By Jess McCabe | 25 January 2009, 11:57

Ala Abbas reflects on her decision to stop wearing the hijab

The hijab has characterised my life from at least the age of nine and even before then.

In the religious sect my parents belong to, hijab is incumbent on girls from the age of nine and is defined as the covering of everything apart from the hands and face. The figure must also be hidden, but this is something that cannot be written in stone and measured, and is more a matter of the spirit than letter.

The letter can only specify which areas of the skin are to be hidden, which is why you get the phenomenon of the ‘muhajababe’: someone who follows the letter but not its spirit. So while they’re still dressed in accordance with Islamic law and wouldn’t be prosecuted in a country like Iran, they are by no stretch of the imagination dressed ‘modestly’.

I had egalitarian notions of modesty as a child and couldn’t understand the difference between a girl showing her legs and a boy showing his. I remember on a school trip once, a girl of probably around eight or nine took her top off in the scorching summer heat just like all the other boys were doing. The girl was reprimanded by others for having “no shame”. While I understood it was a rare sight, I felt this judgment was a little unfair, as her chest looked no different from the boys’.

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