niqab in high school (u.s.a)

[muhammadnur]

are there any sisters here who wore niqab during their high school years particularly in the US but even other western countries? I ask because my daughter is thinking of wearing niqab and I would like some pointers and\or experiences I could pass on to her to encourage her.

[faridbeg]

Assalamu Alaykum. Alhamdulillah! my Daughter Fatima. just grajuated from High school in CA via indipendent study and she has been wearing hijab since 3rd graide! she used to go to the High school every week and all the teachers used to respect & admier her. for wearing Niqab. she never had any problem with it. I Highly encourege your daughter to wear the Niqab and do not feel shy to practis on order of our Allah subhanahu wa taala.. may Allah give her stranth to do so. was salam.
Faridbeg.

[Usman]

Insha'Allah everything will be fine. The only problem she MIGHT face will be peer pressure, but with enogh encouragement from parents, that means nothing. Make sure you give more than enough love to her at home, so she doesn' search for friends outside.

[Raza786]

Im was a student who went to a high school in where there was a pretty big Muslim population...but most people wore hijabs not niqabs...i think that towards the beginning a hijab is better because it will give her confidence-at least more then wearing a niqab, but that just my opinion

[muhammadnur]

Im was a student who went to a high school in where there was a pretty big Muslim population...but most people wore hijabs not niqabs...i think that towards the beginning a hijab is better because it will give her confidence-at least more then wearing a niqab, but that just my opinion

She already wears hijab, she's been wearing hijab since elementary school. But even then she had an inclination to wearing niqab. her Quran teacher at the islamic school she went to then had a positive impact on her and she was a niqabi. But we didn't push it because of her age, at the time she was 9. However we moved away and she started going to public school. Fast forward 5 years and now she is inclined to wear niqab again.

[ninjapro]

are there any sisters here who wore niqab during their high school years particularly in the US but even other western countries? I ask because my daughter is thinking of wearing niqab and I would like some pointers and\or experiences I could pass on to her to encourage her.

I hope I can be of help... I'm currently in high school in the US and I'm wearing niqab so I can tell you what she'll feel - the beginning it's amazing and you feel much higher than everyone else you actually ignore the retarded and idiotic and childish reactions the non-Muslims give when going out…

To answer your question, I went to an Islamic private school for my first year of high school, which is pretty much like a public school, just the uniforms and the extra Quran and Islamic studies classes, but I only went for several weeks because I couldn't handle it. I’ve been going from an Islamic school to public schools before wearing niqab. Anyway it was difficult for me especially the pressure from the other students. I had friends but I was lonely and by myself about 70% of the time. But other than that the people there respected me. But what I guess I hated the most was that they acted towards me as if I was an old lady. It was the teachers who would talk and hang out with me the most lol. But the boys kept their distance, I was able to eat in the library for lunch so I could take off my niqab, skip P.E., and the girls were distant too but they would still hang out with me if I went over to them.

So my first BIG advice to you is to ask her if she wants to do home-schooling online instead, I assure you its much much better. I do that now, I have more time for things I like, less pressure from girls and the outside society, I love my niqab and am getting more confident with it everyday, but I still go out and have fun anyway. Home-schooling is not hard at all unless you're home everyday and have no time to go out and stuff, you'll feel cut out from the rest of the world. But just make sure to let her do things she likes also; make her feel like she's not diff from the other girls who wear only the hijab and believe me, if she’s living in the US, then the hijab here is more fashionable than without the hijab, so she’ll feel a huge difference, get very moody at times… but the feeling will pass with time, Inshallah. A reminder to make sure she’s always thinking about: She’s doing the right thing, death can be coming any moment, nothing in this life matters, and that Allah (swt) is pleased with her.

BUT if she doesn’t want home-schooling then I can tell you some things to look out for… give her little talks every once in a while about how she is special but she’s the same as the other girls. Whatever they do, she can do (halal of course). I’m saying, the Islamic school I used to attend, they do an all-girls day and get together with all the girls from the class and go to places ranging from ice-skating, rollerblading, bowling to partying at CiCi’s pizza or even sleepovers at the Masjid, and yeah I attended everything with them with my niqab and I was the only one wearing it but I didn’t even notice. Once you get into her mind that whatever she wears outside doesn’t make her any lesser (of fun, normal activities) of the other girls, everything else will go much smoother.

Other advice let her talk to other girls who wear niqab because that way she feels that there are other girls like her in world and she can relate to someone. I have several friends that wear niqab, my age, all of them in different cities though; I keep in touch with them online. So basically even though I’m the only one my age who wears niqab in my area, I don’t feel left out. I have friends who wear only hijab, and if she has good friends, then that’s all she needs.

Oh and don’t keep pushing the idea that she wore niqab so young and not many others have the blessing to do so because (from my opinion) don’t keep praising her, (you can give her reassuring advice from time-to-time) because it tends to get not only annoying but also can make her feel like she’s separating totally from what she was before.

