Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The best reason to wear a hijab

So, the other day I was driving home from work and saw the best reason to wear a hijab to date.  There have been some fascinating articles lately about women who wear the hijab, a typical headscarf for Muslim women. 


Check out 7iber.com and you'll find a lot of discussion.

Where we live, I'd say over half the women do cover, usually in stylish scarves that match their outfit.  It's usually a family decision.  The 8 year old daughter of neighbors has even started wearing one occasionally, so she can look like her mommy.  Choice?  Sort of.  Not any different than a daughter wanting to wear earrings like her mother.  Or our friend's daughter wanting to have the Coptic cross tattoo on her wrist, like so many of her friends. Or maybe not.  I'll let others work that out.

Regardless, as I was driving home I saw a woman driving through the circle, gesturing and talking.  There was no one in the passenger seat.  Then I noticed she had her mobile phone tucked in her hijab right against her ear.  It was almost invisible.  Why bother with a fancy bluetooth headset? Shatra, mu?

~ Um Tulip

3 comments:

said...

I had a student do this recently. Apparently she forgot she had it in there and it started going off in the middle of class. She's one of the women who wears a full facial covering, with only her eyes visible; I'm not sure if there is a different name for that type of covering or not.

abu 'n um tulip said...

That's called a niqab. Hopefully the phone wasn't on vibrate!

said...

No, it was on ring. She was able to press on it to make the ringing stopp, but she excused herself to the restroom to remove it without taking off her niqab.