HIJAB... A FASHION STATEMENT?

There has been a recent movement about 'hijab not being a fashion statement' that has been brewing on twitter and Instagram and I've also seen a side of it personally on my personal watsapp account.

I think the important question on peoples minds is 'what is hijab?' and 'why is it important for people?' ... I think we can all agree that it has to have some sort of significance to someone or maybe a group of people for it to be talked about.

Hijab is an Arabic word which directly translates to “barrier.” Many would recognize the word to mean the headscarf worn by Muslim women out of religious faith. Muslim women wear the hijab as a sign of modesty, as a way to not reveal their awrah and also to show that they are devoted to Islam.

The whole issue about the hijab not being a fashion statement started when a few girls in South Africa noticing that a hijab brand had chosen to use non-Muslim models to showcase their brand, what ticked them off was that "a lot of these models don't even represent Islam the way it is supposed to be represented, you cannot be half naked in a swim suit or a crop top and then wrap your head in hijab and imply that is how we carry ourselves".  these girls then decided to reach out to the said brand and confront the matter at hand, they voiced out their concerns as young Muslim women by explaining ow they felt about this, requested that the pictures of the models to be removed and then demanded an apology.

The brand then issued out an apology, but the models did not remove the pictures of them wearing the hijab from their personal accounts. One of the models/influencers said it is just a scarf and that lead to a full-on riot on twitter and Instagram...

I reached out to the brand to hear their side of their story regarding the matter, but the account holder said she had been going through a family crisis and would get back to me, in the meantime her followers were decreasing and that obviously put some sort of strain on her company because almost everything is digital these days.

That did not stop the discussion from escalating from the 2 social media platforms to Facebook where people feel free to say whatever they want regardless of the consequences. So, one girl then went to post about the movement of hijab not being a fashion statement and also added another similar brand to the conversation which resulted in her getting a lawsuit on the 21st of August 2021 for defamation of character. 

Right after that incident the few girls that started the movement decided to lay low until the matter subsided... but, like I mentioned before Facebook has a lot of people who always feel free to say whatever is on their minds and in this country, people have the right to freedom of speech.

Some people went on to say that the whole movement was a way of the girls trying to be made the models of those brands instead of the non-Muslim influencers, which made sense to a whole lot more people who went on to say " you guys like attention as Muslims you guys should have handled the matter privately with the brand instead of publicizing and making her look bad" and "models are paid for modelling, what they do during their personal time and on their personal accounts does not matter". The whole argument went on back and forth but eventually it died down, I do not know how the whole lawsuit issues ended up, but I hope no one gets hurts in the process.

In my experience, I have noticed that a lot of Muslim women going through a lot of hate and name calling because they decided to adorn themselves in the hijab. This country gives people liberty to wear whatever they want to but it also gives people freedom of speech and people tend to confuse that with the freedom for hate speech hidden behind what they call 'teasing' and because of this most Muslim women get annoyed when they see the same people who teased them and called them names are wearing hijab and calling it 'just a scarf' or 'fashion'.

With freedom comes responsibility and I think if something sets you off, the only way to have an accord with someone is to talk about it and find a civil way to deal with the matter without tarnishing anyone's name in the process, whether it being intentional or unintentional because it easy to go into something with good intention but without the right approach and that's something we can all learn as individuals.

As explained previously, the hijab is for Muslim women and it means a lot to them, but then again what people do with their lives and how they decide to dress is their choice and them wearing hijab could be a sign of them wanting to find a way into the religion or maybe just seeing the beauty of it. So, I guess this whole issue is based on perspective because at the end of the day anyone can wear whatever they want and say whatever they want to say.

All I am saying is that difference in opinions may make people act a certain way especially if there is a deeper underlying issue and that's okay, we all have to learn from eachother to realize that diversity is not a myth. The only way is to embrace these differences as they could be used to separate or unite people.