Beauty in the Eye of the Hijabi
Valuing modesty in an appearance-obsessed world
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I am vain. I try not to be. Really. But it’s hard to avoid vanity in this world. My vanity doesn’t show itself in the way I dress, which is typically long, loose clothing that covers my body, but rather in how much I think about my appearance.
The women’s bathroom at my office has awful lighting. Awful. In it, my face somehow manages to look both splotchy and dull. I’m convinced that the facilities people are running a scam and getting a cut of the profits from all of us who leave the bathroom and hurry directly to the nearby Sephora, screaming, “Take my money! Fix my skin!!”
Even though I know it’s the byproduct of terrible lighting, I spend precious seconds every time I stand at that sink investigating my face, noting down new or faded spots and markings.
My vanity also shows in my approach to exercise. For years, I only did the working out I enjoyed: hiking, swimming, cycling, and skiing, even though my doctors spoke about the importance of strength training for maintaining muscle mass. Did I listen? Spoiler alert, I did not listen. Not until I stopped liking the way my clothes fit. Suddenly, I’m commandeering my husband’s Apple Fitness+ account to find strength classes, and looking for a nearby gym.
This is all a really longwinded way to say I’m vain, and I care too much about my appearance.
It’s ok, Noha! You’re thinking. We all struggle with this. We live in a beauty-obsessed society.
The kicker… my perspective, built on the teachings of my faith, minimizes attention to personal appearance. This isn’t to say that we’re unconcerned with taking care of ourselves, presenting well, or personal grooming. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) tells us that, “God is beautiful, and he loves beauty.”
But! Beauty is not supposed to take such outsized importance in our lives. Outer beauty is not supposed to consume our thoughts, our actions, our spending, our value judgements (of ourselves and others!), our energy, our hopes and dreams, our life!
I have been thinner. I have had clearer skin and fewer frown lines. I was not happier, just younger and more bewildered about the world.
That energy is supposed to go to our actions, to the ways we treat each other, to building up our society and caring for those who need care.
After all, outer beauty is beyond our control. We look the way we look, and while we can style ourselves in certain ways, short of Botox or plastic surgery, there is only so much we can change.
and are two writers who have sparked my thinking on this topic recently, specifically on how much of a focus beauty is in our society, and on how it’s valued and sometimes traded as a commodity.
Kimia and I had a fascinating conversation about a month ago in the comments section of an article she wrote on this very topic. We discussed beauty, the male gaze, and what we think about women sometimes using their beauty to gain power or access. Here’s what I had to say to start things off. (You can read the whole exchange here.)
The thinking that informs this comment is at the basis of how I understand hijab. Hijab is widely recognized as the head covering that a Muslim woman wears over her hair, but it is much more layered than that. Hijab is an Arabic word that translates to barrier, as in a barrier between the world and the woman’s beauty. The rule of hijab dictates that a woman refrain from showing her beauty to the world, guarding it not as something to be ashamed of, but rather as something private, something that belongs to her and her close family.
That said, hijab is about a lot more than the amount of cloth you wear, and this is often commonly misunderstood. The concept of hijab is closely tied to the concept of haya’, which is the Arabic word for modesty, and a key teaching in the Islamic tradition. Haya’ means that beyond covering my skin, I am behaving modestly. I am not talking about things that are lewd in public. I am engaging with the world in a respectful way. Some topics aren’t for every conversation, or for strangers, or for casual interactions. I realize that this might sound like repression to some, but for me, it fits comfortably. It feels right, like my loose, flowy pants and dresses.
Of course, this practice of hijab is much more difficult to execute in a beauty-obsessed world. Making the conscious choice not to trade on the oldest and most basic of feminine currency is hard. Everything around us tells us this is our most valuable asset. In recent years, I’ve noticed a proliferation of beauty and fitness programs and products sold as selfcare and inner soul work. This strikes me as odd, taking this very concept of the unfocus on outer beauty, and beautifying it, commodifying it, selling it as another way to make us pretty.
I want to be clear that I don’t judge anyone who does make the choice to focus on beauty. I simply bring my awareness to the fact that I am trying not to engage any more deeply with this layer of my self. That I am trying not to spend any more time or money on it than every aspect of my capitalist-driven, product-shilling, flaw-highlighting environment already leads me to spend.
