Pleasant and kindly,
And everything smiley,
That’s what Muslim girls are made of

My love, know that your hijab is your armor, cherish it. Know that Allah never lets the efforts of His slaves go to waste, so be steadfast so that His everlasting mercy shall be yours, inshaAllah. Have the full conviction that you are beautiful; never doubt that, for you are a creation of Allah subhana wa ta’la.

Classically, a hero is the archetype of courage, and is someone who knows that battles are won with the heart. It is said that a hero is someone who is selfless. When I was a little girl I had a string of heroes and heroines. There were times when I dreamed I was part of a clan of mutants called the X-Men, that I could be like the coolest kid in second grade, and that I could be a heroic dreamer like Ronald Dahl’s protagonist in one of my favorite novels, James and the Giant Peach. As I grew, my aspirations changed and so did my heroes. My dreams and life evolved and my heroes shifted more from imagined characters to real people.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmutullah, sisters. I badly need help from any of you… please… I started practicing Islam 3 years ago after I finished 12th grade, whereas my family were just cultural Muslims. They loathed my wearing hijab, practicing Islam. As a family, we’re really close to each other, but since I turned to Islam, they all started accusing every mistake, big or small, that I do… they blame Islam. My mom and I have fights often…

Dread filled me as we approached the boarding school that was to be my new abode. As my father drove us through the entrance, I held on to my hijab with trepidation, mulling over how I would survive wearing it every day for the next five years in secondary school. At thirteen, I knew nothing about how to wear a hijab, and for the first month, I walked around school clad in a clumsily worn hijab, like most of the other first formers around me.