Lauren Booth – English Lady Loves The Hijab

			So hamdulillah today we're going to be talking about the hijab. If you're a new Muslim or you're
coming back to the deen, there are pages and pages on Google telling you, you know, avoid it. It's
not far off. It's not an obligation. You don't have to really do it. You can do it on Tuesday, but
honestly, it's really confusing. So what what I really feel that, that our duties and our love is,
is to share what you won't see in the Google searches. You know, you lived in Germany, and that's
not an easy space. I was working for a Turkish school in Germany, when not actually school, but
yeah, Homework Help Center. They were all Muslims. At the time, I didn't really know anything about
		

			Islam, you know, except what they tell you in the press in which which isn't exactly true. And
		

			after a few months, I became Muslim. And but I didn't start wearing the hijab until 15 months later.
		

			I wanted to wear it, but I never had the nerve. I was a little bit frightened about what, what what
people think. And they'll ask me questions in Turkish or Arabic. And I can't speak either English,
or Arabic or Turkish. I used to stand on the, on the underground station, looking at all the covered
women. And I used to stand there a little bit envious, or, well, I'd say jealous, because that's
negative, but a little bit envious thinking, well, all those ladies catering, I know that they're my
sisters, but they don't know I'm their sister. And it really made me sort of worried. What happens
if something happened to me on the street if I died? Or would my body be sent back to England,
		

			because there's nothing anywhere to say that I Muslim or have no sign that I'm Muslim. And I
couldn't bear the thought of thinking that if something happened to me on the streets, I would
probably be sent back to England and buried in a Christian
		

			graveyard. I hadn't paid my electricity for some time. And so my electricity being cut off. And one
day, I couldn't wash my hair and it looked a mess. So I decided what am I going to do? Yeah, help.
So I thought, You know what, there's only one thing I can do now. And that's put the hegemon. Yeah.
So I got to the bus stop thinking everybody's going to stare at me. But you know what they didn't,
they didn't look, it was perfectly normal. There are lots of people in in Berlin with headscarf, so
nobody really looks at your stares at you. So I put this headscarf on. And I went to school as
normal.
		

			The next day, when it was time to go to work again. I thought, Oh, now what do I do? I will be
meeting the same people at the bus stop. And yesterday they saw me with hijab, are they going to see
me today without because it's not a good idea. To one day wear it and one day not wearing it. You
either wear it all the time. Or
		

			it's your choice. If you don't wear it, you take the consequences. But since wearing my hijab, I
really feel that my life has been more positive. I've people have shown me more respect. Even non
Muslims seem to respect me even more what makes me put it on every day.
		

			Because I feel I feel it's the right thing to do. Allah, as I said that we should cover it's not how
we look it so pious we are or as Allah says, It's not how you look, it's what's in your heart. You
know, here's here's a misunderstanding that's coming in. It's not team hijab. It's team Islam.