The question and what it actually asks
Is the hijab a choice for Muslim women in the UK? When someone asks this, they are usually asking one of several different questions: Is it required in Islam? Are women coerced into wearing it? Does wearing it represent oppression or liberation? These are not the same question and they deserve separate answers.
What Islam says
Most Islamic scholars hold that hijab is obligatory for adult Muslim women. This is a religious requirement, not a cultural one, and it is derived from verses in the Quran and hadith. Whether a woman follows that requirement is a personal matter between her and God. That is how Islamic practice works: the obligation is real, the following of it is individual.
The hijab choice: Muslim women in the UK
In the UK, the majority of Muslim women who wear hijab do so by their own decision. Many begin wearing it in their teens or twenties after a period of thought. Some wear it because their families expect it. Some wore it, stopped, and returned to it. Some converted and adopted it as part of their faith. The diversity of experience is far wider than most public conversations acknowledge.
What most women object to
The objection most commonly voiced by hijab-wearing women is not to the question itself but to the assumption embedded in it. The assumption that the hijab must be something imposed rather than chosen. That a woman in a hijab needs to be explained or rescued. That her faith is a problem rather than a practice.
Our position
At Origins by Hawwa we make clothes for Muslim women in the UK who have made their choice about the hijab.. We do not make that choice for them. We do think it matters that the clothes available to women who cover are made well, named with care, and sold by a brand that understands what the choice means. That is all we are saying with the brand.
To understand more about the Islamic roots of modesty, read who was Hawwa in Islam.