(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Rabyia Ahmed, York College’s assistant director of multicultural affairs, talked to seventh- and eighth-graders at Spring Grove Area Middle School Friday about the practice of wearing hijabs.
York, PA – Rabyia Ahmed says her hair is thick and dark. A few wisps of mahogany brown poked from beneath the black scarf she wore Friday as she spoke to a group of seventh- and eighth-graders as Spring Grove Area Middle School.
But the full sweep of Ahmed’s locks is reserved for very few — close family members, other women and one day her husband.
The Islamic practice of wearing a hijab — or a scarf covering the hair — isn’t repression, Ahmed said. It’s liberation.
“To me it represents modesty,” she said, hours after she explained her garb to students participating in a school diversity program. “It represents freedom from these stares I get from people only looking at my body. Someone talks to me. . . . They’re getting to know my heart instead of just my body.”
Rabyia Ahmed started wearing a hijab in 2004 in part because she liked the message that outer beauty is reserved for a woman and her husband. The 25-year-old assistant director of multicultural affairs at York College told the students why she chooses to wear hijabs during the Spring Grove Area Middle School’s Day of Acceptance. Students listened to other presentations about a variety of races, cultures, religions and circumstances, from Judaism to children with autism. They also played tolerance-themed games throughout the day.
Friday was the last of six similar days the school has devoted to diversity awareness since October, Assistant Principal Melissa Resek said. The idea came from teachers at the district who wanted to do something about bullying, Resek said.
Promoting diversity doesn’t specifically send the message give up bullying, she said. Instead, it makes students understand and maybe sympathize with those who might be different.
The program is working, Resek said. There have been fewer incidents of children harassing other children this year, and “kids are more apt to stand up and say when (bullying or insensitivity) is wrong,” she said.
Since she first started wearing a hijab in November 2004, Ahmed has gotten her share of dirty looks and obscene gestures. She was born in Karachi, Pakistan, moved to New York City four years later and eventually landed in York.
Growing up, Ahmed’s family relegated wearing hijabs to Muslim Sunday school or certain religious festivals.
When she turned 19, Ahmed decided to start wearing the hijab. The terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were three years old, and she felt the media was skewering her home and her culture. Some of her friends at York College wore hijabs, and she liked the message — your outer beauty is for you and your husband.
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