The hair rises on my arms as I listen to a grief-stricken poem about Palestine being recited by Saara Ali, a Dubai resident who just released her debut poetry book, Barefoot: A Seeker’s Journey. Many of us have goosebumps, further intensified by the gusts of wind breezing through the beautifully lit backyard in Dubai.
“They are not mere numbers; they are entire galaxies; they are suns with planets that revolve around them; entire families,” recites Sara as women from Tunisa, Iraq, Syria, Canada, Pakistan, the Philippines and even further afield wipe tears from their faces. Some occupy seats placed in a semicircle around a woven mat, while latecomers have settled on the mat itself. The turnout was greater than anticipated for this community gathering, which was organised by Melanie Elturk, founder and CEO of Haute Hijab.
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Muslim Women’s Day, which takes place on 27 March, was founded to amplify the voices of Muslimahs. And Melanie’s voice has been a consistent beacon of light through her Haute Hijab platform. She is one of the United States’s veteran modest fashion influencers and has been the face of her brand since its inception in 2010. Based in New York, with Filipina-Lebanese heritage and a background in sociology and legal counsel, Melanie has been on a mission to provide Muslim women with hijabs that make them feel comfortable and confident. Over the years, she has expanded to introduce innovative under-scarves, sports hijabs and prayer sets as well as eco-friendly textiles, and she was recently in Dubai to establish Haute Hijab’s local fulfilment centre to ensure speedy delivery across the UAE.
Once known for her creative modest outfit images and fashion week appearances, Melanie has undergone a personal journey of re-finding herself over the past few years through a global pandemic and a divorce and now, while bearing witness to the tragedies unfolding in Palestine, she seeks to reach her followers on a deeper level. “It has really amplified the need for community,” says Melanie. “Drenching myself in my community, which is both online and offline, has made the difference between being sane and not sane - because with what we’re seeing, if you don’t properly process it, you’re not going to come out healthy.”
Community has always been at the heart of Haute Hijab’s brand ethos, along with Melanie’s motivation to bring Muslim women together. At a time when Palestinian supporters are seeking ways to be more conscious consumers while also endeavouring to vocalise their solidarity in ways that won’t risk their safety or job security, Melanie is grateful to be at the helm of her own label. “I’m not beholden to anybody telling me what to say or do. And if I have that privilege, I need to use it, do everything I can with my platform to speak about this, and be a source of comfort for my community,” she explains. “How do we frame this, how do we connect to God from this, and how do we heal from this? Part of my work is Muslim women empowerment and upliftment. We have a lot of collective healing to do as a community. So this has just been another catalyst, albeit an enormous one, to help with healing and coming together.”
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Much of the need for healing stems from the way that Muslims - particularly in the West - were treated after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. Reports show that Islamophobia is on the rise again in the United States and Melanie is adamant that this time around, Muslim women will not fall into the shadows. “I know this feels familiar but we’re not going to succumb to that 9/11 trauma again,” she says, urging her Muslim sisters to make different choices than the ones they were once pressured to make. “‘Shrink, put your head down, don’t make too much noise, don’t ruffle any feathers...’ We taught ourselves and the people around us to make ourselves small, and so we showed up in relationships, in jobs and in marriages as pieces of ourselves. In those 20 years I had to release myself from relationships, from a marriage and from toxic career patterns because I wasn’t allowing myself to show up fully — and I refuse to do that again.” Melanie isn’t only thinking about her generation of Muslim women, but also younger ones who are contemplating covering their hair, but are wary of losing a part of themselves in the process by shrinking to fit into a mould of Western acceptability. “You wear it, and you be all of you. Hijab or not, all Muslim women — be all of you, and be proud of that,” is Melanie’s message.
Many Muslims across the globe have found their own conviction and spirituality strengthened by witnessing the plight of the Palestinians, and Melanie is no exception. She says that the stories about Palestinian women wearing their prayer clothes to sleep in case they were killed overnight, strongly resonated with her. “They wanted to die in a state of modesty. That state of being, where hijab is my protection, and something that no one else can take away from me, is what hijab means to me. I don’t want people to see me in a state that I don’t give them permission to see me in, and it made me feel so connected to those Palestinian women.”
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At her community gathering in Dubai, some women open up about their own struggles with modesty, and the family members, institutions and even governments that try to dissuade them from covering their hair. “The West would prefer that we remove it, and that’s an extension of the oppression that’s happening in Palestine,” she explains, encouraging her fellow Muslim sisters to stand as proud ambassadors for Islam and by extension, for the freedom of Palestinians. Melanie empathises that women are partaking in protests of their own by covering their hair - and that like a keffiyeh, a hijab can symbolise allegiance to the Palestinian plight. “Just by wearing a hijab, you’re telling the world, silently, that you stand in solidarity with Palestine, and that’s a beautiful thing. Even on days I’m not doing anything, so to speak, I know that my hijab is speaking for me.”
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