Maryam Amir – Veiled In Strength – World Hijab Day with Huda Biltagi
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses their experiences as a woman in their generation, including struggles with men and women, lack of respect for women, and struggles with men and women. They also discuss the importance of mentorship and the use of words to describe women, as well as the use of "has" in the Bible and the importance of understanding cultural context. They also discuss the use of "cover" in the culture and the importance of understanding the definition of "ma'am" in the Bible. The speaker emphasizes the importance of building confidence in Islam, not just the focus on the relationship with Allah. They also discuss the importance of being a woman who is the only one who is going to receive a baby, and the importance of not wanting to explain to other people.
AI: Summary ©
When I would go to the masjid and
hear different and
attend conferences and listen to lectures
about Islam,
very often, the examples that were given in
all of those lectures were about the amazing
men companions, radiya allahu anhu.
I wanted to be like Khaled ibn Wadeed,
radiya allahu anhu, as he was the head
of the military.
I wanted to be like Bilal
as he would give the adhan. I wanted
to be like these incredible men that I
kept hearing. All of these men who changed
the world and were revolutionaries
and did all these things to help with
this ummah. And then I would also hear
in very specific scenarios about the woman companions.
I would hear hear about Aisha
and how she was extremely modest,
and I would hear about Khadija
and how she was the most amazing wife
and I would hear about Fatima
and how she was the most amazing mother.
And may Allah
have mercy on all of them and enter
them into the highest paradise and honor us
with being with them.
Absolutely.
These were incredibly important roles and examples that
they set for us, all of which are
critical and important.
But at 16,
I didn't know how to explain to people
modesty and hijab,
and I didn't know how to take Khadija
and Fatima as role models in motherhood and
in marriage when I was not thinking about
those things at 16 in high school. I
needed to know how to navigate being asked
to a dance or someone making fun of
me wearing hijab or being too embarrassed to
pray on campus when other people could see
me.
I didn't know how to navigate when someone
would tell me you can't be like Khaled
because
as a woman, you need to be more
quiet. As a woman, you are too outgoing.
As a woman,
that is not modest.
It wasn't modest that I was a secondary
blackball. It wasn't modest that I love to
be on skateboards. It wasn't modest that I
love to play basketball.
My entire personality was immodest according to the
messages that I was receiving,
and that really affected the way not only
did I see hijab,
but also myself in my relationship with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. And I'd like to ask
all of you
to name for me
in just a few seconds
companions who are men.
I want us to honor our men who
have taught us, and
let's see how many names we can come
up with in a few seconds. Yes.
Mohammed?
Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Yes. The prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, but there was actually a
companion who was named after the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, so I'm gonna count count
that as a companion who was named Mohammed.
Give me another one.
We mentioned.
Okay. So maybe that was 20 seconds, and
we got to 12 names. Let's do the
same thing for a woman. You can't repeat
the same one twice. Yes. Khadija. Khadija.
What did you say?
Malala. Malala.
Thank you. False team.
Asma. Asma. There were so many asmas, so
let's count that as, like, 5.
Okay. Yeah.
Who did you say? Aisha.
Aisha?
Aisha?
Musaiba? Musaiba?
Salama?
But maybe there was someone named Mariam amongst
the companions that I don't know of.
There were multiple.
What I want you to understand
is that so many of you grew up
in my generation where we didn't really hear
about women, and you chose
to learn about who they are so you
can teach your daughters and your sons.
So many of you realized
where the problem was for you and your
faith, and instead of saying,
I'm not gonna stay connected to this, you
said, I need to teach my children something
different.
And in teaching your sons and your daughters,
your daughters who are here and shouting out
the names with such pride and such honor,
you have shifted a narrative generationally for us,
where I pray that none of these young
girls who are here will ever have my
story or maybe some of your stories where
you would go to the masjid and you
wouldn't see yourself in the companions of the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Now, of course, all
of your experiences are different. Some of you
grew up in different countries and different cities,
and so maybe this is all you heard.
Maybe woman scholars was all you interacted with.
Maybe woman were in every aspect of Islamic
history for you, and for all of you,
What a privilege and a gift to have
had that experience.
And that experience,
learning that this exists, is something that shifted
my entire focus when I started really focusing
on studying Islam
and women's issues within Islamic law.
But this idea of not knowing who the
woman companions really were made it very hard
for me to connect to hijab specifically
because I knew we wore it for modesty,
but what did that actually mean? What does
what does that mean, modesty?
And because I couldn't see who the woman
companions were in their personalities,
I just thought I wasn't a very good
Muslim.
I mean, I I had a very outgoing
personality. I was a very assertive person. Does
that mean that I can't be pious too?
