Full Body Burqua in the News in Europe
Is it an Islamic Shari’ah Prescription?
The four human forms that you see in this picture shrouded from head to toe in black fabric are supposed to be Muslim women dressed, as they see it in a shari’ah conforming attire. Talking to them will confirm that they are indeed women. I feel very confused, disturbed and distressed when I see such pictures. It gives my adorable Divine Deen a very ugly color. It looks funny and strange; defies all sense; hides the identity of my Sisters; puts unnecessary and harsh constraints and limitations on them and their movements; they are supposed to hear with their ears tightly covered; they will talk and eat with their mouths covered; yes they can breath but cover their noses. Allow me to vent out my feelings to you all; perhaps it may relieve me.
I am very clear on one issue. Those women who think that full body burqua are required by the Shari’ah they must do it, come what may and despite what I say. I admire their courage of conviction to wear it in a Western society with all its negative impact. But they have to realise that three fourth of the world population find this outfit very amusing. Even the great majority of Muslims think that Islam is too rational and meaningful religion to suggest such a uniform for women. I think if these four women were to forget for a moment that this is a shari’ah requirement and then look in the mirror they will probably be surprised at themselves. I will hasten to repeat, this type of burqua immediately becomes acceptable, desirable and respectable IF (and this is a mighty if ) it is a command from God Almighty; in that case logic gives in to obedience.
What is the source in Islamic Law for this type of burqua/hijaab/purdah? This is not a forum to debate the correct interpretations of the ayahs in Surah Noor and Ahzaab and the relevant ahaadith which are the sources usually quoted. Most traditional Ulema of the Madrasah Curriculum and Madrasah Philosophy of Taqleed (mandatory following of the Fiqh of the Four Schools of Sunni Islam of the ninth and tenth century) and specially the scholars of the Wahaabi-Saudi school strongly support a strict and rigid burqua. Independent thinking Islamic scholars notable among them the research scholar and academician Javed Ahmed Ghamdi have logically proved that these ayahs do not recommend any dress code for Muslim women. They have explained the relevant ayahs in their proper context and critically analysed the hadith literature to prove that our Shari’ah outlines in fact a very clear Code of Conduct for Islamic decency and modesty for both Men and Women. Moreover a vast majority of Muslim women all over the world have not adopted the full-body burqua seen in the photograph. An abaya with covering of the head is more common. A very significant number of sisters have metamorphosed the whole-body burqua into just a scarf on their head. It is very strongly promoted as “the hijab” since the mid nineteen seventies. It is touted as “the Muslim identity” or “flying the flag of faith” in our confrontations and conflicts with the West — our past colonizers and present “enemies and killers of Muslims”. To the best of my knowledge, this last form of hijaab has no basis in our Shari’ah; it is more an outcome of social, cultural and political forces.
The four women in the photograph are at the Senate in The Hague during talks to ban full-body burqas in some public places in the Netherlands. Are they allowed to be there by the Shari’ah which they profess to follow? No; they are not. They are ignoring the main part of the shari’ah requirement. Based on the Quran (ayahs 30-31 in Surah Noor no. 24 and ayahs 32-33, 53 and 59 of Surah Ahzab no.33), the Sunnah and Hadith, all the Four Schools of Thought of traditional Sunni Islam have unanimously agreed that “hijaab” prescribes the following dress and code of conduct for Muslim women:
1) Women to stay indoors; home is their workplace.
2) Total segregation of genders at all levels and at all times; no mixed events at all.
3) If a woman has to step out of her home out of necessity, she should be covered the way we see in the photograph.
Please note: women are to stay and work indoors, always be in the company of women, no mixed events except with mehram males. Burqua is needed if and only when they are commuting for urgent reasons. These are the requirements of the shari’ah of their choice.
