Seaveyliciouss

Tears fill my eyes as I read the words on my screen. The world seems to stop spinning for the slightest second as I re-read the anonymous message over and over again, gripping on to the hope that the words will magically disappear. But they didn’t. Anon had done it; they’d figured out that the only way to make me take off my hijab was to call my hair ugly. My one weakness.

A tear streams down my left cheek.

Eight years of academy hijab training…wasted. I had to prove this extremely relevant and good-looking anonymous person wrong, I cared too much about what they thought. How could I live my life knowing that there is one person out there who thinks probably my hair is ugly maybe? How could I look myself in the mirror? How could I face my family? My shoulders shook as I cried silently, and my chair squeaked ever so slightly at the vibrations; as if it, too, was crying in sorrow.

It wasn’t until that moment that the second part of the message dawned on me… how would I prove them wrong without breaking the rules? Was it really against the rules? I reach into my hijab and pull out a scroll. At the very top, in cursive jet-black inked letters, the word ‘Rules’ stares back at me. My heart is racing as my eyes frantically read the scroll.

‘Rule #1: no killing people,’ it reads. I let out a whimper. There go my evening plans. 

Suddenly, my eye catches the next words. The scroll is rustling in my trembling hands as I turn my face away, tears spraying out of my eyes like the spit of a white person as they try to justify racism. The cursive words felt more like a curse of words, vivid and refusing to disappear as if I were still staring at them even through my closed eyes.

worn out places

*moves an image a mm to the left*

May Allahﷻ grant them paradise, ease the pain of their families, and make our mosques more full than they’ve ever been before. We fear no one, we will continue to go to mosques, wear our hijabs, and be proud of being Muslims. We do not fear people, we do not fear guns, and we do not fear death. They can kill Muslims but they can’t kill Islam.

And honestly, to be killed for being a Muslim is a death I wouldn’t mind.

“And do not ever assume that those who are slain in Allah’s cause, are dead;

in fact they are alive with their Lord, receiving sustenance.”

May Allahﷻ grant them paradise, ease the pain of their families, and make our mosques more full than they’ve ever been before. We fear no one, we will continue to go to mosques, wear our hijabs, and be proud of being Muslims. We do not fear people, we do not fear guns, and we do not fear death. They can kill Muslims but they can’t kill Islam.

And honestly, to be killed for being a Muslim is a death I wouldn’t mind.

“And do not ever assume that those who are slain in Allah’s cause, are dead;

in fact they are alive with their Lord, receiving sustenance.”

BRING IT ON