Why does a woman wear hijab then if it is not for modesty?

No, Noor didn't tell me these things. These are only some of my opinions on it that I've gatherd for myself. I could have stated the religious reasons but I chose to state the outside reasons. Honestly, My husband prefers me in hijab. Every time I put one on..He about cries . He thinks it makes me more beautiful. I'm not claiming that other men may not find it more beautiful as well. I just feel that there are other things to worry about than putting on make up and doing myself up all fancy just for myself to feel beautiful. That is just my personal viewpoint for myself and nobody else. (some women feel more beautiful on the inside when they wear hijab because they aren't so worried about their outward appearance). ABSOLUTELY a woman should wear it (if she wants to) because God said to... theres no doubt about that in my mind. In my previous post, I wanted to point out JUST A COUPLE reasons God said that women should wear it. Those ARE some of the reasons (of course they are not quoted..they are from my own understanding so please do not misunderstand me for quoting anything) I also don't disagree with the woman who does not wear it. I DON'T wear it YET for reasons I don't feel comfortable discussing openly in the forum. I will discuss it one-on-one if anyone feels they need to know why. I think the woman has the right to choose wether she wears hijab or not. It is her body, her head, her faith, her ideas, her etc katha katha.

And there are hijab and niqab fetish groups

really?

Yep http://experts.about.com/e/v/ve/veil_fetishism.htm and transsexual niqabis too. There was one pretending to be a woman that VP had posted about that was going around 360 trying to get women to unveil, I guess on the pretense on wanting to learn to cover.

Yes, I was checking that one out . . .not sure I found the right one but I did find that I was "linked" about the 3rd degree to one . . . I found that username had lots of hijabi friends!!

Muslims, men and women, are called upon to be modest in all things, but God hasn't said a word about wearing hijab. The term "hijab" is never used to refer to clothing or a manner of dress in the Quran. But, if that's what you want to do, that's fine. It can't hurt.

Wow, what a topic! And what intriguing posts.

I've personally never written in any of the more religious threads on VJ, so here goes nothing.

Regarding the original issue of culture vs religion (Islam in this case) multiple examples can be found in my ethnic origins, Bangladesh. However, I've been fortunate enough to be born and raised in the West (I've never set foot in Bangladesh, sadly) with the first few years of my life in the midst of my "religious" family to gradually grow independent in the outside world. The devotion and loyalty to religion was cemented in the beginning years which allowed me to view the world through a wonderful yet utterly confusing looking-glass. Early on, I attended classes led my Bengali "mullas" who were able to strike children who neglected to recite memorized lines correctly. I went on to attend weekend arabic school led by devoted teachers from the greater arab community.

You can imagine the confusion of a child, who is taught to devote herself to the teachings of her religion is one way, be taught that the complete opposite is true.

In the Bangladeshi run school, I was forced into believing the spirituality and importance of being a good muslima was found on the mere surface. The ability to spit out the foreign, and quite scary sounding syllables one after another, gave me superiority over others who couldn't do it from memory.

In Arabic school, I was taught that being of something other than arab descent was not the best of backgrounds. However, aside from the cultural animosity, I was taught that the meaning and the context in which each verse was sent down was in fact of more importance.

In the Bangla culture vs religion conflict, I found the following through observation and testimony of others. (Side note - The message regarding Islam was heavily Persian and sometimes Yemeni influenced, when introduced in Bangladesh) Bangladesh's culture is truly hindi-derived. Many of the practices performed under the banner of Islam closely parallel Hindu customs and tradition. This is found, in the need:

for the young to kneel and bow before the elders whilst touching their feet.
to seek the touch of a mulla to erase past sins or for blessings
to read the quran repeatedly, seeming to sound as though the reader understand the meaning, etc...

