Hejab

Current issues, news and ethics
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Lifting the veil on the veil

By Tarek Fatah, For The Calgary HeraldFebruary 5, 2009 3:06 AM

Barely a week goes by when my religion Islam does not face a fresh round of scrutiny. If it is not a suicide bomber blowing himself up in an Iraqi mosque screaming "Allahu akbar," it is news that an Imam in Malaysia has declared the practice of Yoga sinful.

If it is not a Toronto imam defending suicide bombing on TVO, a Muslim woman writes a column in a Canadian daily, advocating the introduction of sharia in Canada.

But the one topic that rears its head in almost predictable cycles is the subject of a Muslim woman's supposed Islamic attire.

Whether it is swimming pools or polling booths there is no escape from the repeated controversies surrounding the face mask, better known as the niqab or burka.

The latest incarnation of the niqab controversy surfaced this week when a Toronto judge ordered a Muslim woman to take off her niqab when she testified in a case of sexual assault.

The woman invoked Islam as the reason why she wanted to give testimony while wearing a face mask. She told the judge, "It's a respect issue, one of modesty," adding Islam considers her niqab as her "honour."

Her explanations were rejected by the judge who determined that the woman's "religious belief" was not that strong and that in his opinion the woman was asking to wear the niqab as "a matter of comfort."

But all of these arguments are premised on the acceptance of the myth that a face mask for women is Islamic religious attire.

Humbug.

There is no requirement in Islam for Muslim women to cover their face.

The niqab is the epitome of male control over women.

It is a product of Saudi Arabia and its distortion of Islam to suit its Wahabbi agenda, which is creeping into Canada.

If there is any doubt that the niqab is not required by Islam, take at look at the holiest place for Muslims -- the grand mosque in Mecca, the Ka'aba. For over 1,400 years Muslim men and women have prayed in what we believe is the House of God and for all these centuries woman have been explicitly forbidden from covering their faces.

For the better part of the 20th century, Muslim reformists, from Egypt to India, campaigned against this terrible tribal custom imposed by Wahabbi Islam.

My mother's generation threw off their burkas when Muslim countries gained their independence after the Second World War.

Millions of women encouraged by their husbands, fathers and sons, shed this oppressive attire as the first step in embracing gender equality.

But while the rest of the world moves toward the goal of gender equality, right here, under our very noses, Islamists are pushing back the clock, convincing educated Muslim women they are sexual objects and a source of sin.

It will be difficult to pinpoint what went wrong, but most of Canada's growth in niqabi women can be traced to one development in 2004 when a radical Pakistani female scholar by the name of Farhat Hashmi came to Canada on a visitor's visa, to establish the Al-Huda Islamic Institute for women.

After arrival, she was twice denied work permit.

MacLean's magazine reported in July 2006 that notwithstanding the rejection of her work permits applications, "she established a school where she lectures to mostly young, middle-class women from mainstream Muslim families, not only from across the country but also from the U. S. and as far away as Australia."

In October 2005 the Globe and Mail ran a story on Hashmi quoting a 20-year-old Muslim woman as saying, "I agree with Dr. Hashmi that women should stay at home and look after their families."

This student was so impressed with Dr. Hashmi's sermons that she convinced 10 of her friends to enrol in the course that involved wearing the niqab, leaving the workforce and embracing polygamy.

In the Globe piece, 18-year-old Sadaf Mahmood defended polygamy and the burka saying, "There are more women than men in this world.

Who will take care of these women? It is better for a man to do things legally by taking a second wife, rather than having an affair."

While the rest of Canada sleeps, the Islamist agenda funded by the Saudis and inspired by the Iranians, continues to make its presence felt.

The vast majority of Muslims look on in shock, unable to understand why this country would tolerate the oppression of women in the name of religion and multiculturalism.

The woman who was denied her burka in court is a victim. She is merely a puppet in the hands of those who wish to keep women in their place.

First she allegedly suffered the trauma of sexual assault (which has not been proven in the court) which was then compounded by the controversy about her niqab.

She could have asked the judge to not let her face her alleged attackers, and that would have been a fair request.

But when she invoked Islam and said hiding her face would be an act of religiosity, she became a voice not for justice, but for those who wish to sneak sharia into our judicial system.

This should be stopped.

Tarek Fatah Is Founder Of The Muslim Canadian Congress And Author Of Chasing A Mirage: The Tragic Illusion Of An Islamic State (Wiley 2008).

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Hijab debate lifts veil on limits of Norway's tolerance

A Muslim woman's request to wear a hijab with her police uniform has sparked national controversy.

By Valeria Criscione | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the March 20, 2009 edition

OSLO - Norway's biggest headache right now is not the financial crisis. Rather, the predominantly Christian nation is plagued by a religious dilemma over the right of a Muslim woman to wear a hijab as part of her police uniform.

As the controversy has escalated, the country has seen the physical collapse of the justice minister, the public burning of a hijab, and a substantial rise in the popularity of Norway's anti-immigrant opposition party just six months before general elections.

This is odd for a country known for religious tolerance, generous international development aid, and peace efforts worldwide. But the controversy highlights the latent fears of a nonpluralistic society, where 91 percent belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Norway.

The dilemma began last fall when a Norwegian Muslim woman petitioned for permission to wear her hijab, the traditional head covering for Muslim women, as part of her police uniform. Norway's justice ministry originally decided in February to allow it, but revoked the permission a few weeks later after loud criticism from the police union, which argued it breached the neutrality of the uniform.

"A change of uniform regulations, with an allowance for covering hair, has never been a goal in itself. It has always been thought of as a possible means to increase the recruitment of police from minority groups in society," said Justice Minister Knut Storberget, in defense of his decision to revoke the initial permission.

Amid the heightened media attention and political backlash from his flip-flopping, the minister collapsed and subsequently announced a two-week sick leave, which was then extended.

The hijab debacle comes on the back of the minister's other religious-related political defeat over a now-defunct blasphemy law. Mr. Storberget initially tried to replace the law with a new paragraph that would have protected individuals from defamatory religious statements. But after much political opposition, the law was repealed and no paragraph introduced.

This has provided political fodder for the opposition Progress Party, which has stoked fears among Norwegians over "sneak Islamization." Progress Party leader Siv Jensen spoke out strongly at the party's national meeting last month against granting special permission for special groups. She pointed specifically to the case of a largely Muslim neighborhood in Malmö, which she claimed had been partly overrun by Islamic law.

A March poll by Norstat for Norway's national broadcasting station NRK showed that Progress Party soared 8.5 percentage points to 30.1 percent in the polls from a month earlier. Three government coalition partners, Labor, Socialist Left, and Center Party, all lost ground.

The center-left coalition holds 87 out of 169 parliamentary seats, while the Progress party holds 38 seats, the second largest after Labor. A continuing shift to the right could pose a threat to reelection chances in September for Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's Labor prime minister.

"If they continue to spin these irrational fears, I'm afraid it could lead to a lot of commotion," said Thorbjørn Jagland, Norway's parliamentary leader and former Labor prime minister, during a highly-attended religious debate in Oslo this week.

Some 500 people lined up around the block to hear Mr. Jagland, religious professor Torkel Brekke, the bishop of the Church of Norway, and leader of Norway's Muslim Student Society discuss why religion is suddenly a hot topic.

The panelists discussed the recent media focus surrounding the hijab debate and blasphemy paragraph, the provocation caused by the burning of a hijab on International Women's Day on March 8 by a Norwegian Muslim woman in protest of the garment, and fears among "religious nationalists" and "secular intellectuals" toward Norway's Muslim minority.

"We could very well live with the mosques because they stayed in them. But when this began to affect our cultural values, then it became a conflict, and then it became politicized," Jagland told the crowd. "But Islam is not a threat to Norway."

"I don't see Norway as a tolerant society at all, partly based on these debates and how they react to people coming to Norway," said Professor Brekke, from the University of Oslo. "It's tolerant in that you can practice any religion, but you have large sections of Norwegian society that react strongly to alien cultures."

Immigrants make up 9.7 percent of Norway's 4.8 million inhabitants. Norway has granted permission to about one-fourth of the 328,000 immigrants who arrived from non-Nordic countries between 1990 and 2007 to stay as refugees. The largest immigrant population is Polish, who are traditionally Catholic, followed by Pakistani. Islam accounts for 20 percent of the 9 percent of the population belonging to religious communities outside the Church of Norway.

Sweden has a more liberal policy in accepting refugees than Norway and allows hijabs in its police uniform, as does Britain. France has banned the use of hijabs and other ostensible religious items in its state schools since 2004.

The religious debate has overshadowed the economic one in Norway, which has been relatively shielded from the financial crisis thanks to its vast petroleum resources as the world's third largest gas exporter.

Norway has a large budget surplus to help fund its financial stimulus packages and relatively mild unemployment – 3 percent, compared to 8.1 percent in the US. Moreover, it has invested its oil revenues in a $329 billion Government Pension Fund.


Find this article at:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0320/p07s03-wogn.html
From_Alamut
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Post by From_Alamut »

A teenager muslim girl by the name of Aqsa Parvez killed for not wearing hijab by his father.

Please see [Youtube] on CBC NEWS........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpV_cJ5E ... re=channel
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Sarkozy says burqas are 'not welcome' in France
57 mins ago

PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France.

The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France.

In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France's two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved — braving critics who fear the issue is a marginal one and could stigmatize Muslims in France.

"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said to extended applause in a speech at the Chateau of Versailles southwest of Paris.

"The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement — I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

In France, the terms "burqa" and "niqab" often are used interchangeably. The former refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, whereas the latter is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes.

Later Monday, Sarkozy was expected to host a state dinner with Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani of Qatar. Many women in the Persian Gulf state wear Islamic head coverings in public — whether while shopping or driving cars.

France enacted a law in 2004 banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad. France has Western Europe's largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people.

A government spokesman said Friday that it would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing the head-to-toe gowns outside the home.

The issue is highly divisive even within the government. France's junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said she was open to a ban if it is aimed at protecting women forced to wear the burqa.

But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said a ban would only "create tensions."

