A piece of cloth on my head: My Hijab Journey 1
6:43:00 PM
“Why did I start putting a piece of cloth on my
head a few years ago?
What made me wanted to wear it?
What was the pushing
factor?”
It’s a question
that I have been asked a lot. It’s a story that I’ve been wanting to share, but
I was hesitant because it would mean that I would be exposing my old weaknesses
and sins. I was also hesitant because I did not want to be interpreted as
showing off or trying to portray as though I am now holier. However, I’ve just
decided that I am going to share why I’m wearing a piece of cloth on my head in
the hopes that someone might find this post beneficial.
In Malaysia,
this piece of cloth is generally called the “tudung”, but it is more commonly referred to in the Arabic word of
“hijab” in the media worldwide. (Yes,
I know the word hijab means a lot more than just a cloth.)
Is it really just a cloth?
What does this cloth
mean to me?
In my post “What is Your Hijab Story” I
shared the challenges I faced when I started to wear the hijab and how I faced
those challenges.
Here in this
post I am going to share why and how I started to wear the hijab.
It might be
surprising to many, but I only started wearing the hijab relatively recently in
my life. I did not grow up in a family where everyone was made to wear the hijab.
Neither did I go to a school where it is compulsory to wear the tudung. My parents did not ask me to
wear the tudung. I am blessed to have
parents who gave me freedom to choose whatever it is that I want to do in my
life. I did not grow up in the kind of environment where my parents told me
what to wear.
I started out my
primary school going to Convent Bukit Nanas, a missionary all girls school. Then
for 3 years, I went to Main Convent Ipoh with my cousins and subsequently SK
Bukit Damansara, a co-ed school. I re-joined Convent Bukit Nanas in high
school.
Trust me when I
say that I was really different back when I was in high school. I always preferred
to wear pinafores rather than the traditional and more modest baju kurung. I loved dancing and singing
publicly. (I still love to do that but not as aggressively though!)
I used to love
performing in front of audiences, including traditional dances. I remember when
my father organized an International Arts Festival in Perak I was given the
opportunity to do a traditional dance in front of the current Sultan of Perak.
Of course, I also performed modern dances for school as well. Does anyone
remember the Commonwealth Games 1998 in Kuala Lumpur? Yeah, I was there,
dancing during the opening and closing ceremony.
I was also a
cheerleader and represented the school for national cheerleading championship. I
was one of the members of Puteri Islam in my school but as I was also a
cheerleader at that time, I had to skip a lot of Puteri Islam classes just to
practice.
So while the Puteri
Islam classes were going on and all the girls had to wear the tudung for the
class, I would rather skip those classes, and have fun in my short skirt
practicing cheerleading and all that with my girl friends. It was a really fun
and carefree time for us as friends. Most of my cheerleader friends became my
best of friends until today J
At that time, I
felt that it was more fun and it was more “me”. I couldn’t relate to the tudung
that we were made to wear at those religious classes or the Puteri Islam co-curriculum.
In fact, I could never imagine myself in a tudung
at that time.
Because of my
love for dancing, I started going clubbing too. In fact, I started quite early.
I was sneaking into clubs going for gigs when I was 14 years old. In fact, I
was the one who coaxed my friends to join me even though they were afraid. Imagine
me, I was the most mischievous one amongst my friends! I know, you guys won’t
believe me. My friends used to come and sleep over, and after we finished
dancing in clubs, we came back and continued our sleepover. Of course, I did a
lot of other things that I’m not proud of and I won’t share here. Suffice to
say that my heart aches and I still cry whenever I think of my many many sins.
So how did I change?
For me, it was a
gradual, slow change. Even as I was having a lot of fun and doing so called ‘wild’
things, I did realize that there was an emptiness inside me which I could not
fill with physical things. I truly felt that I did not have enough religious
education. (Well, I can’t blame anyone but myself for skipping religious
classes in school). But I wanted to learn more. My late grandmother Tah was the
one who taught me how to pray, and my Tok and late Opah used to teach me a lot
about religion when I was younger. I used to hate being forced to learn, but as
I grew up older and saw less and less of them, I started missing their lessons,
reminders, lectures, and yes, even their scolding on religion or missing the
obligatory prayers.
So after
highschool, that emptiness and thirst for religious knowledge became stronger.
So I convinced my parents that I wanted to go to a local Islamic university so
that I could learn more about the basics in religion even when I could have
furthered my studies in private colleges or overseas. I was determined and
really wanted to go there despite some hesitation amongst my family and friends
that I wanted to go there just for that reason.
To be continued…
(P/s: All the photos in this post are old photos (2007 and 2008) when I just started wearing the cloth on my head)
PEACE & LOVE!
3 comments
alhamdulillah..he knows the best. Sincerely, I am still following your entry on how you transform your style. I like it soo much!
ReplyDeleteassalamualikum yang pasti sis memnag comey dan cantik
ReplyDeleteIslamic women who choose to wear the hijab it allows them to retain their modesty, morals and freedom of choice. They choose to cover because they believe it is liberating and allows them to avoid harassment. Islam promotes modest dress among women. Many Muslim women wear a headscarf, often known as a hijab and in Quranic Arabic as the khimar. Many of these garments cover the hair, ears and throat, but do not cover the face. Why Wear Hijab
ReplyDelete