format_quote Originally Posted by
turntoislam
Hello. I have been battling over a decision for a very long time period now, thus I have turned to this forum.
I have grown up in (alhamdullilah) devout muslim, tableeghi-jamat household where daily quran reading, and praying 5 times a day, regular family taleems (islamic discussions) are part of normal routines. I have been raised in a pretty strict islamic household and hijab was never a question from me but just an expectation. I do not want to say it was forced but it has always just been a part of my life due to the fact that it was made a part of me at a very young age. As long as I can remember the importance of hijab was always felt. It was infringed upon me for as long as I can remember and by age 10 I was wearing it out because, well, my parents told me to. At that age I did not understand nor did i care as long as I got to play with my friends etc. However, as I got older i did not embrace it nor reject it. I put it on when required, when I went out, even when I did not want simply because my parents wanted me to and my dad did not take it well at all if he even slightly hinted that I did to feel like wearing it. I tried so hard to embrace it, envying the girls who so confidently wore it, loving it and sticking to it, and I was devasted that I for some reason I was drifting away from it. When I was 14, or 15, i realized that I needed to fully understand it, maybe then I would embrace it. I asked my parents various questions about the hijab and the reply alway used to be "you wear it because allah said so, and we are the muslim ummah". I wish that answer was enough for me, but i wanted to know more. All of the hijabi friends I consulted i realized began on their own. those girls began on their own time and most of my friends by high school had it all figured out. I do not want to sound ungrateful for anything but I relized that that is where the fault may be. I was constantly being pushed to wear it, god forbid that I think otherwise or not wear it, and it was just put on me at a very young age and after that I was just not allowed to take it off. it was unquestionable. I believe the only way I can understand the hijab and its importance is that if I wear it on my own time. I know that as a muslim women, the older you get the more important it becomes. and it already is a little late for me. I have one more year of high school left and I yearn that I could take it off for that while so that by university I know where i stand. I do not what to be a "part-time" hijabi, I find the concept quite outrageous honestly. I either want to embrace is fully like it should and like its meant to be or not wear it at all instead of degrading its image my wearing it when i feel like it. however, knowing my parents I know that this idea will be unacceptable. I have taken a lot of things into consideration, tried to force myself to simply obey but I just can't. I do not want to wear hijab anymore and am terrified of the disappointment and anger I will cause my parents. Inshallah once i take it off I fully intend on coming back to it, but as for right now I think I know what I want for I want to take the this step to be more stinger towards it when I began wearing it again with better understanding through my own experience. However, my parents will be angry, devasted and will definitely tell me that I am an embarrassment due to the fact tha they are really involved in the tableeghi-jamaat and masjid works in the community. I feel torn, yet I know that what I want. what should I do?
:sl:
My dear sister I applaud you for being so honest about what you are going through. Truly it is not easy. But you mentioned a few times that you do not want to disappoint your parents by not wearing the hijab but surely your intention should not be to wear the hijab just to please your parents or any other human but solely to please Allah because he obligated it upon you. Allah your creator is far more worthy for you to not disappoint him than your parents or any other human. No one is higher than Allah and no one is more worthy of our obedience than Allah. We should fear Allah because all power in the Universe is under his control no one else's.
Regarding the Hijab then Allah says in the Qur'an:
"And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that they should not display their beauty and ornaments, except what (ordinarily) appear thereof." (24:31)
My sister you really have to look deep inside yourself and ask yourself why do really want to remove the hijab? What is the deep underlying reason? Is it that you want to flaunt your hair and beauty in order to attract attention? Do you think this attention will fulfil something that you think is missing? Do you think you will invite a good man into your life who you think will approach you? Or is it the fact that you want to embrace the fashion of the disbelieving women in order to get satisfaction from the attention of others? Or are you ashamed to wear the hijab?
Please watch:
Are You Ashamed? ᴴᴰ ┇ Powerful Speech ┇ The Daily Reminder ┇ - YouTube
The western society has exploited women for a long time now. It has degraded them and lowered them just like in uncivilised times when women were not even seen as humans. How is it any better today when society has given women the worst type of role models so that they can go through their lives being sex objects for others. The media has exploited the female form for a long time now in order to sell their products because it attracts lustful attention. Just look at the music industry and the way women are degraded and spoken about like they are only objects of desire and something to use and play around with and then discard.