Does that mean that I also cannot follow
the true piety of a Muslim woman?
Because all I was being told is that
true piety is someone who is very calm,
who is very quiet, and who only speaks
when necessary. That was the message that I
was given in certain religious spaces that I
attended.
But as I learned about who the woman
actually are, I realized that that is a
very culturally influenced concept
of what it means to be a Muslim
woman. Because when you look at the names
that you mentioned, TabatakAllahu,
we had over 30 women companions who participated
physically in battles with the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
There were also women who went and cared
for those who were in battle, who were
nurses and who were helping the wounded and
who served food and who gave water.
Those were other women too, but over 30
who participated physically in battles.
That means they were visible. That means they
were they were there. They were very strong.
And then a specific example like Nusayba,
who's probably the most famous warrior. Many of
you have heard the name Nusayba,
did you know that she's one of the
narrators
of a hadith
related to wearing hijab?
When we talk about the woman companions and
how they interacted with hijab,
their understanding of hijab
developed over time
because hijab was not revealed
until between 12th
14th year
after the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam received the
revelation,
which means for the first part of revelation
for over 10 years, 12 years up to
14 years in Mecca in the beginning of
Medina,
hijab was not a requirement.
What were they focusing on instead?
Aisha radiAllahu anha said
that had the Quran
come down with the just obligations from the
beginning, do this, don't do this, do this,
don't do this, no one would have done
it.
In the beginning, all the focus was was
mentoring
the men and the women around the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam to develop
a depth of connection with Allah
and to have a yearning and understanding of
accountability and for the hereafter.
So when we're talking about Rufaida
and how she was the most skilled surgeon
amongst the companions, and that's why the prophet
chose her to be the one to take
care
of, Saad
when he was,
injured in the battle of Aghaab.
We're doing this with an understanding of a
mentorship that she's not just doing this for
the moment. She's doing this for everything that
represents taking care of her brother
as a surgeon.
When we look at Khansa and
how the prophet
praised her poetry,
She's not just doing poetry for fun. She's
doing poetry for the sake of Allah,
and she's talking about loss. She's talking about
the loss in the mourning of those that
she loved who had died.
When we look at Umihiram,
the prophet salaisedalam would visit her, and he
would take naps at her home. And there's
different discussions amongst the scholars on how she
was related to the prophet salaisedalam.
But one time he woke up, and he
was very, very happy. And maybe you know
this narration. What happened when she when he
woke up so happy, salaam,
and he had a dream. And in this
dream,
he dreamt that his companions were gonna be
sailing on a boat and wearing crowns like
kings.
What did she say in response?
Yes.
She asked him, salai alaihi salam, to pray
for her to be a part of them.
This expedition
is one which is going to include fighting,
and she didn't say to the prophet salaihi
salam,
wow, that's amazing,
which it is.
She said, how can I be there?
What can I do to be there?
And this is one of the miracles of
the prophet, it's a prophecy of the prophet,
because he not only made dua for her
in one narration, in another narration, he told
her sali alaihi wa sallam that you will
be amongst them.
Do you know how old she was when
she joined?
She was 75 years old.
Decades after
this moment,
the prophet
had already passed away.
She and her husband, Ubaid ibn Samit,
were with the army.
They were part of opening Jerusalem.
They were part of Muslims going in with
peace, with the keys handed to them from
the head of the Christians
who was in
the old city of Jerusalem looking up over
the wall.
He's whole he's the one holding the key
saying that this key belongs
in their books
to someone who was described exactly as Umar
radiAllahu anhu.
So he gave the key to Umar radiAllahu
anhu, and they entered Masjid Al Aqsa. Haram
radiAllahu anha.
After this,
in a prophecy that came true, this dream
that came true, this dream that came true
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
she wanted to join, and she did. And
no one said, you know, you're 75 now.
That was like a while ago that you
wanted this. Maybe reconsider.
Because no age,
either young or older,
is one which shouldn't serve Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala in every capacity possible.
So Umihiram
had a sister named Umsoleym,
and Sulaim was standing one time at a
battle, and she had a dagger. The prophet
shalaihi wa sallam is like, why do you
have a dagger?
And she's like, so I can be here.
She wanted to be there to defend. She
wanted to be there to be a part
of supporting the Muslim community and supporting the
most vulnerable because it's not just about Muslims.
It's about anyone who needs justice.
And when I learned their stories, I started
realizing
that these women also were women that I
could see myself in.
Some of them were quiet, and some of
them were loud. Some of them were shy.
Some of them were outgoing.
Some of them worked.
