Arrow shooting whilst horse back riding in full niqab? Come on, how much more bad-ass can one get?

It comes at a cost. I do not know of any hijabi living in a non-Muslim majority country who has not experienced either sexist, Islamophobic or racist street harassment.  I can comfortably bet that the probability shoots to 100% in the case of niqabis. In today’s society, you’re either a devout weirdo or a security threat. There are no two ways about it. When a deeply religious Muslim woman chooses to turn away from this world, when she chooses to remove society’s expectations of her, when she chooses an alternative that does not suit the majority’s view, she’s brainwashed. This rarely applies to other religious devotions.

I have a few close friends who wear the niqab and I’ll freely admit that I’m jealous of each and every one of them. You see, I have been there. I know exactly how liberating it feels to throw society’s shackles away. To tramp down on what I believe to be a shallow and unjustified norm. I tried it once you see – well try sounds non-committal . I was, I must admit, desperately committed. I look back to my 21 year old self and I crave the guts that I had. Walking in to class without a by your leave. No excuses, no explanations. With every lecturer, classmate staring and wondering what happened between when they last saw the red eyeliner wearing rebel the previous term to the current mystery. I’d be doing my miswak underneath my niqab, just because. I was the ultimate gangster.

I wore it until I couldn’t anymore. It wasn’t just the support of those around me, I fully understood my mum’s fears on being an easy target for Islamophobes. I was. And I also couldn’t participate in the society I had chosen to live and work in. But it still never compared to that feeling. That sense of freedom. The idea that someone is unable to judge you based on how you look – shouldn’t this be the basis of an equitable society? I’d be walking around town and meeting familiar faces and just…walk in. Oh my God! Being more introverted than I am today, it was one of the most satisfying feelings in the entire world. I fell out of public transport, twice. Badly. And I concluded that public transport was simply not for me. Ahem, but I do long to go back to those days. Life was too simple.

If I’m honest with you, I didn’t care whether I made it or not in my profession. I didn’t care badly, I should say. But I was bothered with some of its consequences, I must admit. I was inevitably a poster board for Islam, when I hate attention. How could I when the most pious of women, the Mothers of the Believers dressed this way? I became a magnet for all manner of debates on female subjugation. That I happily indulged. My unbeatable angle was always that I had been reduced to a thinking human being. And that was reward enough for me. The guaranteed privacy and security, a deep introverted fantasy, was a bonus. I’ve still retained a few firebrand elements of that old lifestyle. But between you and me, they all sound tame compared to my niqab card carrying days.

I don’t really have anything to add to this conversation apart from a deep longing to go back. To still work, and contribute to my profession, with my niqab. To aid, with my niqab. To write, and to present, with my niqab. There’s a niqabi lady I follow on LinkedIn who’s always travelling around the world. To Trumpland. Presenting. Lecturing. I’m not even embarrassed to say that I stalk her, religiously, a total stranger. She lives in a Muslim majority country. There’s no doubt that living in a society that accepts and even endorses those norms makes a difference. But where does that leave the billions of us who don’t live in Muslim majority countries? Do we have to migrate? Will we all fit? And how will we manage our careers? Our businesses? How will we enrich and give back to the societies that raised us?

I have no answers today. We’re just here. Chilling, longing, wishing. Praying. In a covid world full of masks. Colourful, black, white. You know, similar to my niqabi sisters. No longer fundamentalist views, but ordinary social norms. Sigh. One day, my Lord. One day inshaallah.