This filthy treatment of women by the disbelievers is not worthy of our beloved honoured Muslim women. Our women are like pearls who's beauty is hidden and preserved only for her non Mahram family and partner. Muslim women are the most honourable women. That is why the disbelievers have tried for a long time and are still trying hard today to ensure Muslim women also end up as degraded as disbelieving women are today. Allah is commanding the honoured Muslim women not to display their beauty in order so that they can demand self respect from others and to protect them from the lustful gaze of others and from being approached by non Mahrams. Then my sister why do you want to remove this protection that Allah has blessed you as a Muslim women with? Why do you want to invite the lustful gaze of others?
Never see the Hijaab as restricting you in anyway for it is a freedom from the shackles of the western societies which demeans women in a truly disgusting manner. Look at the situation today and what kind of role models the disbelievers have in the form of the female celebrities and actresses and Music singers and size zero models. You have young girls, teens and even adult women trying to be like celebrities, following their trends and trying to be who they are not. Diseases like anorexia and bulimia ever increasing because of the pressures of women to conform to a certain trend. You have women wearing fake tan, fake eye lashes, fake implants and fake everything in order to look a certain way. But they only end up harming themselves physically and emotionally. That is why so many women in the western society are depressed and are pushed to suicide because they cannot cope with such pressures. They cannot look like the female they idolise.
That is why nowadays you see a huge rise in female teen suicides because they cannot keep up with such trends which are pressured to have to conform to by their friends and peers and society. If they feel they cant conform then they end their life and you will see story's like this almost all the time. This is not freedom. Our women do not need to conform to such trends or to be a certain way. Our women keep their self respect without having to be a certain way for men and society and their friends. Our women ONLY want to please Allah and not any human. Therefore be a proud Muslim women because your identity honours you more than any other woman in the history of mankind. No other women is more honoured than a Muslim woman and Allah has given this honour to you because you have imaan so make it your life aim to ONLY want to please him.
Surely you want to be judged on who you are as a person and not how attract you are or what you are wearing. That is where the Hijab comes in as it stops others from judging a women on what she is wearing or how attract she is etc. Muslim women who conceal their physical points of attraction in public only seek that attention from their loved ones in private. So by covering up, Muslim women demand self-respect from the public, as they do not allow themselves to be judged based on their physical appearance.
Of course your family will be upset and disappointed. They have tried their best to raise you the way Allah has ordained and given you with the respect and honour you deserve as they would never allow letting a strange man take a bite of your beauty by way of exposing yourself. Your beauty is for your husband not for random men. Why are random men worthy of gaining any type of gratification of your beauty that should be hidden from them. A Muslim man wants the honour of having a wife who finds him worthy enough to preserve herself only for him. In return, he provides her with all that extra attention that every woman desires. This also satisfies the man's natural instinct of admiring a woman's beauty, and thus he has greater motivation to avoid "checking out" random women and to lower his gaze, as his wife doesn't allow herself to be ogled at and admired by other men either. Often labelled as "jealousy" by so-called Western "relationship experts", this kind of respect and preserving oneself solely for one's partner is actually the key to lifelong marital happiness and success.
We must realise that the Hijab truly empowers every female with the ability to control how she is treated and respected in society, her safety, and who deserves to see her beauty, all while making a statement against female exploitation. A woman who observes the Hijab is freeing herself of society's immoral and disrespectful expectations of her. A female who conceals her beauty has granted herself the power to say to the world "You know what? Everything about me besides my beauty should matter to you." If wearing miniskirts, low-cut tops, head- turning heels, and layers of makeup in public is the expectation without which a woman in incapable of stepping outside her house, then we have two very different definitions of liberty and self-respect.
All human beings demand respect, and why should Muslim women who have been given honour b Allah be treated as mere objects valued or devalued for our beauty or the lack thereof? Why should women let random and strange men (whether we are friends with them or not) be the judges of the attractiveness? Surely you should preserve yourself for only those who deserve you like your husband to be Insha'Allah. Believe me my sister trying to get attention from others will never give you any type of satisfaction, happiness or contentment in your heart. Allah only grants this to those who obey his commands. How can we expect to gain any happiness or fulfilment in our lives if we are not living our lives how Allah wants us to live?