A leading French Muslim group warned against studying the burqa.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_france_sarkozy_burqa
Biryani
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Post by Biryani »

I think hijab, veil, burqa, pardah…and stuff like that has nothing to do with Islam Rather it is a social custom in Muslim and other Asiatic people and was originally foreign to Muslims. Of course, in Quran Sharif and Hadiths, there are guidelines for both men and women to wear decent clothing and such but not as what the above mentioned things represent directly or indirectly in a fraction of Muslim populations today. such traditions was originally Persian from the time of Sassanid empire…and spread in parts of Arab world during the Abbasid Caliphate…and gradually a bit on the other sides of Persia…

I think we should not accept or give credits to any notions of these things associated with the faith of Islam. It is really astonishing to me that western media are, sometimes, referring this thing as Islamic while never mentioning such practices by Christian churches. I suspect that political and social motivations and hypocrisies are also involved in this type of journalism.

Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III has said in 1902 at Delhi, India.

“…A second cause of our present apathy is the terrible position of Moslem women . . . There is absolutely nothing in Islam, or the Koran, or the example of the first two centuries, to justify this terrible and cancerous growth that has for nearly a thousand, years eaten into the very vitals of Islamic society. The heathen Arabs in the days of ignorance, especially the wealthy young aristocrats of Mecca, led an extremely dissolute life, and before the conquest of Mecca the fashionable young Koraishites spent most of their leisure in the company of unfortunate women, and often married these same women and, altogether, the scandals of Mecca before the conquest were vile and degrading. The Prophet not only by the strictness of his laws put an end to this open and shameless glorification of vice, but by a few wise restrictions, such as must be practised by any society that hopes to exist, made the former constant and unceremonious com-panionship of men and strange women impossible.
From these necessary and wholesome rules the jealousy of the Abbassides, borrowing from the practice of the later Persian Sassanian kings, developed the present system . . . which means the permanent imprisonment and enslavement of half the nation. How can we expect progress from the children of mothers who have never shared, or even seen, the free social intercourse of modern mankind? This terrible cancer that has grown since the 3rd and 4th century [sic] of the Hijra must either be cut out, or the body of Moslem society will be poisoned to death by the permanent waste of all the women of the nation. But Pardah, as now known, itself did not exist till long after the Prophet's death and is no part of Islam. The part played by Moslem women at Kardesiah and Yarmuk the two most momentous battles of Islam next to Badr and Honein, and their splendid nursing of the wounded after those battles, is of itself a proof to any reasonable person that Pardah, as now understood, has never been con-ceived by the companions of the Prophet. That we Moslems should saddle ourselves with this excretion of Persian custom, borrowed by the Abbassides, is due to that ignorance of early Islam which is one of the most extraordinary of modern con-ditions…”
shiraz.virani
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Post by shiraz.virani »

yes pardah has nothing to do with islam but that doesnt mean that we should come to jamat khana wearing clothes that expose our private parts or are toooooooo tight
Biryani
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Post by Biryani »

and that is a whole different matter.
TheMaw
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Post by TheMaw »

Biryani wrote:and that is a whole different matter.
Indeed, I wonder if in countries where topless women is the norm (for example, in areas of the bush in South America and parts of Africa), would there be any matter if the women prayed there topless? I doubt it would matter unless an outsider came. As Aqa Khan III said, "it is neither an issue of hiding oneself nor of dressing oneself [to attract attention".
Biryani
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Post by Biryani »

And I wonder if those junglies even pray, and if they do, since being topless is a norm there…I guess, it would be normal during their prayers too…and should be so for outsiders as well...actually outsiders should get topless too...just to be spared from being attacked as strangers by the locals and for the respect of thier culture... ;-)
kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

To veil or not to veil should be up to women, not state

By Paula Arab, Calgary HeraldJune 25, 2009 3:03 AM

Sexism is when a man tells a woman what to wear. I had the pleasure of that patronizing experience while visiting family in Lebanon in the early '90s. I was taken aback by the ease with which the men in my extended family freely gave their unsolicited opinion about my appearance, right down to my hairstyle.

When I pushed back, they were quick to cloak it as a simple concern that I should dress more appropriately for the culture.

Fair enough, but their concern was unnecessary. Any misstep of inappropriate dress in a foreign land is judiciously corrected by the subsequent glare of unwanted and brazen stares.

That was my experience in the Arab world, and I'm not a Muslim. But then, the issue of wearing a burka in public is more about choice than it is religion. The question is are these women who hide themselves behind these oppressive, tent-like garments truly making their own choices? Or are they reacting to a deeply ingrained message that tells them only by doing so, can they be good Muslims?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stirred the debate in an address this week to France's parliament. He rightly lambasted the burka as a sign of subservience, not religion. Even so, the French commission studying the issue would still be wise to recommend against a state ban.

"It will not be welcome on French soil," he said of the head-to-toe garment, with a mesh screen for the eyes. "We cannot accept, in our country, women imprisoned behind a mesh, cut off from society, deprived of all identity. That is not the French republic's idea of women's dignity."

Western society should roundly condemn the burka--and other grim sacks like it --with equal force. But democratic governments, including in France, must refrain from legislating an outright ban. To do so would be to further politicize the burka, and transform its meaning from a negative symbol to one that stands for freedom of choice. If you tell me what not to wear, I'm going to rebel, exert my rights, and wear it.

The nature of fashion is fluid. Historians understand the importance of dress to reveal the context of a particular period and place. The Mona Lisa is thought to have been pregnant because she is wearing a veil. The gauze fabric is believed to have been typically worn by Italian women in the early 16th century while pregnant or after having just given birth.

The veil has had numerous meanings over the years. In a culture where showing less is more, the mysterious woman behind the shroud eventually becomes more desirable than the woman who reveals all and leaves nothing to the imagination. Thus the veil, initially meant to de-objectify the woman, is transformed into a sexual symbol.

Our choice of clothing, more than expressing our individuality, reflects the mores of the day. The danger of banning the burka risks giving the offensive garment far more weight than it merits, and enhance its relevance in history.

The state simply should not get into the business of telling women what to wear. Once they start outlawing one item of clothing, the closet swings open to anything, including ski masks worn in the deep freeze or sunglasses on a hot day.

Not possible? Guess again. Colleges across India's largest state, Kanpur, have just banned their female students from wearing jeans and tight blouses, calling the dress "vulgar western" clothes. Sleeveless blouses, miniskirts, heels, jeans and tight tops all fall under that "vulgar" category. Instead, the colleges want the students to wear traditional saris or baggy kurta pyjamas to ward off sexual harassment.

The colleges should be going after the men doing the sexual harassing and leave the women alone. Yet, this situation is occurring in one of the more progressive parts of India, at college campuses, no less.

All of this is not to say there should be no limits on the wearing of burkas. There should. These garments are more than simply a shock to western sensibilities or a throwback to ancient times. They present a potential security risk, covering the facial expressions of someone about to cause trouble and potentially concealing a weapon.

Any garment that conceals one's identity and face should not be allowed in certain places, period. They include courtrooms, airports, public schools (hallways and classrooms) and on all identifying state documents like passports and driver's licences.

Outside of that, to veil or not to veil should be an individual choice. Dress codes are for children, not adults. Government-legislated dress codes are for the Taliban religious police, not western democracies.

Give it one generation of girls at schools with dress codes and true freedom of choice will prevail. If the young women still want to wear a burka after graduating, that's their business.

Sexism is a man telling a woman what she can and can't wear. Dressing it up as the state doing the dictating is no better.

parab@theherald.Canwest.Com

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kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

No sane, free person would choose to wear a burka


By Licia Corbella, Calgary HeraldJune 27, 2009 3:03 AM

A while back I was asked to give a talk at my kids' school about my December 2003 trip to Afghanistan.

As I waited to be introduced, I hid in an auditorium storage room wearing a burka I bought in that war-ravaged country, thinking I'd be out in a minute, maybe two. But the introduction took a lot longer than I had anticipated and by the time I came out to greet all those shining faces, I was very nearly hyperventilating from the oppression of it. I didn't time my self-imposed confinement to the burka, but I probably wore the suffocating tent-like garment with mesh over my eyes for no more than 10 minutes. I told the kids I felt like I was buried alive.

I also told them that while in Afghanistan, I asked all of the many women I met there whether they liked wearing a burka. Not one said yes. In fact, they all said they hated it almost as much as they hated the Taliban.

It's no wonder. The burka's toll on these women was harsh. Many had lost most of their teeth and hair as a result of not having enough vitamin D, which comes from the sun. During the time of Taliban rule--from September 1996 to November 2001 --no portion of their skin, save their hands, was ever allowed to be exposed to sunlight. Think about the horror of that. The Taliban insisted that homes with women in them had to blacken their windows, lest a man pollute his delicate sensibilities by gazing upon the uncovered face of a woman behind the glass.

On Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated during the first presidential address to a joint session of France's two legislative houses of Parliament in 136 years, that the burka was "not welcome" in France.

"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity," said Sarkozy.

He's right. Women in burkas don't seem human. After just a short while in Afghanistan, women in their blue burkas seem like ghostly apparitions devoid of a face, individuality or humanity.

At first, when my translators would tap me on the shoulder and suggest I "take a picture of that burka over there," I would gently correct them by saying, "you mean, that WOMAN in the burka?" In a couple of days, however, I too was referring to them as simply burkas.

In France--where it's already illegal to wear any conspicuous religious symbol in state schools including a head scarf--a parliamentary committee is studying the issue of whether or not to allow women to cover their faces for supposedly religious reasons. As Sarkozy said, the burka is "not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience." The Muslim Canadian Congress agrees and urged Canada's government to ban the burka.

"The decision to wear the burka is by no means a reflection of the genuine choices of Muslim women," said MCC president, Sohail Raza in a news release. "The argument that Muslim women opt to wear the burka does not withstand scrutiny when considering the repressive nature of orthodox Muslim society in general."

Reached at his Calgary home, Mahfooz Kanwar, Mount Royal College professor emeritus of sociology and criminology, says many well-meaning Canadians believe it is "tolerant" to allow Muslim women the "choice" of wearing the burka.

"There is no choice involved in this, and allowing it will lead to intolerance," said Kanwar.

"Some people say banning the burka would be a slippery slope and would lead to the banning of wearing a scarf over your mouth in the winter while outside," said Kanwar. "But the real slippery slope can be seen in some Islamist ghettos in Paris or in Denmark, where non-Muslim women are harassed for not covering their hair to the point where they have been forced to start doing so to prevent verbal and physical attacks by semi-literate Muslim men. That's the real slippery slope."

Kanwar, a Muslim who has written eight books, including one on the sociology of Islam, echoes Sarkozy's comments. "The burka is not mandated by Islam or the Qur'an and is therefore not religious and protected under the Charter. In Canada, gender equality is one of our core values and faces are important identifying tools and should not be covered. Period," added Kanwar, who is also a director with the MCC.

