How to balance between Fashion and Hijab.
Looking at women wearing hijab in different countries, you will see that the form that the hijab takes is more influenced by culture than anything. You will find women who wear it very long and women who wear it shorter. You will find women who layer different scarves together to achieve a certain look.
What Muslim women do now is try to fit in as many different styles and combinations within set parameters and guidelines through color, fabrics, and style of wearing the hijab. You will even find that during some seasons certain colors will be in fashion while in other seasons different colors will be more “in.”
Recently, hijab has been the subject of much controversy and debate, especially since the French government decided to ban hijab and other religious “symbols” from public schools. Everyone wants to know what’s hijab all about?
Meaning of the word Hijab
This brings us to an important point—the meaning of the word hijab. Many people think that hijab means “head-covering” or “scarf.” If you look at any media, the word hijab is often accompanied by pictures of girls covering their head.
So what does hijab mean? The word hijab in Arabic means “barrier” or “screen.” In the verse regarding women’s hijab, which is referred to as khimar or “cover”.
herefore, from the verse, it becomes evident that the purpose of hijab is to cover. Although from one point of view the girls in jeans and a head-covering may be “covered,” the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once mentioned that there are women who are kasiyat `ariyat, meaning they are both “covered and naked at the same time.”
This refers to those who wear clothes that are too tight or short or transparent and therefore reveal their bodies, thereby completely missing the point of hijab.
Is The Hijab a matter of choice or not?
You ask “Is hijab a matter of choice or not?” Well, no, the hijab is not a matter of choice because it is a command by Allah that Muslim women should dress modestly from their heads to their toes, covering their entire body except for their hands and faces.
Although you will find Muslims who believe that this command includes the hands and face, the majority of scholars believe that the hands and face do not have to be covered. So in a way, Allah has not left it up to us to decide whether hijab is an obligation or not. He has set down the commandment very clearly.
Why do women spend so much money on fashion?
Your next question, to tell you the truth, brought a smile to my face. You ask why women spend so much money on fashion.
Believe me, men have been asking this very same question for centuries and it is probably one of humankind’s unanswered mysteries.
Joking aside, when you look at today’s world and all forms of media—be they TV, movies, magazines, the Internet, newspapers, radio—they all send people in general and women in specific a message that highlights the external and ignores the internal.
Women are constantly bombarded with images of ultra-slim, sophisticated and expensively dressed models that are supposed to represent the happy, successful, content, and indeed, ideal, woman.
Girls are brought up in a culture where how they look and what they wear is more important than how they think or the excellence of their character.
They grow up believing that in order to be accepted in society and loved by people, they have to wear “fashionable”—and therefore, expensive—clothes that represent fashions that change with the seasons.
Allah does not look at our bodies and faces, but looks at our heart
One of the many beauties of Islam is that it frees us from this materialistic thinking. We are assured by the Prophet Muhammad that Allah does not look at our bodies and faces, but looks at our hearts.
We are continually told to take care of our manners and to build our relationship with Allah as the most important relationship in our lives. We are told to purify our hearts from an over-dependence on earthly desires and undesirable traits such as envy, impatience, hate, and covetousness.
Yes, we are all asked to dress modestly and appropriately in clean clothes. And yes, Islam is a religion of beauty. It is the beauty of the soul and heart and mind that is valued more than external beauty. Allah asks us to take care of our bodies and to keep them healthy and clean, but He also tells us that this is not to be at the expense of that which is more important—our souls and hearts and minds.
How fashion has influenced the way Muslim women dress
The more valid question is how fashion has influenced the way Muslim women dress. Looking at women wearing hijab in different countries, you will see that the form that the hijab takes is more influenced by culture than anything. You will find women who wear it very long and women who wear it shorter. You will find women who layer different scarves together to achieve a certain look.
What Muslim women do now is try to fit in as many different styles and combinations within set parameters and guidelines through color, fabrics, and style of wearing the hijab. You will even find that during some seasons certain colors will be in fashion while in other seasons different colors will be more “in.”
Something that may interest you in this matter is the story of a non-Muslim Dutch designer who has dedicated a lot of her time to produce “fashion-friendly” hijabs.
There are other examples of this kind of endeavor, more obvious in predominantly Muslim countries, where women either try out different styles of hijab on an individual level, or where hijab fashion shows are held for women only.
