"You Are the Ambassadors of Islam": Stories Told By Women Who Wear Hijab

Kazakhstan is a multinational country whose state policy in the religious sphere is based on the principles of separation of religion and state power. In recent years, the hijab (Muslim headscarf) has become one of the most discussed topics in public and academic discourse. According to the 2021 census, Almaty has a population of 2,030,285, of whom 1,172,838 are Muslims. Even though about 60 percent of the city's residents are Muslims, until recently, only a few women living in Almaty wore the hijab, a traditional Muslim female garment that covers the body except for the face and hands. In rural areas of Kazakhstan, married women usually covered their heads with a headscarf in the presence of older relatives. However, this tradition was rare in urban areas, and the hijab remained rare and almost invisible. Nevertheless, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of women in Almaty who, regardless of their marital status, have begun to wear the hijab. Almaty is one of the largest cities in Central Asia and the former capital of the Kazakh SSR, the center of the political and scientific elite.

The study, which involved fifty in-depth interviews with women practicing hijab between 2022 and 2024, aims to provide insights into the factors influencing the decision of young Central Asian Muslim women living in Almaty to wear the headscarf (hijab) and how they interpret its symbolic meaning. The application of P. Bourdieu's habitus theory allowed us to see how social and cultural structures learned from childhood influence women's decision to wear the hijab. W. Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory emphasised the importance of family, relatives and society in how young women interpret and integrate the hijab into their daily lives.