Some of them worked at home only. Some
of them were full time mothers. Everyone is
a full time mother, but some of them
were working mothers. There were all different circumstances,
and I finally started to see that I
am actually one of those types of women,
a woman who is nuanced, a woman who
sometimes wants to be out there and other
times needs time alone with my lord,
A woman who gets scared sometimes like they
sometimes did, but they were steadfast.
We see their examples tangibly in the woman
of Gaza today.
That those women are wearing what many of
us wear at home, our prayer garments when
we don't wanna put our whole hijab on
that we go outside with. We throw on
our prayer garments.
I saw a woman in Gaza, and I
wonder always is she still alive, that she
was sitting in a room with her young
child. And this is in the beginning before
every building was just completely decimated.
And she's sitting, and she says, we wear
our salah clothes, ready at any moment to
go back to Allah.
That type of dedication to wear it 247
in your house, of course, it's an honor
to wear hijab, obviously, but don't you get
hot in it sometimes?
Aren't there times you go home and you
literally rip it off? I do.
I'm tired of wearing it. I just need
some space. I need a moment to breathe.
They're wearing it 247
knowing that it might be their last breath.
That level of dedication
is something
that we see embodied
today from the example of the woman companions
When
they, in their culture,
used to dress,
it was common for men and women to
cover their hair culturally, on a cultural level.
And one of the questions I'm often asked
is why doesn't the Quran say cover your
hair?
Why isn't the word hair in the verse?
But look at the reality culturally.
Men and women actively covered their hair. You
can imagine. It's super hot. Haven't you ever
been or maybe some of you have been
to Saudi or to a country where men
wear long sobs
and then they wear something on their head?
And from the back, have you thought that
they were a woman?
It's happened to me so many times. I'm
like, oh, that's a woman. I'm like, that's
actually not a woman.
That culture
where men and women dressed in very modest,
baggy, loose clothing was also something that was
part of the culture pre prior to the
revelation.
But what would the woman used to do?
They used to cover their hair a bit
here, not fully,
and then they would throw back their garment
so this whole area was exposed. Their neck,
their chest, all of this was exposed, their
ears.
So what does the Quran say? There's 2
different verses talking about hijab, and neither one
says the word hijab.
Hijab today
is a cultural understanding
of how we call what we wear over
our heads, but the Quran
uses the word
and
is basically a synonym
for hijab as we use it today.
But the in the verse that's being described
is telling these women companions
to take what they already have over their
head
and to bring it forward to cover this
area, to cover this area, and it's mentioned
in the description of the verse what to
cover.
Now if I'm going to ask you right
there
to put on your hat,
can you stand up for me for a
second?
You.
You.
No. You.
But also you. Both of you. Yes.
Both of you. Yes.
Take a stand.
Oh, all 3. Everyone. Every
anyone who wants to take a stand.
So I'm gonna ask our dear sister right
here. Okay. Sister who's wearing a blue hijab,
what's your name? Ma'am. Ma'am.
May Allah bless you, her mother, for choosing
literally the best name in the world for
women. No offense to everyone else.
May Allah bless you and your your family
and everyone, Amin. And the one next to
you? Sadia. Sadia is your name? Beautiful name
too.
And? Sarah.
Sarah? Also beautiful.
Okay. I want you to watch,
you're gonna pretend to have a hat. Pretend
you have a hat in your hands. Hold
your hold your hat. Can you put your
hat on?
Perfect.
Can you put your hat on?
Okay. Sarah, can you put your hat on?
Okay. Why did all of you put it
on your heads? I didn't specify put it
on your head.
Why did you do that?
That's what you use it for. You put
a hat on your head.
Okay. Thank you. May Allah bless you all
so much. Thank you. 3 different people. Therefore,
it's proven in the whole entire world
that I wouldn't need to tell you to
put your hat on your head because you're
not gonna put it on your elbow.
You are not going to put it on
your knee. When you're holding a hat, you
will put it on your head.
And the people who are learning the Quran
in that moment are being told to take
what's already on their head and cover the
parts that are not covered. They understand what
that means.
Now if we're going to say, okay, but
that's not clear enough, we can talk about
a hadith that address it too. But the
point is when they heard this verse,
their response
as described by Aisha and
which is very important.
The people who are explaining to us what
happened when hijab was worn
are women.
Every narration
many narrations that we have that describe
what people did when the verse was revealed
were narrated by women themselves.
So we have to understand how did women
understand hijab.
When that verse was revealed,
the woman narrated
that the woman responded
by taking clothing, including the curtains on their
windows,
and just grabbing it and covering their hair.
Now you're going to see in some translations
of the Quran that it says
everything except for one eye. Maybe you've come
across a translation like that before.
