Hijab: Culture, Custom, and Chaos

Quote:

In my life, first as a young woman who had not yet chosen Islam, I have dressed with a dress so short, I had to keep standing if I wanted to keep my underwear covered. Then I chose to cover only in long dresses or slacks and to wear some kind of scarf or wrap over my hair. This was long before I first began reading about Islam and before I entered into a mosque. My ancestors, including my Muslim ancestors, came to America as slaves. The women were stripped at the auction block with no choice about how to cover themselves. I just decided that the right to exercise some control over who saw my legs was just as empowering as the other way around in some other context.

By the time I did go into a mosque to make inquiries, the men-only present must have thought I had made the greater sacrifice; so saying shahadah or declaring my faith in Allah and the Prophet was the lesser sacrifice. I can actually say: I became Muslim because of the way I dressed. I also chose to cover my face: way back in the 70s, in the U.S. city of Philadelphia. But I was in retreat from the world as I knew it. I observed the niqab for four years before moving on to the next stage of my living faith. I am still moving, because at this age, I go out for regular errands with no scarf, after more than 35 years of covering by choice.

In the public settings, I tend to cover my hair with the exception of the length of my dreadlocks down my back. I stick to this, especially when I travel; although I am always asked if I can take my scarf off when at the airport. Either that or I’m given the pat over. I guess to see if I have a bomb with those locks! I think to myself, yes, I can take this off, but I say “No.” Not here, and not now.

I exercise choice that some are denied, and that is as important as what choice I exercise. The freedom to make both choices is a privilege I do not take lightly given the politics of hijab these days.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/3203/hijab:_...