In the Arabic culture vs religion conflict, I found the following:

There are definite lines between right and wrong, especially when it comes to the sects and subsects
The troublesome waters regarding educating us girls and how we should attempt to stay inferior to the men
The misconception regarding the fact that being of Arabic descent makes one superior to a fellow nonarab muslim, etc...

As a disclaimer, I must say that using the word Arab is too general. I grew up in a Yemeni community, went to schools in a Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi community, was taught in a charter school by an Egyptian teacher. Trust me when I say that I understand how diverse the word Arab truly is!

My past has made me into the open objective person I am. It helped me understand in the most profound way, the richness of Islam. The fact that it can be integrated on all platforms, bypassing the race, ethnicity, religion barrier. Throughout the years, both of the (extremely) generic cultures have evolved. Bangladesh is trying to educate itself, through my generation and surprisingly even the ones who used to be set in their ways. Their recent advances attribute to it (e.g. Dr. Mohammed Yunus winning the Noble Peace Prize this past year). The Arab community has taken strides through education of its younger generation. In other news, much of the Arab community is beginning to lose many of its young to the western ways. The same is true of the Bengali community.

You have to keep in mind that the communities I talk of, are based here in the states. More specifically, here in Michigan, where Dearborn is known internationally as having a great Muslim population. We may want to discuss or ponder about how region specificness can also affect the image or understanding of religion.

I did plan on covering the judgement topic, but I think this post is a painful read on its own. I commend whosoever has managed to read through it all, with their mind still, fully intact! lol

There are definite lines between right and wrong, especially when it comes to the sects and subsects
The troublesome waters regarding educating us girls and how we should attempt to stay inferior to the men
The misconception regarding the fact that being of Arabic descent makes one superior to a fellow nonarab muslim, etc...

I'm Arab, female and born Muslim. I can relate to all three of these. Thank you!

Thank for you adding this to the discussion!

Thank you for posting. I live in California and of course these days people from the Dearborn community are called upon as Islamic "experts" when someone needs a soundbite for the nightly news, and then there's the opposite, when a charity is raided or some other b.s. However, I realize this is not the real community and am very curious about it. Now I'm more curious because it seems even within the community there are struggles to be recognized as a "real" Muslim when you are not arab. I'm not judging, just guessing from your post. And I am not one to assume all muslims and/or all arabs should get along because of some commonality, it just adds to my curiosity about the community.

I guess I'm going to go do some googling, but how did this community start?

There was an NPR report 2 weeks ago that profiled 3 Dearborn muslimas and their choice to wear hijab. It was quite interesting. All were born here, and so have a similar POV that you describe yet all made different choices and have quite different ideas of what hijab means.

The cultural clash is a rare occurrence in the more religious sectors of Michigan. I was raised in Detroit, but I did attend middle school in Dearborn. I am currently attending the University of Michigan - Dearborn as well. In the outskirts of Dearborn and Detroit (places like Hamtramck) where the population is more diverse, the cultural clashes continue to thrive. This is true in the adolescents carrying hatred in their hearts for reasons other than religion. Its all about "my turf" vs "your turf".

This is mere speculation, but I attribute the founding of the community to the job market and immigration rather than religion per se. That is the precise reason for the steady stream of Bangladeshi immigrant workers moving from New York to Michigan. The cost of living in New York is extremely high, whereas in Michigan, what with big 4 and our coined "motor"-city, the cost of living and finding a job is much more affordable.

The children of these immigrants formed their roots and it is these roots that drew upon the roots left behind to increase the Arab population of the community. As we speak, the Bangladeshi community is following suit. We are making our mark. My father and his generation have various nonprofit organizations that are recruiting the new immigrants along with the old, to train them in technical fields. The general community is growing, and as a result, a lot of people are looking into other aspects of their life. The children of these progressive community members are living a secure life, they in turn are searching for answers. Some of these continually look towards religion and have been successful in creating a stronghold.

Thus, I think it is the incentive of a somewhat secure life that allowed for such a community to develop. That isn't to say it could have turned out different.