Many French politicians are on the side of a burka ban including some prominent Muslim politicians like Fadela Amara, France's cities minister. Amara has called the burka "a coffin that kills individual liberties," and a sign of the "political exploitation of Islam."

Funny, but "coffin" was a word several women I met in Afghanistan used to describe their burka. Consider the words of Massooda, a 36-year-old widow, who looked more like 60 as a result of her harsh life. "I will never wear a burka again," she said defiantly. "They will have to put me in a coffin before I walk around in one again."

That's choice. No sane, free person would ever "choose" the burka.

lcorbella@theherald. canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 7&sponsor=

*****

Feds should ban the burka


Calgary HeraldJune 28, 2009

F rom youth through maturity, a person's choice of clothing signals how the wearer wishes to be received by the rest of the world, and where they place themselves in society. What, then, is the message when a Muslim woman living in a liberal democracy, such as France or Canada, wears a burka?

The issue is a live one in France, where the practice is observably growing among the country's large Muslim minority. President Nicolas Sarkozy recently declared the garment -- described by another French parliamentarian as "a moving prison" for women -- to be "not welcome." He added that it was "not a sign of religion,"but of"subservience. We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity. . . . That is not the idea that the French republic has of women's dignity."

Burkas are less frequently discussed or seen in Canada, though on Friday the minority Conservative federal government quietly dropped its plan to force veiled women to show their faces if they want to vote in Canadian elections, saying all three opposition parties have said they would vote against such legislation.

Sarkozy is right to be concerned about what may be behind their wider use in France and Canadians should be likewise concerned if the practice takes hold here--and must offer similar discouragement.

When Sarkozy says it is not a religious custom, he is correct in the sense that the obligation upon a woman to conceal herself so completely is not to be derived from the Qur'an.

However, whether the woman claims she is willingly wearing a burka or is doing so with reluctance at the insistence of a dominant male, the burka is identified with, and is an instrument of, a form of cultural self-isolation based on religious ideology that is at odds with liberal-democratic ideals and laws. Specifically, the burka's home turf is in countries where a peculiarly rigid and militant variant of Islam is ascendant and the law of sharia arms male-only magistrates with a horrifying array of cruel and unusual punishments. Invariably, the governments of these countries are hostile to western values of liberty, in which they see only decadence --while quite failing to grasp that the same liberty some use to indulge base appetites bears many others to heights of personal attainment beyond the reach of people oppressed by myopic theologies.

That people would visibly identify with an ideology that spurns the very liberty in which they flourish is perverse.

The issue, then, is not the burka, but what it signifies.

When it ceases to be an occasional eccentricity and instead becomes a widespread observance, the phenomenon can only be seen as a marker for a growing and widespread rejection of a society's core liberal values--and a preference for a culture that in its own way denies true freedom to men, as surely as it renders their women invisible.

Such beliefs are dangerous to a liberal democracy, and must by all means be resisted.

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kmaherali
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Post by kmaherali »

Don't rush to ban the burka

Clothing is expression too

By Janet Keeping, For The Calgary HeraldJuly 4, 2009

The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy's recent comments that the burka-- the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women --is not welcome in France have provoked a new round in the debate on whether to legislate against wearing it in Canada.

We shouldn't however be too eager to use the law to prohibit this kind of dress because it is important to recognize that our choices in clothing are a form of expression.

Clothing, and other body adornments such as hair style, jewelry or tattoos, say things about how we see the world, as well as about with whom and with what we associate ourselves. Some of those adornments --think tattoos or message-bearing T-shirts-- speak in a very obvious way, but the others also constitute expression, just more symbolic or subtle. This is true for both men and women.

Like freedom of speech, freedom of clothing expression is not absolute. Even in countries committed to protecting civil liberties, the courts will uphold some rules restricting dress or undress, for example, against nudity. For an example closer to the burka, Canadian courts are likely to continue to insist, as did an Ontario judge recently, that women remove face coverings, such as the niqab, when they give testimony, to ensure procedural justice for the accused.

And just as with speech in schools, restrictions on clothing in the interests of maintaining an atmosphere conducive to learning are going to be more readily justified than in society at large.

But notwithstanding these and a few other exceptions, we need generous legal protection for expression, including clothing. As with speech, it is dangerous to give some the power to decide what is acceptable for others. With clothing, the issues won't often be as deeply serious as with speech. But many of the dangers of clothing censorship are the same.

This is certainly true of religious expression, which brings us back to the burka. I reject what the burka stands for -- I can only see it as misogyny, the hatred of women--just as I reject homophobia and other forms of hate speech. But using the law to suppress hateful expression usually doesn't solve anything and only drives the hate further underground, with eventually even worse consequences. If women can't go out in the streets in a burka, they may be prevented from leaving home altogether. This is true in Afghanistan, some other Muslim societies, some parts of Europe and probably small pockets of Toronto and perhaps other Canadian cities.

Some people say that, since there are women in western countries who "choose" to wear the burka, our laws should respect that choice. But public policy has to be founded on more careful analysis than any mantra such as "more diversity is always better" or "women always know better what is good for themselves." No one would --all other things being equal--opt for very cumbersome clothing that obstructs vision and eliminates any identity as a distinct person. We are right to loathe the garb, but feel only compassion for those forced to wear it.

So why protect the right to wear the burka? Because we must protect the right to be wrong. If freedom of expression protects only what is widely believed true or appropriate, it means very little indeed.

But if freedom of expression is not absolute, when might it be right to ban the burka? The parallels with restrictions on speech may help here again. Speech should be suppressed only when, if left uncontrolled, it would lead to imminent, serious and irreparable harm. Although we can't rule the possibility out, it is difficult to imagine how such harm could flow from wearing a burka. But any determination that it did would have to be evidence-based, not founded on assumption or conjecture.

The sight of women in burkas is disturbing. In fact, it terrifies me because the oppression of women is made so painfully visible. But ultimately it is not the burkas, but the social forces which force women into that clothing, that we should be concerned with. As with offensive speech --where shooting the messenger is hardly ever productive--banning the burka will usually do no good whatsoever. As Salima Ebrahim of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women says, given Muslim women's low rate of participation in economic and civic affairs-- "For example, Muslim women are the least likely of all faith-based groups in Canada to vote" -- "there are much more important things to work on."

Janet Keeping is president of the Sheldon Chumir foundation for ethics in leadership

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Paris pool bars Muslim woman in 'burqini' suit
Herald News Services
August 13, 2009

A Paris swimming pool refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a "burqini," a swimsuit covering most of the body, officials said Wednesday, adding to tensions over Muslim dress in France.

The incident came as French lawmakers conduct hearings on whether to ban the burka after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the head-to-toe body covering and veil was "not welcome" in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.

Officials in the Paris suburb of Emerainville said they let the woman swim in the pool in July wearing the "burqini," designed for Muslim women who want to swim without revealing their bodies.

But when she returned in August, they decided to apply hygiene rules and told her she could not swim if she insisted on wearing the garment, which resembles a wetsuit with built-in hood.

Pool staff "reminded her of the rules that apply in all (public) swimming pools which forbid swimming while clothed," said Daniel Guillaume, an official with the pool management.

Le Parisien newspaper said the woman, identified by her first name Carole, was a French convert to Islam and that she was determined to go to the courts to challenge the decision.

France has set up a special panel of 32 lawmakers to consider whether a law should be enacted to bar Muslim women from wearing the burka.

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The Islamic veil

Out from under
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women. By Marnia Lazreg. Princeton University Press; 184 pages; $22.95 and £15.95. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

LONG or short, sternly pinned or silkily draped, the Islamic veil is the most contentious religious symbol today, in the West as much as in the Muslim world. President Barack Obama argues that Western countries should not dictate what Muslim women should wear. France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, by contrast, recently declared that the burqa, the all-over Islamic covering, is “not welcome on French soil”. France’s parliament is now considering a ban on wearing the burqa in public.

Marnia Lazreg, an Algerian-born professor of sociology at the City University of New York, feels passionately that Muslim women should not wear the veil, as both her mother and grandmother obediently did. She is particularly bothered by the trend of “reveiling” in the West and Islamic countries, whereby the daughters of women who went unveiled decide to cover up. But she also thinks that democratic governments should not impose dress codes by law. So she has written this collection of letters to Muslim women to try to coax them out from under the veil.

Although uneven and with a rather weak grasp of French secularism, the book has great merit. It takes seriously the arguments advanced by defenders of the veil, female as well as male. Such views are various: that it is a form of modesty imposed by the Koran and an expression of piety; that it offers protection from sexual objectification and harassment in a loose, consumerist society; that it is a political statement and reassertion of Islam; that it is a badge of pride in an Islamophobic world. One by one, the author picks apart and punctures each argument, exposing hypocrisy and contradiction, and drawing on case studies of veiled women she has interviewed.

On the question of modesty, for instance, Ms Lazreg points out that the Koran can be read in different ways. Women are variously told to “draw their veils over their bosoms and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands”, or to “cover their bosoms with their veils and not show their finery” or to “draw their shawls over the cleavages in their clothes”. Do adornment or finery really mean the hair and face? Why is a head-covering, especially when worn with elaborate make-up, more “modest” than decorous modern dress?

The author is impatient with academic feminists on Western campuses who argue that the veil is a form of empowerment for Muslim women, and who dismiss charges of sexual oppression as elitist, Western concepts. Such an apology, writes Ms Lazreg, “makes good conversation”, but it is simplistic and dangerous.

Muslim intellectuals, particularly men, exploit such arguments to justify “reveiling” educated young girls who are confused about their identity. Attempts to present the veil as a tool of empowerment, she writes, “rest on a dubious post-modernist conception of power according to which whatever a woman undertakes to do is liberating as long as she thinks that she is engaged in some form of ‘resistance’ or self-assertion, no matter how misguided.” With her letters Ms Lazreg offers a useful and timely counterpoint.

http://www.economist.com/books/displays ... d=14361774
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September 10, 2009
Fitness
Exercise Tailored to a Hijab
By ABBY ELLIN

THE first time Julia Shearson rode her bike after converting to Islam seven years ago, her headscarf became stuck in the wheel.

She lost her balance, and by the time she got going again she was met with stares as she whizzed along, arms and legs draped in loose clothing, her scarf billowing in the breeze.