That is a translator putting their interpretation of
what hijab is into the verse in parenthesis,
which is very confusing if you don't know
that and you're reading a translation, which is
what happened to me as I was reading
a translation, especially because
the narration that this particular
translation is based on is not an authentic
narration in the first place.
But the point is that sometimes when we
are talking about hijab, we are going to
see people share their personal understanding of what
hijab is. For example, there are other verses
in the Quran talks about.
I grew up thinking
that a,
which is, you know, a dress that's kind
of just worn in one overflow
dress,
is the form of dress that I need
to dress in as a Muslim woman because
the Quran says jilbaab.
But the jilbaab we see today is not
the jilbaab that women would wear in the
time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. That's
not what they would dress like. Our concept
of jilbab has evolved.
And now jilbab is a very cultural dress
with a particular culture.
So when we see someone from Malaysia or
from Pakistan or from other parts of the
world not wearing that in their cultural dress,
does that mean all of these millions of
people are wrong in the way they wear
hijab? No. It means we have not understood
that jibab does not mean an Arabic
cultural dress.
It just is talking about what needs to
be covered in general in these areas of
the body in a loose way that is
not transparent.
Part of, again, the concept of bringing in
interpretation
that's based in culture in Islam
is that many times, we have been taught
that very muted colors are more pious
or for example,
black specifically
is more righteous
because it is a dark color that doesn't
attract attention.
Have you ever heard something similar to that
before?
What color did Aisha radhiallahu anha wear when
she was in Ihram? Tell me.
Sorry?
It wasn't white.
It was red.
Very similar to our dear sister and what
she is wearing.
Yes. Our both of these dear sisters, and
a number of other women, including me,
I showed, radiAllahu anha, in Ihram, she wore
saffron. She wore the color of saffron.
There's another narration of wearing
the color of saffron.
So when we're talking about hijab and what
it looks like in the ideal Muslim woman,
and a particular image comes into our mind,
I want us to have a conversation with
ourselves internally and recognize that that image
may have been one that someone else has
painted for us.
But that's not necessarily the image that the
Quran
and the sunnah have left for us and
the women who were.
Because color, for example, is very is defined
by culture, is defined by in Islamic law.
If you go to a country where every
single person is wearing black
and you choose to wear red, it may
not be haram to wear red, but it's
not advisable to wear red because you may
send a signal
that other people understand in a different way
than everyone wearing black. Does that make sense?
So cultural context is very important.
Islam always takes into account the culture of
a region
as long as it doesn't interfere
with specifics in Islamic law or especially, of
course, no doubt in
that cannot be changed.
So when looking at these general rules when
it comes to Islam and it comes to
hijab,
we see that one time,
there was a narration of Esma radiAllahu anha,
and she came to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. And he told her, basically, that she
should cover it in clothing that's not translucent,
and she can show her face in her
hands. Have you ever come across this narration?
It's like the narration that was taught for
hijab. What's the problem with the narration?
What?
Say it so loud for me.
Okay. Sorry. Apparently, we did not have the
same childhood.
What happened in my childhood, in my teenagehood,
is that this narration,
suddenly,
everyone knew that it was not
fully authentic.
And we had learned it to be the
only narration
in which hijab was established.
And so all of a sudden, everyone was
confused. Well, the Quran doesn't say the word
hair.
And all of us who are not native
Arabic speakers and we're not Arab and didn't
know how to use other thing anything other
than translation would come across this one narration
that's no longer authentic, and we would say,
okay. Does that mean hijab is actually not
what the woman companions did?
But we have other narrations like Nusayba, the
warrior, and she's talking to another woman named
Hafsa. And she is saying that she witnessed
that a woman came to the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
she asked him saying that she would go
to battle, and she accompanied her husband also
in battle. I think something happened in the
mic. And when they would go, she didn't
have a hijab to wear, like, a whole
thing to wear. So she didn't know what
to do. Now what's so interesting about this
narration
is that Hafsa
when no sayba is telling this to her
when no sayba is telling this to her
thank you. I'm just gonna try. When no
sayba is telling this to her, the way
that she reacts, the way that she responds
She should still come out and participate the
good. She should still be involved.
Over and over, the prophet, tawai sallam, focused
on how women are going to be involved
in different spaces,
different ways that works for you, your circumstance,
and how you can contribute to the community.
And one of the ways that the women
companions
navigated this relationship with Allah, how they felt
this ability
to do what the women in Gaza are
doing,
is their interaction with the Quran.
Many times here,
we focus on hijab as the most important
act of worship that's ever existed.
