 When I was growing up going to the masjid or going to conferences or even reading books about how to be the ideal Muslim woman, what I would read about and what I would hear about was hijab. Everything was about the importance of Muslim women wearing hijab. And so when I moved to Egypt from California so that I could study Islam, when I finished memorizing the Qur'an, when I got my degree through al-Azhar in Islamic studies and when I got my masters at UCLA in education and critical race theory, I had the intention that I was going to use all of these resources, these blessings, this knowledge, and talk about the role of Muslim woman in revelation and talk about the female companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and their political engagement and talk about how we can merge our identity, our understanding of ourselves wherever we are in the world and that unique connection to God as Muslim woman. And then I was invited to speak at a conference. And what was the topic I was given? I was asked to talk about hijab. Myself and sheikh al-Muslima permal, when we got this topic, we were like, seriously? After all of these years of study, the only thing they want us to talk about still is hijab. We're so tired of hearing about hijab. So we didn't talk about hijab. We kind of touched on it. But what we really focused on was how a Muslim woman has not just a space in the masjid, but has a critical role to play. We talked about Muslim woman in leadership, Muslim woman as mothers, Muslim woman as Qur'an reciters. We talked about Muslim woman in all of these different spaces as narrators of hadith as people who carried on the legacy of Islamic knowledge. And the feedback we got back from that lecture was disappointment from women that we hadn't addressed hijab. And I didn't understand at that time because I was like, aren't you tired of hearing about only hijab? But the more that I heard from women, the more that I realized that sheikh al-Muslima and I came from an era where that might have been the focus. But we're in a little bit of a different time now. The questions that I receive about hijab from women isn't about not necessarily how to feel proud of wearing hijab when they're in different spaces, which is what I grew up hearing. I'm receiving questions about wanting to remove hijab. And there are so many different reasons why Muslim women struggle with hijab and depression, with confidence, with relationships, with identity, with their faith and doubting certain issues about women in Islam. Muslim women struggle with hijab when it comes to being in a place in their life, putting it on when they had all this support, and they felt this kind of community support in the wider MSA, for example. But then, 10 years later, they don't necessarily feel that type of love and commitment and support. Sometimes they're tired of wearing hijab outside, to be stared at or judged, and then to walk into a masjid space and not even be able to make sajdah without feeling like the architecture of the masjid and the policies of the masjid don't make her feel like she's critical in that space, like it's her safe space. I'm hearing from so many different women for so many different reasons on why they don't feel hijab. But one of the questions that I consistently am receiving is Muslim women questioning whether or not hijab is actually an obligation, whether or not covering the hair is mentioned in the Qur'an. The questions that they have are things like, is hair actually mentioned to cover in the Qur'an? Does the fact that the society of the Prophet peace be upon him, the cultural reality of their time no longer exist in terms of classes, does that then mean that hijab is no longer applicable now? Was it simply a cultural garment and not actually a religious mandate? What if hijab causes more attention? Also, what if hijab isn't a form of protection? What if Muslim women wear hijab and they're still victims and survivors of sexual assault? Then what? Insha'Allah we're going to address all these questions and more right now. There are two verses that talk about hijab in the Qur'an. These verses are in Surat An-Nur, the 24th chapter, and Surat Al-Ahzad, the 33rd chapter. Now, when were these verses revealed? It was a minimum of at least four to five years after coming to Medina when the verses with hijab were revealed. So that means the entire time in Mecca and in the beginning period of Medina, there was no mandate to wear hijab religiously. Instead, the verses that came down from the Qur'an focused on building a relationship with Allah Ta'ala. These verses focused on the hereafter, descriptions of paradise, descriptions of hellfire, descriptions of what it's like to stand up for social justice with vulnerable communities. The Qur'an focused on character building, it focused on a relationship with Al-Wadud, the source of love, with Al-Kireem, the all generous, with Al-Rahman, the completely merciful. This building up of a relationship happened that with the mentorship of the Prophet, the ups and downs that they went through with persecution, with being kicked out of their city, with being physically assaulted for being