“You have to overcome the looks,” said Ms. Shearson, 43, the executive director of the Cleveland chapter of the Council on American-Islam Relations. “It’s already hard enough to exercise, and if you look different ... it’s even harder.”

As a Muslim woman in the United States, Ms. Shearson has found it difficult to stay fit while adhering to her religious principles about modesty. Islam does not restrict women from exercising — in fact all Muslims are urged to take care of their bodies through healthy eating and exercise — but women face a special set of challenges in a culture of co-ed gyms and skimpy workout wear.

Many pious Muslim women in the United States, like Ms. Shearson, wear hijab in public, loose garments that cover their hair and body, which can hinder movement and add to discomfort during exercise. Women may show their hair, arms and legs up to the knees in front of other women.

Muslim women are often limited in their choice of activity, as well. Some believe that certain yoga chants, for example, are forbidden, as well as certain poses like sun salutations (Muslims are supposed to worship only Allah). For the sake of modesty, working out around men is discouraged.

That modesty can be a benefit and a liability. On the one hand, Muslim women are spared some of the body-image issues that other women face; on the other, that freedom can be a detriment to their physical well-being.

“We don’t have the external motivation that non-Muslim women have,” said Mubarakha Ibrahim, 33, a certified personal trainer and owner of Balance fitness in New Haven, a personal training studio catering to women. “There is no little black dress to fit into, no bathing suit. When you pass through a mirror or glass you’re not looking to see ‘Is my tummy tucked in? Do I look good in these jeans?’ You’re looking to see if you’re covered.”

After gaining 50 pounds while pregnant with her first child, Ms. Ibrahim studied exercise and nutrition, and became certified through the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America. In 2006 she opened her studio, which offers a safe environment for women to exercise (she says she has more orthodox Jewish clients, who also adhere to rules of modesty).

Ms. Ibrahim said she would like to see exercise become as natural a part of a Muslim woman’s life as praying.

In July, about 120 women from around the country attended Ms. Ibrahim’s third annual Fit Muslimah Health and Fitness Summit in New Haven. She offered yoga, kickboxing, water aerobics and core conditioning classes alongside workshops on weight loss, nutrition, cancer prevention and diabetes at the two-day, women-only event. She plans to hold another one in Atlanta in February.

“An important part of your spirituality is your health,” said Tayyibah Taylor, publisher of Azizah, a magazine for Muslim women, and co-sponsor of the summit meeting. “You can’t really consider yourself in good health if all parts of your being are not healthy — your body, your mind and your soul. It’s a complete package.”

This is especially true now, during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting from dawn until sunset. “The Muslim prayer is the most physical prayer — the sitting, bowing, bending,” said Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement. “The physicality of our prayer forces us to create flexibility in our body.”

But how to mix one’s physical and spiritual needs with practicality? Some Muslim-Americans go to women-only gyms like Curves, which has thousands of branches across the country. And some gyms and Y.M.C.A.’s offer gender-segregated areas, hours or days.

Other women, like Umm Sahir Ameer, a 27-year-old student in Shaker Heights, Ohio, take matters into their own hands. Last year, Ms. Ameer started the Muslimah Strive Running-Walking Group so she and 12 of her friends could exercise together.

“I wanted to establish this group as a way to further unite Muslim women in my community while gaining physical endurance,” she said.

Those who do work out in co-ed gyms have learned to make accommodations in their clothing. Loretta Riggs, 40, an educational coach in Pittsburgh, started exercising two years ago after divorcing her husband. She wears a scarf made of spandex, long-sleeved Under Armour shirts and Adidas or Puma pants.

“Some women don’t think you should be working out in a co-ed gym,” she said, “but I’m around men all the time in my workplace, when I take my kids to the park, when I walk outside.”

She added: “Why would I deprive myself of being healthy because I am a Muslim and I choose to cover? It’s very important to take care of myself.”

Mariam Abdelgawad, 21, a math teacher in San Jose, Calif., said that in high school she played hockey, soccer and ran track and field, all while wearing hijab.

But today she works out at home, since there are no female-only gyms in her neighborhood. Her parents, with whom she lives, have a treadmill, elliptical machine and Pilates equipment, as well as weights. She exercises about three times a week, but said she missed the camaraderie of the gym.

Though working out at home is convenient, she said, it is also very easy to procrastinate and not do it. “I don’t have all the options that a gym would have,” she said.

Swimming also poses problems. Although some Muslim women have been known to hop in the water in their street clothes, this can be cumbersome for a workout. The burqini — a one-piece outfit that resembles a scuba wet suit — has received a lot of attention in recent months (most notably in France, where a young woman was banned from wearing one at a pool), but it tends to be too form-fitting for some women.

“I tried it once, and it sticks to your body,” said Marwa Abdelhaleem, a 26-year-old teacher in Toronto who started a female-only swimming group to avoid the burqini question. “It’s really fitted. I wouldn’t wear it in public.”

Ms. Ibrahim, however, is more focused on the private.

“One of the ideas I promote is that when you are married and you take off your clothing, your husband should not be like, ‘You should put this back on,’ ” Ms. Ibrahim said. “Even if you wear a burqa, you should be bikini-ready. You should feel comfortable and sexy in your own skin.”

There are related articles and photos linked at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/healt ... &th&emc=th
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Egypt cleric 'to ban full veils'

Egypt's highest Muslim authority has said he will issue a religious edict against the growing trend for full women's veils, known as the niqab.

Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.

Although most Muslim women in Egypt wear the Islamic headscarf, increasing numbers are adopting the niqab as well.

The practice is widely associated with more radical trends of Islam.

The niqab question reportedly arose when Sheikh Tantawi was visiting a girls' school in Cairo at the weekend and asked one of the students to remove her niqab.

The Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yom quoted him expressing surprise at the girl's attire and telling her it was merely a tradition, with no connection to religion or the Koran.

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Muslim group calls for burka ban in Canada

By Charles Lewis, National Post
October 8, 2009 1:02 PM

A woman listens as she attends a rally in Kabul in this Aug. 12, 2009 file photograph.

A Canadian Muslim group is calling on Ottawa to ban the wearing of the burka in public, saying the argument that the right to wear it is protected by the charter’s guarantee of freedom of religion is false.
Photograph by: Lucy Nicholson, Reuters

TORONTO — A Canadian Muslim group is calling on Ottawa to ban the wearing of the burka in public, saying the argument that the right to wear it is protected by the charter's guarantee of freedom of religion is false.

"The burka has absolutely no place in Canada," said Farzana Hassan, of the Muslim Canadian Congress. "In Canada we recognize the equality of men and women. We want to recognize gender equality as an absolute. The burka marginalizes women."

She said many women who cover their face in public are being forced to by their husbands and family. As a result, she argued, these women are denied opportunities and cannot live freely as other women in this society.

"The Koran exhorts Muslims toward modesty, which can be expressed in a number of different ways and it doesn't have to be that you have to cover your face or you have to wear a virtual tent wherever you go. This is not a requirement of Islam or the Koran. We are saying this practice has become a political issue promoted by extremists and to counter this trend we are asking for a ban on the burka."

The proposal calls for the banning of "masks, niqabs and burkas." A niqab covers the face but allows the eyes to be seen; a burka covers the entire body and the eyes are obscured by a mesh covering.

"For me that is a huge embarrassment," said Hassan. "It brings the kind of criticism Muslims (unfairly) face."

Hassan said her group is bringing this up now because of an edict released this week in Egypt, by a top Muslim authority, calling for a ban on the burka.

Hassan said she is not asking for the banning of the hijab, which just covers the hair, but she would also like to see that custom vanish.

Professor Amir Hussain, who teaches theology at Loyola Marymount College in Los Angeles, but grew up in Toronto, said the fact that the burka is not in the Koran does not mean that it is not part of authentic religious practice and that many religions absorb cultural practices that eventually become sacred.

He said he does not believe there are enough women wearing the burka in Canada to call it a serious issue. But for those women who are being forced to wear it by family members, the best way to deal with it is to reach out to those women on an individual level.

He said any legal ban will infringe on fundamental democratic rights.

"In Turkey, a secular society, it is illegal to wear it. In Iran you'll be punished if you don't wear it. Either way imposing a belief on women."

In the past few years, the debate over what kind of religious dress should be allowed has been loud and intense.

In June, French President Nicolas Sarkozy went so far as to call a parliamentary commission to look at whether to ban the wearing of burkas and niqabs in public. In France, religious headgear of any faith has already been banned in public schools.

Also in June, the Michigan Supreme Court amended its rules of evidence to give trial judges discretion over whether a woman can be fully veiled when testifying or when bringing accusations. The new rule did not mention Muslims but it will clearly affect Muslims.

Last year an Ontario judge said religious beliefs did not give a woman the right to wear a veil while testifying against her alleged rapist. The decision is now before the Ontario Court of Appeal.

In 2007, a Quebec election official created controversy when he said veiled Muslim women would have to take off their veil if they wanted to vote.

Wahida Valiante, chair of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said the right to wear a burka is absolutely covered by the charter and no one can dictate what constitutes proper religious practice.

But she said by constantly bringing up a "miniscule" issue, that, too, skews society's impression of Islam.

"If anyone ever finds this to be a huge problem I'd be the first one to participate in that discourse. There's freedom of choice. Women can take their bra off and we don't have any laws against that. So in that context a woman can choose to cover their face in this country."

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Niqab banned in female classes

Agence France-presse
October 9, 2009

Despite the increasing popularity of the niqab in Egypt, Al-Azhar university is banning its use in all-female classes and dorms.
Photograph by: Cris Bouroncle, AFP-Getty Images, Agence France-presse
Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious centre of religious learning in the Sunni Muslim world, said on Thursday it will ban the face veil from female-only classrooms and residences.

"The Supreme Council of Al-Azhar has decided to ban students and teachers from wearing the niqab inside female-only classrooms, that are taught by women only," a statement said.

The ban extends to women's dormitories and to schools affiliated with the university, it said.

The face veil, or niqab, is worn by some devout Muslim women. Local press reported that Mohammed Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar, said last week that he intended to ban the practice in the university.

The supreme council's statement added that Al-Azhar does not oppose the niqab, which it said only a minority of Muslim scholars consider an obligation, but it opposes "imprinting it on the minds of girls."

The decision came after female students who wear the niqab were banned from the women's dormitory of the state-run Cairo University.