I was in a masjid where a woman
came and wanted to convert,
and she said that she wants to take
her shahada.
We all made a circle around her, and
she wasn't wearing hijab. She had just walked
in to give her shahada,
and a woman went and she had gotten
a hijab there from the masjid.
She came and just put it on her
head.
I thought this was so rude. Number 1,
she's about to give her shahada. Let her
focus on her moment of shahada.
But 2, what message does this give to
this dear sister?
Before even witnessing that Allah is your Lord
and that the prophet, peace be upon him,
is the final messenger of the revelation?
Hijab.
More important than you even coming to Allah?
Hijab.
Before you even come to Allah? Hijab.
Do we have 12 to 14 years of
mentorship for our sisters?
Do our sisters feel like they can walk
into a masjid space and be who they
are,
navigate who they are,
bring our concerns and our worries and our
fears and our trauma and all of it,
and say, this is who I am?
Or do we hide parts of ourselves because
we know we may not be accepted?
Do we hide parts of ourselves because we
don't know how people are gonna react to
who we really are?
And sometimes that's natural. Sometimes you don't know
everyone. You're not gonna share everything.
But do our children have a space that
they know that they can fully explore the
questions of their identity and still be welcome?
MCC is an excellent example of a masjid
that does do all of those things,
But the fact is that the prophet, sallai
al salam,
his companions would learn the Quran,
and they would live the Quran,
and they would think and interact with the
Quran
outside of the space of hijab.
But they had their struggles too, the companions
of the prophet.
They struggle with things like drinking. They struggled
with things that were major major sins,
and what we see in their time period
is something interesting.
There's a statement of Aisha radiAllahu anha where
she says that if the prophet sallaihi sallam
were here today,
we're seeing women today,
that he would not have said
that women should not be prevented from going
to the masjid.
She would have said he would have said
that women should be prevented
from going to the masjid.
Have you heard that statement before?
Some of you have.
So this is Aisha, a scholar
a scholar
as a woman,
saying what women are doing today
is so bad
that the prophet would have said prevent women
from going to the masjid.
Here is my question.
Are we worse as a society now than
we would they would have been at the
time of Aisha radiAllahu anha?
Would you say yes or no?
Yes.
Generally, yes, because we say the proximity to
the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, would have changed
things.
But
were people in Medina
engaging in every type of relationship
that was not Islamically acceptable on the time
of the prophet, sallai, sallai, sallai, sallai, sallai,
sallai, sallai,
sallai, sallai, sallai, sallai, sallai? Yes.
Did women dress in particular ways or act
in particular ways that women do today every
day culturally?
Yes.
So what was it that the woman in
the time of Aisha did
that was so different
from the time of the prophet, sallai alaihi
salam, that she would make this statement?
We don't know. We don't know what it
is. It was something specific.
But why that's important is because when talking
about hijab and woman and modesty,
oftentimes,
a statement of a woman companion will be
used
and will will be used as the example
for,
this is what Aisha, your mother, said about
women.
But our question needs to be, would she
actually say that today?
Because maybe whatever they were doing then is
not being doing being done now. Because what
we see today was during the time of
the prophet,
all those things existed.
So maybe instead,
what she would have said,
which is what,
Abdul Kalim Abu Shaka said, Maybe instead, she
would have said
that considering the time now, considering all we
are exposed to, we are expected to do,
we are judged for, all we have to
carry on our shoulders,
all we have to go through,
Maybe instead of being prohibited from the masjid
in her statement, it would have been it's
an obligation for women to go to the
masjid
because we need a space where we can
fall apart.
We need a space where we can seek
refuge with Allah no matter how we walk
in.
That this is a space for Allah
and that Allah knows all of our journeys
with hijab and every other aspect of Islam.
Hijab is very physical
and that's why it's so difficult.
Because it's just one of many aspects
many aspects
of their relationship with Allah.
The focus wasn't hijab.
The focus was you and your relationship with
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
What we see from the companions is the
way they interacted with the Quran was very
actively.
Many times, especially with Ramadan coming up, may
Allah bless us with seeing it. May Allah
protect the people of in Sudan and all
over the world and bless them with complete
justice before,
what we see often in Ramadan is reading
the Quran as quickly as possible.
But what we have from Asma, for example,
she's the daughter of Abu Bakr,
she would recite 1 ayah over and over
again.
She would say,
One time,
Be very aware of the day that you
are going to be returned to Allah,
and then she would say it again.
Over and over and over every time
it has a different meaning.
You apply it in a different way.
There's a companion of the prophet who
prayed behind the prophet.
