Tenth Annual World Hijab Day Celebrated
By Elaine Pasquini
Photos: Phil Pasquini
Washington: Ten years ago, Bangladeshi-American Nazma Khan established World Hijab Day to fight discrimination against Muslim women through awareness and education.
“Hijab is our crown, not a crime” is the mantra for this special occasion now celebrated annually in an estimated 190 countries across the globe on February 1.
The day is an “all-inclusive celebration for non-Muslims and non-hijab-wearing Muslims alike to bring a greater level of cultural awareness and understanding, as well as international solidarity,” according to the nonprofit organization’s Facebook page.
The hijab is an Islamic head covering worn in public to show modesty and pride in their religion and gives some women a feeling of empowerment. Throughout history, and long before the birth of Islam, Jewish, Christian and Hindu women have worn head coverings.
Growing up in the United States after immigrating from Bangladesh when she was 11, Khan experienced physical and verbal abuse because she wore a hijab. “I figured the only way to end discrimination is if we ask our fellow sisters to experience hijab themselves,” she said in a statement. World Hijab Day is an opportunity for women of all ethnicities and faiths to experience the wearing of hijab in solidarity with their Muslim sisters.
The Islamic Circle of North America, a leading grassroots umbrella organization, describes the wearing of hijab as “a way of life – not merely a garment, but a code of conduct that emerges from the Islamic traditions of upholding modesty and dignity in one’s lifestyle, behavior, dress and even thought. The image of the hijab as merely a headscarf, rather than an ideal to aspire to, has been popularized by the political and social culture of our time, which disparages such symbolism of submission – to man or to God – and characterizes it as oppressive, stifling and inappropriate for our day and age.”
The national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, reports an alarming increase in Islamophobia throughout all parts of American society. In 2021, CAIR’s chapters across the United States received hundreds of complaints of anti-Muslim hate crimes, hate speech, discrimination and school bullying, including the violent removal of girls and women’s head coverings.
In one incident in October of last year, a New Jersey second grade schoolteacher ripped the hijab off the head of a seven-year-old Muslim student.
Canada also saw a striking rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2021, including an attack on June 6 in London, Ontario, where a truck rammed into and killed four members of a Canadian Muslim family.
In a current survey of 708 Muslim public school students, CAIR’s California chapter reported that nearly 55 percent reported feeling unsafe at school due to their Muslim identity.
Shedding light on Islamophobia, Khan believes, would inform the world of the dangers for hijab-wearing Muslim women.
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
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