If strictly followed, there should not be much of a problem for these women with the society they are living in. But these ladies have decided to follow their shari’ah half way. They will flout the shari’ah (which they have decided to follow) and participate fully in society and deal with men everywhere and anywhere but, in deference to their Shari’ah they will drag the full-body burqua into the streets, conferences, hotels and music concerts etc; take half, leave the other half. Result? Aberration and anomaly; confusion and conflict. Instead of a sister you are dealing with a human shape and configuration which sounds to be a female.
Suggested take home message: If these four sisters are following an edict of Allah Ta’aala Subhanahoo to don this full-body burqua, hats off to them. We should all try and emulate them. If this is not a divine injunction and it is not, it just cannot be then this outfit is anything but Islamic, looks odd and perhaps ludicrous, denies any personality to our sisters and enforces undue restrictions on their movements and their social interactions with other human beings.
I came across and interesting piece on this subject “What not to Wear” "What Not to Wear"
in the International section of the Economist dated January 28th 2017. The subtitle reads “A dispute over Muslim women’s attire is helping nobody”. I would like to share with you some informative portions of the article.
It speaks of Aïcha Khobeizi seen in the photo who is presenting “an unusual sight on a university campus in strictly secular France dressed in her bottle-green nylon skirt and matching veil”. When she first decided to wear a headscarf, at the age of 15, her mother laughed and her father also disapproved. She persisted any how because “But I felt something was missing. I was determined to wear it in order to feel at ease with who I am.” Good luck, please go ahead I would say. But this does not make it Islamic. Our deen has tried to address the business of modesty and decency; the sister has made it an issue of identity in her struggle and confrontation with her fellow citizens. She wants a prominent marker on her body to distinguish herself from her fellow citizens; a sort of self profiling. It does not bother her that, in the process she becomes an enigma to ninety nine percent of folks around her.
About the present social and political climate in secular France the author says “there is a remarkable consensus for upholding curbs on religious dress from public place ……François Fillon, a front-runner, backed local bans on the “burkini”, a modest all-in-one swimsuit, last summer and considers the spread of the veil to be part of what he calls “Islamic totalitarianism”. The author adds “Last month Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, told cheering members of her Christian Democratic party that exposing one’s features was part of normal interaction in a liberal society. Face covering, she said, should be banned “where legally possible”. He mentions a surprising piece of information “The strangest clampdown has occurred in Morocco. Earlier this month local officials told shopkeepers that the production, importation and sale of the burqa must end, and made them sign a document agreeing to the change.”
“Anxiety over Muslim dress is running high partly because of a surge in Muslim refugees ……and Islamist terrorist attacks in Belgium, France and Germany have stirred fears about immigrants” adds the author. I will strongly endorse when the author says “But there is a deeper cause. Secularist doctrine and Muslim culture are both evolving in a way that causes a clash over attire.” Put simply, the fight over the burqua and veil is not about religious phobias or racism. It is about culture and values, very highlighted in France. Muslim sisters would like to show the minimum part of their body. Western women, on the other hand like to cover only the bare minimum required. The gulf is wide enough to cause friction in social interactions.
This debate is fast running away from law and shari’ah to personal opinions and individual freedom. As the article further says “In France, Quebec and even Turkey, a growing number of young Muslim women favour a live-and-let-live approach. “There’s no single meaning to the veil,” insists Ndèye Aminata Dia, a Senegalese-born woman working in Paris who has started a fashion line in stylish head-coverings. She wears her veil over a long flower-print skirt and carries a jaunty red handbag. “Wearing it doesn’t mean you are fundamentalist,” she says, “just as you can decide not to wear it, and still behave with modesty.”
Some facts to correctly comprehend the real basis for this controversy over burqua according to the write-up: “Although Britons dislike mass immigration, they seldom get excited about Muslim dress. Nor do most Americans……..France is different. The roots of French political secularism, known as laïcité, go back to the revolution of 1789 and to an anti-clerical campaign in the early 20th century. By 1904 some 10,000 religious schools had been shut; thousands of priests fled France. “We have torn human conscience from the clutches of faith,” declared René Viviani, a Socialist minister. To France’s current Socialist government, with its strong attachment to laïcité , the row over the burkini was a rematch of 1905. Manuel Valls, then the prime minister and now a run-off candidate in the Socialist presidential primary, said the garment embodied the “enslavement of women”. Its logic, added the women’s minister, Laurence Rossignol, was “to hide women’s bodies in order better to control them”. Many citizens concur. Fully 72% say they would back outlawing the veil from university campuses, and 64% would ban the burkini from beaches.”