Also pious men are for pious women. removing your hijab will not attract a good pious man for they are only attracted to the women who truly cover themselves for the pleasure of Allah and this is also reflected in their character. So if you want a good partner who will also encourage you and make you a better Muslim then obey the commands of Allah and he will find you a good partner to marry when the time comes that you want to marry. Allah is the match maker no one else. So surely if we want to find a good partner to marry then we should please the match maker not anyone else.
You mention that you want to take it off for university. My sister I have been to many Universities and let me tell you that I have seen it so much that our sisters degrade themselves to the lowest level even those with hijab because of giving into temptations and desires around them and from having bad company. It is a place of great fitnah (trial) and if you decide to take off your hijab just as you go to University then you will be making the gravest mistake and surely you will regret it but by then it would have been too late.
Also you say that you want to take it off and that you will come back to it. My sister this is nothing but what shaythan has suggested to you. This is the biggest deception of shaythan that we will do this or that tomorrow or next week or next month or soon but not today. Who is to say that you will live until tomorrow? Who is to say that you will live long enough that you will begin wearing it again? What are you waiting for Death to strike? My sister go to the graveyards and you will see they are full with our young. Muslim men and women in their teens and so many under 25 years of age. NEVER think that you will do this or that tomorrow as this can only be from shaythan our enemy who knows that if he stops us from doing the right thing now then it is likely he will make sure we wont return to it again. So if you take it off thinking that you will put it on again at "some point" then let me tell you that some point may never happen and even then there is no guarantee that you will live until then.
So you must ask yourself do you really want to take that risk? For what? To find yourself? Do you think taking off your hijab will help you to find yourself? My sister if that were the case then WHY would Allah obligate the Hijaab upon Muslim women? would he really obligate them to do something that is not beneficial to them? would he obligate you to do that which is harmful to you or would cause you to be "lost"? No my sister. These feelings of wanting to "find yourself" through taking off the hijab is from your enemy shaythan who wants NOTHING more than to see you destroyed.
So we should never live each day thinking we will change tomorrow because the angel of death will not wait a single second to take our souls once our time has come. So do you really want to risk dying in such a way that you removed your hijab? Is it worth losing the Hereafter? There was a true story of a sister who just like you wanted to remove the hijab for just one day to see what it would be like. She was very practising and was from a strict Muslim family. Just for that one day she wanted complete freedom to do whatever she desires. During that night she ended up in a club and with a man by the end of the night and the story goes that she was meant to die that very night and her soul was taken in that condition. Subhanallah how do we know may not go whilst we are doing something that displeases Allah? Then how can we take such a risk? There is 50% chance that we may die at any second. Even a gambler would not take such a risk because 50% is a high risk. So how can we gamble our Hereafter for our own short lived desires that will not bring us any benefit but only harm in this world and the next!
Please watch short clips:
There Is No Tomorrow - Change Now (Inspiring Speech) - YouTube
Angel of Death Series - Death is Certain á´´á´° - YouTube
Angel of Death Series - No Escape From Death [Part 3] á´´á´° - YouTube
Time of Death - Angel of Death Series [5] á´´á´° - YouTube
Surely Allah is guiding you towards the truth so embrace it and live your life ONLY wanting to please Allah and not wanting to please anyone else because our success in this life and the next can only be attained by pleasing our creator. Believe me my sister this life is so short. It will be gone in a flash. We may not even see tomorrow. That is not a cliché it is reality. I have seen many drop dead without a reason. So we must never risk our Hereafter for a short term desire which will only cause us misery in this life if we do live long enough. We do not want to be of those in the day of Judgement that are full of regrets because we made the wrong decisions in our lives. So this is our opportunity to make the right decision.
The right decision can ONLY be one. That is to obey Allah and live every aspect of our lives striving to please him. If we choose to live our lives like this then there is nothing but happiness, contentment, peace and success in this life and the next. But if we choose to follow our desires then Allah will tell us on the day of Judgement that he did warn us and there were many who came to us to warn us but we did not take heed and we will have to face the harsh consequences and lose the real life which is the Hereafter!
So my dear sister raise your hands every night during these last few blessed nights and cry unto Allah and beg of him for guidance regarding this and in every aspect of your life. Do this with a truly open heart and put your full faith, trust and reliance in Allah fr he wants you to be closer to him so let us grab this opportunity to be closer to our creator!