Compulsion in Religion?

Hey everyone,

This piece of local news grabbed my attention today. A 15 year old girl committed suicide. I have heard of cases where people commit suicide, but a 15 year old girl, why?

It turns out that her mom got really upset when the girl left the home without her hijab (headscarf). You can read the article for more details, but I can pretty much imagine what the girl must have went through. I know because there were two girls in my university who went through the same thing as well as one of my cousins, and a friend.

All these four girls I knew were brought up wearing hijab from the early years. They grew up wearing the hijab whenever they left home. One of the girls, Ms Nada, from my university, came crying up to me and several of my friends as we were sitting in the group. She wanted to talk to one of the girls in the group and left the group with her. We got wondering what the matter was.

Several days later, the girl from our group told us that Ms. Nada had a fight with her parents because she did not want to wear the hijab anymore. Ms. Nada felt like that the hijab was forced upon her and that she had no desire. She felt like she was living a lie and was deceiving herself. She felt worse because she would feel guilty doing things while in hijab. So Ms. Nada had a huge fight with her parents and the following week later, we all saw that Ms. Nada would come to classes without her hijab. A lot of the people were disgusted by her actions: why the heck would she remove her hijab? She is a bad Muslim, many would say. But Ms. Nada went on happily with her life. She felt free. She felt like as if no one was compelling her to do anything. She would raise the verse from the Quran again and again: There is no compulsion in religion, and would defend her actions with that one verse.

The same thing happened to another student on campus, as well as with my cousin and friend. They all claimed that they were forced into hijab and that they had no choice in the option of whether to wear it or not. They all claimed that the mothers said that hijab is not an option, it is mandatory. I only read this newspaper article and wonder how many more girls there are out there like her! I have been in one too many arguments about whether boys and girls should be forced into doing Islamic things. I am of the opinion that these boys and girls should be taught the Faith, but the ultimate choice should be left up to them. I dont agree of forcing young boys and girls to do Islamic things forcefully, against their wishes, because that only creates tension and somewhat dislike for what they are doing. These young boy and girls have impressionable minds, and they should be able to make their own choice once they are mature.

I myself have been told so many times: Go to the mosque all five times; Raise your jeans above your ankles; Wear the white cap when going to a mosque; Don't listen to western music and so on. I tell them the same thing: There is no compulsion in religion; don't compel me to do things that you deem is correct. When someone tells me to raise my jeans in a mosque, I point out to him to tell the ten others standing in front of me to go tell them also. When someone tells me to not listen to music or that singing is forbidden, I tell them to tell Cat Stevens to stop singing first. When someone tells me to the mosque five times daily, I tell them to tell that to his household first before preaching to others.

Mansur