Emma the revert

A European girl that reverted to Islam for love and found her place

[emmatherevert]

Hijab isn't empowering me, and this is a good thing

I often read Muslim (and also others) women write online that they feel empowered wearing hijab, that it frees them from the duty of focussing on their looks as women and that it takes them closer to men (who often don't focus that much on their looks).

While I cannot discount their feelings, I can honestly say that it isn't like this for me.

Wearing hijab is something I do because it is required of me, no for my own enjoyment or comfort. In fact I sometimes (not often) miss wearing short sleeves in summer and having my hair out in the wind.

Hijab does not increase my freedom, but reduce it: I cannot wear what I want and I cannot easily decide to go out on a whim - I have to check that I'm dressed correctly, first. Even wearing hijab at home doesn't change this, it just moves the effort to my morning routine.

It also does not put me on a level with men, as it is a rule specifically for women. Yes, men should generally dress modestly as well, but for us women the rules are much stricter and hijab comes on top of that.

Hijab also does not make me more assertive or self-assured. If anything it reminds me that my true place is not outside in the world where I have to cover up, but at home with my family where I can be comfortable.

Yes, chosing a specific piece of cloth for my hijab allows me to express some individuality, but only to hide the most individual thing about me - my body. For the people in the street that see me, I simply become "this Muslim woman". When I'm in a Muslim country and there are many other women wearing hijab around, I simply become "that woman", in some cases it becomes impossible to even identify me from behind. If I'd be wearing Niqab as well, even my face, the last remaining way to recognize me as a person would be hidden as well.

This all may sound awfully negative, but in fact it isn't. I believe that wearing hijab makes me a better, calmer person, and despite all that I wear hijab with pride: Pride about being able to follow a rule and not the path of the least resistance. Pride about putting the will of Allah above my own will and comfort. Pride about publicly displaying my faith.

[emmatherevert]

If you want to feel like a queen, treat your husband like a king. As a woman I want love and attention from my man, while I give him my respect in turn.

[refat-ahmed]

Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said:

"Treat women nicely, for a women is created from a rib, and the most curved portion of the rib is its upper portion, so, if you should try to straighten it, it will break, but if you leave it as it is, it will remain crooked. So treat women nicely."

(Sahih al-Bukhari 3331)

(In-book reference : Book 60, Hadith 6)

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So we women will always be a bit crooked. But it's better to be crooked, than broken. Still, I sometimes wish that I could be straight as well.

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This woman is a fairly good model of joyful feminine submission. One thing she gets wrong here, though, is when she says, “I let him be the man that he is.” It would have been more accurate for her to say, “I don't resist him being the man that he is.” Other than this one error, she gets it. Her eyes are open.

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This is so beautiful. Obeying your husband isn't forced, but joyful.

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Surrender

Some time ago I wrote that obedience to my husband does not necessarily involve giving up my own opinions and accepting his opinions without questioning them.

In most cases disagreements can actually be resolved without invoking the duty to submit and obey or the right to be obeyed.

But there are rare cases when it actually does.

Yesterday I was trying to be protective of our daughters and demand more "fairness" in their treatment compared to the treatment of our son. They are both older than him, but while he gets treated like a little prince by everyone (including me), they get no such privileges:

They are (and always have been) expected (also by me) to do their share of household chores, they rarely get permission to go out with friends, for birthdays or other occasions they mostly get new clothes, while our son gets mostly toys and we buy his clothes on top of that.

Sometimes they complained about the unfairness of this and I relayed their complaints to their father.

He laughed and said: "But they are girls! They have to learn different things than boys."

His answer angered me, and I wanted to fire back. My husband saw my anger rise up and just shook his head lifted his finger and said in a stern voice: "You are not in charge here. You do not get to decide what's fair and unfair. Now go to the kitchen and when you are ready to submit to me again, bring me a fresh cup of tea!"

I obeyed and went to the kitchen, still angry that he had put me in my place so harshly.

Then the tears came. First the tears of self-pity. I just had demanded what I thought to be right and fair! Slowly I began to understand that the thing that made me feel hurt was my own ego and pride. My husband's words were the truth, but pride and my ego were leading me astray. With this realization my anger slowly subsided, but the tears were still flowing freely - at one point I did not know whether it was still my hurt ego that made me cry or whether it was that I felt sorry for having failed to submit to my husband as I should.

Finally the tears subsided and I filled a cup of tea for my husband and served it to him. Neither of us said a word, but we both knew that the rift had been mended, and that I was under his authority again. I had surrendered.

When he invited me to lay my head in his lap, it was pure bliss.

[emmatherevert]

Misogyny

It's misogyny to allow a woman to live in conditions that made all of her female ancestors since the beginning of mankind happy enough to thrive and procreate.