This all is my opinion and your daughter may be a totally different person and not go through everything I did in the same manner – but anyway I hope I helped.

Congrats and I hope she wears it and everything goes good for her, may Allah bestow his blessings upon you all.

[ahmad12]

Very nice reply,

[Saaalik]

maashAllah,

everyday I fall more and more in love with this forum...may Allah ta'ala accept all of the beautiful bros and sisters around here for a paradise on the net.

I feel all the relevant answers, both as observers and practitioners, have been given...I couldnt hold myself happily appreciating with this useless-to-the-topic post!!!

jazaakAllahu Khaira...

Please also make sure you find some other kids around who also wear niqab and belong to pious families (I dont think it would be too hard) and take her into their company once in a while and help her forge a friendship with them...the feeling of having someone else with a similar background doing it is a great example for the satan and nafs when it tries to put in the wrong thoughts...

[ahmad12]

Ninja, can you please explain how you get homeschooled online?

[ninjapro]

Ninja, can you please explain how you get homeschooled online?

Sure. I’m taking it on Florida Virtual School (www.flvs.net) so as long as you’re in Florida (or have a FL number, we were overseas for sometime but had a phone with our FL number so it still worked) it’s free, but if you’re not, then you pay the fee. Anyway, you sign up for the courses you want/need to take (they have honors if you want extra credit) and you have a waiting period of several weeks/months until they assign you to a class and a teacher. There are other students who are taking the same class and with the same teacher and you have school e-mail access (only in the website) where the teachers send you weekly email updates, grades to the assignments you submit in, and you also can get to know your classmates and do collaboration assignments in groups thru it.

For the teacher, you have one different one for every class, though sometimes there are two, but you always have one main teacher. She/he has their name and information on the announcement page (the welcome page for the specific class) and their picture, news about the class, (they have live sessions and sometimes they arrange field trips, like to the library or bush gardens or Disney, I never go, not many students go either) and pictures of students (you send in your pic and they put it up. A way to ‘get to know your classmates’. Not required) They also have little contests between the classes (the same classes but with different teachers), like whichever class submits the most assignments in a given period of time, they get to see a video of their teacher getting smeared with pie or something like that.

Anyway, the teacher calls you for an ‘oral component’ which means that for every module/chapter the teacher calls and asks you to summarize what you know and they ask you questions about it also before you can take the exam. For every exam they have a password so you can’t get on until the teacher tests you and gives you the password. Exams and tests and quizzes can only be submitted in once (once you open it you can’t go back, if you do you get a zero and get locked out of it) so its like a real exam in a classroom. You are timed sometimes.

Also, the teacher calls monthly to speak to your parent/guardian and tell him/her about your progress, your overall grade, and your pace. There’s a minimum submission of 2 assignments per class weekly (if you don’t do that than you get a 3 warning before being ‘dropped’ which I’ll explain later), but you can submit as many as you want as long as its 2 or more. Sometimes you find a message on the announcement page saying someone (they list the name) submitted 10 assignments last week! or whatever, and they get sent a movie card or some sort of prize. All exams (including semester exams and finals) and quizzes and tests are open book. Lessons are virtual and in the school website/your class at all times. There’s no cheating allowed. If you copy and paste answers from websites like wikianswers.com or any other website, they have a way to catch you red-handed. They send back your file and highlight all the copied work so you feel really guilty. I never really believed it until I got caught and learned my lesson. The assignments that you plagiarized on, you lose half the points for them and you have to take the plagiarism quiz. They call your parents and it’s a 3-way call so they make sure you never do it again. If you do, then they drop you. When you get dropped that means they expel you and you get an automatic F (0 grade, you fail) for the class.

For the collaboration assignments you have to do at least one assignment collaboratively for each class. You can do as many as you want. You can pick whichever student you want to work with, send him/her an email, and you guys work together then submit the file with proof of collaboration. There’s also discussions where you post your assignment there and information about yourself <-- required. And students reply to each other and stuff. Everything is moderated by the teachers of course.

You can take language courses (Spanish, Latin..etc) and P.E. (Physical Education) and others like H.O.P.E and LMS (Life-Management-Skills). There are also the main classes like English, Physics/Science, Economics, Psychology…etc

The teachers are usually really nice. If you don’t like the teacher or the class, you have 2 weeks in the beginning to look over the class and do assignments and see your teacher and if you like it you stay if you don’t, you can drop the class without a grade, so you don’t fail but have a chance to sign up again for a different one. If after two weeks you drop the class or get dropped then you fail or get an F. For each semester you have a 2 week vacation you can use any time you want, including holiday breaks. They understand if you’re Muslim and want to take a few days off for both Eid’s and the last days of Ramadan, I’ve been doing that since I started, it has never been a problem, and they were very understanding.

I think I covered it all…?