‘Super-Hijabi’ is the kind of representation Muslims can trust. It is an unapologetically Muslim superhero movie that features a young Muslim girl as its main character. According to Muslim Kids TV, “‘Super Hijabi’ is the kind of movie that has been missing in mainstream media and we are here to fill the gap.”
Women’s voices are still struggling to be heard unfiltered even when they bring up their own grievous stories. They still come out mixed up with judgment and fear, they receive the request to be polite and they often collide with society’s will to cut out the most unsettling parts. Hence the very popular choice of silence instead of voicing violence, racism, and homotransphobia. Marginalized people do prefer keeping silent than seeing their stories thrown in the public sphere with little chance of a truthful narrative.
It goes without saying that women were the primary narrators of the customs related to matters pertaining to women. However, there are many instances where women narrated on general issues. One renowned Ḥadīth is narrated by al-Rubayyi’ bint Mu’awwidh in which she describes the Prophet’s wuḍhūʾ. Her knowledge on this was so accurate and detailed that various scholars travelled to great lengths to hear this Ḥadīth from her.
In our modern world, this incident would have an entire community swearing and condemning a woman for daring to leave her marital home in a state of anger, let alone staying at her aunt’s for a period of four months. Muslim women today, are told that to step foot outside their matrimonial home without their spouse’s permission is tantamount to stepping into the fire of hell. There is a lot of oppression and spiritual blackmail going on in our communities against women and if these issues are not addressed, they’re going to have a devastating effect on our ummah.
Hind bint Umayya asked questions that God responded to by way of revelation. She once asked the prophet why men were always mentioned in the Quran and not women, and God answered her question by revealing the famous ayah 35 of surah Ahzab.
The utopia unfolds to reveal an entirely flipped gender duality, with women at the frontiers of productivity, science, and innovation, and men tucked away in the oppressive comfort of their homes with little agency. Destruction of the binary rather than this reversal can seem more mature on the surface, but what is mature is rational, closer to the cognitively acceptable. It is in the unapologetic and blatant reversal of the gender hierarchy, then, instead of a meek and sober dissipation into equality, that we are estranged from the real-time and space of the narrative in a classic science fiction motif.
It seems that Zainab’s relationship with, and conversion to, Islam had an effect on the relationship with her family and more specifically, her marriage. She and her husband separated in 1922. Following his death in 1929; she began seriously pursuing the prospect of being able to perform Hajj. Zainab became the first Muslim woman born in Britain to perform Hajj; not only this but she also wrote a book of her accounts and this was published — Pilgrimage to Mecca. Zainab was aged 65 when she performed Hajj in 1933.
It made me think about how many Muslims go through degradation and ridicule in America? Especially post 9/11? I believe what struck me the most was my cousin. I love my cousin, he knows that but what he said first stung a little then confused me. He stated, “Go learn that lesson then take it off ASAP. And make sure they ain’t teaching you how to wrap explosives in that head wrap”.
My rap ‘Accept Me Please’ holds the most sentimental value to me because this was the first rap that I wrote. When I wrote this, I knew that I wanted to perform it – that’s when I knew that I wanted to be on stage and transform my written poetry into spoken word.
Poetry provides a profound way to understand something as elusive as the truth in a world that is designed to mask it- the truth of Islam, the truth of who you really are- so this is why I have taken to this form of self-expression as it helps me to hold onto it. My writing also covers Africa and the politics of blackness as this is such a foundational part of who I am and what I believe in.
