legal text in the 13th century B.C., Shirazi says.
In the Assyrian, and later, the Roman and Byzantine empires, the veil was a symbol of prestige and status, she says. By the 12th century, the veil had been imposed on women in the Muslim world to exclude them from public life, Shirazi says. “A sign of distinction had been transformed into a sign of exclusion,” she writes in her book. People are still debating the meaning of the hijab today.
In 2007, British Muslim groups protested when schools were given the right to ban students from wearing full-face veils. In 2008, Turkey’s top court upheld a ban on wearing Muslim headscarves at the country’s universities. That same year, a Muslim woman was briefly jailed at a suburban Atlanta, Georgia, courthouse after refusing to remove her hijab in court.
Some moms against hijab wearing
The debate over the hijab can literally hit home for some young Muslim women. Those that wear the hijab in the United States can befuddle their mothers, who often immigrated to the West so they could be free from wearing the hijab and other rules imposed on women.
That’s what happened to Hekmati, the Muslim-American from Detroit. Her mother, Behnaz, was puzzled by her daughter’s decision to wear the hijab. Behnaz Hekmati grew up in Iran, where she did not wear the hijab. Young women who attended college in Iran like she did generally didn’t wear the hijab, she says.
Behnaz Hekmati warned her daughter that wearing the hijab would arouse the suspicion of Americans. “I said Sarah, when you cover your head here the people think you are political — they see you differently,” Behnaz Hekmati says. Most of the trouble, though, came from Iranian-Americans, who came to the United States to escape the Islamic fundamentalists who seized power in 1979, she says.
“The Iranians here bother her more than Americans,” Behnaz Hekmati says. “They say, ‘We got rid of you guys. We came here because we didn’t want to see you guys anymore.’” Hekmati was more concerned as a teenager about more personal issues, like her relations with boys. The hijab made it more difficult, she says. Few asked her on dates. Guys always seemed to put her in the “friend category.” She wondered if she was attractive.
“I wondered at times: Am I always going to be a guy’s friend and nothing more.” Strangers in public saw her as something else — a subjugated woman. They looked at her with pity, she says. Some were just baffled. “One guy asked me if I was allergic to the sun,” Hekmati says.
Abdelaziz, the New Jersey high school senior, also had her tense public encounters: angry looks, people feeling sorry for her or assuming her father ordered her to wear the hijab. “It’s not oppression; it’s not that I’m accepting degradation — it’s about self-respect,” she says. But it’s more about faith as well. She says the hijab affirms “Islam in the most respectful and purified way.”
“When you actually wear it, it opens your eyes,” she says. “It makes you want to explore your religious faith.” At times, Abdelaziz says she wonders what it would be like to attend her prom, get a tan at the beach and have a boyfriend. But she says her decision to honor her faith is already paying off. “It really feels good,” she says. “It felt like I was missing something and now I’m complete. I finally understand my purpose.”

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Atiqa Odho

I would like to add one more beautiful and amazingly accoumplished lady of Pakistan to the list of  ”Beautiful, Ageless Women.”

Atiqa Odho:Actress/host

I remember her playing a stunning middle class wife in PTV play “Nijjaat”. She played the role impressivley. Now after so many years we  see her taking interviews of the top personalities of Pakistan. Her ability to ask the right question at he right time and that too in a lively manner made the show popular at Geo tv. The sparkle in her beautiful eyes and the glow on the pretty face hasn’t changed a bit. She is a successful enterprenuer and owns “Odho Cosmetics”.

Beautiful, Ageless Women

Ageing gracefully is one thing but the new age ‘ageing gracefully’ as far as women are concerned, is not ageing at all. Instep takes a look at five beautiful and stylish women around us who have managed to defy time. The candles on their birthday cake may sing another story, but there are no tell tale signs as far as their looks are concerned. They are an inspiration…

Zeba Bakhtiar

Zeba Bakhtiar: Actress

Who could have forgotten the rosy cheeked and youthful Zeba Bakhtiar from Randhir Kapoor’s Rishi Kapoor starrer Henna or the Syed Noor film and Adnan Sami starrer Sargam? She was vibrant and beautiful in all senses of the word. But if you have forgotten what she looked like back then, it’s not a problem because she looks exactly the same today. Zeba is just as ethereally pretty and her calm disposition reflects very well on her creaseless, ageless skin. Zeba has gone through personal ups and downs in her personal life – her marriage to Adnan Sami Khan, the long drawn out divorce and custody battle for their son Azaan that followed – but none of it shows as far as her looks are concerned. The Quetta born Baluchi beauty is certainly someone to look up to.

Reema

Reema: Actress

Reema’s come a long, long way since she stepped out in her debut film Bulandi as a fresh faced Lollywood actress to today, when she’s a director of two films, a Lux girl and a Pakistani icon in her own right. And while she’s committed some terrible, terrible fashion and style crimes along the way – most of which can be attributed to the inherently low budgets Bollywood films have – Reema now looks drop-dead gorgeous. At the Lux Style Awards last year, her flawless makeup and jewellery free look won her a definite ‘thumbs up’ from the style police (c’mon, there’s a mental style police officer in everyone’s head!). She looks the same in her current advertisement for Lux (styled by Nabila) and even in her appearances on television shows. She has finally fit into the part of a movie star and honestly, can you even guess now how old she is? It really is a remarkable 180-degree turn!

Babra

Babra Sharif: Actress

Everytime we look at images of Babra Sharif, we’re left astounded: how does this ‘80s icon look so very, very young?She is the ageless queen, whose versatility on the small and silver screen has never gone unnoticed. She knows how to carry herself, whether it is a sizzler performance at the Lux Style Awards (2005), countless style shoots that create fantastical memories or her rare but striking appearances.

Babra Sharif is no stranger to the spotlight but as her years have increased, she has gotten more stunning and that too without a hint of narcissism – a quality that never fails to impress. Unlike Lollywood divas, Babra tends to stay away and when she does return, it is always on a spectacular note. This woman can defy age like no other.

Maaheen Khan

Maheen Khan: Designer

Maheen Khan is a one-woman guide for how to dress in an age-appropriate yet alluring manner: except as the years have gone by, it’s been harder to tell just how old Maheen is! She still looks absolutely fantastic, and is always the epitome of understated elegance. In her signature black and white wardrobe and pixie haircut, Maheen Khan proves why growing older doesn’t have to equal to letting go of yourself and looking frumpy. She’s truly defying age and no one can deny it: which is why she walked away with the Best Dressed Woman nod at the recent TRC/Ensemble show. May we all age so very gracefully!

Samina Peerzada

Samina Peerzada: Actress/Director

Director, actress and a film star like no other, Samina Peerzada never fails to turn heads, whether via Rafi Peer festivals, her public voice on issues of women, her appearance and vocal support for Karafilm Festival or just her love for all things films and theatre. But that isn’t the only attractive quality about Samina. She is forthcoming and she carries a signature that suits her and is enchanting all the same. She has made films in an industry where survival is always a struggle but Samina has challenged and done the unpredictable. And for that unfaltering spirit, irrespective of the years, Samina Peerzada continues to be an age-defying icon.

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