Muslim women uncover myths about the hijab
By John Blake (CNN)
Rowaida Abdelaziz doesn't want your
pity. She doesn't want your frosty public stares;
the whispers behind her back; the lament that
she's been degraded by her father. What the
Muslim high school senior wants you to
understand is that she doesn't wear the hijab, the
head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she
is submissive.
"It represents beauty to me," says
Abdelaziz, the 17-year-old daughter of two
Egyptian parents living in Old Bridge, New
Jersey. "My mom says a girl is like a jewel,"
Abdelaziz says. "When you have something precious, you usually hide it. You want to make sure
you keep it safe until that treasure is ready to be found." The nation has heard plenty of debate
over racial profiling. But there's a form of religious profiling that some young Muslim women in
America say they endure whenever they voluntarily wear the hijab.
The hijab, also known as the veil, is the headscarf worn by Muslim women around the
globe. It's a simple piece of cloth, but it can place young Muslim women in Western countries in
difficult situations. Some hijab-wearers say that strangers treat them as if they're terrorists.
Others ask them if they're a nun -- or even allergic to the sun. In some cases, their worst critics
are not Americans, but fellow Muslim Americans.
The pressure on Muslim teenagers in the U.S. who wear the hijab may be even more
acute. Their challenge: How do I fit in when I wear something that makes me stand out? Randa
Abdel-Fattah, who has written two novels about this question, says wearing the hijab can
"exhaust" some young Muslim women in the West. "You can sometimes feel like you're in a
zoo: locked in the cage of other people's stereotypes, prejudices and judgments, on parade to be
analyzed, deconstructed and reconstructed," says Abdel-Fattah, a Muslim who has Palestinian
and Egyptian parents but was born in Australia. Abdel-Fattah says people should not assume that
Muslim women who wear the hijab are being controlled by men. She, too, struggled with the
choice of wearing a hijab when she was a teenager. "When it comes to the hijab -- why to wear
it, whether to wear it, how to wear it -- there is theology and then there is practice and there is
huge diversity in both," says Abdel-Fattah, author of "Does My Head Look Big in This?"
Some women say the hijab makes them feel like they're locked in a cage. But others say
it leads to personal freedom. Sarah Hekmati first wore the hijab at age 15 growing up in Detroit,
Michigan. She is the daughter of Iranian parents who left Iran in 1979 during the Islamic
revolution. Hekmati says the hijab liberated her from some teenage angst: Does my hair look
good? Am I cute enough? Should I lose weight? "It gave me a sense of identity," she says. "I
really liked the purpose behind the hijab -- a woman covering herself so that a man should know
her for her mind, not her body."
That purpose can be traced back to the Quran, Islam's holy text, which encourages
women to dress modestly, says Faegheh Shirazi, author of "The Veil Unveiled." Some Muslims
take the Quran's advice as a command for women to wear the hijab, while others disagree, she
says. "The Quran is very ambiguous about whether you have to wear the veil or not," Shirazi
says.
The hijab, however, actually predates Islam, Shirazi explains. The first known reference
to veiling (Shirazi uses the term hijab and veil interchangeably) was made in an Assyrian legal
text in the 13th century B.C., Shirazi says. In the Assyrian, and later, the Roman and Byzantine
empires, the veil was a symbol of prestige and status, she says. By the 12th century, the veil had
been imposed on women in the Muslim world to exclude them from public life, Shirazi says. "A
sign of distinction had been transformed into a sign of exclusion," she writes in her book.
People are still debating the meaning of the hijab today. In 2007, British Muslim groups
protested when schools were given the right to ban students from wearing full-face veils. In
2008, Turkey's top court upheld a ban on wearing Muslim headscarves at the country's
universities. That same year, a Muslim woman was briefly jailed at a suburban Atlanta, Georgia,
courthouse after refusing to remove her hijab in court.
The debate over the hijab can literally hit home for some young Muslim women. Those
that wear the hijab in the United States can befuddle their mothers, who often immigrated to the
West so they could be free from wearing the hijab and other rules imposed on women. That's
what happened to Hekmati, the Muslim-American from Detroit. Her mother, Behnaz, was
puzzled by her daughter's decision to wear the hijab. Behnaz Hekmati grew up in Iran, where she
did not wear the hijab. Young women who attended college in Iran like she did generally didn't
wear the hijab, she says. Behnaz Hekmati warned her daughter that wearing the hijab would
arouse the suspicion of Americans. "I said Sarah, when you cover your head here the people
think you are political -- they see you differently," Behnaz Hekmati says.
Most of the trouble, though, came from Iranian-Americans, who came to the United
States to escape the Islamic fundamentalists who seized power in 1979, she says. "The Iranians
here bother her more than Americans," Behnaz Hekmati says. "They say, 'We got rid of you
guys. We came here because we didn't want to see you guys anymore.'" Hekmati was more
concerned as a teenager about more personal issues, like her relations with boys. The hijab made
it more difficult, she says. Few asked her on dates. Guys always seemed to put her in the "friend
category." She wondered if she was attractive. "I wondered at times: Am I always going to be a
guy's friend and nothing more." Strangers in public saw her as something else -- a subjugated
woman. They looked at her with pity, she says. Some were just baffled. "One guy asked me if I
was allergic to the sun," Hekmati says.
Abdelaziz, the New Jersey high school senior, also had her tense public encounters:
angry looks, people feeling sorry for her or assuming her father ordered her to wear the hijab.
"It's not oppression; it's not that I'm accepting degradation -- it's about self-respect," she says.
