We live in a world where we as Muslims are being constantly targeted due to the actions of certain extremists. Parents living in the West begin to worry for their children. Some parents go to the extent of telling their daughters to remove their hijab to avoid any controversy or risk losing their job. How should a person in such a situation respond?
Ustadha Yasmin Mogahedâ explains
My parents want me to take off hijab because they are worried about my safety and or job interview.
Now to answer this, one thing we have to do is this, and that is we have to shift the focus to the source of all gifts to the source of all provision. We have to remind ourselves, where does safety come from? Where does provision come from? Where will our job come from? And the answer is Allah, Allah and Allah, that Allah is in fact, the protector, that Allah is in fact, the one who provides for you provides your job provides every gift that you have in your life. And so it really wouldn't make sense to displease The one who provides these things in order to get these things. It's a bit like saying that because I want a promotion, I'm going to displease the boss, it's probably not a
good strategy. But in fact, the best strategy would be that if you please the boss, you're more likely to get a promotion. In this case, if we want these things from Allah because again, we acknowledged that Allah is the source, Allah is the source of protection. Allah is the source of provision, Allah is the source of that job. And so if we want to get these gifts from Allah, then we should the best route would be to please Allah and to and to actually, you know, worship and and and obey what he has asked us to do. And the more that we do, the more that we obey Allah subhanaw taala. The more that we stay close to a law, the more protection and risk provision, we will
actually get