For context: I love my hijab I’ve been wearing it since I was six and my mother (May Allah have mercy on her) was my role model. She was always kind and introduced it to me with fun sparkles that I wore with my outfits to school on and off for a few weeks until I started putting it on myself out of habit. Alhamdullilah I’m comfortable with it and I acknowledge my privilege having a large Somali Muslim community in my area growing up, being around women I look up to.
But I just dislike the term hijabi. Why am I being referred to as what I wear? For other commands like praying, you aren’t being referred to as “one who prays”. I wear my hijab for when I pray and in front of non mahrams because Allah SWT has commanded me to do so. It isn’t a part of my identity, it’s a command I follow and yet it has become a monolith.
Yeah sure there is a little sense of being proud of it to be an “out Muslim” as people can tell from looking at you straight away, but this whole hijabi term just puts us on this weird pedestal and other Muslims stereotype and assumed I’m this extremely religious and judgmental person or a sheltered muslim that is “male centered”. Like this is behaviour I expect from non Muslims who know absolutely nothing about it.
I see posts on social media that detail bad actions of muslim women and define them by their hijab or saying “why I’m not friends with hijabis” like no you’re not friends with these people because of how they are. Putting a cloth on your head doesn’t morph you into a brand new completely changed person. If I decided to go outside not wearing it one day, I’ll have the exact same personality I did while wearing it on.
But yeah I just wanted to have a rant about this since nowadays there is just so much discussion over the hijab, there’s always something new about Muslim women or wearing the hijab. So much scrutiny and it’s a privilege a lot of Muslims don’t appreciate, to not have to struggle with a part of their deen that is visible to everybody when most sins are covered.