hijab experience and question

Society Religion & Philosophy
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Salam
I have recently started wearing the hijab and no one in my family wears the hijab as typicall pakistani we all wear dupattas but bearly on our head only when the azan is on, or someone is praying and now i have started wearing the hijab, everyone is quite stunned(family members and friends) and think i am going through a phase and i will take it off.

Living in the west, my dad tells me that it’s better first to have hijab of the inner self and lower ur gaze around men than wearing a physical piece of clothing over ur head and not have the spiritual and inner hijab. He says this because he sees a lot of people only wearing the physical hijab with all the makeup and tight clothes and girls going out with guys while they have their hijab on, so thats y parents were reluctant in telling me to wear the hijab. ofcourse not everyone is like that but there are some.

Now that i made the decision that i am trying to improve myself, one way for me was to wear the physical hijab and everything else would come with it and masAllah because of the hijab i have been getting more religious and fillfulling more of our islamic duties.

because my decision to wear the hijab was a quick one, and my parents never said anything about it, i find when i go to gatherings or families come to our house, my mom always asks me if i will wear it or not and then she says its my decision but i feel that most of the time they don’t want me to wear a hijab to family gatherings and i, as a weak human being don’t wear the hijab but a dupatta to cover myself. ofcourse i am very new and it will take time but my family is a very open one, ppl regularely make jokes and all the girls always wear expensive and nice clothes, ofcourse i did that too and i was prbly the most fashionable one in them but now that i am wearing the hijab, i dont feel like dressing up so much but then i have all my old clothes and i dont know whether i could still wear them, my concern is with all this difficulty to wear the hijab in my family and weddings and gathering, what would u do in my situation, and have u seen someone go through this and how well did they handle the situation? i guess i am just concerned and worried thinking about what to do at next family gathering.

n if u have gone through this, what did u face and how hard was it? is there any advice that u would give me?

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My situation is very similar to yours.

I started wearing a hijab 2 years back when my grandfather passed away. I was shaken, I was lost and I found strength in Islam.

I was the first one in my family to wear the hijab. Not even my mom used to wear it. I have 3 sisters, none of them liked the idea.

After a while, mom started wearing it too and now my elder sister wants to wear one too. My two younger sisters however, feel too embarrassed! :rolleyes:

Anyways… there hasn’t been a negative impact on my life of wearing a hijab, in fact, many superb things have happened to me ever since I started wearing one, my life is heading towards a bright future Alhumdulillah.

My friends did question it, some of my jealous relatives did say I was gonna take it off after a while, but I feel closer to Allah s.w.t. ever since I became a practising muslim and I am proud of that. No ignorant person can change it now.

I am very proud of you for the decisions that you made for yourself. Allah s.w.t. will reward you for it, just you wait. :slight_smile:

Don’t let anyone look down on you. :hugz: Mashallah!

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Re: hijab experience and question

MashaAllah, So Nice to hear.. Keep it up and May you have the courage to guide others in what your practicing..

sometimes you dont actually intend to change others but when yu change yourself for the goodness of yourself others look at you and they too change cos they see a change in you which is good .. and this is good and rewarding also, yet at the same time the only thing your doing is practicing it and not telling people what to do cos sometimes ppl dont like being told.. therefore, if something needs doing ..then the best form of it is to practice it yourself and its as they say ..charity begins from home ..

so good luck and mashaAllah once again.. I am so glad to hear even though i dunt know ya but its a happy moment that a muslim sistter is beginning to wear hijaab. :)

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Re: hijab experience and question

^ Thank you so much for the support, It's nice to hear people who have gone through similar situation, it's very encouraging actually. and its also very nice to hear supporting words since all everyone wants to do these days is point fingers n give negative feedback.

BarbieCue: do u mind if i ask how hard was it to deal with going to events and how did u handle it? thats the only thing that comes up in my mind all the time these days. like weddings/functions where you have ur cousins n everyone?

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pklover, there’s over 7,000 students in my college and I’m the only one walking around with a hijab, so thats more daunting than going to functions where at least u know everyone. There isn’t even much muslim community in Ireland, especially not in my city, so when I go out, people do stare, kids think I’m an alien they just don’t stop staring :hehe: I just keep winking at them!

I am a confident person Alhumdulillah so what people think never really bothers me. The fact that I started wearing a hijab only two years ago means that I didn’t wear one for the first two years of my college. So when I walked in after the summer holidays for my 3rd year, my class mates did give me the looks. One of them even pulled me to one side and asked “are u married? I’ve heard that in india the husband forces women to wear it” :omg: I was like girl, I ain’t indian and I ain’t married! lol

Talking about weddings… my sister got married last year… she actually asked me not to wear it for her big day but i was like “why, am i not a muslim on ur big day”?? I was the only one wearing a hijab in my sister’s wedding. People didn’t say anything. I was sooo busy, running around all the time, I didn’t notice any “looks” from people even if they gave me any. And no body really questioned it afterwards either.

Loved the function, had so much fun, the hijab didn’t change anything :slight_smile:

Its about being confident and courageous. If ur not confident, people will find it very easy to mess with u. If u come across a strong personality, people won’t even dare go there. And by strong personality I don’t mean rude or always fighting.. I mean confident and… strong!

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Re: hijab experience and question

omg thank you so much for the reply, i totally understand about people staring n asking u weird question after u start wearing the hijab!
u r so right about the confidence part, it takes courage n if u r confident to carry what u r wearing, it will come across as beautiful!

