IqraSense.com

Source: Common Ground News Service

Why a woman wears the headscarf is her personal decision. It is important that those looking at the headscarf from outside the tradition keep an open mind – open enough to let the true reasons and motivations of Muslim women in, say Hafsa Kanjwal and Khadijeh Zarafshar.

Washington, DC - We are American Muslim women, who strongly identify with our faith. We are Georgetown University seniors who remain active and involved with the American Muslim community. One of us wears a headscarf, known in Arabic as the hijab. The other does not. Yet the right to wear the headscarf – without censure, condemnation or patronising pity – is a right we both defend. (more…)

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20 Million — According to many estimates, that’s the number of Muslims in Turkey, who oppose the wearing of hijab by Muslim women in universities and schools.

Heeding to that support and in respect of the “secular principles”, Turkey today has a ban on wearing Hijab in universities and schools. The ban has been in place for a few years.

Very recently however, the Turkish government led by Prime Minister Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in association with the Nationalist Action Party has proposed an amendment to the constitution seeking the removal of a ban on hijab in schools and universities. (more…)

Everyone knows that Muslims, especially those living in North American and European countries have faced a lot of discrimination after the events of 9/11. Muslim women for example have constantly been criticized in the media and elsewhere about the Hijab and their Islamic lifestyles in general. While Muslims have reacted and responded to such discrimination in many ways, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) decided to take a different approach on October 26^th, 2007.  

The Canadian Islamic Congress organized an event called the “National Pink Hijab Day” and gave away pink hijabs to Muslim as well as non-Muslim women to raise awareness of breast cancer and to raise funds for the “Susan G. Komen for the Cure” Foundation. This foundation’s is the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists. CIC’s organizers’ objective was to raise the awareness of Islamophobia, discrimination that Muslim women face in covering their heads and hair using the Hijab along with supporting the cause of breast cancer that organizers hoped will garner wider support and awareness of all issues.   (more…)

A recent editorial published in Khaleejtimes.com fuels the debate again between those of us who respect the “hijab” as our identity and those of us who want to simply be our “normal selves”. The editorial by an American Muslim convert highlights the Ahadeeth (sayings) of the prophet (saws) regarding women who decide to chose an alternate path to modesty as prescribed in Islam.

The issue I believe is not that whether women who choose not to wear the Hijab or dress modestly understand the Isalmic commandments, but rather has to do with the levels of faith. If you have faith (also called “Iman”), you will respect that faith and Iman (by following the commandments of the prophet and Quran). If you don’t, you will simply adopt other belief systems that would overtake the faith of Islam. Those other belief systems, for example, empowers the non-Hijab Muslim women to adapt the new change. (more…)