Three women speak on faith, choice, hijab

From left to right, Leen Arafat, Sama Ouf, and Jana Salem stand together wearing hijabs, challenging assumptions through faith, identity, and choice. (Suzanne Shah/AQ)

For many Muslim women, the hijab is rarely seen as it is lived. Instead, it is debated, theorized and politicized, often by those who have never worn it. The result is a narrative shaped by outsiders, while the women themselves are left unheard.

“Everyone has a theory about us, except us,” said Sama Ouf, a student at Fredericton High School. 

Ouf said the hijab is an act of faith rather than a performance for others. 

“I didn’t put it on for the world.”

She said wearing a hijab often invites scrutiny, no matter the choice a woman makes. 

“If you wear it, they question it and if you don’t, the questions get louder,” she said. “So do it for yourself first.” 

For her, hijab is not a limitation but a form of devotion. 

“Hijab is worship before wardrobe,” she said. “Faith gives me shape.”

That pressure to explain oneself is a shared experience among Muslim women who wear a hijab. 

Leen Arafat, a student at Fredericton High School, said the most exhausting part is the constant assumption that the choice was never theirs. 

“Most people assume,” she said. “No one asks, ‘Is this mine?’”

Arafat said the hijab has often been framed as something that silences women, when her experience has been the opposite. 

“We are here to stop being spoken on,” she said. “Modesty becomes my marker, not my

eraser.” 

Rather than disappearing behind the fabric, Arafat said she feels more visible in her values and identity.

Media portrayals of hijab frequently flatten Muslim women into symbols, either of oppression or resistance, leaving little room for nuance. 

Jana Salem, a first-year student at the University of New Brunswick, said those portrayals miss the complexity of real lives. 

“They read the headlines, not the life between the lines,” she said.

Salem said her decision to wear hijab was rooted in faith and belonging. 

For Salem, the hijab is not about withdrawing from society but about grounding herself within it.

Together, the three women said they want conversations about hijab to shift away from speculation and toward listening. 

All three emphasized that the hijab does not carry a single meaning. It can represent faith, resistance, identity, or peace—sometimes all at once.

“Choice lives in what we carry with pride,” Ouf said.

In a world eager to define Muslim women for them, these voices insist on the right to speak for themselves.