:salam2:
THE FACTS: I am a non-hijabi who has been considering doing hijab for 2 years, but I'm unable to come to a decision. I wear Western dress (jeans, tops), often with half sleeves in summer. If I do wear the hijab, I want it to be for the right reasons and in the right way - none of this taking it off on Eid or birthday parties etc. I would also cover up my arms completely and wear loose clothing. If I do it, it would be a lifetimes commitment and a massive change...
THE QUESTION: Am I ready to do hijab? How do I know if I am ready? Shall I just try it and hope for the cest? What if I chanfe my mind and end up taking it off? Will I be a bad representative of Islam?
THE DECISION: please decide for me. I am a bag of nerves. Just need some guidance.
Here is an article that I think gives you the answer you are looking for your question.
FIRST INSTANCE OF WISDOM
To veil themselves is natural for women and their innate dispositions demand it. For women are weak and delicate, and since they are in need of a man’s protection and help for themselves and for their children whom they love more than their own lives, they have a natural desire to make themselves loved and not loathed, and not to be rebuffed.
Also, seven out of ten women are either old or ugly, and they do not want to show their age and ugliness to everyone. Or they are jealous, and they do not want to appear ugly in relation to others who are more beautiful. Or they are frightened of assault or aspersions, and want by nature to cover themselves so as not to suffer assault, nor to be accused of unfaithfulness in the eyes of their husbands. If noted carefully, those who hide themselves most are the elderly. And out of ten women, only two or three may be found who are both young and beautiful and are not discomforted at displaying themselves.
It is clear that people are discomforted by the looks of those they do not like or find tedious; they are upset by them. If a beautiful immodestly dressed woman takes pleasure at two or three out of ten men who are canonically strangers looking at her, she is bored by the seven or eight. Also, since a woman whose morals are not corrupted is sensitive and easily affected, she will certainly be distressed at dirty looks whose effects have been physically experienced, indeed, are poisonous. We even hear that in Europe, the place of open dress, many women are fed up at being the object of attention, and complain to the police, saying: “These brutes keep staring at us and disturbing us.” This means that present-day civilization’s unveiling women is contrary to their natures. And together with being in accordance with their natures, the Qur’an’s command to veil themselves, saves women—those mines of compassion who may be worthy companions for all eternity—from degeneration, abasement, what is in effect slavery, and wretchedness.
Furthermore, by nature women are fearful of men who are strangers, and anxious at them. Fear naturally demands the veiling of women. For in addition to suffering the difficulty of bearing the load of a child for eight or nine months, which certainly embitters the eight or nine minutes’ pleasure, there is also the possibility of suffering the calamity of bringing up a child for eight or nine years without protector. And since this happens frequently, by creation they truly fear strange men and by nature want to hide themselves from them. Being weak, their creation demands that through veiling themselves they do not excite the appetites of men outside the stipulated degrees of kinship, nor allow any opportunity for assault; their weak creation gives powerful warning. It shows that their cloaks and coats are shields and fortresses. The fact that, according to news received, the bare-legged wife of a high-ranking man in the world was accosted in the country’s capital, in the market-place in daylight in front of everyone by a common shoe-shiner, deals a slap in the shameless faces of those opposed to the veiling of women!
SECOND INSTANCE OF WISDOM
The authentic and extremely intense relationship, love, and affection between men and women does not arise only from the needs of worldly life. Yes, a woman is not only a companion to her husband in this worldly life, she is his companion also in eternal life. Since she is her husband’s companion in eternal life, she surely should not attract the looks of others besides her husband, her everlasting friend and companion, and should not offend him and make him jealous. As a consequence of the mystery of belief, her believing husband’s relations with her are not confined to this worldly life and his love is not only animal and temporary, during the time of her beauty; he holds true, earnest love and respect for her in regard to her being his companion in eternal life. And he bears that love and respect for her, not only during her youth when she is beautiful, but also when she is old and ugly. Certainly in return for this, she should show her beauties to him alone and restrict her love to him; this is demanded by humanity. Otherwise she would gain very little and lose much.
According to the Shari’a, the husband should be a good match for the wife. That is, they should be suitable to one another. The most important aspect of this being suitable is from the point of view of religion.
Happy the husband who sees the wife’s firm religion and follows her, and himself becomes pious in order not to lose his companion of eternal life.
Happy the wife who sees her husband’s firmness in religion and becomes pious so as not to lose her eternal friend.
Alas for the man who becomes dissolute, which will lose him for ever that righteous woman.
Alas for the woman who does not follow her pious husband and loses her eternal blessed friend.
And a thousand woes on the unhappy husband and wife who imitate each other in sin and vice, helping one another to enter Hell-fire!
THIRD INSTANCE OF WISDOM
Happy family life is perpetuated through mutual confidence between husband and wife, and heartfelt respect and love. Immodest dress and free-and-easy behaviour destroy the confidence, and spoil the mutual respect and love. For out of ten women who favour immodest dress only one will not try to make herself liked by strangers because she does not find other men more attractive than her husband. Nine out of ten will find others better than their husbands. And only one out of twenty men will not find other women more attractive. Then besides the true love and mutual respect disappearing, it may arouse extremely ugly and base feelings, as follows:
By nature, men do not feel any lust towards those within the stipulated degrees of kinship like their sisters, because, since such relatives’ faces induce kindness and licit love due to their close kinship, it nullifies any sexual or lusty inclinations. But to leave uncovered parts of the body which according to the Shari’a it is not permissible to expose to close relatives like the legs, may give rise to the awakening of extremely ugly feelings in men of low character. Because the face of a close relative reminds the man of that close kinship and does not resemble the face of someone outside the degrees of kinship, but a bare leg is the same as that of canonical strangers. Since the leg does bear any distinguishing mark to recall the close kinship of its owner, it is possibile it will arouse carnal feelings in the man. And to look on things such as that is a degenerateness that makes one’s hair stand on end.
The Flashes Collection by badiuzzaman saeed noorsi
