5 Hijab-Wearing Women to Celebrate Today

Happy World Hijab Day!

1^st February is World Hijab Day and to mark the occasion, we’ve picked five trailblazing hijabi women you should know about. From all over the world, be it America, the UK, across from across the Middle East region and beyond, hijabi women stand undeterred from their goals and achievements – especially when it comes to their careers. Here are 5 that should be on your radar…

By Amrita Singh

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Noor Tagouri

Hijabi journalist and activist, Noor Tagouri is Libyan-American and found her passion for journalism when her parents moved to Maryland, where she grew up. Tagouri studied Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland at 16 years old, where she landed an internship at CBS radio just a year into her studies. She went on to create a thought-provoking documentary series entitled “A Woman’s Job,” which takes a look at women working in male-dominated industries. Her subjects included a female mechanic and the first and only female NFL coach.

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Zahra Lari

Not only is Zahra Lari a Nike Pro Hijab ambassador, but she is also the first ever Emirati figure skater – and that too in a hijab. Lari uses her platforms and influential persona to convey messages of positivity and inspire young women, hijabi or not, to never give up on their dreams regardless of any adversity they may face.

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Raffia Arshad

Raffia Arshad is the UK’s first hijab-wearing judge. She was appointed Deputy District Judge on the Midlands circuit in 2020 after having pursued a career in law for over 15 years. Arshad’s career involved dealing with cases involving Islamic law, forced marriage, and female genital mutilation, and had faced discrimination and prejudice in her field of work due to wearing her hijab. Raffia Arshad’s determination to continue to pursue her dreams came when she was advised to remove her hijab for an interview for a scholarship at the Inns of Court School of Law in 2001. Only wanting to be accepted for who she was – she stood by her choice to wear the hijab.

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Ilhan Omar

Ilhan Omar beat 5 other candidates in September 2022’s primary race to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District. The 39-year-old Democrat, who was born in Somalia and grew up in a Kenyan refugee camp before fleeing to America with her family aged 12, became the first African refugee and hijab-wearing woman to serve in Congress. Omar ran as her state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s nominee. Omar became the first Muslim elected to the United States House of Representatives.

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Ginella Massa

Ginella Massa is a Canadian television journalist. An Afro-Latina Muslim reporter and anchor, she became Canada's first hijab-wearing television reporter in 2015, and the first news anchor in hijab when she anchored the 11 p.m. newscast for CityNews on CITY-DT in Toronto, Ontario in 2016. She is a beacon of diversity in the north American region within the television and broadcasting industry and highlights that a hijab holds nobody back. In 2020, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced that Massa will join the network as host of a prime time show on CBC News Network and a special correspondent for The National. Her show, Canada Tonight, premiered in January 2021 on CBC News Network.