Update on the hijab debate

By Alexis Yancey Jaami
New Thought News Service

"What's a mother to do? A mother in the U.S. should not have to have a stranger disrespect her daughter because she loves her faith and wears a head scarf. Or have strangers tell her, 'Your God is not our God. Go back to your country.'"
Powerful testimony at a Sunday Parliament workshop from Janaam Hashim, a Chicago attorney who runs a criminal defense and civil rights law firm with five other Muslim women lawyers. Amal Law Group is the first of its kind in the U.S.

                               Attorney Janaam Hashim explains how U.S. 
                               laws protect religious freedom such as women 
                               who wear hijab.

Hashim says that since 9/11, the U.S. Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted 42 cases of religious profiling against Muslims, Sikhs and Arabs.
The First and 14th Amendments protect religious freedom in the United States, as does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Hashim noted that some states once banned religious garb in public schools, not due to hijab, but because some did not want nuns wearing habits to enter public schools.

"The number one reason I love my country is because I can practice my faith the way I want to," Hashim said.

                               Hijab isn't always black. More and more 
                               Muslim women are wearing bright headscarves.

"Dialogue is the key to moving forward against Islamophobic issues," Musheed Ansari of Australia emphasized in the workshop, titled, "The Headscarf Debates: Religious Dress and Secular Fundamentalism."
Ansari told how an Australian woman expected to be spit on when she wore the hijab, but found the opposite was true, and regretted she thought her people would not respect her.

Australia has made progress on the issue; Ansari showed pictures of a group of Muslim female lifeguards who wear covering from head to toe and of Muslim women wearing the Australian flag as hijab.