Muslim, they went through all of that. And in that process, they not only became closer to Allah, they not only had the support of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, peace be upon him, but they also built this community of support amongst themselves. So when the Qur'an reveals the verses on hijab, it's not like today when someone walks into a masjid to convert to Islam, which is what I have seen on more than one occasion. Before she even gives the testimony of faith, women around her in a group are trying to put something on her hair. She hasn't even become a Muslim yet, and the first thing that she's taught is that she needs to cover. Look at the female companions. We're going to talk about their reaction to these verses. They were built, their iman, the relationship with Allah s.p.m. was built over time before these verses were revealed. Now, in Surat An-Nur, Allah begins by talking about that this is a chapter in which talks about different types of rulings. These rulings talk about holding men accountable. These rulings talked about the protection of women. And in this Surah, in the Surah that talks about how God is the light of the heavens and the earth of verses revealed. Allah s.p.m. tells us in a long verse, which I'm only going to quote a part of. Let's look at that. And that lamb that you just heard, that is an order. So when Allah s.p.m. is ordering something, this lamb is used right here. That means it's not, it's not like, hey, it'd be kind of cool if you wanted to do this. No, it's actually a religious commandment just because of that little letter. Well, yad luribna is to put something together with shidda, strongly. So what is Allah ordering us to do? To put tightly something somewhere, bi humurihin, a part. That be a part of humurihin. We're going to talk about in a second what that word is. So it's an order to put a part of something tightly to make sure that it's fastened over something else. Ju yubihin is this area. Neck, jayb area. So in the society of Mecca and the society of Medina, women would wear the khimad and men as well often would cover their hair. But they would put this part back like this. So this area is covered, but this area is exposed. Now what does the Qur'an say to do? To bring it to cover, cover completely this whole area up. Your neck is covered, your khimad is covering your ears, your khimad is covering this area down here. It's completely covered up. Now, yes, it was part of their culture to wear something over their heads, but I grew up in a time where texting and driving was normal. People would text and drive, but there were some people who didn't text and drive. Right now, it is illegal to text and drive in California. You cannot text and drive legally. We put that into a law when we recognized as a society that there were so many people harmed from texting and driving. Would you say that our current law of texting and driving is a culture that we've adapted because some people were doing it in the past? We're not texting and driving in the past. So some people were not texting and driving in the past. Some people were. Did we adopt the culture of people who were not texting and driving, and that's why we all don't do that anymore? Or is it actually a legal mandate now? Because of so many reasons that have to do with the protection of people. It's a legal mandate in the same way. Yes, some women and men covered their hair, but does that mean that it's no longer? Does that mean that it's only cultural? No, because once the Quran was revealed, once the revelation came down, it became a religious mandate. It's no longer simply a cultural action. The khimar in and of itself is a head covering. It's like saying a hat. If I were to tell you, put on your hat, are you going to put your hat on your elbow? Do I need to specify to you, put your hat on your head? Or are you going to know that a hat covers your head? It covers your hair by definition intrinsically of what a hat is. It's the same for a khimar. A khimar intrinsically covers your hair and your head. It's part and parcel of the definition of the khimar. But here's another point. If somebody were at work and they were wearing a t-shirt that they knotted up and exposed their stomach, let's say work code policy says that you're not supposed to expose your stomach. So her boss approaches her and her boss asks her, can you please unknot the part that you've pulled up and knotted? Pull it apart and use your shirt. Is that person going to take off their shirt and then wrap their stomach with their shirt to cover their stomach? If their boss says, look, part of our professional work code, part of what's acceptable here, is to untie that knot and cover your stomach. But the boss does not say specifically keep your shirt on and then untie it and then cover your stomach. Do you think that that person would take off their shirt to cover their stomach? No. Why? From the context, it's clear that at work, you're supposed to cover your upper body with your shirt and now remove it just to cover your stomach. It's the same thing in the Quranic phrasing. If you read this and understand the rhetoric of the Quran, the