No you didn’t misunderstand the question? Are you a Hijab bully? And by bully I mean snobby, arrogant, rude and mean! Alhamdulillah, fortunately for me I’ve never been at the receiving end of severe hijab bullying, but I’ve known sisters who have and I’ve experienced it to a lesser degree in some places. If one attends a mosque regularly, it’s hard to not encounter at least one case of hijab bullying in your life.

You’ve all seen her, the new hijabi, or the undecided Muslimah, or the non hijabi wearing Muslimah walking through the mosque in her non-hijab clothes, or barely hijab clothes. And you’ve had a reaction. Whether you cringed internally, or wondered what her story was, or looked the other way, or started looking through your purse for a hijab to lend her, ultimately you judged her. You thought you were better than her, or felt like she was out of place. The difference between that reaction and hijab bullying is that the hijab bullies [or perhaps I should call them hijab monitors because they feel like they have been appointed as the guardians of who enters the mosque and who doesn’t] is that they either give the non hijabi wearing sisters the cold shoulder and pretend she doesn’t exist, or they tell her to cover up usually very rudely and in a language the sister doesn’t understand.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is a proper and improper form of hijab. For example, wearing skinny jeans, a see through top with short sleeves that shows lots of cleavage and then wrapping a scarf around your head does not count as hijab. Hijab means modesty, and I really don’t see how that’s being modest just because you cover your hair.

But that is the problem, hijab is about modesty, it’s about being modest in not just  the clothes you wear but in the way you act. Being humble and moderate in your affairs. Somehow judging someone without knowing them doesn’t strike me as being modest. It strikes me as being very arrogant and judgmental, after all, who gave you the right to judge others? Allah tells us not to judge others because we don’t know whether the person we are judging is better in His sight than we are.

When I meet a new Muslimah in the mosque, or one who hasn’t taken shahada yet, I get very excited, and usually sit next to them and chat with them and love to hear the story of their journey. Inevitably I get a story about how they were snubbed by some sisters or yelled at for their dressing and each time I get upset by that! How dare they judge someone, yell at someone or discourage someone from entering the house of Allah?! What gives them that right?

Do they not remember surat Abasa, when Rasulullah SAW was admonished by Allah for paying more attention to a group of arrogant yet important Arabs who probably had no intention of converting to Islam rather than the blind yet eager Arab man who wanted more knowledge about his Maker?

So how would they feel if their reaction to these sisters cause them to forever dread going to the mosque, or even worse, change their minds about Islam and Muslims all together?

Hijab is part and parcel of being a Muslim, but it like niqab is also something very personal between a Muslimah and her Creator. It isn’t something that can be shoved down her throat by others, rather it is something that she learns to love through learning to love Allah and her religion.

So next time you feel all righteous and feel like deriding a sister for her choice of hijab, think again. Use kindness and love to teach, not arrogance and snobbery. Lead by example, through your hijab, through your actions instead.

My personal experiences with hijab bullying have been mild. Those instances occurred at mosques where a certain ethnic group is a majority in that mosque (for example a mosque that has majority Bangladeshi’s or Arabs). These sisters don’t outright bully or attack you, instead, they ignore you and make you feel completely unwelcome, especially if you’re the only sister in the mosque who isn’t from their little community. Which really saddens me, because the best part of being a Muslim is that there is no discrimination on the basis of race, nationality or ethnicity, yet some sisters manage to do just that, discriminate in the house of Allah!

Have you ever been a victim of Hijab Bullying? If you have, I’m really sorry, please try not to take it personally! And please don’t judge all sisters based on the actions of a few of us!