MashAllah it looked u carried ur self very well on the wedding, n i loved how u matched ur hijabs with the mehndi outfit n all the other outfits.

I think i really needed someone reassuring me, n ur reply gave me that confident! thank you for being inspiring.

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awwww ur welcome! :hugz:

You probably felt like ur the only one, but trust me, millions of other women go through the same situation in the present day and time.

Wish you the best of luck!

PS: I’m now removing the pics.

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Re: hijab experience and question

Mashallah, that you both wear hijab.
I am also planning to wear one but two things are bothering me
I am a medical student, how will I wear a hijab in the hospital
and how to wear it at weddings.

I missed the pics , I would love to see how you wear hijab on the wedding

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Here you go.

removed

Thanks.

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Re: hijab experience and question

I have seen them, they look nice mashallah

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Re: hijab experience and question

subhanallah good to hear!

I've always wanted to wear it, but always told myself that whenever i attain my specific goal (at that time), I would start to wear the hijab. Also I thought that its not only with the hijab I should change, but my lifestyle. So slowly I started to incorporate "halal" style clothes - full sleeves, longer shirts, even just buying hijabs/pashminas. I also started praying more regularily, and every day after work I would read Surah Yaseen, and beg to Allah to allow me reach my specific goal (at that time).

And then there was the issue at work. What would they say? All their questions? Their judging.

I wasn't too worried about my family. The girls in my immediate family would wear duppatta when praying or seeing elders/older men, and a couple of my younger cousins wore hijab.

Then coincendently, Eid fell on the same day as New Year's Eve, and I thought to myself...why not today? be like Nike and just do it. Don't wait until u reach that goal, maybe this can help me attain that goal. So I did. On Eid was the first day I wore hijab. :)

I think people in my family were more surprised than people at work. In fact, no at work said or even mentioned anything (and i had even had a whole speech prepared on what i would say if they asked me). lol.

It's been 3-4 years since i've started to wear the hijab, and alhumdulillah, my life had changed dramtically - it virtually did a 180. The goal that I wanted to achieve (at that time), it wasnt the goal for me. Allah had given me something else to attain for. It's like when I covered myself, Allah had uncovered everythign else for me. I saw everythign in a new light.

And as for not being fashionable...oh please! I LOVE fashion..im obsessed. You can look amazing in a hijab - anywhere. At work, parties, shadis (I rocked a hijab on my wedding and the biggest compliment I got was from a sikh girl that showed her mom my pics and said that even though she's all covered up, she still looks so beautiful (mashallah) :) ).

and shoot..i missed Barbie's pics :(.

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Re: hijab experience and question

Asalamoalikum sister
Its nice to read ´pklover´that u started wearing hijab mashallah, may allah increase u in ur faith.
i started wearing the ´sharai hijab´ a month after i got married. i have never worn hijab in my life before that. and no one else in my family and my relatives wear hijab (very fashionable family). My father always told me to wear long shirts and full sleves and all that but i never listened to him because i was born in germany and lived my whole live there so wasn´t really familiar with these kind of thoughts. So when i got married i saw my in-laws wear hijab, and got inspired by my sister-in-law because she is also the only one in her family who wears the sharai hijab.
i began reading different islamic books and other researches as much as i could, to understand its meaning first and all thanks to allah that he guided me so fast, everyone told me to think about it very carefully including my husband but i was quite positive about what i decided. And then i started hijab without telling anyone, at first they got shocked but they were happy about it. But when i told my parents about it they didn´t really like it as they thought that i have been forced to do it but it was not that. I told them that its my own choice and i know its right. My mother often asked me questions after that how do i go to the dawats and relatives etc etc, so i told her that i do the way i read it and how it supposed to be, which is to wear the hijab in front of all non-mahrams in any case. There are 2 type of hijab nowadays women do, one is sharai(islamic) hijab and the other one is normal(fashionable) hijab.
The meaning of sharai hijab in short is to wear a plain simple hijab which does not cause any attraction and don´t show ur body figure or any fashion like embroidrey etc. and u should never think about make-up if u leaving the face uncovered (however, leaving even the face and hands uncovered is not allowed in sharai hijab).
The fashionable hijab shows your feet, hands and face uncovered, your body figure, different embroidries, make-up on the face etc. For these kind of women, it is said

The muslim woman, therefore, is not one of those dressed-but-naked women who abound in societies which have deviated from the guidance of Allah. She would tremble with fear at the terrifying picture which the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) draw of those painted and adorned temptresses who have gone astray:
´´There are two types of the people of Hell that i have not seen: people with whips like the tails of oxen, with which they beat the people, and women who are dressed yet appear naked, who are inclined to evil and make their husbands incline towards it also. their heads are like the humps of camels, leaning to one side. They will not enter paradise, or even smell its scent, although its scent can be discerned from such-and-such a distance.´´ (Sahih Muslim 14/109 Kitaab al-Libaas)

And about ur question what u should do with ur clothes, i also had a same question when i started hijab and i asked one alima (islamic female scholar) about it and she told me that u can wear any clothes under the hijab as long as no non-mahram will see u in them.
I think its best to do it the right way when u do it, this is just my advice to u and what i do myself(accept covering the face but will be doing that too soon inshallah), the rest is upto u. I advice u to read the translation of surah Al-Nur which tells about women wearing hijab. May allah reward u for what u do and make u proud of it(ameen).

Allah Hafiz