Love in a Headscarf

by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed

  Now they were sceptical. They realised that I was deliberately confusing them.

  ‘So what is your hair really like?’ they asked again.

  This time I was more serious. I felt very protective. I didn’t want to be imagined. ‘I feel it’s my private space. I’ve covered my hair, because I don’t want you to see it. What would be the point of telling you what it looks like?’

  What they didn’t realise was that Muslim women were as preoccupied with their hair as everyone else. We kept it styled, trimmed and coloured, just like women who didn’t cover their hair. It might be covered up out in public, but it was just as much an object of feminine attention in private. It was part of feeling womanly. Wearing a headscarf didn’t mean denying your physical femininity, it just meant celebrating it in the private sphere.

  ‘Wearing a headscarf’ wasn’t just about hair either, despite the emphasis on the ‘headscarf’ part of the dress code. It was about a whole way of dressing based on being ‘modest’. Many Muslim women did not wear a headscarf but still observed modesty in their dress and behaviour, and that was the most important part. With all the focus on hair and the head, the philosophy of modesty that lay behind the headscarf was overlooked.

  ‘DOES YOUR HUSBAND MAKE YOU WEAR A HEADSCARF?’

  I sighed wistfully, ‘If only I had a husband.’ It seemed the greatest irony that as a Muslim woman it was assumed I was under the thumb of my husband, and yet here I was, unable to find my Mr Right.

  Before anyone else pursued this line of questioning I would add, ‘My father hasn’t forced me to wear the headscarf either.’

  For Muslim women, wearing the headscarf landed us right in the middle of a double whammy. It polarised feelings with passion and intensity. Traditional Muslim men insisted that Muslim women should wear it in order to defend Islam. The voices in the media that hinted that Muslims were to be feared as stuck-in-the-dark-ages-violent-terrorists insisted that Muslim women should not wear the headscarf.

  ‘Could I say something, please?’ I thought.

  I opened my mouth to speak but a Muslim man stepped in to defend me: ‘Islam has given you Muslim women the headscarf as your right, can’t people see that? Of course you are proud that you are liberated.’ I agreed with his statement but felt annoyed that my right as a Muslim woman to defend myself had been taken away from me.

  ‘I’d really like to say something for myself,’ I thought again.

  Once more, before I could speak, I was pre-empted. ‘Muslim women have been brainwashed. You think you want to wear it because your religious leaders tell you that that is what a good Muslim woman should do, so you’re complicit in your own subjugation.’

  ‘Complicit in my own subjugation?’ I reflected. That sounded complicated and slightly kinky.

  I was cross. How dare other people speak on my behalf? If I have been liberated by Islam to be fully human, with full rights, then I am liberated enough to speak for myself. If you think I am oppressed then stop oppressing me further by telling me what to say and think.

  I had spent a lot of time considering how I wanted to dress and what impact I wanted to make on the world around me. Wearing a headscarf was not an easy thing to do, as I looked immediately different from everyone around me. With the tense political and social climate, it also made me more vulnerable, more stigmatised. In choosing to wear the headscarf it meant being willing to address these difficulties and these tensions because they were worth bearing, in order to practise my faith and try to make the world a better place by challenging stereotypes of women, Muslim women in particular. As a woman, I had a choice about what to wear, and I fully exercised that choice. It was my decision.

  I was hopeful that asserting my own decision would add my small voice to the calls to change the lives of women who were oppressed in the name of any religion. I had made my own choices, but there were Muslim women who were forced to dress and act in a certain way, and that was wrong. Some were forced into marriages, and that was wrong, too. Others were denied education, healthcare or the right to work, or had violent cultural customs forced upon them. It was the same words that had to be said again: wrong, wrong, wrong. Any kind of coercion was absolutely forbidden and utterly opposed to the spirit of Islam. Those who perpetrated such horrible acts of violence and oppression ought to be exposed for what they were really after: power and control. They should not hide behind their false claims that it was in the interests of women, Islam or humanity. The actions of a Muslim always had to be taken with free will, otherwise there was no point. The Qur’an was very clear, ‘There is no compulsion in religion.’ You can’t and you must not force anyone to do anything they do not want to do.

  ‘IS IT HOT?’

  The prevailing imagery of Muslim women showed us covered from head to feet in black. The headscarves were long, black, flowing pieces of fabric, draping over a long black cloak, and sometimes with a niqab, a veil, over the faces too, also usually in black. The photographs were taken to make the women look eerie and inhuman, alien to Western eyes. But underneath each one was a life, a story, a heart, which was denied by those who saw them just as a ghost covered in black cloth. Those who saw them as anonymous creatures were complicit with those who tried to make them anonymous by imposing this uniform style of dress. It made me feel uncomfortable to see women – Muslim or otherwise – dressed in identikit clothing, whether that was the ‘little black dress’ or the black outfits of the media luvvies or the black cloaks of Muslim women. It was strange that the colour black was the recurring theme.

  This style of long, shapeless black clothing was deliberately adopted by many Muslim women as a way of controlling for themselves the external projection of their persona. They were fed up with the imagery surrounding us of female perfection and nothing less: thin, tall, blonde, glamorous, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect make-up. That was still women being told how they should dress and what they should look like. For them, the long black clothes were a way of reclaiming control over their image.