It is empowering to make a woman live in conditions that make her dependent on medication and that sap away her joy and her will to procreate.

I know that as a woman, hard logic is not my strongest talent, but that seems odd to me.

[emmatherevert]

Do you now speak other languages like Arabic more often?

Has your first name been changed in addition to your last name?

No, not that well, apart from a few phrases I absorbed. In a ways I'd like to, but I can't find the time and learning languages is hard for me.

No. My husband suggested it at the time, so I could start my new life as a "blank slate", but I felt my name was linked to who I am too much. So I kept the name "Emma".

[emmatherevert]

Different roles make us stronger

Many people ask whether my husband and I are equals.

I usually return the question: "What do you mean by equal?"

Before Allah both men and women are equal and worth the same - Allah only cares about how virtuous we live our lives.

But in our family we have different roles: Hasan leads, I follow his lead. He is the head of our family, I am the heart.

Like in a human body, you need both a head and a heart for the body to function - you cannot replace the heart by adding another head. Not only would the body die, because the flow of blood would simply stop, a body with 2 heads is also the body of a monster - and it's no coincidence that fairy tales featuring 2-headed monsters often have them destroyed through disagreement between the two heads.

A body with 2 hearts could probably work, but without a head it would lack any sense of direction, purpose or consciousness, it would be a heap of organic matter somewhere between life and death. (I just noticed that my little metaphor also explains, why Muslim men can take up to 4 wives, while Muslim wives can only have one husband - a body with multiple hearts and one head probably really could work, while a body with multiple heads and just one heart won't. Nice.)

"So you don't get equal rights with your man?" No. Rights within a family always need a purpose. If we have different roles, we need different rights to fulfill them. The husband doesn't get the right to make certain decisions because he is better or worth more than the wife, but because his role is that of a leader, and as a leader, he has to be able to make decisions for the other family members. The wife doesn't get the right to be fully supported by her husbands money and work because she is better or worth more than him, but because of her role as her husbands follower. To fully follow him, she must be sure that her material and emotional needs will always be met by him.

"So he has more rights than you?" More? As in a bigger number? Well, if you count every situation where he can make a decision "over my head", his rights are probably quite numerous. On the other hand, if you count every situation, where I have the right to consume a thing he had been working for without feeling guilty or in debt for it, or every time where I can chose to not bother about a thing because it's his job to take care of it, my rights are also plenty.

We have different rights, because we have different roles in our family. Our children already recognize this instinctively, by the way: They come to me for "heart" things like when they're hurt or feel sad, and they go to Hasan for "head" things like getting permission for something or when they want certain goods like books or video games. Because we are both sure and secure in our roles, our family is stronger.

I can trust Hasan, that her will always take care of me and that he will always to decide in the best interest of our family. Does he make mistakes? Sure, he's human. Hasan can trust me, that I will always follow his lead and not put up a fight about petty grievances. Do I make mistakes? Sure, I'm human.

[emmatherevert]

Sweaterdresses - modest and comfortable

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Freedom in the walled garden

Yesterday I cried. For a trivial and unimportant reason.

What's interesting was my husband's reaction: It did make him a little bit uncomfortable - all men are uncomfortable when a woman cries in their presence. He tried to console me, but he never tried to force, push or manipulate me into stopping to ease his discomfort. He accepted that I just needed to cry at the moment because my emotions were overflowing, he offered me his strength and guidance, but he didn't use his strength to force me to suppress my emotional outburst.

After a few minutes it was all over and we hugged and kissed for a long time. I didn't feel shame or remorse, I just was thankful for having a husband who is able to accept me at my low points as well as at my high points.

Later, when I was alone I thought about this incident: As a working woman I could never have permitted myself such an outburst at the office, I would never have had the freedom of just letting my emotions flow. With a man less strong than Hasan, I would also have had to "swallow it down" and put on a fake, stoic facade in order to not disturb him or cause him discomfort.

But with Hasan I didn't have to worry about the future consequences of that episode. No plethora of relationships and office politics to manage, no fragile male ego that must not be disturbed, just strength and support.

He has created a beautiful walled garden for me, where I can be freer than I have ever been. Where I am free to feel things that I wouldn't have permitted myself to feel before. He sets the boundaries and he guards the walls of the garden - freeing me from the duty to guard myself and my emotions.

[d-aart3]

🎧✏️

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©2024 Duha Ahmad ( IG: D.AART_3)

[emmatherevert]

The good old balaclava - the coziest way to wear hijab in winter.

[emmatherevert]

Inferiority and subordination

I have received a couple of messages by men who call themselves misogynistic. I'm not that thrilled by actual misogyny, but as the messages themselves were polite and did not ask for anything haram I answered them truthfully.

