I would stay late sometimes. Not in summer when it seemed as though the whole world stayed late, but in winter when the doors were locked and the entire city was tucked in safely behind them against the chill. I grew up in the farmlands, I grew in the forests -- I live on quiet, search it out, wait for it as I must. I am a quiet woman; my husband was a quiet man; our street is a quiet near alleyway. And so the night would only be broken by the hastened footfalls of the odd passers-by or stray cats fighting in the distance, and at long last by the beautiful, so beautiful, voices of mostly old men echoing one other's call of the athan.

It is, in the end, always the seemingly nondescript moments which come back to us the most, and which carry with them the most weight of feeling for the longest span of time.

While most of these are priced outside of ordinarily affordable range, for gifts or special occasions it can be nice to look outside of conventional hijab sources to come up with something especially elegant or unusual. A few options:

Museum Stores



Larger art museums tend to love nothing more than making reproductions of their pieces for sale in their gift shops -- posters, postcards, t-shirts, umbrellas, and yes, scarves. While many of us may not delight in the idea of walking around with a Kandinksy painting wrapped around our heads (although of course some might, and some of the most common reproductions on scarves to be found are stroke-for-stroke copies of the works of Van Gogh or Monet), don't also forget that museums display a great many textiles and prints that convert beautifully into less blatant art reproduction apparel. What's more, many also sell online, if good museums are regionally inaccessible to you. The above examples are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago have some lovely shop-from-home selections as well. They are definitely not priced for everyday wear but, as said above, make especially lovely gifts.

(Note the second in the top row particularly. It is a William Morris print; as an Arts and Crafts primarily floral wallpaper designer his work usually is especially appropriate and not so difficult to find, be it as scarves, handbags, or just raw fabrics to do with as you wish.)

Specialty Textile Dealers




I have a thing for Lao weaving as is above. I was absolutely delighted, then, to come across Marla Mallett who, in addition to various antique textiles, deals in contemporary Lao silks. They are heavy. Not break-your-neck heavy, but certainly dense in a way that is inappropriate for warm weather. They are expensive. Again not necessarily breaking the bank any more than the neck, but still out of the range of what most of us would be comfortable spending on ourselves without a particular reason. But still they are stunning, and on just the right person at just the right formal occasion they could be perfect.

Still, for more comfortable, casual, and affordable wear there are also those who deal in indian block prints. They are often more elaborate and prettier than machine prints, in my own opinion, although it can sometimes take some weeding through to find something you like if you prefer a more muted palate, as I do.



You might try scarves such as the above examples from Heritage Trading (who also deals in slightly more expensive -- though less so than the Lao brocades -- woven and embroidered shawls). Since they update their available inventory often (think daily), if their prints seem a bit much it is worthwhile to check back again.

Labels: scarfistry

It is, of course, likely that I will remarry.

I think about it sometimes. I am, after all, twenty-eight years old, not eighty-two. I do not think in decisive terms -- there is above all first the matter of the iddat. But I do consider, the very act of which I know is offensive to some.

I was cautioned that it is proper to wait at least a year after the death of a spouse. Nevermind a term of mourning lasting just over four months. Nevermind until the birth of a child. Just as those who find polygamy broadly and inherently offensive point out that it was a concession in a time of war and widespread widowhood, implying or sometimes directly stating that outside of those conditions it is at best distasteful, so too do those who find early remarriage offensive point out the same. Surely widows can care for themselves better now than then. Surely widows have better options now than then. Surely what is clearly improper had to be permitted -- given the different conditions of that time.

Although I am not clear on from where this view of early Muslims comes. Even in hardship were women so desperate that they gleefully attached themselves in marriage to any man who might provide a regular bite of bread? Not in the stories that I know.

Marriage is not primarily about being cared for. Or rather it is, but not in those terms. Be it a first marriage, a second, or beyond, the hope is the same: to love and to be loved, to care for and to be cared for, to find in marriage a place of inexplicable tenderness, comfort, and warmth. The wish for these does not abate because a spouse has died -- it intensifies for having been something known and lost.

I miss my husband. I miss being married to my husband. And I miss being married. These are three very different co-existing feelings. They are not bonded together. In any individual case a woman might feel one, two, or all three of these depending on her own personal circumstances. Being not bonded, it is entirely possible to act to assuage one without it being a reflection on the presence or strength of the others. This is where inexperience damages understanding. Because when a connection is assumed, as it commonly is, for one to sooth their sense of longing for marriage itself necessarily reflects upon their feelings towards the marriage they had and lost.

In truth, if one who had lost waited until they no longer felt the loss of the individual, so most all would wait until their own deaths. A year would be no more sufficient than a day. And some do. And they are not wrong. No more so than the woman who on the fourth month and eleventh day receives a suitor, and announces an intent.

Labels: marriage, personal

Living in a bit of a backwater these days, when looking for a decent maternity-friendly summer abaya (measurement-taking discovery: when pregnant most of my form turns into a remarkably perfect triangle) as well as a few new scarves, I turned to the world of online shopping. And it was there that I saw it: it was neon. Animal print. Sequined. Badly embroidered. Glittery. And see-through.

It was what, apparently all too often, seems to pass for fashion hijabs.

Blessedly I've never actually seen such a thing on a woman as I've now seen on the web, but for the sake of my online shopping sisters I thought I'd point out a few in-my-opinion somewhat more tasteful finds:

Hijab Girl

A really nice selection of large, casual, affordable wraps, particularly striped wraps. I bought for myself these two:



... both of which are available in a wide array of colors, alongside a handful of other pretty options. (They also have really tasteful two-piece slip on prayer garments, among other things.)

Shukr

After, as usual on this site, admiring any number of clothing items I can't really afford (and which wouldn't fit my aforementioned triangularly shaped form right now anyway), I did find this beautiful jacquard wrap:



The Hijab Shop



The particularly nice thing about The Hijab Shop is that they carry a large collection of subtley woven patterns wholly appropriate for professional settings or every day wear, and that when their selections do go glittery they are moderate enough so as to not make one feel that their reflection might be seen from space. They may not make you sit up and say "wow!," but they are still beautiful and more importantly beautifully functional.

Scarf World

Also U.K. based and often a little pricey (occasionally very pricey) even aside from shipping, still I love Scarf World. I love them because they carry a huge selection of woven prints -- generally bad for summer, but in my opinion usually far richer and classier in appearance than ink prints. They're quite heavy on paisleys, but do also carry a nice array of florals, stripes, gradients, etc.



Sheer scarves and chiffons are also abundant. I like this modern stripe print for layering, for example, much though it could never work alone:



Summer-Weight Solids

Veiled By Design is carrying a nice turn on solid colored wraps with their two-tone silk scarves:



(Also an excellent place to turn if you're looking for a variety of plain, colored tube-style underscarves.)

I also suggest looking at al-Mujalbaba's, Hijab Girl's, and al-Muhajabat's scarves for nice, plain, affordable, lovely-colored squares in about 40" and 60" sizes.

Ten Thousand Villages

I don't actually suggest shopping online here -- they do carry a narrow selection of scarves online, but also typically of the pricier variety and often not very hijab-friendly at that. I do suggest using their site to find a local store, however, for those of us in the U.S. or Canada. Their locations vary in size and selection, but those which do carry more clothing items often have beautiful, hand-crafted, fair trade scarves you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else.



And finally ...

Ebay. Really. Most of what you'll find there is a little questionable, but there's always the occasional gem. I, for example, recently picked up the following (which is now making me wish the cold would last longer to extend its wearable season):



If you have the time to hunt, you just never know what's to be found.

Labels: scarfistry