The Cab Driver

Author’s note: I had this from my Facebook Notes. I don’t remember where it came from, but I still think it’s worth sharing.

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes, I walked to the door and knocked. “Just a minute,” answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.”

I Want To Take Off My Hijab (Reblog from Thought Catalog)

Author’s note: I have followed Thought Catalog for a couple of years now, and this is the first time such a poignant article on Islam (that I’ve found) has made it through the editors. I have fixed most of the grammar and spelling errors and inserted a few explanatory links, but I leave this girl’s message intact. Any anti-Islam comments will be removed. Here is the source link. Cover photo from NBC

It has taken me a long time to write this. It is very personal, difficult, sensitive, and extremely controversial.

Sitting here, typing this, I am still not sure whether I can, in fact, put it all into words that, in some little way, express how I feel and why.

But enough with the preamble – let’s just get into the heart of the matter:
I am a Muslim and i want to take off my hijab. there. I’ve said it.

I remember the day I wore it. I was thirteen. My best friend and I had been talking about wearing hijab for a while because everyone’s been doing it. Duh. It was the coolest new thing. We decided we would soon. It was in Ramadan; after iftar, I went to her place so that we could go to our aunt’s wedding. She dressed up and put on a hijab. I decided to do it then and there. I borrowed a hijab from her mom. With both of us wearing it, we went to the wedding hand-in-hand, extremely proud of ourselves.