There seems to be a concept that women are somehow inferior to men - in the world, and in Islam especially.

Just for the record. I am not inferior to my husband or any other man. My worth before Allah is not determined by the sex I was born with, but only with the way I live my life,

Yes, I am under my husband's authority in a lot of things, he gets to decide some things which I don't, but I am not inferior.

I am his subordinate, meaning that in the hierarchy in our family I am below him. Yes, there is a hierarchy in our family - just like in a company where a department head is still subordinate to the CEO, but by no means inferior.

Being subordinate also does not mean being less competent. Like a worker is often (probably almost always) more competent in doing his job than the CEO would be doing the same work, I am not less competent than Hasan. In fact there are many areas where I am better than him, but that does not invalidate the hierarchy that we all need to respect.

The fact that this hierarchy is within our family also implies, that I am not subordinate to any man other than my husband - which in fact could be haram and which was one of the reasons I became a fulltime housewife.

The hierarchy in our household is: 1) Allah 2) my husband 3) me 4) our children

Arguably there is a (very flat) hierarchy among the children as well. My eldest daughter used to take a somewhat leading role due to her being the eldest, but recently our son has risen to the top in a few select areas despite being the youngest. Note, that this is neither enforced by Hasan, nor me - it's just something I notice when watching their interactions.

[emmatherevert]

"You Muslim women can only wear ugly sacks covering your body!"

I dressed in the dull, western, androgynous way before reverting. Always careful not to project too much femininity, which I saw as inferior - fearing that people wouldn't take me seriously when I looked too feminine.

It took me some time to realize that I had been at an inner war with my femininity for a long time, and only by surrendering I finally found peace and happiness.

Through wearing hijab I found joy in dressing decidedly feminine. Frills, pleats, whatever - the more girlish and feminine, the better.

Now I'm prod of being a muslimah and a woman.

[emmatherevert]

Do you always have to walk 5 steps behind your husband?

That's actually a surprisingly common question I get asked by non-Muslims....

Short answer: No.

But when we are walking as a family - especially when the children were younger - I often did out of necessity:

My husband would walk in the front, leading the way, then the children were following, running along or falling back - whatever.

My job as their mother was to make sure that no one got lost or hurt, that items they dropped got picked up and that the children got to sit in the stroller or be carried when they became tired.

Even today, when they are not toddlers anymore, I often still walk behind - out of habit and because I still like to feel "in control".

[espresso-girll]

❤️.

[emmatherevert]

Learning and unlearning

People sometimes ask me, how I managed to change into being an obedient (at least according to my husband) housewife, despite being raised as a western woman.

Indeed, my mother tried hard to instill me with thoughts of independence, freedom and feminism, and she largely succeeded.

I am thankful to her, because without a healthy dose of independent thought I certainly wouldn't have married a man from a different culture against the recommendations of many friends and family members.

Hasan, on the other hand grew up with three sisters, who had been trained to serve the men in their family. I guess he sometimes thinks: "Why should I get up and get a glass of water, when there's a woman around to do it?"

In the beginning of our relationship this sort of behavior made me angry. What made me especially angry was, that most of the time when he ordered me to do something, I quickly got up and did it, before even thinking about it. In my mind I had prepared a whole "Why don't you do it yourself?"-speech, but I never had the chance to perform it, because I always obeyed first and only thought later.

One day Hasan told me to brew him a cup of tea, but while I was preparing it, I suddenly felt the anger rushing through my veins. I finished the task and served him the cup with all the fury that I had been harboring for weeks.

He immediately noticed that something was amiss and asked me. I answered: "You treat me like a maid, why didn't you make the tea yourself?"

He thought for a while and said: "But when you went to make it, you were still smiling - what happened in the kitchen?"

I told him that the anger had suddenly overcome me while brewing the tea, when I had realized that I had again obeyed his command without putting up the resistance I had already planned in my mind.

He hugged me and said: "So your heart wants to serve me, but your mind says no? And now you feel betrayed by your heart? Stop betraying your heart instead. You can change the way you think, but not the way you feel."

Hearing his words I had started to sob. He was right.

He continued: "Following your heart is the path towards happiness. Now take that cup, take it to the kitchen, pour its content into the sink and clean it as long as it takes, to remove all the anger and resentment, you poured into it. Then brew a fresh kettle of tea, fill two cups and sit down at my side."

I don't know how long I scrubbed that poor cup, with tears were streaming down my face all the time, but the monotonous work really helped me push away the negative thoughts and when I finally served Hasan his cup while holding mine in the other hand, I was smiling again.

I realized that serving others made me happy, while being selfish had made me sad.

The whole process of unlearning and learning anew took much longer, but today I can say I am happy in my place and I follow the directions of my heart most of the time.