January 28, 2023 at 12:20 p.m. EST
After 9/11, as a latest faculty graduate dwelling in New York City as a visibly Muslim girl, Khan mentioned the hijabophobia solely worsened, and she or he was chased down metropolis streets and referred to as a terrorist. Still, Khan mentioned she cherished sporting her hijab, an “outward expression of my inner faith,” and needed to assist ladies and ladies like her who have been being mistreated.
“I kept on thinking about it, and I was like, ‘What if I asked women from all walks of life to wear the hijab for one day?’” she mentioned. “Maybe they will see that I am not hiding a bomb underneath my scarf or that this scarf does not have a life of its own to oppress me.”
After three years ruminating on the thought, Khan founded World Hijab Day in 2013. The February vacation encourages individuals to spend a day donning hijabs in an effort to normalize them and upend false assumptions about the head overlaying. Since its begin, not each Muslim has applauded the annual occasion, but it surely has rapidly gained recognition, spreading to greater than 150 international locations.
For Muslim ladies, sporting a hijab is an act of worship in addition to a manner to apply modesty, a precept anticipated in the conduct and gown of all Muslims. Although the visibility of the head coverings has made ladies targets of Islamophobia, Muslim ladies who put on the hijab in the United States say the choice to put on the fabric overlaying is a liberating one. By sharing their various hijabi journeys, they are saying they’re proof that Muslim ladies should not a monolith.
When Houston creator and illustrator Huda Fahmy started sporting a hijab at 10 years previous, she felt the strain to be excellent and dwell up to the piety related to it. As she grew older, she realized she didn’t want to match a mildew for the hijab to be a significant a part of how she practiced Islam.
“A lot of times we are reduced to having the same experiences,” Fahmy mentioned. But “every hijabi has a different relationship with her scarf and with her religion and with the way she decides to wear it and present herself.”
In her comedian books, resembling “Yes, I’m Hot in This” and the forthcoming “Huda F Cares,” Fahmy makes use of humor to work by stereotypes and inform tales about nuanced hijabi characters, resembling somebody who loves sporting her hijab and doesn’t battle with the need to put on it, or somebody who is an element of a big Muslim group.
Fahmy has at all times cherished comics, however she felt drawn to pursue cartooning as a profession in 2016, compelled to fight Islamophobic narratives from politicians resembling Donald Trump who talked about Muslims with out speaking to Muslims.
Bushra Amiwala, 25, who serves as the youngest faculty board member in the Illinois city of Skokie, mentioned she additionally seen the sentiment at the time and the way the therapy of Muslim individuals would “ebb and flow based on the political climate.”
It helped her make the choice to ease into sporting a hijab, as each one other step ahead in her spiritual journey and a manner to destigmatize the hijab. “My intention of wearing the hijab was to rewrite the preconceived notion people had for Muslim women before it became permanently ingrained in their minds,” she mentioned. “And I thought the best way to do so is when our thoughts and beliefs are malleable: in high school.”
Her plan labored. When Amiwala went to highschool sporting her hijab, she fielded quite a lot of questions from her classmates, resembling whether or not she nonetheless washes her hair, which she does. As a college board member, she additionally supported legislation that addressed the lack of in-depth training about Islam and different religions in Illinois public colleges.
“I am so grateful that I live in an area where I have the choice. That empowers me to another level,” she mentioned. “I can freely choose to cover my head, and that is a choice that I am making that I can see through.”
Iman Zawahry made the selection to begin sporting a hijab throughout her sophomore yr of faculty in an effort to dispel stereotypes. Sometimes when assembly individuals for the first time, she says they’re stunned by her character: boisterous and humorous, with out a international accent.
She hopes her work as a filmmaker can even convey extra Muslim tales, ones that don’t revolve round terrorism or the oversexualization of girls, to the forefront. One of the films she directed, “Americanish” which was launched in 2021, is the first American Muslim romantic comedy made by an American Muslim girl and has been acquired by Sony Pictures International Productions.
“It is just a rom-com, but it is a rom-com with three Brown Pakistani Muslim women, and they are leading the film. It is not a crazy idea, but it is something that we have not seen,” Zawahry mentioned. “These are the stories that I connected with when I grew up, and I really just wanted to see it through my eyes.”
Whether it’s sporting a hijab on set or ensuring hijabis are represented on-screen, Zawahry is keen about activism and selling American Muslim visibility. “This is what I want the film to do: to create awareness and change and move people to be better community members,” she mentioned.