From Afghanistan, Albania and Algeria to Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as many as 150 countries celebrated World Hijab Day on February 1, marking the 10th anniversary of the global event dedicated to combating religious intolerance and discrimination against Muslim women.
World Hijab Day was founded in 2013 by Nazma Khan, a native of Bangladesh who emigrated to the U.S. when she was 11 years old. Growing up in the densely populated neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City, Khan frequently faced hostility in public because, like millions of Muslim women around the world, she covered her head, neck and chest with a headscarf—or hijab—as a sign of modesty and a display of her religious beliefs and Islamic identity.
“In middle school, I was ‘Batman’ or ‘ninja,’” Khan recalls. “When I entered university after 9/11, I was called Osama bin Laden or terrorist. It was awful.”
Khan was chased down the streets of New York because she looked visibly Muslim. Scared to leave her home and face taunts and abuse from strangers, the young woman stopped wearing her hijab.
“I thought maybe this would be easier, but it wasn’t,” she told Sky News. “I walked into college, feeling uncomfortable—I clung onto my clothes and wanted to cover myself,” She added tearfully. “I felt like someone had taken my identity away.”
Eventually, Khan says she “figured the only way to end discrimination is if we ask our fellow sisters to experience hijab themselves.”
Determined to spread awareness of Islamic customs and empower those who wear the hijab, Khan launched a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group named World Hijab Day Organization in 2018. Three years later, the activist founded International Muslim History Month, an annual event celebrated in May, in an effort to fight Islamophobia by honoring the contributions of Muslims through the ages.
“I believe awareness and education is the key to dismantling hate and bring about changes,” writes Khan on her organization’s official website. “And one of the ways to do that, I believe, is for us to reflect back on our past. A past that’s filled with dreamers, believers, men and women of imagination and innovation.”
In conjunction with International Muslim History Month, the New York State Senate adopted May 2021 as Muslim History Month for the State of New York.
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