It’s been nine whole years since I started wearing hijab.  In 1999, just like today, it was Friday the 13th of June.  It was the day after 8th grade finished and the first day of summer.  I threw on that hijab with determination never to stop.

But what brought me to wearing it?  What was my epiphany that forced me to rethink my values and take a step towards Allah?  What was my story?

Nothing!  There is none–zip, zilch, nada, nuffin!

I didn’t wake up one morning with a sign from Allah.  Nor did I have a life-changing moment that redirected me towards the right path.  I just started, without the fireworks, glitz and glam.

I remember when I decided to start–it was at Sunday School.  I was on the swings with Shoaa and Aliyah during break and I made an announcement after thinking for a few seconds, “I’m going to start wearing hijab… once the summer starts.”  They said, “Really?  That’s cool” and we kept swinging like nothing had happened.

I guess it wasn’t too surprising, because I had started wearing it more and more to different places.  First to the masjid for dinners here and there.  Obviously always at Sunday School.  Then I started to feel guilty– I would see the same people at the masjid that I saw at dawaaths.  Why then did I only cover in front of them in the masjid and not at their personal and private parties?  I also felt guilty when I would leave Sunday School and go to the grocery store– I would take it off before going inside.  But why?  If I already had it on, why should I take it off?  Was I embarassed?  So once I started wearing it at dawaaths and around town if I already had it on, the final frontier was school.

My logic to start on the first day of summer was that it would give me a good two and half months to adjust to wearing it all the time before I got to school, where I imagined it would be very scary.  And actually, starting in the summer did make it easier, but not completely easy all together.

I will never forget the feeling I had going into high school on that first day with my hijab on.  I felt like such… such… an alien.  And I was so concious of myself and assumed that every sideways glance, every whisper between friends had to have been about me.  I remember wanting to just throw up all over the place because I was going to die of … embarassment?

Alhumdu’lillah it was never much harder than the first day.  I will admit sometimes when I meet new people I get really concious of my hijab and don’t want to be labelled as “that Muslim girl.”  The latest instance of super paranoia was both my college orientations, at UM-Dearborn and Ann Arbor.

What’s the point of sharing all this?   I guess, if I may, to give a word of advice for people who are thinking about wearing hijab, or even to people who are not thinking about wearing hijab– what are you waiting for?  You don’t need a life altering moment to shift your values.  You don’t need deep thinking and questioning to push yourself forward.  All you need is the words of Allah and little bit of faith that it isn’t as hard as you think it is.

24_31.gif

And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.

May Allah grant all the believing women (and men) success in this life and the next.  And may He grant us the will to come closer to Him each and every day, ameen.