After about four years of research, I decided to wear it. I went to a sheikh I know and said straight up, “Listen, I’ve reached my limit. I don’t want to do anything sinful, and I feel this is the only thing standing in my way from becoming close to God.” I asked, “Does not wearing hijab keep you from going to heaven, or does wearing it simply mean I’m going to be in a better level in heaven? If not wearing it means I’m going to hell, then I won’t risk that.”

He told me everything that is fard – obligatory - keeps you from hell, and everything that is sunnah – extra - puts you in different levels of heaven. So I asked him what category hijab fell under. He said there are five pillars of Islam and six pillars of faith. But I said Hijab is in neither.

So he said but within the six pillars of faith is to believe in the books and the Prophets right? I said yes. Well in the Quran there is a verse describing Hijab. But I said it does not say cover your heads. So he said, OK, let’s go back to the original Arabic of the text. After taking each word and describing the meaning to me and explaining the history of the text, I was amazed. And unless you talk to me in logic, I wont do it.  I wanted to think about it for a while before taking the decision, but he said something very important to me before leaving that meeting. He said because after this meeting you are now aware that it is obligatory, until you wear it you are living in sin, as opposed to before when you doubted the rule.

After this meeting I went to Hajj and Umrah about six months later, and after I returned I wore it. Those six months were a difficult time for me, I started punishing myself for not wearing it. I sold my BMW and got a much cheaper car, I stopped shopping, I felt I was very unbalanced. I reached a point wear I would pray to God and say Habiby - my love- make me strong.

I realized that Hijab is a uniform. When you go to apply your child in a school they give you all the specific requirements and the uniform is one of them. What if I said OK to everything else, and said no to the uniform?Then they will say sorry, but you cannot attend the school. It is the same for Islam.