Have you ever been going through all of
Ramadan and you haven't shed a single sweet
Ramadan tear and you're like, what's wrong with
me? Has that happened to you? Have you
been to Mecca or Medina and not been
emotional and thought maybe you don't have strong
iman?
Have you been in Arafah and not really
focused in your dua and then thought maybe
I'm not actually a believer?
Many of us as human beings have had
those experiences,
and we often think it means that we're
not good enough in our relationship with Allah.
But there's a companion of the prophet,
his name was Jubaer,
and he was standing in salah behind the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
And he said he heard the verses
that the prophet sallai sallam recited, and they
were
Were they created from nothing,
or did they create themselves?
Subhanallah.
This aya,
he said for the first time, he felt
iman in his heart. He felt like he
was gonna fly in the sky.
A companion who's already converted, a companion who's
praying with the prophet,
who said it wasn't until this moment
that he truly tasted faith.
It is okay
for you not to feel
like you are in love with Islam sometimes.
It is okay for you to struggle.
It is okay when you make a mistake
and you hate the fact that you do
it, but you keep doing it. And it
is okay if you wish that you used
to be who you used to be. You
wish that you were who you used to
be.
But the fact is that Allah
isn't seeing you only in the moment where
you're telling yourself, I wish I was better.
I'm not good enough. I wish I was
better. I'm not good enough.
Allah sees the moment from the time you
were in your mother's womb and even before
that.
He knows every single struggle you have had
in every capacity,
and all of that journey has been one
in which you have still chosen to be
here.
The fact that you still chosen to be
here is a testament to your love for
him,
but even more so, it's a testament for
his love for you.
It is a testament of his love for
you.
The way that you feel about yourself
is not the way that Allah sees
you. You don't have a right to tell
yourself Allah doesn't love me, or Allah will
not forgive me, or Allah doesn't think I'm
good enough. You don't have a right to
tell yourself that.
You know what Islam
part of Islam and act of worship is?
Having hope in Allah.
Having good thoughts about Allah.
It's an act of worship
for you to believe that Allah loves you
and that he is with you.
And that perspective is one that we see,
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam deeply embedded
in his companions.
Because when we look
at interactions
between the companions,
sometimes they would make mistakes.
And the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, could have
easily blamed a woman.
Because one time, a woman who was known
as a very beautiful woman
came and spoke to the prophet shawai sallam.
She had a question.
She came it was after Hajj.
It It was during Hajj, but after the
days of Ihram. So she's no longer in
Ihram.
And this is a very important point to
know
because otherwise,
many say she was in Ihram, and that's
why she didn't cover her face. No. Her
ihram was already out. She just didn't cover
her face. She wore a hijab without covering
her face, and she was very beautiful, masha'Allah.
Islam
does not con condemn
Allah creating woman beautifully.
We should be beautiful in our hijab, whatever
that beauty means to you.
She comes and she asks the prophet a
question, and behind her is his cousin, Al
Fadl, who was a young man. There's 2
different there's a few different narrations on this,
but there happens in 2 different ways.
In 1,
he sees her, and he's like, Tabadlakulla. Masha'Allah
Tabadlakulla.
Until the prophet, sallai alaihi wa sallam, sees
him looking at her, and he gently turns
Al Fadl's face away from staring at her.
There's another narration
there's another narration
when he keeps looking and she's looking at
him and he's looking at her and she's
looking at him. The prophet, salaised alaise, is
turning his face away.
Now
I want you to understand
that when the prophet sallai alaihi sallam talks
about hijab,
talks about women's roles, teaches all of these
realities for us, it was never done in
the space of shaming or blaming woman for
existing.
Her beauty was not asked to be covered.
She was not asked to leave and have
someone else ask the question.
The prophet didn't
tell her
that
she should have
someone else be in this space.
The prophet shawaihi wasalam addressed him
and taught him how to respect a woman
in front of him, mentored him, shawaihi wasalam,
on how to be respectful,
and allow for her to ask a question
when she's not being stared at, sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
In another narration
in the masjid, this is a narration in
Imam Ahmed.
There was another woman who's described as a
beautiful woman, and she would come to the
masjid to pray, and she would stand in
the front lines of the masjid.
And there were a group of young men
who would come
later to stand in the back lines of
the masjid
so that in salah, when they go down
in Ruqut, they could stare at her.
These are men who are going into salah
in the masjid of the prophet of the
prophet of the prophet to look at a
woman who's praying in the back row.
And do you know how the prophet, shalaihi
wa sallam, addressed it? Quran was revealed for
it.
And the Quran simply says, we know those
of you who go to the back, and
we know those of you who go to
the front.
It didn't address the woman being told that
she shouldn't come to the masjid.
