Athletic, Muslim, Fashionable - a Tale of the Sports Hijab

August 25, 2011

Olympic hopeful, 17-year-old Zeinab Hammoud

Seventeen-year-old Zeinab Hammoud has a brown belt in Taekwondo, and dreams of one day making it to the Olympics. But unlike her sister, Rana, Zeinab chooses to wear the Islamic headscarf, or hijab.

This became a problem four years ago. The team’s hard work, passion and hopes were dashed when the Taekwondo Federation of Quebec expelled them from a tournament in 2007. The reason: their hijabs were considered unsafe. “I was really disappointed because I trained really hard for that tournament. When I found out we were expelled I lost all my motivation to continue,” Hammoud said.

Civil rights supporters and sports enthusiasts around the world were enraged. Elham Seyed Javad was one of them. “In my opinion every individual, no matter their religion, should have the same rights as anyone else in society," he stated. "I mean, sports was made to re-unite people."

Athletic fashion

Javad was an industrial design student at the time, so she decided to take on the problem as one of her school projects. "At the time, in 2008, when I decided to take on this project, the international federation of Taekwondo didn’t allow its athletes to wear anything under the helmet. So my professor didn’t think there was a point of pursuing it. But my point was, the rule is there because nothing has been invented that is appropriate," she explained.