This is a very interesting take on the hijab debate – a video about a British Muslim woman who decided to take off the hijab after realising she was wearing it not for personal pious reasons but political ones – contrary to what Islamists claim. She is of the opinion that it’s better for society that men learn how to function appropriately around unveiled women than that society shroud women from men and place the blame for men’s behavioural inadequacies on women’s shoulders.
Watch it through as she visits various Muslim women around the world and investigates their attitudes towards the hijab.
****
Hat tip: Averroes Press
7 Comments
I think the hijab has different effects in different societies. In a society like Saudi all women should cover up because the men are too immature to handle female faces and hair. In the UK the hijab makes you stand out like a sore thumb and attracts more attention.
I also agree that the hijab does sexualise women.
“In a society like Saudi all women should cover up because the men are too immature to handle female faces and hair”
How pathetic does that make Saudi men though?
In the UK the burkha and niqab should be absolute no no’s, this is not saudi or afghanistan. Headscarves, well, if someone chooses to (as opposed to made to) then thats a little different.
In British culture covering up the face is considered rude and sepratist. And also a tad infantile. The idea that without men controlling women b7y making them cover up their faces as men wouldn’t be able to control themselves is just boundlessly insulting and, frankly, ridiculous.
This is a refreshing and positive development from the Lubna Hussain story, which is also covered on Averroes Press (great site!):
“In Sudan, 20,000 girls and women have been flogged for wearing “indecent clothing” like pants, says Lubna Hussain”
I completely agree with the lady who went to such great lengths to explore the debate on hejab. I myself have worn it for 10 years and now that I am becoming a 19 year old young lady I am starting to take an interest in this hejab debate. For a long time now I have been becoming uncomfortable with wearing a headscarf as I grow older and obviously go through puberty. As I become a young woman I feel that wearing the scarf is- like she so eloquently coined the term- ‘sexualizing’ my own being into some sort of an object that is to be covered. God gave me hair, and he gave me such femininity in other parts of my being. Why is he than asking me to cover it? It doesn’t make sense if people say its for men, it would make sense if they said its for God but than- the current issue in todays society is that we are mostly doing it because of men. I dont feel covering my hair is the right way of gaining respect of men or of becoming more spiritual with Allah.
i don’t think there is a need to debate about wearing the Hijab.According to the following verses from the Quran,it’s cleared the doubt from those who know little knowledge about religion.if you were wearing a Hijab and stopped due to unexplainable reasons, you have denied the Islamic teachings of the Prophet.
As for you who wants to compare yourself to animals, yes ALLAH gave you hair but yet still you are naked.ALLAH made you the best of all His Creation,DO you know why? He knows what is best for you, do you know what is good for you? Read the followin’ quotations!
“O you Children of Adam! We have bestowed on you raiment to cover your shame as well as to be an adornment to you. But the raiment of righteousness, that is the best. Such are among the Signs of Allah, that they may receive admonition.” (Quran 7:26)
Allah Ta’ala says: “And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts from sin and not show of their adornment except only that which is apparent, and draw their headcovers over their necks and bosoms and not reveal their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women (i.e., their sisters in Islam), or their female slaves whom their right hands possess, or old male servants free of physical desires, or small children who have no sense of women’s nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And turn unto Allah altogether, O you Believers, in order that you may attain success.[An-Nur, 24:31]
so, god/allah/the flying spaghetti monster made us and not only made us but made us to feel ashamed of our selves!?
thanks a bloody bunch then god etc.
personaly, i think god etc., meant us to be happy with our selves and this kak about shame is a human construct to enable the pius ones to control us.
hijab/burkha: the laura ashly dalek.
LOOk YOU ALL SHOULD BE ASHAMED ALLAH TOLD US TO WEAR HIJAB IT IS LIKE A BARRIER FOR MEN SO THERY KNOW TO STOP WHEN THEY SEE YOU THEY KNOW YOU Hve a barrier it is a protection as allah says so if you argue with this why call yourself a musllim?????????????????