Spring Break
The Daily OrangeUnderneath it all
Muslim students on campus decide whether wearing head scarves brings females closer to religion
By Adeniyi Amadou
Posted: 12/2/08, 3:14 AM EST Section: Feature
The choice to cover
Najwa Khan wears tight-fitting skinny jeans, glossy lipstick, immaculate makeup, and her thick black hair is elegantly up with a barrette and pins. Her sedulous attention to dress and grooming is done "without going too far," she said.
On weekends, she spends all night partying or hanging out with her Delta Gamma sorority sisters, and she sleeps through both breakfast and lunch after. She lives her life in the ballpark of how any typical American college student would live his or hers.
And she is unabashed about not wearing the
head scarf.
"(In America) there is a negative connotation with hijab," she said. "To me, it attracts negative attention."
Besides, wearing the hijab has to come from the heart, Kahn said.
"I'll wear it when I'm ready," she said.
Her faith runs deep, and she said she never hides her religion to anyone. She's learned to read unease in the faces of some of her American peers, the split-second adjustments they have to make, when they find out that she is Muslim.
"It's everywhere; in every movie, the government fights Muslims," she added. "It's a trend."
Hasan sees irony in the scrutiny that hijab generates.
"The whole point of wearing hijab is not to attract attention to oneself. Hijab in America certainly does not serve that purpose. Instead, it epitomizes the phrase 'sticking out like a sore thumb,'" she writes in her book "American Muslims: The New Generation."
Austin Weinerman, a SU sophomore who grew up in a middle-class area in Penn Valley, Pa., said he doesn't think much of the head dressing, but definitely notices it.
"I don't see them integrated," Weinerman said. He insisted he does not dislike Muslims.
"The thing is I am only 19, I was in seventh grade when 9/11 happened, and a good deal of my life has been shaped with America's wars on terrorism," he said. "My generation simply has that mindset."
Form of expression
Najwa Khan wears tight-fitting skinny jeans, glossy lipstick, immaculate makeup, and her thick black hair is elegantly up with a barrette and pins. Her sedulous attention to dress and grooming is done "without going too far," she said.
On weekends, she spends all night partying or hanging out with her Delta Gamma sorority sisters, and she sleeps through both breakfast and lunch after. She lives her life in the ballpark of how any typical American college student would live his or hers.
And she is unabashed about not wearing the
head scarf.
"(In America) there is a negative connotation with hijab," she said. "To me, it attracts negative attention."
Besides, wearing the hijab has to come from the heart, Kahn said.
"I'll wear it when I'm ready," she said.
Her faith runs deep, and she said she never hides her religion to anyone. She's learned to read unease in the faces of some of her American peers, the split-second adjustments they have to make, when they find out that she is Muslim.
"It's everywhere; in every movie, the government fights Muslims," she added. "It's a trend."
Hasan sees irony in the scrutiny that hijab generates.
"The whole point of wearing hijab is not to attract attention to oneself. Hijab in America certainly does not serve that purpose. Instead, it epitomizes the phrase 'sticking out like a sore thumb,'" she writes in her book "American Muslims: The New Generation."
Austin Weinerman, a SU sophomore who grew up in a middle-class area in Penn Valley, Pa., said he doesn't think much of the head dressing, but definitely notices it.
"I don't see them integrated," Weinerman said. He insisted he does not dislike Muslims.
"The thing is I am only 19, I was in seventh grade when 9/11 happened, and a good deal of my life has been shaped with America's wars on terrorism," he said. "My generation simply has that mindset."
Form of expression
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Maria
posted 12/02/08 @ 5:08 PM EST
In the late 80s, some Muslim women, many of them Asians, wore the hajib with their jeans. I was kind of shocked because I never had seen such a combination before. (Continued…)
nomadofthehills
John Vanek
posted 12/03/08 @ 10:41 AM EST
Just about all of us reading this article have grown up in the post 9/11 era.
However, why should that change anything? As students attending a university, we should be more educated than the general public. (Continued…)
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