  Not all women chose to dress like that. For me, personality and aesthetics were important. ‘God is Beauty, and God loves beauty,’ is a famous Islamic saying, and I believed that meant incorporating beauty into your clothing to complement its modesty. After all, it was modesty that was the Islamic value at the heart of the discussion; the headscarf was only one component of that.

  The Qur’an advises the ‘believing men and the believing women’ that the first step towards modesty is to ‘cast down their gaze’ when looking at someone of the opposite gender. The words suggest this either literally, or perhaps metaphorically, as a form of respect to another person not to see them for their sexuality. Take that out of the equation, and social relations become less tense and less fraught with the complications of sexual tension. People want to be judged for who they are, not what they look like, and sadly, it seems to be women who suffer most by being judged on their looks and sexuality.

  Modest behaviour is accompanied by modest clothing. For women, that meant clothes that were loose and covered up to the wrist and down to the ankle. Most Muslims, but not all, believed that it meant covering the hair as well, and a very tiny number believed that it meant covering the face, too.

  By introducing modest behaviour and clothing into the public space, the aim was to make life easier, less tense and less judgemental for everyone. If I wanted to make society a happier place to live, I was willing to spend a little more time and care on choosing my clothes and wearing a headscarf. For me, it was a matter of faith and a contribution to making the community we live in better. The ever-visible headscarf was therefore only one element of the dress choice. Sometimes it was a bit hot, but it was worth it.

  ‘WHY DON’T MEN HAVE TO WEAR A HEADSCARF?’

  As the Qur’an had described, men were just as obliged to behave and dress with modesty. Often men thought they could get away without it, sometimes going as far as wearing tight jeans and skinny-fit T-shirts. If they were abiding by their Islamic valu
es, then they ought to dress respectfully too. According to most Muslims, men were required to dress modestly but weren’t required to cover their hair as part of their modest dress in the way women were. The curiosity that I’d found men had about my hair, where women had not had the same curiosity, and the way they used hair to complete their visual imagery of me, made me consider the possibility that hair was an essential part of a woman’s beauty and mystique in a way that it simply wasn’t for men.

  Irrespective of whether it was an obligation for men to cover their hair, in many Muslim countries it was in fact common for men to do so. In Oman they wore a turban-like head covering called the mussar. In Saudia Arabia they wore a white cloth called a ghutra, held in place by a black coil. In the Gulf as well as the Levant the men wore a keffiyah, a checked cloth held in place in the same way. In the Subcontinent it was a small hat, often white, called topi, and in Malaysia the men donned a cap called a songkok. It was a strange and unobserved phenomenon that ‘modern’ Muslim men did not cover their heads. Perhaps they had put all the emphasis on women to cover their hair and had forgotten about doing the same themselves, I thought to myself.

  When it came to the subject of men and hijab, there was one thing that made me angry on their behalf. Some Muslims described wearing hijab as a way of protecting themselves against men’s rampant and uncontrollable lust. If women didn’t wear hijab, they would be ravaged by these poor men who would be driven wild. I felt quite offended on behalf of men by the idea that they were sex-crazed monsters. It wasn’t up to women to control men. They weren’t wild animals. Men were ethical and moral, and were perfectly capable of treating women with respect. Modest behaviour and dress were for both men and women, to create an environment that was respectful and relaxed, and where both would be judged not on how they looked, but for who they were.

  ‘DO YOU SLEEP IN YOUR HEADSCARF?’

  Being beautiful is an inherent part of being a woman. Looking glamorous, smelling fragrant, making the most of one’s feminine attributes are all significant components of womanhood. One of the reasons I was looking forward to getting married was to have a man with whom to share these beauties and who would appreciate me. Intimacy of the, ahem, ahem, sexual kind, was highly encouraged by Islam, and making the most of your beauty, for both men and women was all but mandatory in the privacy of the home. Stepping out of the modest paradigm was not just with a spouse but for the whole of the private domain. So I would step in the door at home and unpin my headscarf. When it came to bedtime, there was nothing between me and my pillow.

  Wearing the headscarf in public was a matter of practising my faith, involving modesty in behaviour as well as clothing. I couldn’t separate that out and leave it at home, because that would be leaving my social values in the private sphere, and what was the point of a social value if it wasn’t practised out in society? It was like believing that kindness was important, but then not being kind out in public.

  ‘ARE YOU A TERRORIST?’

  I wanted to respond ‘yes!’ and then rummage round in my handbag to pull out an unidentified object, but I had to hold myself back. I limited myself to a response in a deep-baritone voice, ‘Are you?’ and then waggled my eyebrows like the villain from a superhero cartoon.

