Sweet Potato

Alhamdulillah, all praise to Allah. Today, after January is reaching it’s almost end, I am back as a full time munaqaba. A piece of cloth I left behind months ago because that time I thought I wore it without a vast range of knowledge and understanding about it. It’s niqab. Honestly when I chose to wear niqab on 2008, it was mostly because I tried to imitate people and also because I think wearing niqab is cool. But since this early 2012, after taking almost a year of thinking I finally decided to wear it again. This time after a hard study of it’s hukum and implementation, from religious class, from Islamic scholar and also a bit from internet me then become confident to put that small piece of cloth back onto my face.

Why?
I don’t think my face is an aurat. I am syafii mazhab follower where face and palm are not parts of aurat. But I choose to wear niqab with two other reasons. One to respect and to implement the sunnah attire. And two, to teach myself to lower my gaze, to teach myself to respect that piece of cloth I wear by controlling my akhlak and repairing my deeds.

Niqab is NEVER an oppression for me. My husband never suggest me to wear niqab. I choose to wear it myself but once I have decided, my husband is the best supporter ever standing behind to support and protect me. The very first time when I put niqab on my face, I remember it was a day after my birthday, he said “wear proper tudung underneath. In case you don’t feel comfortable, you can open it and the tudung still covering your aurat”.

I had a terrible feeling to travel in tube (the underground train) with niqab on. You know, I live in London one thing I worried most is the extremist old english people that doesn’t like immigrant especially from arab countries and pakistan, but my husband tried to convince me that nothing bad would happen. He said, you have passport with an expensive student visa with you, if they question anything, just show your passport. I am sure Malaysia passport doesn’t bring a big problem for them. And you have me, I will protect you. What he said helped a lot to sooth my feeling and made me comfortable to make a rebeginning of wearing niqab after few months (I left niqab behind after I gave birth to Aqeef, so I guess it’s almost a year now).

So, I presume that this blog is read by only few people who know me personally,especially my family and my friends. There’s nothing for me to hide. I will let my old pictures as they are. Because my intention on writing this blog is as a medium for me to share Aqeef’s news at London with family and close friend at Malaysia. I guess all my readers know how I look like, so no need for me to delete my pictures. And actually I don’t have so many readers. This is really a personal blog. And I think this is my first, and last, one and only blog post about niqab. Life is going on as usual. I will continue writing as Aqeef’s mommy and Dr Shukur’s wife, my mum and dad’s daughter and my sibling’s sister. And also a daughter and sister in law, and a friend to some people. Nothing change. I guess if anyone see me on the street I still can be recognised (especially with Aqeef around and my husband) so please say something to me if we happened to meet anywhere.