The perception of safety and security in the West is a big cause of hijrah hesitation among Muslims—particularly women who live in the West.

There’s this idea that…if you move to the Muslim countries (especially those that are outside of the Gulf countries) that you are more vulnerable, there aren’t as many services, things skew in the direction and favor of men, and that basically, you’re like a sitting duck, right, just… It’s only a matter of time before you’re raped or harassed or something like that. This is the perception. And like I said, it’s a big cause of hesitation for women who are interested in making hijrah, and they end up putting off their plans as a result of that.

Interestingly enough, my experience with—I’ll talk about Pakistan in particular, since that’s the country that I have experience with—chivalry is very much not dead here. Over and over again, I have run into instances where women are given priority. And women are looked out for, generally.

So, just a couple examples that spring to mind—and bear in mind, I only have limited experience in Pakistan. I think it’s a total of six months I’ve lived in Pakistan, over the course of my life.

So when I came about 16 years ago, I remember being out in the bazaar with some of my cousins and my mom. We were waiting for a ruckshaw or something to get back home, and we were just standing, waiting, just like many other people were standing around waiting. And a shop owner came out and put out some chairs for us to sit on. This wasn’t the shop that was closest to us, we weren’t buying anything from them, they had just looked out and they saw hey, women are standing around. And they did something to make us more comfortable. For no reason. They didn’t stand to gain anything from that.

Most recently, when I was in the Islamabad airport, there was a miscommunication with my family members, so we were split up and we had issues communicating because my parents (who I was with) and myself, we didn’t have a SIM card, so we didn’t have access to any telephony services. And we didn’t have any data, there wasn’t any Wi-Fi, so we had no way of communicating with the other party. And it was a whole mess, because we were past security, they were on the other side of security (we actually didn’t know where they were).

I first approached a random guy who was just sitting, minding his own business, and I asked if he could turn on his hotspot so that I could have data and I could communicate with my family members. And he did that. Then, when the hotspot wasn’t working, I wasn’t able to get through on WhatsApp or Telegram, he tried repeatedly to call them directly using his phone. Multiple times. It took like 15 minutes, and it wasn’t working, so I thanked him and I left.

I went to a different area, it looked like there was some kind of loungey area or something and it was being guarded by three or four military men. I say military men, because they were in uniform, they were over six feet tall, they looked suited for the job. Bombastic side eye to the TSA agents who, in fact, do not look suited for the job. But I digress.

As I was approaching them, I passed some young-looking guy on a bench nearby and I thought, “You know what, instead of approaching military dudes, let me just ask him what’s up. Maybe he has some Wi-Fi or something or if he knows that there’s Wi-Fi in the lounge or not.” And he said he was somebody who was fresh here from Malaysia and he himself was trying to get Wi-Fi and he couldn’t!

So I was like, “Aight, bet, I’m gonna go approach the military dudes.” And so I did. Mind you, I’m in full niqab, right, full proper niqab, gloves, the whole works.

I approached them about the Wi-Fi situation, and they’re like, “Yea, there should be Wi-Fi in the lounge, if you’re a member or whatever. You know what, why don’t you go into the management office right in there and they’ll hook you up.”

So I said, “Ok!” and I was allowed access into the restricted area to the manager’s office.

…aaand Manager Sahb there said, “There is no Wi-Fi here.”

So I came back out and the military men were asking me, “So did it work?”

And I said, “Actually, he said there wasn’t any Wi-Fi at all!”

The one guy tells the other guy, “Hey, hook it up for her.” So he takes my phone, goes to the lounge area, and connects up the Wi-Fi himself so that I could communicate with my family like I needed to. Once all of that was done, I thanked them and I left—because they didn’t have to do that.

On my way, when I passed the Malaysian kid, I let him know, “Look, they did me a favor, I don’t know if they would do that favor for you, y’know, just sayin’.”

And that has been my experience time and time again. Despite the fact that a lot of people like to say, “Oh Pakistan is becoming very modernized and liberal, and it’s not adhering to Islamic values, etc.” The niqab still does command respect. People still…think of it a certain way. They do respect you. And this was Islamabad, this was the capital, this was one of the more modern cities in the country. And that’s been my experience here.

What I have found in the West is that, if people are nice, and they wanna be nice to you, they’ll help you out, right? But as far as chivalry is concerned—you really gotta look for that. You really gotta look for that. That consideration of the delicate vessels, as women are referred to in the Islamic canon. That doesn’t so much exist.

There is all of this push for equality, women and men are exactly the same, and the fact of the matter is that they’re not.

I’ve been traveling extensively for the past…roughly four months, and travel is difficult. Travel is a hardship for women. Moreso than men—in more specific ways than for men. It’s no wonder, subhanallah, that the fighting for the sake of Allah which is prescribed for the woman is Hajj. Men have to do Hajj, too, but the hardship that it entails for women is acknowledged in the religion. It’s acknowledged that you should be kinder, you should be more considerate of women. Of your mothers, of your sisters, of your aunts, of your daughters. Of…any woman on the street, even! And I think that this is an angle that isn’t often talked about.

I was also speaking to some of my cousins on the issues of the workplace and I mentioned how in the West, one of the reasons for the “purported gender wage gap” (which doesn’t actually exist when you look at the facts) is that when it comes time to negotiate salaries during yearly reviews and things like that, men negotiate harder so they get more money. Women, who are often socialized to be more agreeable, to be less confrontational, they normally don’t negotiate as hard and so, they are given usually a lower salary than their male counterparts as a result.

And my cousin was telling me, “Nah. Here, a lot of times they give the woman more money, because she’s a woman. Like…they give her preferential offers.” Which blew my mind, quite frankly. And it could be regional, it could be specific to various workplaces, but that’s a side of this conversation that basically is never talked about.

So, to the women out there who are feeling hesitant, who are feeling like they might be targeted, or who just have fears about the propaganda that we’re fed: understand the people who push that have an agenda. And they have a reason for keeping you away from Muslim societies.

So in sha’ Allah, I hope that this was beneficial to some people out there.