The Hijab Facts

What is a Hijab? This will be a strange question if one is not a Muslim. Hijab is the modest dress for Muslim women, which most Islamic legal systems define as covering everything except the face and hands in public. There is always a misconception among people that the Muslim women are forced to wear Hijab. This thought about Hijabs is absolutely wrong. To make you understand the fact, I have explained the real meaning of Hijabs here. Just keep reading on to discover the truth.

For a better understanding, the word “HIJAB” can be explained letter by letter. To start with, the word ‘H’ stands for headscarf. Most people out there think that having a face veil is mandatory for proper Hijab. The truth is that, for a Muslim woman to follow proper Hijab, it’s enough to cover her hair, neck, and bosom. Covering the face is not mandatory and in fact, there are absolutely no evidences to suggest that Muslim women are to cover their faces.

The second letter ‘I, goes for intentions. What do you think is the reason behind Muslim women wearing a Hijab? Compulsion? No, the absolute reason for this is their belief in GOD. They believe that God (Allah in Arabic) tells them to follow the principles of clothing. When wearing Hijab, it literally means that we are pleasing God (hopefully) and we are guarding our modesty, and we are respecting ourselves and our communities by not showing off body parts that nobody should see unless that person is our husband or very close relative.

However, Hijab is not just a headscarf. It is the complete way of covering your body. The only parts of a woman's body that can shown to the public are her hands, face, and some say, feet. The third letter ‘J’ of Hijab stands for Jilbab which constitutes the outer garment. It describes a garment that we wear on top of our underclothes. The underclothes can be anything like a long dress, a shirt and pants, a jacket and long skirt, etc.

It is well known that a Muslim women’s attire must meet the requirements like: Her clothing must not be tight, her clothing must not be sheer, her clothing must not reveal the shape of her body, and her clothing must not resemble clothing that is primarily worn by men. So the letter ‘a’ stands for ‘attire’.

As already said in the beginning of this article, people have a misconception that Muslim women are forced to sacrifice their beauty by wearing the Hijabs. Muslim woman can do things to make herself feel beautiful and look presentable to the outside world. She can wear clothing that is colorful (although it shouldn't be extravagant), she can wear jewelry like Hijab pins that pleases her (although she should make sure that her jewelry isn't so noisy that it attracts attention), and she can use beauty products that give her a polished look. A Muslim woman should always look neat, clean, and beautiful.

To conclude, beauty is not for the purpose of attracting men, but for the purpose of being a wonderful example of a good, moral person in the world