khumuri hen isn't saying, take a khimar that you have lying around and cover your upper body with it. It's saying, take the khimar you're already wearing on your head because it's now a mandate, a religious mandate to do so and then cover this area with it. Now, how did the female companions react to hearing this verse? Because this is where we're going to understand their physical, actually lived experience with these verses. Aisha, radi allahu anha, she talks about the muhajirat and the ansar and she praises them and she says that when these verses were revealed, they ripped the curtains down and they covered their heads with them and they covered their necks with them and they covered their bodies with them. That's Aisha radi allahu anha, who was a scholar, who was the leader of an army even though she regretted doing that later because of her political position, not this fact that she led it. Aisha radi allahu anha was well versed in medicine. She is somebody who is so comprehensive in her personality, she was feisty and dynamic. Her reaction to this ayah is praising the woman who grabbed the curtains and wrapped their heads, their necks and their bodies with it. She was the one who counseled the prophet, allahu alaihi wasalam, in Hudaybiyah and all of these other male companions and all of these other great companions were not following the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam because of their emotional distress. She's the one who told the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam what to do. She explained that when the female companions heard these verses, they covered their heads so much that it looks like it looked like there were crows on their heads. Their hair and their heads were covered. Aisha radi allahu anha her niece Hafsa came to visit her and she was covering her head but she wasn't covering her neck and so Aisha radi allahu anha she came and she covered her neck for her and this area for her and taught her how to wear the hijab. So when we're looking at the reaction of the female companions we can see that their reaction was one in which they understood that the hair was included. In fact in that narration that Aisha radi allahu anha scholars say that women sometimes already covered their hair so the fact that Aisha radi allahu anha said this, it was to be an emphasis on the fact that now they no longer understood it to be a cultural matter they actually understood it to be a religious mandate and that's why they acted so quickly. Now let's talk about something else that is the second verse that talks about jilbab. The prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is ordered in Surt al-Ahzab. Surt al-Ahzab is the 33rd chapter. Ya ayyuha nabi, qulli azwajika wa banatika wa nisa il mu'mineen yudineena alayhinna min jalabibihin. So what does Allah swt say? He says to the prophet sallallahu say to your wives and daughters and the believing woman, take your jilbab and lower it. Lower it. What is a jilbab? A jilbab in the Quranic context is talking about a garment that covers the hair and it's even more comprehensive than a khimar. It covers the hair, it covers the body but it can be thrown on top of clothing that for example is tight or revealing or see-through. It's something that's like a cloak that is wide and large and and not opaque. The jilbab that we're seeing today is not explicitly the Quranic jilbab. You just need to cover the areas that the Quran is talking about and that's generally everything except for the hands and the face. The scholars have a discussion on the hands and the face that's for a different time inshallah and also the Hanafi say the feet. As long as you're covering those areas and you're wearing loose clothing that is not tight and it doesn't show your body and it's not see-through, you're fulfilling the requirements, it doesn't matter explicitly what cultural dress you're wearing or what you're comfortable wearing, you just need to fulfill the requirements in terms of what to wear or what to cover I should say. The jilbab in this ayah, when it was revealed, how do the female companions understand it? Let's look at this narration from Hafsa. She says that there was a woman who participated in six battles and she came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and she asked him that she participates in taking care of the wounded and helping the injured and she doesn't have a cloth that would cover her hair and cover her whole body so should she just stay home and not participate anymore. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told her to borrow clothing from her sister not to let her hijab hinder her from being able to continue to work and serve and be a community leader and be a part of service. Don't let the hijab stop you from doing those things, borrow a hijab from someone so that you can continue to be a part of the good that you're doing in society. Now Hafsa, radiallahu anha, takes this narration and she talks to Umatiyah. Do you know who Umatiyah is? Umatiyah is Nuslaibah bint Ka'ab. She is the warrior who stood in front of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in the battle of Uhad. Everywhere he looked she was defending him Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So Nuslaibah Umatiyah is the one who is actually narrating to Hafsa radiallahu anha another narration. So Hafsa is like did you hear about this? And Umatiyah radiallahu anha she responds and she talks about how they used to keep at home their attractive young woman instead of going out to certain occasions. So these women women are like we didn't used to let them do that but the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam ordered us to have them come out and Umatiyah is talking about how the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was asked well what if someone doesn't have a jilbat? What if she doesn't have something that's going to cover her hair and cover her body? What does the Qur'an say over and over? So if the Qur'an is telling us obey the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's response is using this commanding lamb she should borrow some clothing from her sister so that she can still be a part of witnessing and participating in these beautiful occasions and these rewarded spaces. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is encouraging Muslim women not to let their dress impact the fact that they can't be a part of society instead take some clothing borrow it from a friend and go out and be a part of the religious gatherings. Now there is a hadith of Asmah and that is used to talk about how it is an obligation to our hijab but it's also weak and so people say well the only narration of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam talking about hijab is actually weak and therefore it's not an obligation. A few points on that number one if you study also a little hadith you know that if there are enough narrations that strengthen another narration it's no longer perhaps it's weak in and of itself but with the strength of the narrations you can take the meaning but put that aside we have two narrations here where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is ordering women to wear jilba. We have another narration of Falti Marudi Allahu Anha her clothing was so um short if she were to put it on her head the bottom um part of her uh you know bottom part of her leg feet ankle area would show if she were to pull it up or put it down then her hair would show and her head would show and so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is like oh right now it's cool because you're only around me and someone else who was part of the people that she could show herself to. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam so the point is that that narration might be weak but we have all these other narrations in which the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is actually ordering women to wear hijab and is actually encouraging women to wear hijab as a religious commandment. I'm not going to get into the hundreds of other narrations of female companions talking about wearing hijab in Hajj or in the masjid or on the battlefield. I'm not going to talk about all of those because there are literally so many that we have from the female companions themselves over and over again narrations by them talking about other women on how they understood the concept of hijab. When we dismiss women's voices when we say women's voices are not enough as proof then we really need to ask ourselves why would we not count the very way that women who are witnessing the revelation why would we not think that that is enough proof for us. These are our foremothers they are the ones who Summaiya was martyred because of Islam because of her strength of her belief that she wouldn't let go of her belief and they martyred her. These women gave up everything so you and I can live Islam and these are our examples. Now what is the rest of this first say? So that they will be known and they will not be harmed. What does it mean so that they will be known and not be harmed? There are so many wisdoms in hijab. Wisdoms in hijab. Our great grandmother Virgin Mary, she was assertive, she was dynamic, she was somebody who held her ground, she went through immense hardship but in the whole process of that immense hardship she was constantly connected to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. She is somebody who a lot God Almighty talks about in the Quran as the best woman in the whole entire world. Virgin Mary is constantly pictured wearing hijab even though of course we don't say that's actually her picture. She is our role model. We wear hijab with the same identity. We wear hijab so people will know that we are submitters to God. So that they will be known as submitters to God. They will be known as the people who are so connected to carrying the weight of this religion publicly. One of the wisdoms of hijab is that it allows us to dissociate ourselves from the commodification of women's bodies. There is an entire industry which financially profits from our insecurities. The more that we are supposed to not like the length of our eyelashes or the way our eyebrows are or any part of our body, the more products we need to buy to fulfill all of these images of beauty, the