Most Muslim women in Egypt wear the hijab, which covers the hair, but the niqab is becoming more popular on the streets of Cairo.

The government has shown concern over the trend. The religious endowments ministry issued booklets against the practice, saying the niqab is not Islamic, and the health ministry wants to ban it among doctors and nurses.

In the Middle East, the niqab is associated with Salafism, an ultraconservative school of thought practised mostly in Saudi Arabia.

Most Salafis shun politics, but the creed has influenced Islamist militants such as al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

From the Palestinian territories, a small Salafigroup known as Jund Ansar Allah has called on Egyptians to strike out in reaction, according to a statement reported by the SITE Intelligence Group.

"We call upon our mujahedeen brothers to start crushing the fortifications of the government of the pharaoh of this age(President Hosni Mubarak) and to strike with an iron hand all the agents and traitors."

Al-Azhar has long enjoyed a reputation as Sunni Islam's eminent source of learning and edicts.

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Let's debate the theology of the burka
By Farzana Hassan, For The Calgary Herald
October 10, 2009
StoryPhotos ( 1 )
Cairo University students stand outside the university dormitory Oct. 7, unable to enter due to new rules in Egypt preventing admission to niqab wearers.
Photograph by: Cris Bouroncle, AFP-Getty Images, For The Calgary Herald

A phone debate on a Montreal-based radio station prompted me to investigate the theology of the burka. My opponent, a woman who admitted to wearing a burka, angrily instructed me to hold any judgment on whether the Qur'an mandates the burka until I found out more about Islam. She urged me to conduct a thorough and dispassionate research of the issue.

Her response was familiar. Traditional Muslims often accuse more liberal Muslims of ignorance; if such contemptible liberals understood Islam properly, they would be more conservative. They believe the opinions of liberal Muslims are woeful, have no merit or are perhaps inspired by a nefarious anti-Islam agenda.

In any case, I accepted her challenge and my research confirmed what I already knew--that neither the Qur'an nor Islam in general mandates covering the face. In fact, the Qur'an does not urge any woman even to cover her hair. I therefore regard the hijab as a biddah: something that is alien to Islam. The Qur'an contains no express injunction for women to cover their hair or their faces. What the Qur'an enjoins is modesty in dress and demeanour --nothing more, nothing less --and leaves this to mere mortals to interpret.

I am therefore aghast at the proliferation of the hijab and burka among women of all ages. The conservatives glibly call up dubious quotes from the Qur'an to dismiss the cogent arguments against veiling. Is it general social pressure within their communities that makes them do this, or fearmongering from hellfire preaching? They defend their position vehemently, as if to ensure they are not violating any religious tenets and therefore destined to broil in the afterlife.

While I am not overly concerned about the hijab, a garment that does not conceal a woman's identity or hinder her movements, the burka disturbs me. Not only is it arguably a security risk, but it also symbolizes the worst kind of oppression of women. Rooted in Wahhabi culture, it is a political tool to subjugate women, ensuring that they remain subservient to the demands and whims of the kind of men who stipulate such rules for them.

We can also employ Islamic jurisprudence to attack the practice of wearing the burka. The recognized schools of Islamic jurisprudence prescribe four methods of arriving at religious understanding. These comprise the Qur'an itself, the sunnah (the oral traditions of the prophet, called Hadith), ijma (the consensus of the Muslim community on religious issue) and qiyas (analogy). The most relevant to our current debate is the third principle of Islamic jurisprudence, called ijma or consensus. There are two types. The first involves the consensus of the Muslim community, which need not include scholars. The second pertains to consensus of religious scholars. Muslims are required to follow the precepts agreed by a majority of scholars. Yet nowhere in the Islamic world have the scholars achieved a consensus that Islam mandates covering the face. While there seems to be consensus among orthodoxy on modest attire, no orthodox scholar, with the exception of the Wahhabi sheiks, believe that the covering of the face is mandated by the Qur'an.

Muslims across the world are urged to follow the consensus of the community, particularly of the scholars. If only a small number of extremist sheiks demand that women's faces be covered, why do some Muslims forsake a recognized aspect of Islamic jurisprudence by obeying them?

An assortment of Canadian Islamic organizations released a statement Friday condemning the ban on face veils, which has just been enacted in Egypt. Predictably, the reasoning they offer is designed to appeal to Western notions of freedom, saying that the state "has no business in the wardrobes of the nation." Yet all Canadians, and most certainly all Muslims, know that veiling is more than a matter of wardrobe; it concerns identity and status. The Muslim Canadian Congress has rightly asked for a ban. Face covering is rooted in patriarchy and has no religious basis whatsoever. In fact, it directly violates recognized ways of arriving at religious accord.

Farzana Hassan is an author and a director of the Muslim Canadian congress.

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France retreats from burkaban
No laws against full face veil after Muslim protests

By Tom Heneghan, ReutersNovember 14, 2009
France will issue recommendations against full face veils but not pass a law barring Muslim women from wearing them, a leading backer of a legal ban said on Friday.

Andre Gerin, chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into use of full face veils in France, reluctantly ruled out a ban one day after President Nicolas Sarkozy repeated his conviction that "France is a country that has no place for the burka."

France banned Muslim head scarves in state schools in 2004 following a similar inquiry and looked set to bring in an outright ban on veils covering the whole face, such as burkas or niqabs, when it launched the panel last June at the request of Gerin, a Communist deputy from Lyon.

But at its weekly hearings, legal experts, local officials, Muslim leaders and even some militant secularists have told the deputies on the panel that a ban could be anti-constitutional, counterproductive and impossible to enforce.

Gerin, who denounces the head-to-toe veils as "walking coffins," told Europe 1 radio: "We'll end up with recommendations . . . not a law in itself against the burka, maybe a symbolic law, a law of liberation (of women)."

Backing off from a complete ban, he said the panel might propose "radical measures" to ban full face veils in municipal hospitals and other public institutions, but gave no details.

France, whose five million Muslims make up Europe's largest Islamic minority, has been criticized in the Muslim world for considering a burka ban. French Islamic community leaders have warned against passing a law that would stigmatize Muslims.

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Wearing the Muslim veil in America: What it's like
Wearing the Muslim veil in America may cause awkward moments, but this hijabi finds more positive than negative in her choice.

Husna Haq, a Boston University graduate student and Monitor intern, chose to wear hijab in ninth grade. Born and raised in the United States, she says that she has many more positive encounters over the veil than discouraging ones.

Mary Knox Merrill/Staff
.Enlarge Photos (1 of 3)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Husna Haq Correspondent / December 12, 2009

Boston

I knew I was in trouble the moment I sat down. I’d just taken a seat next to an elderly Asian woman on the D-line train, on my way to a college class last year. She immediately stiffened. I began reading a book. She started twitching and looking around the train. We passed the first stop. She took out her pocket Bible, reading rapidly aloud as she rocked back and forth, clearly agitated. I felt awful, but I didn’t know how to calm her. Before we reached the next stop, she gathered her bags, hurried down the aisle, and quickly took a seat next to someone else.

I’d just scared a sweet, elderly woman with my petite, head-scarf-wrapped frame, and I felt like a monster. I was upset that my hijab – a strip of cloth, a head scarf – had become so loaded with negative connotations that it inspired such distrust.

For centuries, the West has appropriated the hijab as a symbol of oppression, subjugation, repression, and allegiance to fundamentalist beliefs. And while this may be a reality for some Muslim women around the world, it’s not true for me or those I know. Frustrated with the labels others have imposed upon them, Muslim women, including me, are reclaiming hijab and what it stands for. We are empowered and educated and choose to wear hijab because we are proud of our identity. And our experiences are generally positive.

America meets the hijab

There are an estimated 7 million Muslims in America, many of whom were born and raised here, like me. They bring attention to Islam through constructive contributions (Dalia Mogahed, this year, became the first veiled Muslim woman appointed to a presidential advisory panel), and through destructive violence (as in the case of Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan).

For good or ill, “Islam is the most discussed religion in the media,” says Ms. Mogahed, who is executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

As a result, mainstream America is encountering Islam – and hijab – as never before. Although there are no definitive studies tracking the number of hijab-wearing Muslims in the United States, experts say veiling is a growing phenomenon.

“Certainly, you see more women wearing hijab in the last two decades,” says John Esposito, a leading expert on Muslim-Western relations at Georgetown University.

"It’s part of the American mosaic, this point at which you say to yourself, ‘How do I blend where I came from, where I am, and where I’m going?’ Muslim women simply believe ‘I can be who I am – young, bright, upwardly mobile – without having to completely let go of my identity.’ ”

'You're in America now, honey'

I began wearing hijab in ninth grade, not because anyone told me to, but because I believed that it is compulsory in Islam. I was the only hijabi (Muslim slang for a person who wears hijab) in my upstate New York school, and my head scarf occasionally made me squirm self-consciously, but it also spared me from the identity angst my non-Muslim friends were experiencing. I was comfortable in my hijab, and in my skin.

Then, 19 Muslim hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center, and I knew my world had fundamentally changed. I was as angered by the senseless, indiscriminate violence as any American, but I realized my hijab placed me in a precarious position. My parents cautioned me to be careful, worried about the backlash. And although I did field a small share of abuse (“If you people don’t like America,” I heard more than once, “get the **** out!”), and read daily about mosque burnings and Muslim beatings, I also witnessed the generous spirit of fellow Americans. An interfaith group formed a human chain around our Syracuse, N.Y., mosque, expressing their solidarity. My sociology professor advised her students to reach out to Muslims on campus, who were probably scared. As a freshman in my second week of college, I was scared, and her words provided me enormous comfort.

I learned to live with the stares and suspicious looks and to compensate with warmth and smiles to set others at ease. I amassed a collection of hijabs in different colors and patterns to wear according to my mood. I never had bad hair days – and even if I had, nobody would have known.

Proudly, timidly, self-consciously, I wore hijab to class, to graduation, to job interviews, and to my first job in Washington, D.C. As a young single woman in a city of young singles, I occasionally got hit on.

But hijab is more than a piece of cloth. It is modesty in dress and behavior. As an observant Muslim, I didn’t date, didn’t go to bars or clubs, and tried not to invite advances. As a friend remarked, “No man will whistle at a hijabi covered head to toe.”

But hijab is not, as many believe, a suppression of sexuality – it distinguishes between public life and private life. Cognizant of the potentially intrusive, debasing power of the gaze, God instructs men and women to lower their eyes and dress modestly in public. (In Islam, men must also dress conservatively, wearing loose clothing that covers their bodies.)

