Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago, said his mother and sister have had similar experiences. He said he first began to understand what Muslim women who wear the hijab experience when he walked with his sister in a mall after she started wearing it.

“People would stare at her, and I would stare at them,” he said. “She on the other hand would just look ahead saying, ‘I won’t let it bother me.’ ”

He said the message of Suleiman’s experience is “just like a book, don’t judge a woman by her cover.”

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