These facts also suggest that the root problem in this controversy is not Islamophobia or racism as much as deeply rooted social preferences and prejudices. Therefore to me as a Muslim, the crux of the problem is to fall back on the source of our religion and find the correct verdict of our Shari’ah on this issue. If it prescribes burqua, we Muslims have no choice but to follow. However if it does not then Islam should not be dragged into the controversy. If some sisters feel a “sense of emancipation” or “knowing who I am” in burqua, please go ahead. Wish you good luck. But do not try to raise “a flag of Faith” above it. If you feel resistance from your fellow citizens, then deal with them without invoking Islam for it. The high sounding phrases usually thrown out such as “women emancipation” or “women enslavement” should be left to personal opinions. “Many educated young Muslim women consider themselves the beneficiaries of feminist battles fought by the previous generation. They have no time for arguments favored by academic feminists about whether the veil is a form of emancipation or oppression. Instead they insist on their right to dress how they like, whether in tight jeans or a full-length niqab, and not to be judged for it.” I would like to add that the debate is and should be all about personal preferences, norms and rights, quite apart from religion or Islam.
When the government or state or establishment appears on the stage, the argument takes a different twist. The article states: “From this perspective, the government’s attempts to impose and elaborate a dress code are not just an affront to their freedom but further proof of male chauvinism. ‘I am a feminist, I consider that I am equal to men and I wear what I want’ says Fatima El Ouasdi, a student in finance, who wears her skirt short and her hair loose and runs a women’s-rights group. ‘But the burkini ban really revolted me.’”
It adds “Yet the trend of “re-veiling” among young French women is sincerely regarded by many members of their mothers’ generation and by many politicians as part of a fundamentalist political project. They believe the government has both the right and the duty to oppose it. The French do not view the state merely as a provider of services but as a guarantor of norms. Lending legitimacy to certain individual choices is not just a matter of personal freedom but can have real social consequences.” To us Muslims, the phrase “guarantor of norms” should sound familiar and well come.
The article gives examples of the opposite trend i.e. to enforce the veil: “For evidence, some say, look at the banlieues (A suburb of a French city, especially an economically depressed suburb with a large immigrant population). The atmosphere in some heavily immigrant suburbs can curb freedom by making it hard not to wear the veil, argues Nadia Ould-Kaci, who co-runs a group called Women of Aubervilliers against the Veil. In recent years, she says, the spread of the veil in her district has reached “worrying” proportions. Girls of North African origin who do not wear it are insulted by being told that “God is ashamed of you.” The challenge is to defend women from such pressures while affirming individual freedom. “ Laïcité (French secularity; the French are very firm, sensitive and emotional about it) used to be about the neutrality of the state,” says Amélie Barras, a political scientist at York University in Canada. “But now it’s more about citizens, and what they can and cannot do.”
The last comment in the article explains the general approach of the folks towards this problem: social , cultural and political rather than religious: “One moderate in France’s presidential debate is Emmanuel Macron, a former Socialist minister. He argues that laïcité should not be “vindictive” and focused on prohibition. “I don’t think we need to invent new texts or new laws in order to chase the veil from universities,” he has said. Better to use other legal means of enforcing equality and women’s rights, such as child protection. Perhaps schools could take on the topic as part of civic education, and explain to girls that they can wear what they want within the law and do not have to dress how others tell them.” The author hastens to add “Such calm, nuanced thinking is rare. But France badly needs to work out how to marry secularism and liberty. If it cannot forge a more tolerant laïcité react, it runs the risk of estranging a generation of its own young Muslim women.”
