Maryam Amir – Aging and Hijab

There's currently a trend where women are sharing their and there

are so many people in the comments talking about how they thought a

39 year old woman was actually 50, or how they thought a 22 year old

woman was actually 37

right now, there are women in ghaza whose babies are being

murdered at a few days old. There are husbands in ghaza whose wives

are being massacred. There are children in ghaza whose mothers

are no longer alive. And I think about all of those women, the

daughters, the aunts, the cousins, the sisters, how every single one

of those women would do anything

to be able to see the wrinkles and the graying hair and the signs of

aging on their loved ones.

I know we talk about it being a privilege to age. I know that so

many of us are aware that it's a privilege to be able to get older,

but the fact that this privilege is so

deeply intertwined with hatred for what it looks like to grow older.

To me, obviously speaks of immense privilege. Because how can you

live in a society where you fight aging with

injections and paying money for lots of over the counter or

medical surgeries, unless you come from a place of privilege to be

able to even think, to be able to even think that you want to

address that. But two, it really makes me think about my hijab,

myself, my hijab, and for many of you who are not Muslim right now

and who don't know much about Islam, but who are learning more

about Islam because of Palestinian Muslim faith, of wearing their

hijab that they are wearing it in the middle of, you know, being

bombed because they don't want to be murdered without wearing it.

And it's made me really reflect on how

Islam has this very physical

reminder for women that our worth is not tied to what we look like

at all. I'm not saying that any woman believes that her worth is

tied to her looks, although I think many women struggle with

that, and that's completely understandable because of the

messages that we are given as little girls. Of course, women who

wear hijab are also affected by those messages, so women who wear

hijab also probably do get Botox and fillers and struggle with the

way that they look. But conceptually the concept of hijab,

one of the wisdoms and blessings of it is that it really is

supposed to dissociate you from any like effort or not effort, not

to look presentable, but like to obsess or to care or to be so

overwhelmed with thinking about what you look like, so that your

full mental focus and capacity and energy is really about the actions

that you're putting forth. And I'm not trying to say that women who

don't wear hijab, who are Muslim, are women who are not Muslim and

don't care about hijab, or know about hijab or or anything like

that, don't also focus on their action. But what I'm trying to say

is that a messaging to society that there is a deeper emphasis

religiously, on a religious level, for us as women, not to care about

how we go out into society other than to put on a very clear

message that my focus is what I'm doing, and my inter.