more we no longer focus completely on what's actually inside the raw power that God has given a woman's voice, that God has vibrated within a woman's soul. Our hearts, our tongues and all of this is this agency given to us by God Almighty. And I want to tell you that I have so many loved ones that I love so much who do not wear hijab. And I know that so many of you don't wear hijab. And I don't want you to think that you don't have those things too. Of course, we are all in this together as a woman. But in part of the wisdoms of hijab, it's simply to dissociate ourselves from an obsession that we ourselves might have with our outer to focusing on developing the inner and the actions that we're able to bring forth into society, so that that is what the focus of our life in our interaction with the outside world is instead of the way that we look externally. But beyond anything else that hijab is, what is hijab in and of itself beyond the statements that it makes or the identity or the way that we interact with society or society interacts with us or us with our own selves, hijab is an act of worship. Hijab is a form of worship to God Almighty. Hijab is done for God. The whole purpose of hijab, the whole, the crux of hijab is that it is done in submission to the will of the one who created us out of his love for us. And we show him our gratitude and we show him with humility our love for him in this form of worship to him in wearing hijab. At the same time, there are men who out of their abuse of power and control will actually harm a woman who's wearing a bikini or a woman who's wearing a naqad and a khimar completely covering her face and her body because the actions of men who harm women are not about her dress, they are about his issues with power and control. However, when we see that women are still being harmed despite the fact that they were taught that hijab is supposed to be a form of protection and it is in many ways. I personally have so many stories of random times when a random guy, like I'm sitting on a college campus and this guy came up to me and he looked at me. I was sitting at this table for our Muslim Student Association and he was like, let me ask you something. When I see her and he pointed at a random girl walking by, the first thing that I see are her breasts and he said something even more explicit. And then he says, when I look at you, the first thing I see is that you've got your head covered. And I was like, well, you're the one with the problem. You are the one who needs to work on yourself. But one of the wisdoms of hijab is that it forces people outside of ourselves to look at the way that we're presenting ourselves like Virgin Mary when she's coming to her people, holding Jesus as an infant. He's just born. She was never in a relationship. She's a miraculous birth and she's trusting in God that God Almighty is going to be the one who uses her, her presence that uses her strength, that uses her trust in Him to be a form of helping people see that God works miracles in our lives. But even with that, there are going to be men who abuse women. Does that then make hijab obsolete if a woman was wearing hijab and she was harmed? God forbid, does that make hijab no longer applicable because one of the wisdoms of hijab is supposed to be a form of identity in society and a man who is the one with the problem didn't interact with her in that way? No. And this is why, because there's a difference between the Allah and the Hikmah. What is an Allah? The Allah is the reason. It is the cause. When we look at traveling, for example, if you travel, you shorten your prayers. We could say that the reason you shorten your prayers is because traveling is so hard. It's exhausting. It's just so hard. It's hard to just pray the full extended amount of prayers. And so it's shortened. But what if your travel is super easy? I've heard from people who say they feel guilty shortening their prayers because travel is so easy today. They're mixing up the wisdom and the Allah. You shorten your prayers when you travel because you travel, not because traveling is hard. So whether or not traveling is easy or difficult, you shorten your prayers. Now look at the same idea in hijab. The Allah, the cause, is not so that she be known and so that she's not bothered. That's amongst the wisdoms. The cause is in the first part of that verse. Who is the wife? The wives. The daughters and the women of the believers are all ready by this time. The wives and the daughters are already mature women by the time these verses are revealed. They're already women. Misaa al-Mu'mineen, women. This verse is addressing when women are mature, when a girl becomes a woman, woman of this ummah, that is the Allah. That is the cause. That is what brings hijab into effect. It doesn't matter the reality of the social structure. That's amongst the wisdoms, which might change over time. What matters is the cause. Allah does not address little girls. He doesn't tell little children to wear hijab. He addresses women and that is where the Allah is. Now part of the confusion about this verse is that there are scholars who say that hijab was meant to