Feminist Naomi Wolf wrote in her 2008 essay, “Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality,” that Islam and its injunction of modesty channels sexuality into marriage and family life: “When sexuality is kept private and directed in ways seen as sacred – and when one’s husband isn’t seeing his wife (or other women) half-naked all day long – one can feel great power and intensity when the headscarf or the chador comes off in the home.”

Unlike other religious traditions, which portray sexuality as sinful, Islam sanctions, even celebrates, sexuality in the context of marriage.

In fact, the Koran and hadith, or traditions of Muhammad, give women the right to sexual satisfaction in marriage, as well as the right to vote, to education, to work if they wish, to keep any money they earn for their own use, and the right to own property – truly revolutionary when the Koran was revealed in the 7th century. Of course, not every Muslim – or Muslim country – respects these rights. That’s a plain abuse of Islam.

A year and a half ago I married a man who loves me in hijab. He supports my choice to wear it – I wore it for our wedding – and he says that in hijab I am beautiful and empowered.

Not everyone thinks so. A few years ago a hairdresser shepherded me into a backroom for a private cut, away from public view.

“You’re in America now, honey,” she confided, trying to help me. “You don’t have to wear that thing on your head.”

My hairdresser was trying to liberate me from hijab. But for me, hijab is liberation. It is the freedom to assert my identity and live according to my values.

Another train ride

I live in a country where I can do just that. And where, for every discouraging encounter I experience, I have 10 positive ones.

Like another time on the D-line train in Boston on my way home after a long day of classes. It was Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, and I was hungry and tired and had no place to sit.

“You’re fasting, right?” asked a man, standing and offering me his place.

I smiled and gratefully took his seat.

I learned to live with the stares and suspicious looks and to compensate with warmth and smiles to set others at ease. I amassed a collection of hijabs in different colors and patterns to wear according to my mood. I never had bad hair days – and even if I had, nobody would have known.

Proudly, timidly, self-consciously, I wore hijab to class, to graduation, to job interviews, and to my first job in Washington, D.C. As a young single woman in a city of young singles, I occasionally got hit on.

But hijab is more than a piece of cloth. It is modesty in dress and behavior. As an observant Muslim, I didn’t date, didn’t go to bars or clubs, and tried not to invite advances. As a friend remarked, “No man will whistle at a hijabi covered head to toe.”

But hijab is not, as many believe, a suppression of sexuality – it distinguishes between public life and private life. Cognizant of the potentially intrusive, debasing power of the gaze, God instructs men and women to lower their eyes and dress modestly in public. (In Islam, men must also dress conservatively, wearing loose clothing that covers their bodies.)

Feminist Naomi Wolf wrote in her 2008 essay, “Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality,” that Islam and its injunction of modesty channels sexuality into marriage and family life: “When sexuality is kept private and directed in ways seen as sacred – and when one’s husband isn’t seeing his wife (or other women) half-naked all day long – one can feel great power and intensity when the headscarf or the chador comes off in the home.”

Unlike other religious traditions, which portray sexuality as sinful, Islam sanctions, even celebrates, sexuality in the context of marriage.

In fact, the Koran and hadith, or traditions of Muhammad, give women the right to sexual satisfaction in marriage, as well as the right to vote, to education, to work if they wish, to keep any money they earn for their own use, and the right to own property – truly revolutionary when the Koran was revealed in the 7th century. Of course, not every Muslim – or Muslim country – respects these rights. That’s a plain abuse of Islam.

A year and a half ago I married a man who loves me in hijab. He supports my choice to wear it – I wore it for our wedding – and he says that in hijab I am beautiful and empowered.

Not everyone thinks so. A few years ago a hairdresser shepherded me into a backroom for a private cut, away from public view.

“You’re in America now, honey,” she confided, trying to help me. “You don’t have to wear that thing on your head.”

My hairdresser was trying to liberate me from hijab. But for me, hijab is liberation. It is the freedom to assert my identity and live according to my values.

Another train ride

I live in a country where I can do just that. And where, for every discouraging encounter I experience, I have 10 positive ones.

Like another time on the D-line train in Boston on my way home after a long day of classes. It was Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, and I was hungry and tired and had no place to sit.

“You’re fasting, right?” asked a man, standing and offering me his place.

I smiled and gratefully took his seat.

http://www.ismaili.net/html/modules.php ... ply&t=1275
kmaherali
Posts: 25106
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Post by kmaherali »

There is a related video at:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01 ... l?hpt=Sbin

France moves toward partial burqa ban

Paris, France (CNN) -- French lawmakers Tuesday recommended a partial ban on any veils that cover the face -- including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women.

The ban on the "voile integrale" -- which literally means "total veil" -- would apply in public places like hospitals and schools, and on public transport, a French parliamentary commission announced.

It would also apply to anyone who attempts to receive public services, but it would not apply to people wearing the burqa on the street, the commission said.

The commission stopped short of recommending a full ban because not all of the 32 commission members could agree on it.

They will now recommend that Parliament pass a resolution on the partial ban. Such a resolution, if passed, would not make the wearing of a full veil or burqa illegal, but it would give public officials support when asking people to remove it.

Commission members began their work six months ago after French President Nicolas Sarkozy controversially told lawmakers that the full veil was "not welcome" in France.

Sarkozy said the issue is one of a woman's freedom and dignity, and did not have to do with religion.

The French National Assembly assembled a cross-party panel of 32 lawmakers to study whether women in France should be allowed to wear the burqa -- or any other full veil, including the niqab, which shows only the eyes. The commission also studied whether such full veils pose a threat to France's constitutionally mandated secularism.

Commission members heard from 200 people from all areas of French society, including Muslims, though they only heard from one woman who wears a veil.

By recommending a ban on full veils in public places such as hospitals and schools and by anyone receiving public services, the commission members said they wanted to assist those working with members of the public when asking that full veils be removed. That would include school teachers who meet children's parents or ticket agents at train stations.

A date for the vote in Parliament has not been set, though it is unlikely to happen before regional elections which are scheduled for March 14 and 21. Parliamentary majority leader Jean-Francois Cope said this week he believed the resolution will pass.

Any law directed at full veils is likely to be challenged in the courts both in France and at the European level.

More than half of French people support a full ban, according to a recent opinion poll. The Ipsos poll for Le Point magazine found 57 percent of French people said it should be illegal to appear in public wearing clothes that cover the face.

That's despite government estimates that less than 2,000 women in the country actually wear the full Islamic veil.

France has about 3.5 million Muslims, representing about six percent of the population, according to research by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The country does not collect its own statistics on religion in accordance with laws enshrining France's status as a secular state.

French lawmakers believe the burqa is a growing phenomenon beneath which lies a not-so-subtle message of fundamentalism.

Those who advocate the ban say women are often forced to wear full veils by the men around them -- husbands, fathers or brothers -- and that it is a sign of subjugation.

However, women who actually wear the veils deny that.

"You are going to isolate these women and then you can't say that it is Islam that has denied them freedom, but that the law has," said Mabrouka Boujnah, a language teacher of Tunisian origin.

Boujnah, who at 28 is about to have her first child, says she came to wearing a full veil gradually, after wearing headscarves as an teenager. She said she believes a law against full veils would take away fundamental rights of Muslim women.

She and her friend Oumkheyr, who would not give her last name, say they prefer to cover their faces out of piety. The women, both French citizens, say they are only following their religious beliefs and France should respect that.

But even some Muslims in France think the full veil goes too far.

There is nothing in the Quran that directs women to cover their faces, said Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, who runs the Islamic center in Drancy, a Paris suburb. He said it is ridiculous to do so in France.

France already has a law against Muslim girls wearing headscarves in state schools. It sparked widespread Muslim protests when the French Parliament passed the law in 2004, even though the law also bans other conspicuous religious symbols including Sikh turbans, large Christian crucifixes and Jewish skull caps.

In 2008, France's top court denied a Moroccan woman's naturalization request on the grounds that she wore a burqa.

France is not the only European Union country to consider banning the burqa. Dutch lawmakers voted in favor of a ban in 2005, although the government at the time left office before legislation could be passed.
From_Alamut
Posts: 666
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:22 am

Re: Hejab

Post by From_Alamut »

Anger at Belgian face veil ban



Muslims, academics and human rights groups have hit out at a looming public ban in Belgium on the full face veil, following a decision in the country's parliament to make the wearing of the article of clothing illegal.

The vote on Thursday was almost unanimous with 134 MPs in support of the law and just two abstentions.

"I think they're trying to wind us up," Souad Barlabi, a young woman wearing a simple veil, said outside the Grand Mosque in Brussels, the Belgian capital, around the time of Friday prayers.

"We feel under attack," she said, a day after the politicians voted for the ban on clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified.

'Dangerous precedent'

Amnesty International, a human rights group, said the measures must be reviewed by the upper house of parliament as they raise concerns about whether Belgium is in breach of international rights laws.

"A complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's expert on discrimination in Europe.

"The Belgian move to ban full face veils, the first in Europe, sets a dangerous precedent."

The law, which still needs to be passed by Belgium's senate, will be imposed in streets, public gardens and sports grounds or buildings "meant for public use or to provide services" to the public.

"We're the first country to spring the locks that have made a good number of women slaves, and we hope to be followed by France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Netherlands; countries that think," said Denis Ducarme, a liberal deputy.

People who ignore the ban could face a fine of $20 to $34 and, or, a jail sentence of up to seven days.

'Disturbing' law

"It's just a pretext," said Samuel Bulte, a convert to Islam handing out flyers and religious objects in front of the mosque.

"How many robberies are committed wearing a burqa?

"I'm afraid that soon they're going to want to start putting crescents on the backs of Muslims," he said, in a reference to the yellow stars the Nazis forced Jews to wear.

Another man outside the mosque said: "The Virgin Mary also wore a veil. No one says anything about this."

Nearby, 25-year-old Said said he was stunned "that a secular country would get mixed up in religion."

Bruno Tuybens, a Flemish Socialist, was one of the two deputies who abstained from Thursday's vote.

"This law disturbs me," he said. "I believe in freedom of expression and I don't think it should be restricted unless it's in very exceptional circumstances.

"There is no link at all between crime and wearing the burqa or niqab."

Sarkozy support

In Le Soir, a French newspaper, Michael Privot, an Islamic scholar, said Belgium "now joins Iran and Saudi Arabia in that exclusive but unenviable rare club of countries to impose a dress code in the public domain".

