Is taking off the khimar or Hijab permissible or forbidden for women who observe all other religious regulations? It is a tradition in the area in which I live that only married women wear a khimar, and I am still a girl.

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

If you mean by talking off the khimar that a woman uncovers her head, a part of it, or her neck before those men who are forbidden to look at what the khimar conceals of her body, then, undoubtedly, this is prohibited. This applies to both married and unmarried women. A women who is heedless of properly covering her body and unveil parts of her ‘Awrah (body parts that must be covered) outside her home cannot be described as an observant of the sharia regulations. We evoke your attention to the fact that negligence of covering up and modesty by women constitutes great evil and intense corruption. Allah has commanded women to wear the Hijab in order to cover their adornment from non-mahram (permanently unmarriageable) men. This is to protect her from one side and to maintain the purity and chastity of society from the other side. A woman, by nature, tends to display her beauty and attract others' gazes. A believing woman, however, is required to give precedence to the Command of her Lord over her own desires, know that this world is an abode for tests, and realize that curbing her desires for the sake of pleasing Allah Almighty is the only way to her happiness in the Worldly life and the Hereafter.

Allah knows best.