Maryam Amir – Struggling Hijab

Years ago, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I thought, I hate

the way that I look in hijab. This is before I had started studying

Islam seriously, and I remember taking all of that emotion

straight into dua. I asked Allah's Panama to Allah to make hijab

beloved to me, to let me love wearing hijab. In addition to dua,

I was reading the Quran in translation every single day. I

had a translation that was half English, and I would very, very

slowly at the time, read the Arabic, and I wouldn't let myself

sleep without reading the Quran. The more that I read the Quran,

the more that I felt like I began to really know who Allah's panuata

Allah is. And it no longer became about the what hijab, but it

became about the who Allah, subhana wa taala. I started to

love hijab so much that I wanted to wear every version of it,

including, at the time, starting to wear Naqab. Naqb is a different

discussion, but the point is, it just became so beloved to me,

Alhamdulillah. And now there is a book that my friend Dr Gina and

Yusuf has written. It's called reflecting on the names of Allah.

You should read it and take one name of allah a week and make dua

to Allah by that name. Get to know who Allah, spanoa Tala is. The

other part is looking at the community of the Prophet. Peace be

upon him. Hijab was revealed as a legal obligation 13 to 14 years

after the initial revelation. And the woman companions, the way they

describe their reaction to the verses of hijab being legalized is

that they took the curtains of their homes and just started like

covering themselves, covering their hair, covering their bodies

with it. Their reaction was immediate, and it was full. It was

complete. There weren't like stages to their hijab journey, but

there's a reason for that. The reason is because Islam was

already being revealed in stages. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa

sallam mentored his community. Peace be upon him. That

mentorship, I think, sometimes, is just not always available, or

there, not just in hijab, but in so many different aspects of the

way that sometimes some communities may teach Islam. The

Hijab discussion that just happened all over Tiktok right now

is a great example of that, sometimes in an effort to bring

people closer to practicing Islam,

people motivate through shame and guilt, and because so many of us,

at times, have been wired to see Allah already in that light, in

the light of you hate yourself, and therefore you cast your self

hatred onto who you assume Allah may be, and Then you think the

Allah sees you in the same negative way that you see

yourself. Those are your own self thoughts. But what if instead you

thought about the way that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa

sallam described someone like you, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa

sallam said that the Mujahid, in this context, I will translate it

as a spiritual warrior, is the one who strives against his or her own

soul in the obedience of Allah subhanahu wa that

means if you are doing something, and the only reason you are doing

it, even when you really, really struggle with it, is for the sake

of Allah, or you're not doing something even though you really

Want to do it, and it's only because, you know, it's what Allah

wants. It doesn't make you a hypocrite.

It makes you inshaAllah, a spiritual warrior. Finally, it

helped me to remember the Companions roll the Allahu, anhu,

Sumayya, RadiAllahu, anhu, who was martyred, the first martyr of

Islam, a woman, the woman of Raza, the woman of Sudan. Those who wear

hijab in those places, their commitment to this act of worship

to hijab is so great that they're not removing it when they sleep.

What if you're sitting here hating yourself? But what if Allah, Spano

wa Tala loves you?