Tariq Ramadan Interview with Laura Wells

I tend to agree with the point about wearing a headsarf making contact with non-muslims more difficult. For women staying at home or having a not so visible position this is not a problem, but when you have, as the sister above, work in which you have to comminicate with people, you find yourself everytime having to overcome a first barrier. I don’t wear a headscarf and I don’t think I could, for this reason. I have the deepest respect for women who do and still manage to be active and communicate with non-muslims. I have sp[oken to this with many women beaceause I myself was exploring the posibility to wear a headscarf. What many women told me is that additional to it making the contact with non-muslims difficult, they face a lack of understanding from muslims. Talking about doubts considering the headscarf is being seen as a sign of weekness. So many women face this challenge alone.

It’s good that muslim prominents like Tariq Ramadan talk about this. Not just that it’s an obligation, because many of us know that, but about the implications it has in society.

Isn’t it strange that with the passing of time the resistance against the headscarf is increasing. You would expect people to be more used to it after a couple of decades of being exposed to it, and therefore accepting it more. Especially when now women with headscarves aren’t any more only women who don’t speak European languages and only stay at home, but increasingly educated professional women as well. So this should undermine the view that hijab stands for repressed and undevelopped. Why doesn’t this seem to happen?

Just wanted to share my expereince of wearing head scarf. I wore it and took it off because of the pressure from the soceity I live in. but after few years I realized that the pressure was really within me. I thought that people are judging me as a Muslim (which I might not have liked) but when I took off my scarf I was not at ease and I decided to wear it again because I realized that I was doing it for Allah and not for people. people do judge you but I know that I judge others as well for the way they dress and I do not find anything wrong with it. A person is judging me as a Muslim because I wear a scarf and I absolutely find nothing wrong with it. Because I want them to know that I am Muslim and I want them to treat me accordingly.

The problem is not in being judged as a muslim, we all want that. The problem is in the negative ‘connotations’ that are attached to being a muslimwoman. The hijab is meant to gain sisters respect, in reality the opposite is often true.

Tanks for the reaction. You are right: there is nothing wrong with being seen and treated as a muslim. And at the end of the day it’s about your own ideas and feelings towards the headscarf (and your muslim identity), not what anybody else thinks. It’s something that has to grow; ten years ago I felt like I had to hide myself wearing the headscarf, but it becomes like a second nature.

In the over ten years that I wear the headscarf I have had moments that I have struggled with it. If it wasn’t for the social surrounding I’m in, and my feeling that it’s just not ok to take it off once you began wearing it, maybe in a weak moment I would have taken the headscarf off. I’m glad I never did, because it’s not until I became older I really began to understand the value of hijab. I had a friend who used to wear the hijab but took it off some years ago. I hadn’t seen her for some time, but we met last week. I was surprised not only by her appearance (not only did she not wear a headscarf anymore, but the skirt was too short and the shirt too low cut), but also her changed lifestyle. Not wearing a headscarf apparently made it all easier for her.

There is nothing wrong with wearing a headscarf, but we should just acknowledge (as somebody wrote) that sometimes it is difficult. It is true: men can go through life without being marked as different, while we women with headscarves always stand out. It would be nice if people would acknowlegde that, in stead of acting like it’s just something you do. It’s not reasonable to ask girls to start wearing the hijab without giving them some support. What you get then is girls who don’t wear it with all their heart, don’t feel good wearing it, and don’t act and dress accordingly (I see some embarrassing creations around me). I think maybe a greater question than to wear or not wear the hijab in this time, is to wear it properly.

Isn’t this the problem with extreme right thinking: it isn’t practical. How are muslims and non-muslims supposed to live next to eachother, to work together if this thinking is everywhere. It’s impossible; Wilders thinking is not reasonable or open to debate. If this becomes mainstream in the Netherlands this cannot but lead to explosions.