Hi everyone,
I'm a second year student at Lancaster university. In the past couple months I've really gotten in touch with religion, and to be honest in all my time at uni I've never felt more at peace! I've decided that I want to wear hijab and abaya, but I am very scared of the reaction I would get.
A bit of back story: before these last few months I was never even close to religious - I mean I was the drinking, smoking, constantly going out type of person. My family are quite loose with religion as well, and they don't know about any of this but obviously I know they'd be happy to see me happy. It's my friends that I'm worried about :/ The thing is, all of my friends know me as the person that's up for partying every week and all.. they have seen me pray a few times recently and I think that they think I don't drink anymore because I'm too busy with uni work, and I don't have the heart to correct that because I'm scared they might look at me differently. I know they're my friends and they'll love me no matter what but it's obvious that there will be a kind of distance/barrier when I no longer go out with them, I'm the only one in the group that wears a scarf, I take breaks to pray etc. Essentially my friendships are built based on a character that I want to get rid of.
On top of that, I've never seen anyone in my uni (not exaggerating) wear an abaya, just hijab. I'd like to wear both just for the ease of prayer, so I don't have to carry them with me all the time.. plus my heart tells me it'll make me happy! I would love to represent myself as a Muslim, but I might compromise friendships in the process?
I know that it's my decision about my relationship with God but all these factors are so complicated, plus what if I slip up in front of them and they think I'm a bad Muslim, obviously I'm not perfect sometimes I listen to music because I feel like it or I swear, I can't be 100% on it when I've changed so drastically in such a short time but would they understand that?
I think I've given you an idea of how downright confusing my thoughts are right now haha. Has anyone else been in the same boat at any time, or still is? What are your thoughts? How did you cope? Are there any tips you could give me?
Thanks!xx