This is also the experience of many Muslim women who live here.
I have a friend who lived in Toronto, and she told me that she had experienced far more Islamophobic comments there than where we live now.
This surprised me because I always thought the bigger cities would be the safer places.
On the contrary, here there is still a community feel.
People are willing to accept you for who you are, and they are friendly and nice.
Some will even greet you with “Assalamu alaykum!” This has happened to me a few times since we moved here.
People just want to live their lives, and they are not really that concerned with who you are or what you are doing.
When I see fellow hijabis, we greet each other, even if we do not know each other, and that is nice. That community feeling is always there.
I see this community as very important when it comes to raising my own daughter.
She sees many Muslim kids at her school. She has many friends who are Muslim as well as non-Muslim.
She sees Muslim girls in school wearing hijab, and this is wonderful to see.
She sees that I wear hijab. She knows many of my friends here wearing hijab but now she can also see some girls wearing it.
I have a great hope that when she decides to wear it, she is not going to feel strange or out of place because of it.
She is almost 9, and she is starting to ask important questions about hijab.
She has told me that she doesn’t want to wear it yet, and for me, I feel she is too young to wear it now anyway.
However, I emphasize the need to wear modest clothes and explain to her that as she gets older, she will have to abide by this.
Why Modesty?
The key to helping your daughter understand the need to wear modest clothing, and eventually hijab, is to explain it in a way they can understand. It is also important to answer any questions or concerns they may have about it. It is important to talk to them and let them talk.
We have to listen to our daughters, and we have to make sure they are getting the correct information.
I am not going to force hijab on my daughter. I want her to love it and understand it completely.
I want her to see that there is something beautiful about it. In order to do that, I must educate her properly, listen to her concerns, and try my best to answer them.
She is at a critical age now where she is still a child but almost on the cusp of being a teenager, so anything I talk to her about, including hijab, will influence her decisions as she gets older.
I must make sure I do it right, and then I must put my faith in Allah that He will guide her to do what is right.
Being a mother is never easy. Our behaviour, our decisions, the way we speak, and the way we live our lives will have a huge impact on our children’s lives.
If we have daughters, we really must do our best to be role models— a parent and a friend rolled into one.
This is no easy feat, but as long as we take the time to discuss with our daughters, listen to them, and put our trust in Allah, it will be easy to show them that hijab can’t stop any woman from achieving her dreams or being the kind of person she wants to be!
***
Pages: 1 2