I’d just like to give a small, humble, and [inshaAllah] sincere advice to the sisters that usually like Islamic posts, like learning new things about the deen, and love Allah SWT but have not yet started wearing hijab for whatever reason.
The hijab is indeed a part of Islam, and not just culture as some may have been taught. In no way am I saying that a woman wearing hijab is more religious or closer to Allah than you if you don’t wear it. It could very well be the case that overall you have more good deeds and seek forgiveness more often than them. But here’s the thing, don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to yourself. If you do everything you are doing now, but add wearing the hijab to that, then no doubt you are at a higher station in relation to your Lord, so no need to compare to others. If there are hijabis who are not righteous, that is their problem they need to work on. You do you.
And no doubt the ‘hijab of the heart’ is imperative, if not arguably more important. But we shouldn’t see the two as mutually exclusive; it’s not one or the other. The prophet (saw) saw a man playing with his beard in the prayer and someone asked him if this man had khushoo’ and the prophet (saw) replied (to the meaning of) if he had inner khushoo’ his outer appearance would resemble that. So if we are trying to observe inner hijab, that of modesty, purity, humility, etc. then we should try and make our outside match our inside. Inside is more important, yes, but make the outside a reflection of the inside.
And lastly yes its true that there are many who wear a cloth on their head with much less appropriate clothing and we can all agree that this isn’t hijab. Hijab is not a cloth but rather an idea of modesty and obedience to one’s Lord by following His command of covering one’s self. But instead of reminding us of their incorrect way, show them how it’s done
Salah Sharief