The Iranian women’s national football team wearing sports hijabs
Muslim woman who want to take part in sports on an international level have thrown down the barriers, as sportswear designers cater for women who want to cover up, and governing authorise make some important changes to the rules. All this is inspiring Muslim girls to take up sport – and compete internationally more then ever before.
Shazia from Mosley, Birmingham told Asian World, how she loved to take part in sports activities but always found her hijab a barrier that stopped her from competing in any recognised games, she said “I always felt self conscious, as if everyone would be looking at me negatively as if I was the only person in the world wearing a hijab and playing sport, but this news gives me a huge confidence boast and I feel I can take that step and move on to competing in competitions and not feel like I will be discriminated against”.
Prior to the London 2012 Games Fifa finally overturned its ban, brought in 2007, on women playing football with their heads covered. The decision came too late for the Iranian football team. It had already prohibited them from playing in their 2012 Olympic qualifying match last year and saddened their female fans in the football-mad Islamic Republic, where women are not allowed to watch men’s matches and headscarves are mandatory for women. The overturning of the ban was cheered by footballers around the world, some of whom, such as Australian Assmaah Helal, wear the hijab through choice.
London 2012 is the first Olympics where women will compete in all 26 sports on offer (although still in 30 fewer events in total), and Fifa is just one of several international bodies to relax clothing rules and so allow more Muslim women to compete in the Games. It’s not possible to know how many women will be competing with their heads covered this year, but they include judo player Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim and Saudi Arabian runner Sarah Attar, as well as footballers.
Last year the International Weightlifting Federation also began to allow female weightlifters to cover their arms and legs, which led to the UAE female team being the first to compete in hijab, represented by 17-year-old Khadija Mohammed. Reports suggest that the ruling has opened up the sport for /muslim women.
Fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad will be the first athlete to represent the US at the Olympics wearing a hijab.
Dr Emma Tarlo, a reader in anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and author of Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, says such barriers to participation should not be underestimated. “I have done research that shows that women have been put off sport because of clothing, that’s part of the problem with swimming for instance. Others have been excluded from sport because of what they wear.”
Rimla Akhtar from the Muslim Women in Sport Foundation said there were other barriers than dress holding women back, but it was important for women to have a choice: “A way has been found of combining women’s passion for sport with their passion for their faith and the sports hijab will certainly aid women’s participation in sport at all levels.”