He said the three cite "the protection of dignity, or even the freedom, of women to justify the unjustifiable: the restriction of individual freedoms of some of our citizens".

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, has declared that the face veil is not welcome in his country, calling it an affront to French values that denigrates women.

France's National Assembly will begin debate in early July on a bill banning the full face veil.

A final draft of the legislation outlawing the article of clothing from all public spaces as well as state institutions is set to be approved by the cabinet on May 19.

Staunchly secular France passed a law in 2004 banning the wearing of headscarves or any other "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools.

Reference

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europ ... 42628.html
kmaherali
Posts: 25106
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Post by kmaherali »

Syria and the niqab
Take it off
A secular-minded government rejects excessively religious dress in school
Jul 15th 2010 | Damascus

Avoiding temptation.

AS MEMBERS of France’s parliament voted to outlaw the public wearing of the niqab, the Muslim facial veil that exposes just the eyes, Syria is quietly imposing its own curbs. A number of teachers who wear the niqab in schoolhave been transferred to other jobs. The government’s action, so far ordered only orally, has been shrouded in secrecy. But it has been confirmed by civil-society groups that have been approached by some of the 1,200-odd teachers said to have been affected. Ali Saad, the education minister, is reported to have told teachers that the niqab undermines the “objective, secular methodology” of Syria’s schools.

Religious radicals have long been the biggest threat to Syria’s Baathist government and its secular socialism. The crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood in the town of Hama in 1982, when more than 10,000 of its followers were killed, has not been forgotten. More recently, however, the government has sought to curry favour at home by rallying to the cry of Islam. Indeed, in an effort to emulate neighbouring Turkey, President Bashar Assad’s government has posed as a regional champion of moderate Islam. Enthusiasm for shows of religiosity has grown. In the past few years more women have been wearing the veil. Religious books are selling better. More religious schools are being set up.

Yet the government is still very wary of Muslim fundamentalism, especially in education. Last year it reviewed its regulations for Islamic schools. One committee was set up to monitor their funding; another looked at the curriculum. Many of the foreigners who fetch up in Syrian jails are radicals who have been involved in religious schools. Seeking ways to curb the niqab in places of education illustrates the government’s twitchiness.

The reaction of Syrians has been mixed. “The niqab is a Wahhabi way of influencing Syria and is a form of violence against women,” says Bassam al-Kadi, the outspoken head of the Syrian Women’s Observatory, a lobby that strongly supports the curb. But some say it is an attack on personal freedom.
http://www.economist.com/node/16595099? ... N=84572590

*****
Syria bans face veils at universities
ALBERT AJI, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 19, 2010 11:45 a.m.

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from
the country's universities, as similar moves in Europe spark cries of
discrimination against Muslims.

The Education Ministry issued the ban Sunday, according to a government
official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not
authorized to speak publicly. The ban affects public and private
universities and aims to protect Syria's secular identity, he said.

Sunday's ban does not affect the headscarf, which many Syrian women
wear.

The niqab is not widespread in Syria, although it has become more common
recently - a move that has not gone unnoticed in a country governed by a
secular, authoritarian regime.

"We have given directives to all universities to ban niqab-wearing women
from registering," the government official told The Associated Press on
Monday.

The niqab "contradicts university ethics," he added.

He also confirmed that hundreds of primary school teachers who were
wearing the niqab at government-run schools were transferred last month
to administrative jobs.

Syria is the latest country to weigh in on the niqab, perhaps the most
visible hallmark of strict, conservative Islam. European countries
including France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands are considering
similar bans on the grounds that the veils are degrading to women.
Opponents say such bans violate freedom of religion and will stigmatize
all Muslims.

France's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a ban on
wearing burqa-style Islamic veils on July 13 in an effort to define and
protect French values, a move that angered many in the country's large
Muslim community.
Last edited by kmaherali on Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
kmaherali
Posts: 25106
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Post by kmaherali »

Burka ban ruled out in Britain
survey shows 67% want veils made illegal
The Telegraph
July 18, 2010

Britain will not follow France by introducing a law banning women from wearing the burka, the immigration minister ruled on Saturday night.

Damian Green said such a move would be "rather un-British" and run contrary to conventions of a "tolerant and mutually respectful society."

He said it would be "undesirable" for parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.

His comments will dismay a growing number of supporters of a ban. A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal.

"I stand personally on the feeling that telling people what they can and can't wear, if they're just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do," he said. "We're a tolerant and mutually respectful society.

"The French political culture is very different. They are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burka, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that."
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... 0&sponsor=
kmaherali
Posts: 25106
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Post by kmaherali »

VIDEO
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvid ... otest.html
French women cause a stir in niqab and hot pants in anti-burka ban protest
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 3:10PM BST 01 Oct 2010

Two French female students have made a film of the pair of them strolling through the streets of Paris in a niqab, bare legs and mini-shorts as a critique of France's recently passed law.

Calling themselves the "Niqabitches," the veiled ladies can be seen strutting past prime ministerial offices and various government ministries with a black veil leaving only their eyes visible, but with their long legs naked bar black high heels.

Bemused passers-by can be seen gawping at the pair or asking to take photographs in the clip.

At one stage in the film, the two women approach the entrance to the ministry of immigration and national identity, only to be told by a policeman to go elsewhere. However, a policewoman also present is delighted by their clothes. “I love your outfit, is it to do with the new law?” she asks. “Yes, we want to de-dramatise the situation,” one girl replies. “It’s brilliant. Can I take a photo?” asks the policewoman, who will soon be required to fine public niqab wearers.

In an opinion piece published on the news website, rue89, the anonymous duo – political science and communication students in their twenties – said the film was a tongue-in-cheek way of criticising France's niqab ban, which the Senate passed last month and is due to go into force early next year.

"To put a simple burka on would have been too simple. So we asked ourselves: 'how would the authorities react when faced with women wearing a burka and mini-shorts?," asked the students, one of whom is a Muslim.

"We were not looking to attack or degrade the image of Muslim fundamentalists – each to their own – but rather to question politicians who voted for this law that we consider clearly unconstitutional," they said.

"To dictate what we wear appears to have become the role of the State (as if they didn't have other fish to fry ...)."

The film had been viewed 71,000 times on rue89 and a few hundred times on YouTube yesterday, but French websites predicted it would become an internet sensation.

France's law banning the burka makes no mention of Islam, but President Nicolas Sarkozy's government promoted the law as a means to protect women from being forced to wear Muslim full-face veils such as the burka or the niqab.

France's five-million-strong Muslim minority is Western Europe's largest, but fewer than 2,000 women are believed actually to wear a full face veil.

Once the law is in force, a woman who chooses to defy the ban will receive a fine of 150 euros (£125) or a course of citizenship lessons. A man who forces a woman to go veiled will be fined 30,000 euros (£25,000) and serve a jail term.

It could yet be overturned by France's constitutional court.
ohifwinterends
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 5:03 pm

Post by ohifwinterends »

Personally, I love wearing the hijab. It is important to the Muslim woman's identity. It represents a woman's faith, modesty, femininity, and maturity. I am not Ismaili though, I am just Muslim...I think hijab is a great thing for all though, regardless of religion.
Last edited by ohifwinterends on Mon May 07, 2012 12:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
kmaherali
Posts: 25106
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Post by kmaherali »

More evidence why the West should ban the burka

By Licia Corbella, Calgary HeraldApril 20, 2011curriebarracks
http://www.calgaryherald.com/story_prin ... iebarracks

A woman is seen wearing a burka after France imposed a ban on face veils on April 11. In Canada, we identify one another by our faces, says Licia Corbella. We are not forced to carry government-issued identification, like in all Islamo-fascist states.
Photograph by: GONZALO FUENTES, REUTERS

"Women who do not wear head scarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists . . .," states the opening sentence of an April 18 story in the Daily Mail in Britain.

Sadly, nothing unusual there, except that these threats are being made to non-Muslim women. Again, this is not unusual, since that happens throughout much of the Islamic world that imposes rules about dress on all women, regardless of their religion.

What makes the above news so disturbing is the women who are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists for not wearing a hijab (the Muslim head covering) and a veil (the niqab) are non-Muslim women living in . . . wait for it . . . Great Britain. Yes, you read that correctly. Non-Muslim women in a free and democratic country are being threatened with violence or death in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood of London, no less.

The story states: "An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to dress more modestly and wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted.

"When she went to the media to talk about the abuse she suffered, a man later entered the pharmacy and told her: 'If you keep doing these things, we are going to kill you.' "

The 31-year-old pharmacy clerk has been told to take a "holiday" by the pharmacy owners and she now fears she may lose her job.

The "Talibanesque thugs" are also targeting homosexuals in the neighbourhood of Tower Hamlets, with stickers being plastered on walls saying: "Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment."

This story, and others like it, should put to rest the nonsensical arguments of people who say that the niqab (which leaves just a slit for the eyes) and the burka (which even covers the eyes with a mesh) are just another choice of clothing that women can make. History simply does not back that up. Wherever the niqab becomes common, it eventually becomes mandatory and women are never given a choice of what to wear again. Of the dozens of women I spoke with in Afghanistan in 2003, not one of them said they chose to wear a burka -they were forced to by the Taliban and they hated it.

That's the problem and that's, in part, what France is attempting to stop with its ban on face coverings in public, which came into effect on April 11.

In January in England, a London court heard that Mohamed Al-Hakim phoned his cousin, Alya AlSafar, 21, at her west London home issuing a deadline to start re-wearing the hijab or face death.

Last June, right here in Canada, Aqsa Parvez's father and her brother were sentenced to life in prison for what the judge called the "twisted and repugnant" murder of the 16-year-old for refusing to cover her hair and dress the way they wanted her to.

Parvez was strangled to death in the family's Mississauga, Ont., home in December 2007. Her father, Muhammad Parvez, and brother Waqas Parvez, 26, pleaded guilty to seconddegree murder.

There are literally dozens of similar stories in western democracies that could be cited.

Tarek Fatah, renowned author and founder of the secular group Muslim Canadian Congress, says he hopes Stephen Harper wins a majority and follows the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and bans the burka and niqab.

"The burka and the niqab is the political uniform of the regiments of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a fascist, supremacist organization," explained Fatah, who was reached in his Toronto hospital room, where he is recovering from life-saving surgery to remove a cancerous tumour from his spine.