  As a student at school, we had reviewed our career prospects with the local school adviser. I filled out a digital questionnaire about my strengths, weaknesses and interests. It offered me four suggested careers. First, prison warden, as it said I had good nurturing skills and could see the good in people. Second, library administrator, as I liked books. Third, technology design, as I liked new ideas and relating them to people. And finally, a new addition to their list of potential careers, terrorist, as I wanted to ‘make an impact’. I wasn’t sure what the qualifications or job prospects would be for this last option. I was doubtful that it would be well paid, and was certain there would be no pension or healthcare. Instead I decided to obtain a degree from Oxford and then go on and work in the fledgling technology industry. It was definitely the right choice.

  Of course I’m not a terrorist, what a daft question.

  I wondered what drove someone to the point where they were willing to end their own life and create destruction around them. What kind of macabre aspiration was that? Was it pure hatred? Was it an evil mind that had got hold of the means to carry out a bloodthirsty act? I couldn’t help but think those who had committed the acts of 11 September fell into this category, although none of us would ever know the truth.

  I aspired to live a happy life, a good life, a life that might be remembered by just a few, or perhaps by many, for making a positive contribution. I wanted a career, a home, a husband, children, a comfortable retirement, as most human beings do. And I also wanted to make a contribution to reducing the misery and oppression in the world and bring about a lasting change, no matter how small. Every Muslim woman has aspirations, just like every other human being. The clothing we wear or the acts of faith that we carry out do not change any of that. We want to live happy, fulfilled and successful lives.

  My aspirations were real and huge to me. They dominated how I lived my life. But there were others around the world who lived in poverty, war, famine, destruction, dictatorship, oppression and occupation. Some of them saw acts like setting themselves on fire or killing themselves as well as others as better than living. I didn’t want to imagine the void in their lives where hope ought to have been. What terrorised me was the knowledge that these people had taken a decision that their life could be improved only through death. If their aspiration was simply to end their suffering then we had let them down. I had let them down.

  ‘WHY DO YOU WEAR SO MUCH BLACK?’

  I wondered sometimes if people really did look at what was in front of their eyes. With pictures of Muslim women dressed in black used as shorthand for ‘Muslim’ or, worse still, ‘Muslim terrorist’, it was assumed that all Muslim women wore black all the time. This was the fashion from the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, which exported its opinions on Muslim behaviour and etiquette around the world. Just as women across the globe had adopted ‘Western’ clothing, it seemed that a certain segment of the Muslim population was adopting ‘Saudi’ style to represent the rekindling of their Muslim renaissance. When the black-clad women of the Gulf travelled to other Muslim countries, they stood out like a sore thumb. Muslim women elsewhere, and that consisted of the majority of Muslim women around the world, in countries like Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Nigeria, Turkey and so many, many others, wore brightly coloured clothes, from greens to pinks to blues to whites and every colour in between.

  ‘I wear a pink headscarf,’ I pointed out, ‘usually in a shade of lilac or soft rose pink. It is my signature colour.’

  E-veil-uation

  I had a good feeling the day that I met Hasan for coffee. It didn’t last long.

  ‘I wasn’t very keen to meet you,’ he confessed. ‘Nothing personal, but I’ve told my mum and my aunt who are both on the lookout for a wife for me, that I don’t want someone who wears hijab.’

  Oh dear, here we go again: telling me I’m completely unsuitable in his first breath! ‘But they just went on and on,’ he rolled his eyes in jest, ‘about how lovely you are. How smart, how pretty, how nice, until I could take no more!’ Who were these women who thought so differently from all the other Aunties? I couldn’t place his mother or aunt at that moment, so I was unaware what I had done to impress them.

  ‘They finally persuaded me to meet you. I had no option to say no!’ He threw his hands up in mock-protest, ridiculing the process of persuasion. He was affable and laughed at himself and his ludicrous situation.

  I smiled sweetly. It was the best I could muster for a man who was honest enough to admit I didn’t meet his requirements. I gave him some leeway. He had come with an open mind at least – well, half an open mind.

  ‘They’ve been pestering me for quite some time actually.’

  He seemed nice, well-mannered and i
ntelligent. He was very polite, willing to try new things and open to considering new possibilities. After all the introductions that I had been through, I learnt very quickly to identify someone I would get along with and with whom there was potential. Other than his resistance to my headscarf, everything else was very positive. I had also learnt that it was important to be brave enough to raise the make-or-break issues sooner rather than later. The answer to the question would always be the same in the end: time rarely changed someone’s response to a critical issue.

  I plunged in: ‘So why do you want someone who doesn’t wear hijab?’

  ‘I think girls who wear hijab are probably very religious and stay at home all day praying. They must be a bit dull. I like to go out a lot, so I wouldn’t have anyone to go with.’

  I repeated his sentence back to him. ‘So a woman who wears hijab is someone who stays at home all day, prays all the time and doesn’t go out. And she is very dull.’ I looked at him smiling.

  He squirmed, boyish and innocent, smiling too.

  ‘Now, you may have noticed that I am a woman in hijab. So what are we doing here? And by the way, you called me dull!’

  ‘I know! I know!’

  More wriggling on his part.

  ‘What else?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, there are places I want to go that I wouldn’t want to take a woman in hijab,’ he offered, with a note of defiance, concern and naughtiness.

  ‘What kind of places?’ I asked. He wasn’t getting off so easily.

  ‘Places. You know.’