(Also, it was my pleasure to post... I hate spelling and grammatical errors, hence rarely post... what with the inability to edit later on lol)

Another culture vs religion concept in Bangladesh: A woman in unable to call her husband by his name.... you use the word "ere" or "apni" which is a respectable way of saying "hey you". Before you ask, my fiance and I are progressive Muslims (a bit liberal, not in the "anything goes" sense) and we refer to each other with whatever the situation warrants.

A quick joke based on the last clash I mentioned:

A woman in Bangladesh went in for her interview for her K3 visa. When she went home, she called her husband, Mr. Chand, (living in America) to say that she failed. He was exasperated and asked her why, and furthermore why she sounded happy. They had gone over all of his information multiple times in preparation for her interview. She replied, "When the Officer asked me what my husband's name was, I replied 'Mr. Shurjo'. How silly of him to ask! He thought he was going to trick me into saying your name!"

Note: Chand = Moon, Shurgo = Sun

These sentences DO make it seem like your husband has quite a large influence on you wearing hijab even if you say it's not for him.

This sounds *verbatim* like what Moroccan men told me all the time about hijab (not all men, just the few that wanted to convince me to wear it, derr!). Was this your opinion before your marriage as well?

I think this is a very narrow way to look at relations between men and women, too Animal Kingdom for me. Women don't always fix their hair for men's benefit -- we do it for ourselves, our self-confidence, our style, to be professional, etc...

A man that is looking at my toes sexually is a couple notches down the IQ totem pole, IMO.

I agree with you Deeshla.

amal why are you making excuses for men? NO matter how many times you say this is not what your husband says and that it is just your opinion I just don't believe it, sorry. What you wrote sounds like it came straight from the mouth of a man.

Sarah, it certainly could be the case that amal came to the decision to wear hijab from sources other than her husband. No matter the reasoning used to explain why they should do so, there is a lot of pressure on Muslimas, especially Muslima converts, to cover their hair. There's also a lot of pressure on men to have "their women" cover in order to show that they are able to maintain authority over them. In many segments of Muslim society, a man is not a man unless he can control at least one woman (a white, western woman = more points). I'm not saying that this is the situation with amal or any other woman who wears hijab. I'm just saying that the emphasis on hijab is political (Islam = Arab) as well as social (men are qawaam over women), a means of demonstrating Muslim "wins" over western norms. Both men and woman are feeling the need to comply. That is especially true if they are active in a Muslim community.

Please, don't be so hard on her. This is not unusual.

I am not being hard on her and I am not the only one who expressed this opinion.

She is sharing her thoughts on the matter and that's what it sounds like to me. I just wonder how all these years someone doesn't cover then all of a sudden it's wrong to let a man see you.

It's just a large leap in my mind.

Sarah

szsz I know you don't want to touch hijab with a ten foot pole but I just wanted to ask you your opinion on why western women wear hijab if there is nothing about it in the Quran. I am not asking if it's right or wrong to wear it, just asking where they get this thought or information that it's good to cover their hair.

Thanks as usual,
Sarah

I am not being hard on her and I am not the only one who expressed this opinion.

She is sharing her thoughts on the matter and that's what it sounds like to me. I just wonder how all these years someone doesn't cover then all of a sudden it's wrong to let a man see you.

It's just a large leap in my mind.

Sarah

Another way to think of it is how the same men who we're expected to protect from their animal urges manage to remain in control of their raging hormones around the majority of uncovered hairy women. But, all of a sudden, when they're around Muslim women, they can't handle hair.

Still, it does little good to argue about it since it's a choice and this is the choice some make for whatever reason. If it really makes amal and her husband happy that she wears hijab, no harm done.

Well, it's what I was saying before; the pressure to cover is enormous. Hijab is sold and sold like a miracle cure for all of societies ills. If all women covered, men would show more respect. If all women covered, there would be less lusting and rape. If women covered, there would be world peace. The reasoning about it is endless.

