To the Rude Hijabi at Heathrow

My mum flew out to Pakistan last week and my dad dropped her off at the airport. When he returned I asked him how it all went and his first comment was that there was a girl in hijab at the counter that was very rude to him. He then told me how mum was over her baggage allowance (no surprise there), how they unpacked and re-packed and finally got it all sorted.

The thing that stayed with me was the description of the young sister in hijab that had barked instructions at them and spoken down to them. Now I know that just because we wear hijab we shouldn’t have to be perfect all the time. People have a stereotype sometimes of hijab-wearing sisters, that suggests they are good and pious people. I often find that strangers turn to me for help, asking for directions or asking to help translate, assuming I would be happy to do so. Of course it’s not fair to put all of the pressure on sisters to always be good, never lose their temper, always behave in an exemplary way, always be helpful (although of course we should aspire to).

Of course when you work in any job that requires you to serve others and that is time-pressured, you are going to get fed up sometimes. You will see one difficult customer after another, some will be rude to you. One of my sisters works for a local authority housing department. She sees colleagues who are rude to people who ask for help, treating them as if they are some kind of benefit cheat or beggar. After a long time, my sister started to feel a bit fed up of certain customers too who behaved badly or tried to play games with the system. I mentioned this to a colleague of mine. Her response was simple – if you are working with people who need your help, if and when you start to become jaded, it is time to step away. She spoke from experience as someone who was a trained lawyer and had became burned-out after dealing with child abuse cases, so moved to working for a local authority.

I once wrote about my experience with midwives and my care during pregnancy, particularly how uncaring staff had had a big impact on me. One sister (the awesome Umm Zakariya of The Alif 2 Yaa of Motherhood) commented very similarly about how midwives that felt burned out and jaded need to step back and take a break from the work 

I completely agree, if you cannot provide service with a smile or at least with the minimum of courtesy, you should not be working in a job that requires you to deal with people. Your job may be tough and intense, but that does not give you the right to treat your customers like idiots who are wasting your time. The same goes whether you are working in a hospital or store or an airport.

My dad has respect for sisters in hijab, perhaps he was mistaken in some false stereotype of hijab-wearing sisters being good, kind people. Because we are pretty much like everyone else – some of us are good, kind and patient and some of us are less so, a few are down right crappy people. Our hijab shouldn’t mean that we are under constant pressure to act like a saint. But saying that, there have been so many time that someone has been rude to me, muttered under their breath or said something nasty in public. I want to be rude back, I want to tell them off, sometimes I want to swear, but I know how I behave will affect other sisters in hijab. Perhaps if I behave in a good way, it might even change what people think about us. I am mindful of the fact that I wear hijab and in doing so I am identifiable as a Muslimah. Kindness in the face of poor treatment can be an incredible dawah (not to mention is the sunnah of our beloved Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam)). I note that the thing my dad remembered about you was that you wore hijab.

This morning I had a conversation with a colleague who used to manage a large complement of care staff. She mentioned that she usually found that the staff that treated clients terribly (she actually used the words “the most rubbish ones”) were almost without fail, the ones that had problems at home and were miserable. I hope this is not true for you, if it is I hope that Allah (SWT) takes your problems away insh’Allah.

In the meantime, I hope you can take a minute to think of the people you are serving as people, not irritating cattle. You don’t have to be nice, you don’t even have to smile, but at the least I hope you can bring it upon yourself to be civil and professional and talk to people as if they are people. If not, I suggest you find work that doesn’t make you so miserable that you have to take it out on others. I recommend a career change to a back office inputting data into spreadsheets, or to the great outdoors caring for sick ponies – anything that gets you away from decent people that have paid a lot of money to travel.

When asked about the best of the believers, the Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam) replied, “They are those who have the best character and manners.” (Sunan At-Tirmidhee: 1162; Sunan Abu Daawood: 4682)

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