A dear friend once mentioned, casually, that she didn’t think that she would ever wear the hijab. When I approached the topic with great caution, she told me that the hijabis she knew were dressed just like her, save the fact that they covered their hair. I took it to mean that they behaved no differently – with no great distinction in respectability or modesty –than their non-hijabi counterparts. “Is it just about the hair, then? I don’t think it’s just that.” As I stared ahead into the highway, I felt that I could understand.
Before I wore the hijab myself, I fancied myself a liberal. Educated, open-minded, and a true feminist. It only fit. I hated guys for their chauvinistic arguments and general combination of stupidity and immaturity, and I thought that my hair looked pretty nice.
And then, with the emergence of reborn Muslim, Wardina Safiyyah, came the hijabi boom. Suddenly, it was fashionable to be covered. That woman and her scarves changed an entire fashion industry. It was no longer prudish to want to be covered. It was an assertion of willpower and strong faith in the physical sense – proof of self-actualization, if you may. All of a sudden, my respect grew for the hijabi, who I once viewed as unliberated and choosing to remain hidden. I did not know then that wearing a hijab was one of the greatest means of exposing oneself.
Thus began my relationship with the hijab. I started wearing it the way my ‘covered’ peers did – with reckless abandon, thinking it enough to just retain my hair from being seen, and not caring however I dressed either way. The clothes I wore had not changed. I just didn’t have to bother with my hair anymore (or so I thought). Truthfully –and this is not just a retrospective view, but a continuous nag at the back of my mind back then – I wasn’t comfortable in the tight clothes I wore. It’s just that it was fashionable. It was what my friends did, and the conformist within decided to play along.
One day, before the family left for a day out, I decided to expose the beading on the front of this shirt I was wearing. It was – is, since it still exists – very nice beading, and the top fit me well. So in the name of fashion, I didn’t pin my hijab across my chest as was becoming my usual manner.
My mother noticed, and she scolded me. I was slightly taken aback, because previously, she had never objected to the way I wore the headscarf. I had always thought that she was fine with the idea. “The purpose of the hijab is to preserve your modesty,” she told me sharply, “not to flaunt your chest on full display. What then is the purpose of the piece of cloth you wear?”
Startled, I hastily grabbed a pin and mulled over her words as I studied my reflection in the car’s rear-view mirror. From that day on, the hijab was something I needed to think about, not just accept in passivity.
Despite this, I had a love-hate relationship with the hijab. On one hand, I liked the superior air I felt I deserved; there was an unspoken understanding that I thought I was the better Muslim merely because I was covered. On the other hand, what modesty I retained prevented me from being just like my peers, and I often stood in front of the mirror, wondering how differently they would see me if I was just like them.
During that time, I had tried not wearing the hijab. It was within the hostel compound (although there wasn’t just girls) and it was a quiet day, with no one outside. I dared myself to step outside without my hijab, for a quick dash to the washing machine.
I felt stark naked. I had to look down to make sure my clothes were still there, because psychologically, I felt bare.
It took me a while to understand the jurisprudence behind the Muslim dress code. The only way I had read the Qur’an was by recitation, and I did not know its meaning. Only in the past few years have I started reading the translations of the Qur’an, and I was surprised to read a verse with the instruction for the hijab to be worn.
With the years that passed, my sense of proper dress began to be ruled by instinct, and that instinct was becoming harder to satiate. I began to constantly cover my chest (after learning that the instruction in the Qur’an was for the head and chest to be covered), and that became an innate requirement of dress for me. Again, anything other than would constitute psychological nudity. I began to enjoy wearing tunics and loose clothing, which were more comfortable and feminine (this was after my unfashionable tomboy phase). After a while, I couldn’t stand it if my arms were bare – I became conscious whenever they came into plain sight, even by accident.
Shopping became more and more difficult, especially in metropolitan Subang, where religiosity has remained fashionable and accessible only to the housewife and elderly demographics. Just ask my mother, who has to deal with her daughter, the anal shopper with scant fashion creativity.
To me though, what I wore was important on the basis of modesty. Wearing the hijab automatically enforced on me behavioural changes, which I took a while to quit rebelling against. I became more courteous towards guys, even, and some of the more uncouth mannerisms that were second nature suddenly felt out of place. It was never a means of ‘preserving myself from the lewd gazes of men’, although having been harassed verbally and on the streets, one can’t help but feel protected by the hijab, even though it isn’t a safeguard from unwanted attention.
Neither is the idea about rebellion, as the secularists in France argue against the hijabis. It is about distancing oneself from all that nonsense, where women play second fiddle to men, but are free game to sexual exploitation. The hijab forces men to look at women via standards other than lust, and to respect that they are not objects, but people. I was reminded of this when I caught glance of a classmate’s mobile phone – adorning its screen was the image of a women’s cleavage, unidentified. Her chest was the only thing he bothered to notice and thus, to be reminded of. It was disgustingly chauvinist and disrespectful, and as my hand caught hold of the fabric that covered my head, I heaved a sigh of gratitude that when God asked me to do something, I did.
Other than the fact that it is a religious obligation (which is not merely restricted to women, but to men as well – poor things, we always overlook them), covering is a statement – a bold declaration of one’s identity. A breakaway from the norm. A woman who dons the hijab is not shy by wanting to inculcate modesty. A hijabi cannot be shy, because by choosing to respect the Muslim dress code, she places herself out there for the world to see. She enables herself to be pinpointed in a crowd, easily recognizable. The first thing you recognize is her faith – after that, she forced you to judge her for what is within. She does not merely cover her hair from sight; she upholds modesty and courage.
That is a hijabi.