Don Shrubshell photo

From left, Arwa Mohammad, 16, a Rock Bridge High School senior, and University of Missouri-Columbia freshmen Nuzhad Chowdhury, 17, and Eman Abdelhadi, 17, discuss being young Muslim women in Columbia and what it’s like to wear the hijab.

When Columbia resident Eman Abdelhadi was just 9, she rebelled against her mother by deciding to follow the Muslim commandment to dress modestly - hijab - before puberty, when most Muslim girls are expected to do so.

"I thought it would make me cooler and older," the 17-year-old MU freshman said.

Eman’s mother warned her she might get sick of it, but Eman was determined, she said. She laughs now about donning a head scarf but continuing to wear capri pants and pairs of shorts. Muslim women who choose to practice hijab are only supposed to show their face and hands. "There are different opinions about feet," Eman said, "I’m a big fan of my flip-flops."

My head scarf "flew off a couple of times while I was on the swings," she said, but by age 10 Eman had adopted the full garb of the hijab.

This easily identified style of Muslim dress often puts girls in a position as cultural ambassadors for their religion in America.

"If I’ve had a bad day, if I had a fight with my mom and I’m at the grocery store throwing things in the cart or shoving it around, if someone sees me they won’t say, ‘That girl is having a bad day,’ " Eman said. "They’ll say ‘Muslim women are angry.’ "

"We are walking, talking representatives of Islam," said Arwa Mohammad, a 16-year-old senior at Rock Bridge High School who started wearing the hijab at age 12.

"Sometimes it’s troublesome, I’ll be honest," Arwa said. "Some Muslim girls have a phase when they don’t feel good about always being in the spotlight."

Arwa recently went to Girls State, a summer camp put on by the American Legion Auxiliary that focuses on leadership and democratic self-government, with 750 girls. She was the only Muslim girl at the camp wearing a head scarf, and she knew by the questions she was asked that some of the girls had never met a Muslim before, she said.

Classmates have even told Eman that they thought she was bald under her head scarf. She’s been asked if she doesn’t eat at all during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunup to sundown. She’s been asked whether every Muslim man has four wives. "I was shocked," she said, "I didn’t know where" that person "got that idea."

The girls feel charged with the responsibility of changing people’s perceptions of Islam in a time when it is grossly misunderstood, Arwa said.

Arwa said many people have the idea that young women like her are forced to wear the hijab, but dressing the way she does is a religious commandment, she said, and each woman has a choice of whether they want to do it. It just depends on how closely a woman wants to follow Islam’s commandments.

Not wearing the hijab is considered a sin, and like any other worship, it’s between the individual and God, Arwa said.

"It’s not like there’s some random Arab man who’s going to come out of the bushes and attack me if I’m not wearing a head scarf," Eman said.

The hijab is a style of dress, but the root of the commandment is part of the larger requirement that Muslims be modest, Eman said. First and foremost, you must obey God’s commandments. You must also be modest and have dignity. An added benefit of the hijab, she said, is maintaining a Muslim identity, a religious identity.

People know Eman is religious by her dress, she said, made evident by a trip to the grocery store when someone cursed near her and then turned around and apologized. Friends at school know she doesn’t drink or eat pork, she said. Boys know not to give her a hug and that she won’t date.

Arwa said she was excited to start wearing the hijab because her mother and many of her friends already wore it. For her, it was a rite of passage, a signal that she was no longer a child, but a person with thoughts that should be considered.

Not every Muslim girl in Columbia dons the hijab at puberty.

"I’m from the Desi culture - those are Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians - and it lets us choose," said Nuzhat Chowdhury, 17.

Nuzhat’s mother didn’t start wearing the hijab until age 40, when she completed her hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca each able-bodied and financially able Muslim is expected to make once in his or her lifetime.

Nuzhat has not started wearing a head scarf. She wears modest clothing and a head scarf when she prays but hasn’t felt it’s yet time to wear her hijab.

"A lot of girls wait until a milestone, like going to college. I knew one girl who started wearing it at the millennium," Nuzhat said.

All three girls were born in the United States. Their families immigrated from Iraq, Egypt and Pakistan.

It’s been years since Eman has blended in with her peers, she said, but as much as the girls stand out and consider themselves ambassadors to the world, they are still American teenagers and, like most teenagers right now, they are all obsessed with Harry Potter.

Eman recently stayed up until 5 a.m. reading the last volume of the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

When the girls finished discussing being young Muslim women in America, they quickly launched into a discussion about what moral qualities it takes to become a member of Gryffindor, Potter’s house at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

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