And it does lead me there. And I do get sucked in. But what happens to me when I focus on my outer appearance is that I start to see myself as ugly, not because I’m so enlightened that I see the superficiality of it but because I don’t see myself as beautiful on the outside. Instead, I focus on all my flaws and all my shortcomings.
I start to value myself less and less. And I start to criticize myself more and more. That criticism starts with the way I look, but then it seeps into value judgements on every other aspect of my being.
A missed workout proves that I am lazy. A new pimple along my jawline proves that I’m undisciplined and gluttonous, that I can’t resist sugar even though I know it’s bad for me. A higher number on the scale proves that I’m unlovable. None of it makes anything better.
I have been thinner. I have had clearer skin and fewer frown lines. I was not happier, just younger and more bewildered about the world.
My practice is imperfect. I buy the overpriced skincare products and apply them inconsistently. I scroll mindlessly through Instagram and compare myself to filtered women with dedicated chefs and personal trainers.
But the very nature of the practice is in itself a promise, and with every action I take, it helps me to reset my intentions about beauty and my engagement with it. Putting a hijab on before I leave the house is a reminder to myself that my hair is not my focus. Dressing in loose clothing is a decision not to partake in the system that asks women to trade on their looks.
Practice may not make perfect but it certainly makes mindful.
The Usual Disclaimer
I hope it goes without saying, but just in case: I don’t believe women should be forced to wear a hijab, or to take it off. Kimia and I discussed the fact that, in her native Iran, women have to wear it, which I take as a violation of their freedoms. In Quebec, where I lived for 7 years, where both my sons were born, there have been various attempts at limiting a Muslim woman’s ability to wear it. In fact, there is currently a law in place that bans the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols by people “in positions of authority who are employed by the provincial government.”
I’ll give you one guess what qualifies and what doesn’t qualify as ostentatious. (Hint: crosses are fine, but all that vaguely ethnic stuff, like turbans worn by Sikh men, yarmulkes worn by Jewish men, and hijabs worn by Muslim women are out.)
If you’d like to read more about my experiences as a hijabi in Quebec, you can do that here.
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Let’s chat in the comments:
What are your thoughts on the role of physical appearance in our society? Too much? Not enough? Just right?
Do you spend a lot of time and energy on your own physical appearance? Is it an important part of your identity?
Is there are practice you are working at that flies in the face of the majority?
Do you have any questions for me about hijab or other aspects of life as a Muslim? I’m happy to answer any questions I can, asked in good faith, from my perspective.
I am continuing to share resources, links, and information that I have found helpful regarding the crisis in Gaza and the West bank.
This week I’d like to share an article about witnessing recently published in Jewish Currents, by Palestinian writer Sarah Aziza. I couldn’t stop thinking about this piece after I read it. It asks, what is the point of capturing the genocide on camera, livestreamed to all our phones, if no one will do anything about it?
As usual, a wonderful piece. Thank you, Noha :) I *love* that your faith gives you a framework within which to think about all this. And I especially love that you're able to disconnect your choice to be a hijabi from the Western perception of the practice, which fundamentally misunderstands where you're coming from! This inspires me to go think about how I can bring my Judaism into my thought process about all this, too.
I think a lot about the ways in which we attach morality to various things that are, inherently, made up and not moral at all in society. As you said, "A missed workout proves that I am lazy. A new pimple along my jawline proves that I’m undisciplined and gluttonous, that I can’t resist sugar even though I know it’s bad for me. A higher number on the scale proves that I’m unlovable. None of it makes anything better." My enduring question is *why* should a missed workout prove that we're lazy — instead of maybe just smart for having listened to our body asking for rest? Having a pimple isn't a failure, it's just something that happens when you have skin that comes into contact with air — but our society adds all this *stuff* onto it, making it more complicated than it needs to be. And on and on... It's a constant questioning in a world which really wants us to stand up to standards that are completely invented (by men) instead of seeing these things as just part of living in an everchanging body. Reading Aubrey Gordon and Virginia Sole-Smith (both incredible Substackers) has been a huge help in thinking about all this.
"I have been thinner. I have had clearer skin and fewer frown lines. I was not happier, just younger and more bewildered about the world." That. All of this! I read these as words from my own inner dialogue about beauty and getting older. I appreciate your perspective so much. Thank you Noha!