Challenging the idea of being oppressed to don hijab, a growing number of young British Muslim women are choosing to wear the Islamic veil or hijab, despite figures showing rising violence against visibly identifiable Muslims.
“I’m going to stand out whatever I do, so I might as well wear the headscarf,” Sumreen Farooq, a shop assistant who also volunteers at an Islamic youth centre in Leyton, east London, told Reuters.
The 18-year-old Muslim decided to don hijab to declare their faith to all around her after being abused in a London street.
Shanza Ali, 25, a Masters graduate who works for a Muslim-led non-profit organization in London, said she was born in Pakistan and her Pakistani mother had never worn the veil.
Yet, both she and her sister Sundas chose to do so at the age of about 20.
“I decided to make a commitment as a Muslim and I have never stopped since,” Shanza told Reuters in her family home in Walthamstow, east London where prayer mats hang from the walls alongside modern, family portraits.
“Sometimes you forget that you’re covering your hair but you never forget why you’re covering. You remember, that to you, your character should be more important than your appearance.
“It makes it easier for Muslim women to keep away from things that you don’t want to do that would impact your value system. If you don’t want to go clubbing, drink, or have relations outside marriage, it can help, but it can also just be a reminder to be a good person and treat others well.”
Shaista Gohir, chairman of the Muslim Women’s Network UK, said more women had adopted headscarves after 9/11 and 7/7 attacks on the US and London respectively.
For her, both attacks put Muslims under greater political and public scrutiny.
“For some young women it is a way of showing they are different and they are Muslim although it is not a Muslim obligation,” she told Reuters.
She said the full-face niqab was a minor phenomenon in Britain, worn by relatively few women, although it had become central to a wider debate in the country about integration and British values.
Veil Against Violence
Despite the sharp rise in the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes, the majority of which were directed against women, Muslim women were choosing veil.
“Attacks against visibly dressed Muslim females may not accurately explain away the trend of hate crimes being opportunistic and situational. The data suggests that the alleged perpetrators of anti-Muslim hate crimes at a street-based level, are young white males targeting Muslim women, and that is a cause for concern,” Tell MAMA said in a statement.
Matthew Feldman, co-founder of the Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University who analyses Tell MAMA data, said the rise in the numbers of attacks could be partly due to more awareness of the reporting process.
“But there is a slight bump in the occurrence of people wearing more visible dress and of victims being women rather than men,” Feldman told Reuters.
“We are seeing an unacceptable rise in the level of anti-Muslim attacks but it does seem there is a pretty small number of violent, hardcore far-right people responsible for a high number of these.”
None of the women attacked, however, had stopped wearing a veil as a result.
Yasmin Navsa, 17, a student from Hackney in east London, said wearing a hijab made her stand out and made her different.
“In Islam it doesn’t say anywhere you have to wear a veil but it’s a choice. It’s more fashionable now with different colors and styles which makes it more attractive to wear,” Navsa told Reuters in a break from exams.
“I’ve found it’s so common to wear a headscarf now in London that you don’t get looked at twice any more but I think wearing a full-face veil would attract some negative comments.”
Source: OnIslam
Comments