The easiest way for readers to connect with characters and feel sympathy is to make the character entertaining, sympathetic and likeable.

The hijab, or sikh turban, or Jewish skullcap are all explicit symbols, but they do not represent a threat or affront to others, and have no bearing on the competence, skills and intelligence of a person.

True friends are those who love you not in spite of your faults and imperfections, but because of them.

In a multicultural, diverse society there are countless ways in which people negotiate the everyday lived experience and reality of diversity.

That’s when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God’s watching you, knowing that He knows you’re trying to be strong to please Him.

To the Muslim woman, the hijab provides a sense of empowerment. It is a personal decision to dress modestly according to the command of a genderless Creator; to assert pride in self, and embrace one's faith openly, with independence and courageous conviction.

When it comes to the hijab - why to wear it, whether to wear it, how to wear it - there is theology and then there is practice, and there is huge diversity in both.