But it's more about faith as well. She says the hijab affirms "Islam in the most respectful and
purified way." "When you actually wear it, it opens your eyes," she says. "It makes you want to
explore your religious faith." At times, Abdelaziz says she wonders what it would be like to
attend her prom, get a tan at the beach and have a boyfriend. But she says her decision to honor
her faith is already paying off. "It really feels good," she says. "It felt like I was missing
something and now I'm complete. I finally understand my purpose."
House overwhelmingly says 'End ban on teachers
wearing religious dress'
Updated Jan 10, 2019; Posted Feb 11, 2010
By Betsy Hammond | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Taghrid Elmeligui, math teacher at a public high school in
McMinnville, is one of a few Oregonians currently allowed to teach
while wearing a head covering. She is permitted to do so because it
reflects her Egyptian culture. Her students say she is an exceptional
math teacher whose dress does not interfere with their own spirtual
beliefs, nor their learning of math.
With a strongly favorable vote in the House on Wednesday,
Oregon is on its way to becoming the 48th state to permit teachers to
wear head scarves and other religious dress in school.
The 51-8 vote on House Bill 3686 is the first decision toward
repealing Oregon's 87-year-old ban on religious garb. Oregon,
Nebraska and Pennsylvania are the only states that prohibit religious
clothing.
If approved, the Oregon law would take effect in 2011. Before that, the state's education
and labor agencies would hammer out rules designed to protect students from religious coercion
while allowing observant Muslim women, Sikhs and Orthodox Jewish men to teach in Oregon
classrooms.
The repeal now goes to the Senate, where Majority Leader Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin,
says he personally favors the law but can't predict the vote.
Opponents of the change, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, say
they want the Legislature to slow down and think harder about the ramifications. They say the
rights of students, particularly impressionable elementary pupils, to be free from religious
indoctrination at school should be front and center.
House Bill 3686, which passed the Oregon House on Wednesday, would repeal the state's
ban on religious dress in public schools. It now goes to the Senate.
A math teacher at a public high school in McMinnville already wears a head scarf, on the
grounds that it reflects her Egyptian culture as well as her Muslim faith. Her students echo what
House Speaker Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone, lead champion of the repeal, said during Wednesday's
debate: Teachers should be judged by how they teach, not by what they wear. Arlet Montiel, a
senior at Media Arts & Communications Academy, said her math teacher's accent, not her head
covering, was the most striking feature when Taghrid Elmeligui (El-meh-lee-ghee), an Egyptianborn former engineer, joined the faculty last school year. But she said Elmeligui's exceptional
teaching and dedication to helping students quickly became the dominant impression she leaves
with students. "She's a great teacher. She doesn't try to change anyone's beliefs, and no one feels
uncomfortable," Montiel said. "She just finds ways to explain math to everyone in a way we will
understand."
Parent Donna Heimos was equally unfazed to see her daughter Chasey's math teacher in
Muslim dress. "I don't understand why people have a problem with the way people dress. The
influence that she has on my child is that she teaches well, amazingly well. She doesn't bring her
religion to the table. I think a lot of people need to leave that alone."
Proponents hailed Wednesday's vote as a victory for Muslim women and others who have
been kept from teaching in Oregon by a faith that compels them to cover their heads. More than
a dozen Oregonians wearing head scarves and turbans watched as lawmakers from both parties
approved the bill, with four Republicans and four Democrats opposed. Afterward, Muslim and
Sikh leaders predicted more young people from their faith communities would enter teaching,
knowing they do not have to choose between honoring their beliefs and teaching in public
schools. "This is the way it's supposed to be," said Bahadur Singh, a member of the Sikh Temple
of Salem.
Oregon's ban, enacted in 1923, originally was designed to keep Catholic nuns from
teaching in public schools during a time of anti-Catholic bigotry. "This unjust practice violates
our core sense of civil rights and civil liberties," said Rep. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, who
grew up as an orthodox Jew whose beliefs compelled him to wear a yarmulke. "I see nothing in
the mere wearing of clothing" by a teacher that proselytizes students, he said.
Opponents worry that impressionable school children could be subject to religious
coercion at school, from Muslims, Sikhs or Wiccans who exercise their new rights to teach in
public schools or from Christian teachers who push back and assert their rights to show their
beliefs in their dress, too. "The relationship between a teacher and a student is special," said Rep.
Ron Maurer, R-Grants Pass. "We put those teachers on a pedestal." House Speaker Dave Hunt,
D-Gladstone, a leader in his Baptist church, is the primary champion of lifting the ban. He said
Oregon can offer teachers of faith the right to exercise their freedom of religion by how they
dress in class and simultaneously protect student's rights to attend a religiously neutral school
that does not promote any particular religion over another or over no faith at all.
Under HB 3686, the state's education and labor agencies, with help from civil liberties
advocates, religious leaders and education groups, will spend the next year hammering out rules
to help schools protect students, particularly impressionable elementary children, from religious
coercion at the same time allowing teachers to wear religious dress in Oregon classrooms.
Many lawmakers who voted to lift the ban acknowledged that religious coercion -intentional or not -- is a risk in public schools. But they questioned whether attire alone would
have that effect on students.
"I want to see an enforcement system developed that is more than just platitudes," said
Rep. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, who said he has seen religious coercion by teachers and
coaches firsthand, often by Christians oblivious that they were "offending their Buddhist, Hindu
and Jewish students."
Rep. Jefferson Smith, D-Portland, said schools must be religiously neutral but said he
voted to allow religious dress for a simple reason. When he asked how a student's rights could be
protected, proponents of House Bill 3686 said education groups, the state labor agency and civil
rights advocates can and will craft good rules.
When he asked opponents of the bill how they would protect the rights of would-be
teachers whose faith compels them to wear a head scarf, he said, "they had no answer."