World Hijab Day

World Hijab Day is an annual event founded by Nazma Khan in 2013.[1] The event takes place on 1 February each year in 140 countries worldwide.[2] Its stated purpose is to encourage women of all religions and backgrounds to wear and experience the hijab. Event organizers describe it as an opportunity for non-Muslim women to experience the hijab.[3]

Not to be confused with Global Pink Hijab Day or International Purple Hijab Day.
World Hijab Day
World Hijab Day poster from 2016
Date(s)1 February
FrequencyAnnual
Established2013 (2013)
FounderNazma Khan
Websiteworldhijabday.com
Part of a series on
Islamic female dress
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Criticism of the event

In February 2013, Maryam Namazie criticised World Hijab Day in a piece that compared World Hijab Day with World Female Genital Mutilation Day or World Child Marriage Day. She was quoted in a BBC report on the Day as saying:

"Millions of women and girls have been harassed, fined, intimidated and arrested for 'improper' veiling over the past several decades," she wrote in a blog post about the Iranian women's football team's hijabs.

"Anyone who has ever taken an Iran Air flight will verify how quickly veils are removed the minute the airplane leaves Iranian airspace.

"And anyone who knows anything about Iran knows the long and hard struggle that has taken place against compulsory veiling and sex apartheid."

In 2014, Maryam Namazie called for solidarity with "women who refuse and resist veiling."

In December 2015, The Washington Post published an opinion piece by Asra Nomani and Hala Arafa titled "As Muslim women, we actually ask you not to wear the hijab in the name of interfaith solidarity".[4] They say that the event spreads the "misleading interpretation" that the head covering is always worn voluntarily, and that "hijab" purely means headscarf.

In his own opinion piece published in 2017, Maajid Nawaz references the earlier Nomani & Arafa article and describes the event as "worse than passé", suggesting that the name be changed to "Hijab is a Choice Day".[5]

In 2018, Canadian human-rights campaigner Yasmine Mohammed started a #NoHijabDay campaign in response, to celebrate the women who have defied social censure and the state to remove the hijab.[6] She says:

No Hijab Day is a day to support brave women across the globe who want to be free from the hijab. Women who want to decide for themselves what to wear or what not to wear on their heads. Women who fight against either misogynist governments that will imprison them for removing their hijab or against abusive families and communities that will ostracize, abuse and even kill them.[7]

Notes
  1. "World Hijab Day - Better Awareness. Greater Understanding. Peaceful World". Archived from the original on 6 October 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2016.
  2. Participating Countries. "Worldwide Support". World Hijab Day. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  3. "World Hijab Day". Facebook.com. Archived from the original on 26 July 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  4. "As Muslim women, we actually ask you not to wear the hijab in the name of interfaith solidarity". The Washington Post. 21 December 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  5. Maajid Nawaz. "The Great Hypocritical Muslim Cover-Up". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  6. "'Removing your hijab can get you killed – even in the West'". spiked. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  7. Mohammed, Yasmine. "Support Muslim women in fight against hijab". Toronto Sun. Archived from the original on 2 February 2019. Retrieved 2 February 2019.

References
  1. Grima, Nathalie. "An Affair of the Heart": Hijab Narratives of Arab Muslim Women in Malta." Implicit Religion 16, no. 4 (December 2013): 461-481. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
  2. Jones, Nicky. "Beneath the Veil: Muslim Girld and Islamic Headscarves in Secular France." Macquarie Law Journal 9, (May 2009): 47-69. Academic Search Complete,EBSCOhost.
  3. Prusher, Ilene. "World Hijab Day: Muslims debate where the headscarf belongs." Christian Science Monitor, 4 September 2012. N.PAG, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost
  4. Vyas, Sapna. "Identity Experiences of Young Muslim American Women in the Post 9/11 Era " Encounter 21, no. 2 (Summer2008 2008): 15-19. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
  5. ZAHEDI, ASHRAF. "Muslim American Women in the Post-11 September Era." International Feminist Journal of Politics 13, no. 2 (June 2011): 183-203. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
  6. "Participating Countries - World Hijab Day." World Hijab Day. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 March 2016.
  7. "Assemblyman David Weprin issues statement in support of ‘World Hijab Day’", 1 February 2016. http://worldhijabday.com/assemblyman-david-weprin-issues-statement-in-support-of-world-hijab-day/
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