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Why Hijab Is Oppressive

Many Muslim women have claimed that the wearing of the hijab — head-covering scarf — is not oppressive and that they do it voluntarily.

Could it be worn voluntarily and still be oppressive?

The answer lies in why it is commanded. Verses 30 and 31 surah 24 (The Light) read:

Say to the believing men that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts; that is purer for them; surely Allah is Aware of what they do. And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.

The list of who might see an uncovered woman can be distilled thusly:

  • husbands
  • fathers
  • fathers of their husbands
  • sons
  • sons of their husbands
  • brothers
  • brothers’ sons
  • sisters’ sons
  • women
  • those whom their right hands possess
  • male servants not having need (of women)
  • children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women

There are two things that immediately stand out.

  1. Almost everyone mentioned here is a man.
  2. The only men who can see a woman are family members.

Additionally, notice that the instructions given to the men are much less demanding than those given the women. Men are to cast their eyes down and to protect their private parts; women get a whole shopping list of requirements.

The Koran also addresses hijab in Sura 33 (The Clans), verse 59:

O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

It all tends to smack of women being the possession of men, doesn’t it?

Yet it’s also a bit demeaning to men: it suggests that men have no self control, that men will automatically turn any and all women in to sexual objects, and that the only way men can notice a woman’s mind is if the women are covered.

Caveats

Caveat one: The New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 11, commands women to cover their heads when in prayer. A couple of caveats to this caveat: first, this is only in limited circumstances, specifically in prayer and when prophesying. Secondly, most Christians have philosophized that away.

Caveat two: Not all Muslim women wear headscarfs. There is a caveat to this, though: to do so in many Muslim countries is to risk condemnation or worse.

Notice: it’s a woman delivering the correctives, but a male police officer is close at hand, showing who the real authority is. Notice also that when the woman is discussing a poor stranger’s clothes, discussing her “sarafan,” a man walks by in a tight-fitting Western shirt, looking must un-Islamic. Nothing is said to him.

Caveat three: Nuns cover themselves. This is, however, an unequal comparison. Becoming a nun is a voluntary addition (or modification) to being a Christian. One can move into and out of a position that requires the head covering. Muslim women cannot do this.

“Archbishop sparks Sharia law row”

From the BBC:

Leading politicians have distanced themselves from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s belief that some Sharia law in the UK seems “unavoidable”.

Gordon Brown’s spokesman said the prime minister “believes that British laws should be based on British values”.

The Tories called the archbishop’s remarks “unhelpful” and the Lib Dems said all must abide by the rule of law.

Dr Rowan Williams said the UK had to “face up to the fact” some citizens do not relate to the British legal system. (Archbishop sparks Sharia law row)

I’m going to sound like a right-winger for this, but I’ll say it: it seems to me that if you have problems relating to the legal system of your country of residence, perhaps you should consider changing your country of residence; if you desire Sharia law, perhaps you should go to one of the countries where it is enforced — Iran and Saudi Arabia come to mind.

“There is no Islam without a Khilafah”

[There] you have it, according to the moderate Muslims I have talked with in recent months. Reporters who want to cover this debate must realize that, as one scholar told me: “It is all about Shariah.” Can Shariah come to the West? Will governments in the West allow that and, if they do, are the political leaders who back that development prepared to deal with its affects on public life?

There is no Islam . . . without a Khilafah

Open Comments

One of the dangers of having a controversial website that is also open to viewer comments is the threat of visitors’ words being attributed to the site owner.

As an aside, Dennis Prager rehearses the now-common (but still pretty good) observations about the difference in reaction in insulting Islam and insulting other religions. He points out the absurdity of the Federal Koran-in-the-toilet suit versus the crucifix-in-urine modern art piece. Putting a Koran in a toilet and putting a crucifix in urine are essentially the same thing, but the reaction is entirely different.

In this video, Ibrahim Hooper, of CAIR, makes just such a claim against Robert Spencer and his site Jihad Watch. “[Hooper] quoted a genocidal comment that was made on this website yesterday, and made it appear as if I had written it,” Spencer writes.

His response: “In reality, someone kindly alerted me to the existence of the comment shortly after it was posted, and I removed it and banned the poster.”

So it was on the site for a short period of time, but then disappeared. How then would Hooper have known it was there? Someone emailed him? Someone at CAIR monitors Jihad Watch continuously?

Spencer continues,

The comment itself seemed to me and to others who posted on the same thread to have been written by a provocateur — someone who wanted to discredit Jihad Watch and me by planting a comment here. Such people come through here fairly often. And now, after Hooper’s use of this comment despite its being deleted, I suspect even more strongly that it was written by a provocateur. (Jihad Watch)

Could it be that someone who is critical of the site posted such a comment to make the site look bad? It seems entirely possible.

That’s Some Ideology

From Reuters, on the UK plots:

“To think that these guys were a sleeper cell and somehow were able to plan this operation from the different places they were, and then orchestrate being hired by the NHS so they could get to the UK, then get jobs in the same area I think that’s a planning impossibility,” said Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence officer now at London’s Chatham House think tank.

