We often hear stories of why Muslim women choose to wear the hijab — the headscarf. The Star asked some women why they chose to stop wearing it. From safety to spirituality, each woman has her own reasons.

Feeling labeled

Naturally quiet, Kate Kassem was used to flying under the radar. The hijab brought way too much attention, and she didn’t like it.

“I don’t like to draw any attention to myself, but I found that with the hijab, it ended up drawing not just lots of attention, but lots of questions and comments,” she said.

Kassem wore the hijab for eight years and says she struggled for the past three years over whether to continue. She felt that anything she said or did was perceived as representing Islam, even if it wasn’t correct, so she was always walking on eggshells. And if there’s one thing the 25-year-old didn’t like, it was always being labeled.

“Before I met someone or even spoke to them, they’d already have conclusions drawn about me, based on whatever notions they had about Islam.”

Without the hijab, Kassem believes, people look at her differently and are generally friendlier.

Despite the struggles, Kassem says she will put it back on in the future. “It’s tough,” she said, “it was just as hard taking it off as was putting it on — if not harder.”

Modesty standards

Sana Barakat, 20, wore the hijab for five years before she decided to take it off in her final years of high school.

“I felt like I wasn’t fitting in with either community,” she said. She felt judged by some members of the Muslim community for not wearing the hijab to its “modesty standards,” so she felt she “wasn’t doing it right.”

Currently in her third year at the University of Toronto Mississauga, she decided she’ll go back to wearing the hijab after she finishes university.

“The scarf, it looks so simple,” she said. “But it does a lot of things to the woman.”

Because she’s seen both sides, with and without the hijab, she feels she understands it better now. “When I put it on now, I know it’s a responsibility in how I dress and represent myself. I guess I’m just at that comfortable level of figuring out who I am.”

Safety concerns

The day Mariam Nouser was spat on while riding the subway, she no longer felt safe wearing the hijab.

A woman started to yell at her, telling her to go back home.

“If you’re telling me to go home, I can go right back to Etobicoke,” said Nouser. “I was born and raised in Toronto; this is the only home I’d known.”

After the incident, she kept quiet. She didn’t tell anybody — not even her mother — and started contemplating whether she should discontinue wearing the hijab.

“I had to think about it,” she said. “I thought maybe I should focus on my faith first and truly know my religion before I blatantly show that I’m a Muslim.”

But when she decided to take it off, she knew the move wouldn’t be permanent. “I just didn’t feel safe in my own home, which is really sad.”

Nouser, a third-year engineering student at Ryerson University, spent nine hijab-less months before deciding to put it back on. But one thing Nouser noticed when she didn’t wear the hijab was that more people sat next to her on the subway. “It was so strange to notice,” she said. “I’m still the same person.

“My faith is now much stronger and I became much more confident. And as a result, I know I should stand up for my values no matter what.”

Not the right time

When she took off the hijab, Iqra Azhar felt strange.

“It was like I’m missing something,” she said. “Some people didn’t even recognize me.”

After going through an extremely difficult time in her life, she became aware that she had changed. “I realized I’m a different person than the person I used to be when I had it on — I wasn’t being the Muslim I wanted to be.”

Azhar, 27, felt that she had to start from scratch, going back to the basics. “I wanted to get back to my prayers and look back into my heart, because I felt like I had to save my character first.”

Having lived both lives, with and without hijab, she says that while wearing it, she had to work harder for things. “But there was also more respect afterwards,” she reaffirmed. Without it, she says, there’s less pressure to do everything right.

She currently has a collection of more than 200 scarves she cannot part with, as they’ve become a part of her.

“I’m not sure if I will wear it again … it’s just not for me right now.”