differentiate between classes and society. But the problem with using that as the reason for hijab is that it ignores the fact that Allah says when he sat in al-Mu'mineen. It doesn't matter what her class is. It doesn't matter what her social status is. It doesn't matter what her relationship status is. If she is a woman of the believers, then this applies to her. Even if someone were to focus on the class structure as one of the interpretations, then that completely ignores the fact that there is a completely different verse that already obligates wearing khimar and covering the body irregardless of any type of reasoning that might be associated directly in the verse or the interpretation itself. Now of course there are circumstances when a woman actually fears for her life because of hijab. That's different. If that is something that someone is going through, they need to talk to their local community and make a decision on hijab based on her fear of her life. So often a woman asks, well what about men? And while that is an entire separate lecture because of the Qur'an and the sunnah, Islamic law takes into account not only the protection of women physically but also her emotional protection and holds men accountable for those things. But just to mention something quickly, because in our overemphasis and our focus on hijab for women, we've also neglected to recognize that men have their own responsibilities to both the way that they dress and the way that they interact with women as well. Over and over we have in the Qur'an and in the prophetic lifestyle where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, for example, had al-Fadl sitting behind him and a beautiful woman came to ask him a question in hajj and her face was not covered. And al-Fadl saw her and he was staring at her and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gently turned al-Fadl's face away. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam didn't tell her to leave. He didn't tell her to cover her face. He didn't tell her to find a man to come back and ask the question on her behalf. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam focused on teaching al-Fadl personal responsibility. And Shor Sunnoor, before the ayah that talks about khimar, Allah SWT addresses the believers and the believing men to lower their gaze, to lower their gaze and to guard their chastity. There's a narration in Bukhari that mentioned that someone asked Hassan, radiallahu anhu, about women who were not covering their hair and they were not covering their body and he was like, what are we supposed to do? And the response that he received was lower your gaze. He didn't tell him to tell them something. He didn't tell them to go out and get them a lecture. He didn't tell them to yell at them. He told him lower your gaze and then he quoted the verse. Over and over in the Quran, we see that men are held accountable by Allah SWT for upholding the rights of women. Men and women are supposed to be allies. The concept of hijab and modesty for both men and women. We emphasize so much women, but for men as well, the Prophet SAW, do you know who he praised in his modesty? Arthman radiallahu anhu. He praised Arthman, Amman radiallahu anhu. So modesty is so important for both of us. It allows us, this type of interaction allows us not to focus or obsess or be you know, captivated or distracted by our own outer appearance personally or that of someone else and instead focuses on our actions and how we build a society together. Of course that isn't to say that people who don't observe these things don't do those things as well, but we're talking about a prophetic society and revelation that's coming from the one who's created us to help us become the best versions of ourselves. We've talked about we've talked about how female companions have viewed these verses. There's another part of this and that is the Ijmaa of the scholars. So one of the things that I hear a lot is that we don't want to accept hijab from male scholars. We need to hear from females that there were females in the history of Islamic, the Islamic civilization that had the opinion that women need to wear hijab. Now sometimes when we say that there were only male scholars specifically, I know why we say that because we don't hear so much about female scholarship. We don't hear so much about the females in our Islamic history, but look at who the teachers of the male scholars were. They were women, subhanallah, Aisha, the daughter of Sa'ra ibn Abi Waqas. She was the teacher of Imam Malik. When we look at Imam Al Shafi'i, do you know who his teacher was? His teacher was a great granddaughter of the Prophet SAW, Sayyidina Fisa. When we look at the great famous scholar, Al Khutib al-Baghdadi, do you know who his teacher was? Kareemah, Sheikh Kareemah, who was the greatest narrator, the greatest person of the most knowledge of Suha'ih al-Bukhari in her time. He was a great scholar in the time of Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, and he ordered ibn Hazam, not the of the Zahiri Matab, to compile her narrations. Subhanallah, we also have ibn Hajr al-Asqalani, the great hadith