“A much more likely scenario is they were here together, they discovered that they shared some common ideology, and then they decided to act on this while here in the UK,” he said. (Yahoo! News)

Some common ideology? What could that have been?

They were all Formula One fans? They were all passionate about Jane Austen? They were all Culture Club fanatics?

That’s it — it’s Boy George’s fault…

We’re Holocaust deniers, each and every one

Holocaust denial is rampant in the Arab world. One doesn’t have to look too far to find it.

While looking for Holocaust images on Google, I found a discussion thread called “Myth of Holocaust Will Not Survive, French Historian” at IslamOnline.net.

French historian and professor of Sorbonne University Robert Faurisson said that the ‘myth of Holocaust’ fabricated by the Zionists would not survive.

Addressing the International Confernce on ‘World Vision on Holocaust’, Faurisson said that the gas chambers allegedly used by Hitler to massacre the Jews did never exist.

It didn’t take much to find it — I wasn’t even looking for it.

But who would have thought that we, American taxpayers, are actually supporting Arab/Islamic Holocaust denial?

Testifying under oath recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled Congress in her strong defense of Al-Hurra, the taxpayer financed Arab TV network. It was unwitting, though. She herself was misled.

During the March 21 House Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Rep. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) pressed Ms. Rice on the wisdom of providing a platform to Islamic terrorists, citing Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s Dec. 7 speech, which Al-Hurra aired live. The broadcast speech “went on for 30 minutes,” she responded, “followed by commentary, much of which was critical of Nasrallah.”

In fact, Mr. Nasrallah’s speech was carried in its entirety, roughly an hour and eight minutes. The commentary that followed–a 13-minute phone interview with Wael Abou Faour, a member of Lebanon’s governing coalition–was indeed critical of Mr. Nasrallah. He accused the Hezbollah leader of not being anti-U.S. and anti-Israel enough. While Mr. Nasrallah had claimed Lebanon’s governing coalition was aligned with the U.S. and had backed Israel during the war last summer, Mr. Abou Faour said that Hezbollah was actually closer to the U.S and added that any Lebanese faction that assisted “the Israeli enemy” should not be allowed to engage in political discussion because “the only place they should be [is] in prison.” […]

Under Mr. Register, Al-Hurra covered the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last December. But in a stark break from Mr. Harb’s era, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the attendees at his conference were treated with unmistakable deference.

Al-Hurra’s Dec. 12 report on the gathering included David Duke’s praise for Mr. Ahmadinejad, and it took at face value the organizers’ demand for Israel “to provide proof and evidence that certifies the occurrence” of the Holocaust. An official running the event was afforded the opportunity to show the open-mindedness of Holocaust deniers: “If we actually conclude with our experts through this meeting that the Holocaust is a real incident we will at that time admit its presence.” (Transcript provided by a fluent Arabic-speaking U.S. government employee.)

So we’re paying for a station that provides a platform for anti-Semitic rantings. What about the reporters themselves? Surely they are more objective.

The Al-Hurra reporter stationed in Tehran referred to those who believe Hitler killed six million Jews as “Holocaust supporters.” He took a swipe at the handful of conference attendees who didn’t deny the Holocaust, by noting that they “didn’t enforce their statements with scientific evidence.” In closing the piece, he referred to Israel as “the Jewish state on Palestinian lands.” (Wall Street Journal)

At least something, though, is providing a little bit of bi-partisanship on Capital Hill…

No Stoned Canadians

Migrants to Herouxville, Quebec learn that lapidation — among other things — is not tolerated:

Don’t stone women to death, burn them or circumcise them, immigrants wishing to live in the town of Herouxville in Quebec, Canada, have been told. […]

Its council published the new rules on the town’s website.

“We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here,” the declaration reads. BBC NEWS

Members of the Muslim community are understandably upset:

However, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, condemned the council, saying it had set back race relations decades.

He told Reuters news agency: “I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion.”

I write none of this to justify what the Herouxville council did. It was more than a little tasteless.

It might be a stereotype, but as Stephen Pinker and others have pointed out, within most stereotypes is a core of truth.

Truth is, there is stoning in the modern world:

  • Afghanistan
  • Iran
  • Nigeria
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Sudan
  • United Arab Emirates

In each instance, it is related to Islamic Sharia law. The truth is, contemporary stoning is a predominately (almost exclusively) Muslim practice. That is not to say that all Muslims support it; it is not to say that historically Muslims have been the only group to practice lapidation; it is not to say that only Muslims today stone. However, to say that associating lapidation and Islam requires “ignorance about Islam” is itself ignorant at best, misleading at worst.

What really caught my attention, though, was Elmenyawi’s juxtaposition of setting “back race relations” because of “ignorance about Islam and our religion.”

When did Islam become a race? We might call Muslims an ethnic group, but even that is extremely misleading. Did Elmenyawi misspeak? Was he misquoted?