Little Lady Experimenting with Hijab

Little Lady has always been quite anti-hijab, insisting that she will never wear it, but ensuring I always have mine on before I leave the house.

Recently though she seems to have taken more of an interest. Her dad recently bought her a nice leopard-print trim abayah to wear to the masjid for Quran lessons with a matching scarf that she wraps round the grown-up way instead of pulling on her little pink hood-like al-amirah scarf. She sneaks my nicest pins (and loses them) to dress it up on her way out to the masjid.

Little Lady adores her Quran teacher, a friend of mine, who wears niqab and this seems to have had an influence over her. She often comes home from madrassah and keeps her abayah and scarf on. We recently went out for dinner after her Quran class and she decided not to take it off. She also encouraged me to wear my very similar leopard-print abayah. Bit of a mini-me moment.

Her most recent pronouncement was that she would wear niqab when she was sixteen. All well and good, but there seems to be a campaign to get me wearing one too. Both her and hubby think it’s the best idea ever. I wore it one evening recently when I was covering the teacher’s absence at the masjid. My friend told me her 10-year old son (who stayed with us last year) told her I had worn it and said he made dua that I keep it on. No pressure then.

At the end of the day, I am not ready for what feels like an enormous step. I don’t think I have the backbone to wear it to work. There is one Sister in my office who wears it to work and during her lunch break and then takes it off when she is in the office. My best friend used to work in the civil service with another Sister who wore it full-time. So it is not impossible, but I don’t feel it is something I am ready to do right now. I will wear it for the rare occasion when I go to the masjid to pick up the children or stop there to sit in the class as I feel a lot more comfortable doing this.

In the meantime, her beloved toy kitten seems to be playing guinea pig, she’s even been renamed “Hijabi-cat”.