"You can't wear a swastika today and not be a Nazi, and the niqab is the swastika of the Muslim Brotherhood," added Fatah on Tuesday.

"Every woman who wears a burka by choice in the West is a supporter of Islamic fascism, believes in jihad and desires the implementation of sharia law and the destruction of western civilization. There is not one of these women who will say that they are against sharia and they're against jihad," he said. "So, we're dealing with a dress code of a fascist organization that has in its gunsights, the West."

Nevertheless, our Supreme Court has ruled that it's unconstitutional, for instance, to ban the Hells Angels criminal organization members from wearing their colours. The big difference, however, is the Hells Angels don't want every other person on the streets to also wear their uniform. If Islamo-fascists have their way or become the majority, even in a small neighbourhood like Tower Hamlets, they will impose their oppressive dress code on all women, regardless of their individual beliefs. Therein lies the difference.

In Canada, we identify one another by our faces. We are not forced to carry government-issued identification, like in all Islamo-fascist states. Therein lies the biggest difference of all.

Licia Corbella is a columnist and editorial page editor.

lcorbella@calgaryherald.com
shiraz.virani
Posts: 1256
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 2:52 pm

Post by shiraz.virani »

The story states: "An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to dress more modestly and wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted.

"When she went to the media to talk about the abuse she suffered, a man later entered the pharmacy and told her: 'If you keep doing these things, we are going to kill you.' "
Foolish story !!! .....Not even once in any part of the western world had woman been forced by the muslims to wear the hijab...Its a conspiracy of the western world to spark violence in parts like afghanistan,pakistan and other sensitive areas !!

DIVIDE AND RULE !!! ...as simple as that !

Remember the incident of burning the quran in florida ?? Not even one person from saudi or other middle eastern country objected with that....it was only these ultra sensitive countries who are roped into this foolish issues....Spread the hatred, mint money !!!

Hijab is the symbol of modesty and self respect....ITS A CHOICE !
kmaherali
Posts: 25106
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 3:01 pm

Post by kmaherali »

Reinventing the veil

By Leila Ahmed

Published: May 20 2011 23:02 | Last updated: May 20 2011 23:02

Leila AhmedI grew up in Cairo, Egypt. Through the decades of my childhood and youth – the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s – the veil was a rarity not only at home but in many Arab and Muslim-majority cities. In fact, when Albert Hourani, the Oxford historian, surveyed the Arab world in the mid-1950s, he predicted that the veil would soon be a thing of the past.

Hourani’s prophecy, made in an article called The Vanishing Veil: A Challenge to the Old Order, would prove spectacularly wrong, but his piece is nevertheless a gem because it so perfectly captures the ethos of that era. Already the veil was becoming less and less common in my own country, and, as Hourani explains, it was fast disappearing in other “advanced Arab countries”, such as Syria, Iraq and Jordan as well. An unveiling movement had begun to sweep across the Arab world, gaining momentum with the spread of education.

In those days, we shared all of Hourani’s views and assumptions, including the connections he made between unveiling, “advancement” and education (and between veiling and “backwardness”). We believed the veil was merely a cultural habit, of no relevance to Islam or to religious piety. Even deeply devout women did not wear a hijab. Being unveiled simply seemed the modern “advanced” way of being Muslim.

Consequently the veil’s steady “return” from the mid-1980s, and its growing adoption, disturbed us. It was very troubling for people like me who had been working for years as feminists on women and Islam. Why would educated women, particularly those living in free western societies where they could dress as they wished, be willing (apparently) to take on this symbol of patriarchy and women’s oppression?

The appearance of the hijab in my own neighbourhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the late 1990s was the trigger that launched my own studies into the phenomenon. I well remember the very evening that generated that spark. While I was walking past the common with a friend, a well-known feminist who was visiting from the Arab world, we saw a large crowd with all the women in hijab. At the time, this was still an unusual sight and, frankly, it left us both with distinct misgivings.

While troubling on feminist grounds, the veil’s return also disturbed me in other ways. Having settled in the US, I had watched from afar through the 1980s and 1990s as cities back home that I had known as places where scarcely anyone wore hijab were steadily transformed into streets where the vast majority of women now wore it.

This visually dramatic revolution in women’s dress changed, to my eyes, the very look and atmosphere of those cities. It had come about as a result of the spread of Islamism in the 1970s, a very political form of Islam that was worlds away from the deeply inward, apolitical form that had been common in Egypt in my day. Fuelled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the spread of Islamism always brought its signature emblem: the hijab.

Those same decades were marked in Egypt by rising levels of violence and intellectual repression. In 1992, Farag Foda, a well-known journalist and critic of Islamism, was gunned down. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a professor at Cairo University, was brought to trial on grounds of apostasy and had to flee the country. Soon after, Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian novelist and Nobel Laureate, was stabbed by an Islamist who considered his books blasphemous. Such events seemed a shocking measure of the country’s descent into intolerance.

The sight of the hijab on the streets of America brought all this to mind. Was its growing presence a sign that Islamic militancy was on the rise here too? Where were these young women (it was young women in particular who wore it) getting their ideas? And why were they accepting whatever it was they were being told, in this country where it was entirely normal to challenge patriarchal ideas? Could the Muslim Brotherhood have somehow succeeded in gaining a foothold here?

My instinctive readings of the Cambridge scene proved correct in some ways. The Brotherhood, as well as other Islamist groups, had indeed established a base in America. While most immigrants were not Islamists, those who were quickly set about founding mosques and other organisations. Many immigrants who grew up as I did, without veils, sent their children to Islamic Sunday schools where they imbibed the Islamist outlook – including the hijab.

The veiled are always the most visible, but today Islamist-influenced people make up no more than 30 to 40 per cent of American Muslims. This is also roughly the percentage of women who veil as opposed to those who do not. This means of course that the majority of Muslim American women do not wear the veil, whether because they are secular or because they see it as an emblem of Islamism rather than Islam.


My research may have confirmed some initial fears, but it also challenged my assumptions. As I studied the process by which women had been persuaded to veil in Egypt in the first place, I came to see how essential women themselves had been in its promotion and the cause of Islamism. Among the most important was Zainab al-Ghazali, the “unsung mother” of the Muslim Brotherhood and a forceful activist who had helped keep the organisation going after the death of its founder.

For these women, adopting hijab could be advantageous. Joining Islamist groups and changing dress sometimes empowered them in relation to their parents; it also expanded job and marriage possibilities. Also, since the veil advertised women’s commitment to conservative sexual mores, wearing it paradoxically increased their ability to move freely in public space – allowing them to take jobs in offices shared with men.

My assumptions about the veil’s patriarchal meanings began to unravel in the first interviews I conducted. One woman explained that she wore it as a way of raising consciousness about the sexist messages of our society. (This reminded me of the bra-burning days in America when some women refused to shave their legs in a similar protest.) Another wore the hijab for the same reason that one of her Jewish friends wore a yarmulke: this was religiously required dress that made visible the presence of a minority who were entitled, like all citizens, to justice and equality. For many others, wearing hijab was a way of affirming pride and rejecting negative stereotypes (like the Afros that flourished in the 1960s among African-Americans).

Both Islamist and American ideals – including American ideals of gender justice – seamlessly interweave in the lives of many of this younger generation. This has been a truly remarkable decade as regards Muslim women’s activism. Perhaps the post-9/11 atmosphere in the west, which led to intense criticism of Islam and its views of women, spurred Muslim Americans into corrective action. Women are reinterpreting key religious texts, including the Koran, and they have now taken on positions of leadership in Muslim American institutions: Ingrid Mattson, for example, was twice elected president of the Islamic Society of North America. Such female leadership is unprecedented in the home countries: even al-Ghazali, vital as she was to the Brotherhood, never formally presided over an organisation which included men.

Many of these women – although not all – wear hijab. Clearly here in the west, where women are free to wear what they want, the veil can have multiple meanings. These are typically a far cry from the old notions which I grew up with, and profoundly different from the veil’s ancient patriarchal meanings, which are still in full force in some countries. Here in the west – embedded in the context of democracy, pluralism and a commitment to gender justice – women’s hijabs can have meanings that they could not possibly have in countries which do not even subscribe to the idea of equality.

But things are changing here as well. Interestingly, the issue of hijab and whether it is religiously required or not is now coming under scrutiny among women who grew up wearing it. Some are re-reading old texts and concluding that the veil is irrelevant to Islamic piety. They cast it off even as they remain committed Muslims.

It is too soon to tell whether this development, emerging most particularly among intellectual women who once wore hijab, will gather force and become a new unveiling movement for the 21st century: one that repeats, on other continents and in completely new ways, the unveiling movement of the early 20th century. Still, in a time when a number of countries have tried banning the hijab and when typically such rules have backfired, it is worth noting that here in America, where there are no such bans, a new movement may be quietly getting under way, a movement led this time by committed Muslim women who once wore hijab and who, often after much thought and study, have taken the decision to set it aside.

Occasionally now, although less so than in the past, I find myself nostalgic for the Islam of my childhood and youth, an Islam without veils and far removed from politics. An Islam which people seemed to follow not in the prescribed, regimented ways of today but rather according to their own inner sense, and their own particular temperaments, inclinations and the shifting vicissitudes of their lives.

I think my occasional yearning for that now bygone world has abated (not that it is entirely gone) for a number of reasons. As I followed, a little like a detective, the extraordinary twists and turns of history that brought about this entirely unpredicted and unlikely “return” of the veil, I found the story itself so absorbing that I seemed to forget my nostalgia. I also lost the vague sense of annoyance, almost of affront, that I’d had over the years at how history had, seemingly so casually, set aside the entirely reasonable hopes and possibilities of that brighter and now vanished era.

In the process I came to see clearly what I had long known abstractly: that living religions are by definition dynamic. Witness the fact that today we have women priests and rabbis – something unheard of just decades ago. As I followed the shifting history of the veil – a history which had reversed directions twice in one century – I realised that I had lived through one of the great sea changes now overtaking Islam. My own assumptions and the very ground they stood on had been fundamentally challenged. It now seems absurd that we once labelled people who veiled “backward” and those who did not “advanced”, and that we thought that it was perfectly fine and reasonable to do so. Seeing one’s own life from a new perspective can be unsettling, of course – but it is also quite bracing, and even rather exciting.

Leila Ahmed is the Victor S. Thomas professor of divinity at the Harvard Divinity School. Her new book, ‘A Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America’ (Yale University Press), will be published on May 26.

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