The prophet, salallahu alaihi wasalam, didn't build a
barrier between men and women so that her
beauty was not
distracting
the men.
It was self accountability.
When we talk about hijab, teaching that perspective,
that hijab is not for men. Hijab is
for Allah.
That we wear hijab for Allah. That we
wear hijab even when we pray in the
middle of the night in our own room.
That it is for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
It allows for hijab not to be weaponized.
I taught a haluka
of young girls, middle schoolers. There was like
maybe 10 of them.
I asked they all wore hijab,
and I asked them why they wear hijab.
Every single answer was 1 of 2.
I wear it so that I can save
myself from my husband,
and I wear it to protect myself from
men.
This was maybe 15 years ago,
and I saw one of those women
years later.
And now she's out of college.
And in her experience,
I'm not gonna go into details, but you
can imagine things.
And because we have different age ranges here,
so I just wanna be a little careful.
But
she was questioning hijab. She was questioning Islam,
because all she was told is going to
protect her.
It didn't happen.
All that she saved herself for
was destroyed,
and I've heard that message over and over
and over again.
When we teach ourselves
and our girls and boys
that hijab is not for our boys,
of course, boys have to wear hijab in
their own way,
and we teach our girls that hijab is
not for boys.
We teach our young girls that we're wearing
hijab for Allah,
that Allah is our refuge no matter what
we are going through,
then that connection, keeping that connection, maintaining that
connection, no matter what we go through,
is one where we don't start resenting hijab
because we were taught that it is the
ticket to everything that will never happen in
a bad way to us or
that we will be protected in some way.
The Quran does say that hijab is a
protection, but it doesn't specify
how.
Hijab is a protection in the many different
wisdoms
of hijab for every single person's experience.
Hijab can be a protection
from someone being extra focused with their outside
to the point that they can't focus on
other aspects of their life or maybe spend
that time or that money in a different
way. Hijab can be a protection in the
ways that maybe some of us have conventionally
thought of. It can be. Hijab can be
a protection in lots of things, but I'll
tell you how I thought of hijab being
a protection this week.
Kamala Harris came
here
to the bank,
and I was at a protest outside of
the building.
Her
program
was for reproductive
rights for women, and she's going around trying
to recampaign.
It's so ironic because we know that women
in Gaza are giving birth
on the floor with no clean water, and
they're having c sections without anesthesia.
And we know that we are funding it
with our tax dollars, with her support.
So we're standing outside protesting.
And inside the building, a number of women
who received the invitations to go in,
some of them were hijabs, some of them
didn't. Throughout the event, they would stand up,
and they would scream, ceasefire
now.
And her event was interrupted
so many times.
The next day, she had an event in
another state.
And did you see what happened when 2
women with hijab tried to enter?
They didn't let them in. They said, you've
been disinvited from this event.
And I immediately went to protection.
I go to protection. Do you know why?
Because they can't racially profile
every single person. If they do, no one
is gonna be at their event, and they
need the optics of diversity.
So they can't just say no. No one
can go. They don't know who's gonna stand
up because at our event, there were people
from the Jewish community. There were people from
the Native American community. And we know that
Muslims can be so many different races. There's
no way to be able to specify. And
we know Muslim women were hijab, Muslim women
don't. There's no way they'd be able to
tell.
But for these two women, they were able
to be racist, very boldly Islamophobic.
And do you know what I thought of
as protection?
I said Allahu Akbar.
A woman in hijab is so powerful and
such a threat
that they see her, and they don't even
want to have her come in because they
assume
that she is going to vocally speak for
justice.
It is a protection
that someone would see you and say she's
not gonna stay silent.
It is a protection that they would see
you wearing hijab and say she is a
threat. She is so powerful that her voice
is gonna disrupt us.
That is a protection.
The last thing we would ever wanna be
is have an opportunity in the face of
someone who's an oppressor
and stay silent.
When we, though, think about that, sometimes that's
a lot of pressure.
I know I've had days where I don't
want to be the billboard walking for Islam.
I've had a bad day. I'm very, very
tired. I'm just in a bad mood. And
then someone's like, oh, Islam is so oppressive.
I'm like, no. I'm exhausted.
Aren't you so hot in that? Yes. I
am. I'm very hot in that. And you
know what? I'm hot for the sake of
Allah.
But the point is, sometimes I don't wanna
be someone who has to stand up for
everything because I can't feel emotionally I don't
have the capacity in that moment.
Or maybe I'm not an introvert, but maybe
if you're an introvert. I've heard from many
of my friends who are. They're like, I
don't wanna have to explain to hijab all
the time.
It's very overwhelming.
