OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The
Freedom of the Hijab
By AYESHA
NUSRAT
Published: July 13, 2012
It’s been over two months since I decided to become a hijabi —
one who wears a head scarf and adheres to modest clothing — and before you
race to label me the poster girl for oppressed womanhood everywhere, let me
tell you as a woman (with a master’s degree in human rights, and a graduate
degree in psychology) why I see this as the most liberating experience ever.
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Prior to becoming a hijabi, I did not expect myself to go down
this road. Although I knew modesty was encouraged in my culture and by my
faith, I never saw the need nor had the opportunity to explore the reasons
behind it.
My experience working as a Faiths Act Fellow for the Tony Blair
Faith Foundation and dealing with interfaith action for social action brought
me more understanding and appreciation of various faiths. I found that
engaging in numerous interfaith endeavors strengthened my personal
understanding about my own faith. The questions and challenges I encountered
increased my inquisitiveness and drive to explore and learn for myself
various fundamental aspects of Islam. Thus began my journey to hijab-dom.
I am abundantly aware of the rising concerns and controversies
over how a few yards of cloth covering a woman’s head is written off as a
global threat to women’s education, public security, rights and even
religion. I am also conscious of the media’s preferred mode of portraying all
hijabi women as downtrodden and dominated by misogynist mullahs or male
relatives who enforce them into sweltering pieces of oppressive clothing. But
I believe my hijab liberates me. I know many who portray the hijab as the
placard for either forced silence or fundamentalist regimes; but personally I
found it to be neither.
For someone who passionately studied and works for human rights
and women’s empowerment, I realized that working for these causes while
wearing the hijab can only contribute to breaking the misconception that
Muslim women lack the strength, passion and power to strive for their own
rights. This realization was the final push I needed to declare to the world
on my birthday this year that henceforth I am a hijabi.
In a society that embraces uncovering, how can it be oppressive
if I decided to cover up? I see hijab as the freedom to regard my body as my
own concern and as a way to secure personal liberty in a world that
objectifies women. I refuse to see how a woman’s significance is rated
according to her looks and the clothes she wears. I am also absolutely
certain that the skewed perception of women’s equality as the right to bare
our breasts in public only contributes to our own objectification. I look
forward to a whole new day when true equality will be had with women not needing
to display themselves to get attention nor needing to defend their decision
to keep their bodies to themselves.
In a world besotted with the looks, body and sexuality of women,
the hijab can be an assertive mode of individual feministic expression and
rights. I regard my hijab to be a commanding question of “I control what you
see, how is that not empowering” mixed with a munificent amount of authority
emanating from the “My body is my own concern” clause. I believe my hijab
gives me the right to assert my body, femininity and spirituality as my own
and under my authority alone.
I know many would agree with me when I say that the hijab is
basically an expression of spirituality and a personal bond with one’s
creator, a tangible spiritual reminder that guides everyday life.
Yes, my hijab is a visual religious marker that makes it very
easy for anyone to spot me in a crowd as a separate entity representing or
adhering to a particular religion. This is all the more reason why, being a
hijabi in the public arena is an escalating force that drives me to work in
ways that would help break the undignified stereotypes, barriers and
prejudices that my Islamic faith is relentlessly and irrationally associated
with. As an extension of my personality and identity, it instigates me to
challenge the misconception that Muslim women lack the bravery, intellect and
resilience to challenge authority and fight for their own rights.
Every time I see my reflection in the mirror, I see a woman who
has chosen to be a rights activist, who happens to be a Muslim and covers her
hair incidentally. My reflection reminds me of the convictions that made me
take up the hijab in first place — to work for a world where a woman isn’t
judged by how she looks or what she wears, a world in which she needn’t
defend the right to make decisions about her own body, in which she can be
whoever she wants to be without ever having to choose between her religion
and her rights.
Ayesha Nusrat is a 23-year-old Muslim Indian from New Delhi.
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