Wrap My Hijab

Mona Haydar is a Syrian American activist and poet from Flint, Michigan. Her first rap video, Hijabi, is a powerful celebration of the diversity and power of women in modest dress. 

…Me and my hijabi ladies
We was born in the eighties
So pretty like the euphrates…
…Make a feminist planet
Women haters get banished
Covered up or not don't ever take us for granted
All around the world
Love women every shading
be so liberated
All around the world
Love women every shading
power run deep
So even if you hate it
I still wrap my hijab
Wrap my hijab
Wrap my hijab
Wrap, wrap my hijab…

We spent an excellent day in San Francisco, with Burmese food for lunch and a Nepalese dinner, and the fascinating new exhibit at the DeYoung Museum: Contemporary Muslim Fashions. My photo is a still from the video that was included in the exhibit.


Some of the designer clothes were as frivolous and glorious and unwearable as in any high fashion, some had been proudly worn by celebrities in the Muslim world, and some were street fashion. Apparently modest fashion is a growth industry right now, and the exhibit focuses on fashion evolving within society, including religious concerns and social injustice, as well as creativity and diversity. It was a powerful introduction to an aspect of a culture unfamiliar to me, and a window into the way Muslim women are balancing traditional ideas and contemporary concerns.