Underneath it all

Lamya Sahraoui walked down the street on a brisk Tuesday wearing oversized glasses, with a billowing pink head scarf cascading over her black North Face parka. As she made her way to class, the wind whipped, the fresh covering of snow blowing past her hijab.

She sang softly to herself, lost in the rhythms of her iPod nano, unaware of or indifferent to the occasional stares. Sahraoui is part of a burgeoning subgroup at Syracuse University: Young Muslim American women and proud followers of their Islamic faith.

The hijab, the Islamic style of dressing in which a woman covers her head and neck beneath a scarf, is perhaps the most visible manifestation of a Muslim woman's faith. Both devout and modern, these daughters of Muslim immigrants, many of them American-born-and-raised citizens, blend their Islamic faith with their American culture. Traditional dress

The word hijab comes from the Arabic word "hajaba," which in English means "to cover."

The look of the head scarf varies in size and shape depending on the culture and the person. Some women tie them tightly under their chins. Others drape them loosely around the face and neck and over their shoulders to a shawl, while in some cultures, women wear the niqab - the full (traditionally all-black) gown and face-covering common in Saudi Arabia, where Islamic dress codes are strictly enforced, Sahraoui said.

Although the hijab and orthodox dress are gaining in popularity, especially among young women who strongly believe in the practice, most American Muslim women do not cover their heads, said Asma Gull Hasan, a prominent Muslim feminist.

One reason is that many say they do not see the hijab as a Quranic requirement.

"I personally do not believe that hijab is required by Islam or by God," Hasan said. "I believe it is a cultural practice, which is why the practice of hijab pre-dates Islam in some cultures.

"However, if there are Muslim women who feel that God is asking them to wear the hijab, I respect and admire their decision," Hasan said. "I think it is a lovely way to show your faith, so long as it is the woman's choice and not one forced on her by a man or patriarchal attitudes."

Maryam Abbasi, an American of Indian descent born in Los Angeles, and a medical student at State University of New York Upstate Medical University, fits her religious observance into her jam-packed schedule, trying always to reconcile the unsettling contradictions of Islam in America.

"I always wanted to wear it, but I felt kind of shy about it because I was afraid of what other people would think, how they would react," said Abbasi, who started to wear the hijab on Sept. 20, during the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan.

"At first I was afraid about traveling, how other people will react," Abbasi said. "Now I am older I realize that it doesn't really matter what people think."

Because the Quran's injunctions are open to many interpretations, Islamic laws in different countries vary widely in what they define as modest dress, Hasan said.

Hijab prompted debates across the country about where Islam fits into an open society. The fierce debate about hijab also spilled into other parts of the world and is especially salient in staunchly secular Western European countries like England. Islamic head scarves are banned in schools and universities in Germany and France. As part of the xenophobic response to Sept.11, Najah Zaaeed was forced to quit her job in real estate and mortgage. She also stopped wearing her hijab.

"With my line of work it was very difficult," she said. "I would try to show houses to clients and, because I was wearing hijab, people (homeowners) wouldn't open the door."

A graduate student in social work, Zaaeed said that when she tried applying for other jobs, some employers simply told her, "Sorry, we don't hire Muslims."

She endured the occasional stares from strangers in public places.

"Now it's not that I got used to it," she said. "I just look past it."

The choice to cover

Najwa Khan wears tight-fitting skinny jeans, glossy lipstick, immaculate makeup, and her thick black hair is elegantly up with a barrette and pins. Her sedulous attention to dress and grooming is done "without going too far," she said.

On weekends, she spends all night partying or hanging out with her Delta Gamma sorority sisters, and she sleeps through both breakfast and lunch after. She lives her life in the ballpark of how any typical American college student would live his or hers.

And she is unabashed about not wearing the head scarf.

"(In America) there is a negative connotation with hijab," she said. "To me, it attracts negative attention."

Besides, wearing the hijab has to come from the heart, Kahn said.

"I'll wear it when I'm ready," she said. Her faith runs deep, and she said she never hides her religion to anyone. She's learned to read unease in the faces of some of her American peers, the split-second adjustments they have to make, when they find out that she is Muslim.

"It's everywhere; in every movie, the government fights Muslims," she added. "It's a trend."

Hasan sees irony in the scrutiny that hijab generates.

"The whole point of wearing hijab is not to attract attention to oneself. Hijab in America certainly does not serve that purpose. Instead, it epitomizes the phrase 'sticking out like a sore thumb,'" she writes in her book "American Muslims: The New Generation."

Austin Weinerman, a SU sophomore who grew up in a middle-class area in Penn Valley, Pa., said he doesn't think much of the head dressing, but definitely notices it.

"I don't see them integrated," Weinerman said. He insisted he does not dislike Muslims.

"The thing is I am only 19, I was in seventh grade when 9/11 happened, and a good deal of my life has been shaped with America's wars on terrorism," he said. "My generation simply has that mindset."