FINDING MY RELIGION: After 9/11, Azadeh Zainab Sharif started wearing the hajib

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/21/5 | David Ian Miller

[SmithL]

The fear that gripped Americans following 9/11 filled many Muslims in this country with an added sense of dread. They not only felt anxiety about terrorism on U.S. soil but also had to worry about religious discrimination.

Rather than wrapping herself in an American flag, however, Azadeh Zainab Sharif, a Muslim student at San Francisco State University who grew up in San Diego but lived for several years in her father's native Iran, decided it was time to bring her religious identity out in the open. After 9/11, she began wearing a hijab, the scarf worn by many Muslim women around the world.

For Sharif, now 22, putting the scarf on coincided with her spiritual awakening as a devout Muslim, but it was also a reaction to what she perceived as growing fear among Muslims in this country.

(Due to privacy concerns, Sharif declined to have a photograph taken of her to accompany this interview.)

. . . .I want to ask you about your veil. You decided to put it on after 9/11. What was the reason?

I was learning a lot about Islam around that time and becoming more religious. It [the decision to wear a veil] didn't entirely happen because of 9/11, but that certainly gave me a push. Too many women were afraid to wear one because they were worried about discrimination, and it hurt me to see that. I mean, if you're wearing it for God, don't you trust that God is going to protect you?