And I didn't mean to specifically say introverts,
I mean anyone. Maybe sometimes at some point,
you just don't wanna talk to people all
the time.
And this is when I think it's important
for us to look at the example of
Maryam alaihis salaam, and we're gonna close with
her story insha'Allah.
Miriam Alaihi Salam,
many of you know that Virgin Mary was
the first woman ever to be entered into
Baytul Maqdis,
to be entered into
this space,
which is now.
It is the place that so many prophets
every prophet, every space of
there has been a prophet or an angel
that has walked upon it. There's not a
single space this big in which a prophet
or an angel hasn't walked there.
And Miriam was the 1st woman to be
entered there as someone who's worshiping and serving
the masjid.
Now she spent her days in worship. She
spent it quietly in worship, in praying, in
fasting, in doing good.
She had her time, that private
contemplative time with Allah,
but she also
turned that into action in that when Angel
Jibreel, alaihis salam, came and told her the
news of her having a child.
Before he gave that news, he was in
the form of a man,
and the description of him is that he
was a very beautiful man standing in her
chamber.
So she walks in, and she's like, why
is a man in my chamber?
And you can imagine this is probably the
first time ever a man is in her
chamber other than Zakaria, the prophet who was
her uncle taking care of her, alayhis salaam.
So the way that she responds do you
know what she says? You know. Some of
you know.
Who can recite the verse for us?
Please, we wanna hear you.
Okay. What were the two names that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is called by by her?
Yes. Ar Rahman. Sorry. One name. Yes. Exactly.
Exactly.
She reminds him of Ar Rahman.
Ar Rahman, the most compassionate, the most merciful.
She didn't say the one who is the
punisher.
She reminded
him to go back to Allah.
He's the most merciful.
And,
subhanallah,
what is the response?
Angel Jibril is so overwhelmed by the power
of her voice that he flips into the
form of an angel. He goes from man
to angel, flips, and he says, I am
here I'm just here for Abidasa Messenger. Abidasa
Messenger, here to tell you you're gonna have
a baby, which, of course, is terrifying for
her.
And I want you to know her reaction
is not to say, Allahu Akbar, I've been
chosen. It's to be terrified.
And then she gives birth, again, terrified.
The Quran keeps recording how scared she is,
how worried she is.
It's human.
Even when an angel, the angel comes to
you and gives you news, glad tidings from
your Lord. Allah called it a gift.
She didn't see it as a gift in
the moment.
And what did Allah tell her to do
after she had given birth and she had
eaten and drink drank and rested? What did
he tell her?
Go to the people.
That she needed to go to the people
with the baby. She needed to be the
one to go to her people, to show
them the baby, to be there physically.
He could have told Angel Jibril to go.
Allah could have told Zakaria, alaihis salaam, to
go. A baby speaking from the cradle saying,
I'm here with prophet Zakaria, and my mother
is Maryam, she's virgin Mary, and she's actually
a miracle. My birth is a miracle. You're
gonna believe a baby that was just born
if they're speaking and saying they're from God.
But Allah wanted her to be there,
alaihi salaam.
Just like Allah
wants you and me, us
to be there. He has chosen us to
be here in this moment in California for
a reason, in this year.
Whatever we think that we are going through
and when we feel like we're not enough,
he knows you're enough, and that's why you're
a part of this.
And that is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
tells us in the end of Surah Al
Hajj,
he says,
This first starts with keep going, keep striving,
keep going,
do the act,
do the work.
And then it ends with, he
is your ally.
He is the best ally.
He is the one who will give you
victory.
He is the one who's going to support
you.
He sees every single one of you, and
what did he put in the beginning of
that verse?
He has chosen you.
He's chosen you for equality. He sees inside
of
inside of every single one of you. He
chose you for a reason,
that we are here for a reason in
this time period, in this ummah for a
reason.
So know that he sees you, specifically you
and all that you go through. And in
the
journey of hijab,
that the reason we wear this,
the wisdoms change. Sometimes it helps us feel
all these different things. But at the end
of the day, whether we hate it and
we're struggling with it, which is so real,
or or we love it and it's our
favorite thing and it's never a and never
a test, wherever you are in between in
that,
that we wear hijab for Allah.
And that every single second that you wear
it, every single second that you wear it,
of course, it's one that's blessed, it's one
that's rewarded, of course. But also
in following the footsteps of the woman companions,
it's us sharing their narrative,
continuing their story. And being able to be
those who the next generation says, I was
inspired to come closer to Allah. I was
inspired to keep going with the Quran. I
was inspired to feel close to my Muslim
identity because of the woman who came before
me, and that inshallah is all of us.
For that beautiful reminder.