Muslim Women React: Real Talk on Hijab and What It Says About Where We Are

The Reaction to my video and What It Reveals About the State of Muslims

Greetings of Peace dear Friends,

My last video entitled, “Why I Don’t Wear Hijab & Why It’s Not a Sin” created quite a stir and also a good deal of engagement in the comments sections of both my YouTube channel and here on Substack. To be honest, I knew I would get a lot of blowback for taking such a public position on this controversial topic. But as I had hoped, I also received a lot of heartfelt messages of appreciation from those who heard something that made a difference for them. Those were the people for whom I made the video. The range of reactions revealed so much about where we are as a community of believers and our attitudes towards knowledge, learning and critical thinking.

Many people simply reacted to the thumbnail associated with the video and proceeded to comment — sometimes quite harshly and condescendingly — making all kinds of assumptions without actually watching the video. Such is the nature of YouTube and the Internet. Yet at the same time, the comments sections opened a space for dialogue, a healthy development given the absence of any other such space.

For those with whom I engaged in the comments, I had the opportunity to further elaborate on my position, my outlook, and my reasons for putting myself out in the public crosshairs. I am neither a masochist nor a narcissist, which one would need to be to release such an inflammatory video, if it weren’t for the other possible reason - that I felt secure in my own convictions before God to offer such a testimony at the risk of whatever harm might befall me. As I have explained, my intention was to share my own informed journey with the women’s head covering in the event that it could help another woman struggling under the perception that NOT wearing a headscarf was unequivocally a sin, with no alternative viewpoint, as is a common understanding in our current moment.

I invited Dr. Sitara Akram, a UK-based Muslim academic, to join me in conversation about the Muslim reaction, as we both have publicly taken the same stand on the issue of hijab, and similarly, have had to deal with the negative reactions of fellow co-religionists. Dr. Sitara offers an excellent series of videos on hijab on her YouTube channel in which she delves into the history, textual evidence, anthropology, Islamic law discourses, interpretive approaches, political influences, and social practices of the veiling and seclusion of women over time, all of which provides a concise and clarifying education on this highly nuanced topic.

I knew Dr. Sitara would be the perfect person to engage, given the dynamics and subtleties raised by the issue of the hijab with regard to the broader context of Muslim realities today. Our lengthy conversation was rich, deep and deeply personal. Dr. Sitara herself wore the hijab for over ten years and discusses her own journey as a migration from dogma to informed knowledge. As an academic researcher, she explains how learning the methods of knowledge creation and interpretation (epistemology) was a game-changer, and a source of liberation and empowerment.

We covered a lot of ground in this conversation, far beyond the issue of the hijab. This is what two educated Muslim women in conversation about emancipatory interpretations of Quranic ethics looks like. We come together on an anti-regressive, forward-thinking approach to the faith, in direct conflict with the prevalent regressive views of our day. This is why we create a stir. We don’t subscribe to the idea that Islam is a “black and white” faith, where commands are clear and unequivocal. For more on this critical issue, please watch the video.

How we treat the hijab issue is indicative of how we treat all ethical issues, which is unfortunately, sorely subpar. As Muslims, we are called to do better, we CAN do much better, and we MUST do much, much better if we wish to emerge from our current status at the nadir of civilization.

I believe that in this video, Dr. Sitara and I give fuller effect to how expansive our conversations can and should be when it comes to issues of women’s empowerment and how to emerge from regressive approaches to our faith. I hope you will find this discussion as engaging as I did. May God guide and help us all to do much, much better. And God Knows Best.