I'll post some links to info about hijab in a minute so you can see what I mean.

Your example made me laugh a little.

Anyways I really am not trying to argue with her or you about it since I am in no place to argue. I guess I am just fascinated by the ideas and actions of newer converts and wonder where exactly they come from.

k thanks.

For most muslims, their practice of Islam isn't based soley on the Qur'an. One looks to ahadith, traditions of the Prophet (saws), to expound upon the verses in the Qur'an that relate to modesty, just as we do for other areas.

I chose to wear hijab because I believe it's something Allah (swt) asks of me, through the Qur'an and ahadith. It's a form of submission and of worship. There certainly may be sociological reasons for it, but for me, it's enough that God requires it as part of haya (modesty, self respect, bashfulness). For the hijabi converts I know, they wear it because they believe it's a requirement, just as it is a requirement to make salat, prayers, 5 times a day.

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Faith consists of more than sixty branches. And Haya is a part of faith." (Bukhari)

I agree with many of the things szsz has said. The covered wife is the 'good wife' and reflects on the husband, her family, his family, etc. There is pressure. When I drive my husband to mosque, I feel like I have to stop a block away lest they see his rebellious uncovered wife.

Also, I personally respect when a woman chooses to wear hijab with the reasoning being she does want to be identified as a Muslim, especially in the West - with part of the purpose being representing Muslims in a positive light, breaking stereotypes of the "oppressed" Muslim woman. I think if there were prominent American women wearing hijab, it could complete overhaul the view of the hijab as something oppressive.

I don't think it is commanded. The male who cannot control himself if he sees hair argument also doesn't resonate me - but I do get it as a way of positively identifying oneself as a Muslim and challenging narrow views.

I'm fascinated by that too!

Top 11 excuses of Muslim Women who don't wear Islamic Hijaab! (and the reasons for hijab)

10 TIPS FOR MUSLIM ACTIVISTS TO DEAL WITH HIJAB

[email="http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0310-2112"]The Veil and Secularism [/email]

Why do some muslim women choose not to wear hijab?

Top Ten Excuses Of Muslim Women Who Don't Wear Hijaab And Their Obvious Weaknesses

IN DEFENSE OF NON-HIJABI SISTERS

The Manners: The Veil (Hijab)

Resources for and about Muslim Women

Hijab(veil) a religious obligation 1/2

Hijab A religious obligation part 2/2

HIJAB (VEIL)

Hijab (Veil)*

I am a Muslim woman


I'm getting tired, but this list is nothing but a glimmer of the iceberg. Hijab is THE hot topic in the ummah.

Respectfully, I ask if it matters to hijabis that when they claim that Allah commands hijab, that that opens the door to equally valid claims that Allah did not tell us to wear it? Afterall, it is a mortal interpretation that directs them, not a divine law. That's why, not finding the command in the Quran, one has to gather up so much from several sources to scrape together a reasoning behind a claim that their motivation is that Allah requires it.

One of the links wasn't done well. Here's a replacement:

The Veil and Secularism

Szsz thank you for the links, now I have some reading to do!

You're welcome, but I'm not done.

Convert's Hijab: The Question of Gradualism

Hijab in the Light of the Qur'an and Hadith

Islamic Dress Code Protects Women’s Dignity

50+ Questions on Hijab/Niqab(Folder)

Hijab, Why?

Denying the Obligation of Wearing Hijab

The Hijab between Human Thought and Sacred Law

I Want To Take Off My Hijab…

My Future sister-in-law has removed her Hijab

I am just as interested as Sarah in this topic. It confuses me too. I wonder about the muslim men who marry western non-muslim women, and what expectations they have for their dress...

I guess I'll have to talk to my husband when he gets home.

Has anyone had conversations with their spouse about how they should dress as a wife of a muslim man (even though they themselves are not muslim)?

I hope my question makes sense...

-C