scholar in the commentary of Bukhari. Do you know who his teacher was? Aisha ibn Muhammed. We have all of these female scholars, and I've only mentioned a few. You can read of so many more in al-Muhadithat, one of many resources. Al-Muhadithat is a book written by Dr. Mohamed Akram Nadoui. You can get it online. It's in English, and it talks about he found over 9,000 female scholars throughout Islamic history. These are women's voices. These are women's voices telling us about the rulings of hijab over and over again. It's so interesting to me that sometimes I hear from someone saying that they only want to get a ruling from a woman. They don't want to hear that a man says that she should wear hijab, but then she comes to me with a ruling from a man saying that he doesn't find a requirement to wear hijab. If you hear from somebody on a TED stage that has absolutely no qualifications with all due respect to talk about Islamic scholarship or an academic with all due respect and with all love and all sincerity and all sisterhood who doesn't give any details or any proof other than to say that it simply didn't exist without actually substantiating that claim or a great commentator of the Qur'an whose commentary is beautiful but who wasn't actually grounded in Islamic scholarship, that doesn't take away from the centuries in which there was no debate on hijab from female and male scholars. There are so many female scholars right now that we can access knowledge from. We have Sheikha Aisha Prime with Berke Incorporated. We have Sheikha Dr. Tamara Gray and she is with Rabata. We have Dr. Aisha Wazwaz with the Gems of Light and Dr. Haifa Yunus with Jannah Institute. Sheikha Muslima Permal with the Majlis and Sheikha Zaynab Ansari with Tayseer Seminary. There are Muslim women who I haven't mentioned who exist who are all over the world who are teaching who've started their own institutes. You can learn from these women and understand the power of a woman's voice and the power of a woman's legacy in her connection with Allah SWT, in your connection with God. I know that wearing hijab can be overwhelming and even Muslim women who wear hijab at times who feel so strong in it can feel super super down wearing it. At times they might love it and other times they might feel so ugly and frustrated and tired and hot and so many other things. When you're going through those experiences, whether you love wearing it every single day or whether you're struggling with it and are considering taking it off or whatever is going through in between or thinking about putting it on, there are two points I'd like you to think about. The first one is that sometimes when we think something is about hijab it's actually about something else. So look at your life. Are you not loving the concept of hijab because of something else in your life and it's not necessarily hijab in and of itself but it's another thing that consider working with a professional like a therapist who's Muslim who might be able to help you explore what you're struggling with on a spiritual level but also what you might be processing on an emotional level and don't make a decision about hijab in that moment. Process what you're going through and then see how that makes you think about your relationship with the concept of hijab. And the most important point is that so many people see a hijab as a symbol of liberation or a political identity or a statement. So many different things but at the end of the day the biggest issue, the biggest point of hijab is that it's worship. 24 seven every moment that a person is wearing it, it is a form of worship. And so in processing how you feel about it, think about who you are wearing it for. There is a beautiful series that inshallah is going to be published as an actual book. It's called The Names of Allah series by Ustad the Jinnan on virtualmosque.com. Allah has so many beautiful names and attributes and she's written this in a way where you can read one article a week. It's like a two or a five minute read. You can know how this name of Allah or this attribute of Allah of God Almighty really you know is in your life. How do you see Him manifest His bounty, His blessings, His gifts to you manifest in your day? Choose one name a week for example, As-Salaam. Choose that name, read about it and make dua'ah to God by that name that whole week. Think about that name, process that name and then the next week take another one and the following week take another one. Read one verse of the Qur'an in translation every single day if you don't understand the Arabic. I'm not Arab. I came to loving God and loving who my Lord is through reading a translation of the Qur'an. That's what made me want to change. That's what made me want to know Him. Don't focus on what the action is. Focus on who you're doing the action for. All of the other reasons aside, hijab is a form of worship. Hijab is a form of connection. Hijab is a form of showing your gratitude to God Almighty. So when you think about hijab, yes, the rulings of hijab come into play when you are in front of men you are not blood related to. But we don't wear hijab for men. We wear hijab for God.