The gaze on Maham’s body felt to her like she was being implicated in the attack. The hijab is the object of the gaze because it signifies Islam, and Islam is equated with terror. The gaze took away from Maham the right to feel the shock and anger of the terrorist attacks with her fellow citizens. She was no longer a member of a national community but was singled out through the gaze as someone who did not belong and was the object of suspicion and anger. This is one of the ways that Muslim women who wear the hijab are racialized. Maham became the target of surveillance because her religious identity equates her to a foreign threat to the United States.

Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, loc. 268