Peace!

My name is Javed, but several years ago I started calling myself “HijabMan.” I donned this moniker to attract attention to this web site chronicling my life as a first generation American Pakistani teenager.

The blog was a hit and soon I added a retail business that ended up receiving a fair bit of recognition. A wedding photography business grew out of that, which led to being flown to a wedding in Malaysia where I asked a friend of the bride whether she would consider me for marriage.

She's my wife now, and we have two daughters. As a stay-at-home-dad raising our two children in a cohousing community, I learned how to keep bees, plant a vegetable garden, and work on home renovations. With my new found skills, I ended up buying rental property and managed them myself. Along the way, I discovered the FIRE movement and went from being a 'spendy spouse' to saving the vast majority of our income and investing in index funds. As the kids gained more independence, I launched a marketing business, and offer everything from telephone customer service to graphic design and photography.

Around that time, I also realized I was a Canadian, so I promptly got myself a Maple Leaf hat and sponsored the rest of the family for Canadian Permanent Residence. In 2021, we quit our jobs/clients, sold most of our belongings, moved to Canada and have been slow-traveling through each Canadian Province with our minivan.

We have been enjoying the nomadic life since April of 2021, and as of July of 2022, we are in Newfoundland & Labrador. More in the blog!

Claims to Pseudo Celebrity

As a result of developing hijabman.com from a relatively unknown teenager’s blog into an internationally-known brand, I was named one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World in a joint publication by Georgetown University & the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center of Amman, Jordan (2009). Either myself or my products have appeared in the NYTimes, USAToday, the Islam Channel (UK), Salam Cafe (an Australian Talk Show), and featured in The Guardian’s (now defunct) Islamophonic podcast, Emel Magazine, and Comedy Central’s Colbert Report.

I was also asked to speak at the “Muslim Masculinity in an age of Feminism” symposium at Princeton University (2015).

My previous work has been referenced or featured in a variety of print publications as well:

Some Books:
Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption -- ed. Johanna Pink
Generation M: Young Muslims Changing The World — Shelina Janmohamed
How Does It Feel to Be A Problem?: Being Young And Arab In America —  Moustafa Bayoumi
Encyclopedia of Muslim-American history: Volume 1 — Edward E. Curtis
Osama Van Halen — Michael Muhammad Knight
From Imam to Cyber-Mufti: Consuming Identity in Muslim America — Saminaz Zaman
The Cambridge Companion to American Islam — ed. Juliane Hammer & Omid Safi)
Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalities, Contentions, and Complexities ed. Reza Aslan, A. Tapper

Academic articles, dissertations, and talks:
American Muslims: South Asian Contributions to the Mix by Karen Leonard
“You Don’t Need a Fatwa”: Muslim Feminist Blogging as Religious Interpretation — Krista Riley
Muslims and Meat-Eating: Vegetarianism, Gender, and Identity — Kecia Ali, Journal of Religious Ethics, 2015
The Struggle For Recognition: Muslim American Spokesmanship in the Age of Islamophobia — Nazia Kazi

Textbooks:
Social Psychology and Human Nature 2nd ed, Baumeister and Bushman, page 91.
“What kinds of impressions are these people trying to make using their clothing?” (image)
HijabMan in Italian
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