Khadija Mohamud (SFS ’17), Rabia Mirza (COL ’16) and Nimrah Baig (COL ’14) are just like any other young women studying at Georgetown. They worry about exams and internships. They feel the effects of long hours in Lau, bemoan the quality of coffee produced by The Corp and dream of medical school or the Peace Corps. They, like many students, are trying to strike the perfect balance between work and play, faith and expression. This question of faith, however, is what makes these women stand out from the crowds of blue and gray. Each of them proudly wears the hijab as an outward expression of their deeply held Muslim faith — a faith that has been misunderstood by their fellow Americans for their entire lives.
Hijab might not be a word all students are familiar with, even though they have more than likely seen a few while walking around campus. While it has several meanings, hijab is most commonly used to refer to a covering over a woman’s head and chest that leaves her face, or sometimes just her eyes, exposed. Usually worn by Muslim women after the age of puberty, hijabs come in a variety of colors and patterns, although the overall effect is one of modesty. But this modesty is not just physical: According to Cyril Glasse’s “The New Encyclopedia of Islam,” hijabs act as a separation between man and God.
But the hijab is more than just an article of clothing or an expression of faith; wearing one is also a personal decision and, for several, a way to unite American and Muslim identities.
“Hijab is a lifestyle choice — it’s choosing to not only dress a certain way, but to interact with the opposite sex in a certain way, to use yourself in terms of your relationship with God and taking it another step in terms of trying to isolate other factors and go to a basic core of the relationship,” Mohamud said.
Mohamud, a resident of Silver Springs, Md., has spent her entire life in the United States, although her parents are both from Somalia. Interested in the Peace Corps as a postgraduate option, it was after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that she saw she was “somewhat different.” Through attending public school and weekend religion school, she realized it was possible to balance both her Muslim and American identities — and part of that came through proudly wearing hijab.
If you ask 10 different Muslim American women, you will get 10 different answers for why they have or have not chosen to embrace the lifestyle of wearing hijab, each based on intense, personal convictions about the role of Islam in their life. Some are influenced by the positive experiences of family members; while others cite their own beliefs about the role of God in their lives.
For Mohamud, who decided to wear hijab permanently when she was 13 years old after wearing it off and on since she was 6, it was about asserting her Muslim beliefs and demanding respect from her peers.
“I wanted people to know who I am because hijab is something that comes to identify you, and when you wear it, you want people to know that you’re Muslim. You want people to know that you expect a certain level of respect,” she said. “You want people to understand, ‘Hey, I choose to dress modestly and deserve to be treated with respect, because I have respect for myself.’”
For Mirza, who grew up in Florida as the daughter of Pakistani immigrant parents, the hijab was the next step in her personal religious journey.
“It was my way of coming closer to God and establishing a closer connection to God. I wanted to be taken seriously and to make a statement about how I want to be treated as a female, as a woman. I wanted to be dressed more modestly and I wanted to make it clear that this is who I am,” Mirza said.
Mirza started wearing the hijab in high school where she faced stereotypical assumptions from both Muslims and non-Muslims about going against traditional dress in favor of her personal beliefs.
“Despite differing opinions people may express, I’m a Muslim who happens to be American in every way,” Mirza said.
But that doesn’t mean that not wearing hijab signifies that someone isn’t a true Muslim; its meaning varies for everyone, and it is not necessarily a measure of religious belief.
“That’s not to say if you don’t wear hijab that you aren’t Muslim or if you don’t wear hijab you are less religious because that’s not true. Even though it’s described as something everybody can understand, the nuances collectively make hijab mean something very different for everyone who wears it,” Mirza said.
Sana Imam (COL ’15) was born and raised in America and identifies as Muslim. However, she does not see wearing the hijab as a necessary way of expressing her faith, although she understands why people do.
“My parents emphasized that it was a personal choice. I never felt the pressure that if I didn’t wear one I wasn’t Muslim,” Imam said. “What people tend to forget about religion is at the end of the day, religion is a very personal and private thing. It’s about your own relationship with God.”
This understanding of the popularity of the hijab leads back to strong belief in the tenets of Islam or adherence to cultural social norms from Islamic countries in the Middle East, where the lines between culture and religion are blurred. And sometimes the exact dictations of religious Islamic texts are blurred as well; it is unclear whether wearing the hijab is mandated by the Quran, which never explicitly states that one must be worn.
“There are verses in the Quran that may be interpreted to mean that Muslim women have to cover their head and dress modestly,” said Imam Yahya Hendi, director of Georgetown’s Muslim Chaplaincy. “Of course when you read the Quran it also talks about Muslim men needing to dress modestly … but there are verses that may be interpreted, may be understood, to mean that Muslim women have to cover their hair.”
“If you look back into the scriptures, it was very common for women to get raped, so wearing the hijab was a sort of protection,” Imam said. “The reason behind wearing it makes sense. For example, if you see a girl wearing shorts or a girl wearing jeans, typically guys will hit on the girl with shorts. It’s that kind of mentality.”
For some, whether or not the Quran directly emphasizes the importance of wearing hijab is not significant.
“I think that it’s important that when you’re considering whether to wear the hijab to consider it in a religious context because that is ultimately what your goal is — to become closer to God, to develop the type of character that the Prophet, Peace be Upon him, had, to be a model for society,” Baig said.
Baig, a former president of the Muslim Students Association, moved to Maryland from Pakistan when she was two years old and sometimes struggled with the concern that her Muslim identity made her an outsider to American society. But as she’s grown up, she’s come to realize that being a Muslim American is only a testament to the diversity of the spectrum of the collective American identity. Now, she’s studying biology of global health and is attending medical school next fall in order to become a physician scientist. But she still works hard to reconcile her Muslim heritage and her upbringing in America, and her decision to wear the hijab originated from a strong religious motivation.
“I think that personally I see the hijab as much more a piece of the religion than of the culture because it is tied to these ideals or values that are promoted by Islam and an Islamic way of living and those are the morals you should be developing in your character,” Baig said.
No matter how these women come to their decision or how they frame it, the decision to live according to the rules of hijab has major implications.
“I understood it wasn’t something you could wear Monday and take off Tuesday and put back on Friday,” Mohamud said. “It was a lifestyle choice. Once I chose that, I knew I couldn’t look back.”
With the hijab come a variety of biased misconceptions. The hijab is a very outward visual expression of faith in Islam — a faith few in the United States fully understand. Non-Muslim Americans have been told time and time again that women who wear the hijab are oppressed, that they didn’t choose to cover for themselves or that they are being forced by dominant male relatives or family members to adhere to the practice. The reality is rarely so black and white.
“Everybody usually thinks that I started wearing it because it was a family tradition or because my parents wanted me to wear it, but the honest truth is that when I told my parents I wanted to wear it they didn’t want me to,” Mirza said. “They were wary of the possible repercussions I would encounter.”
Women grappling with the decision to wear the hijab often go through trial periods of wearing it to see if they are prepared to take on the responsibilities associated with maintaining the lifestyle fulltime. The hijabi lifestyle is more than just a manner of dress, but how you carry yourself, how you treat other people, and how you behave. For Baig, that means no physical contact with men in public and a more modest way of presenting herself when around other people. But many realize that the lifestyle is not for them, or at least not at the moment.
“The first time I tried I was freshman in high school. For numerous reasons, I ended up not sticking with it and within half a year I had taken it off,” Baig said. “Then I got to Georgetown and decided after finishing my sophomore year that I wanted to start wearing it again.”