“All opinions are that of the author and not necessarily those of the website that it is published under.”
While being in teen, I noticed my fellow folks, delusively emulate the behavior of men. They idolize such behavior because they have been taught its importance in attaining success and respect. So, when they couldn’t be like them they try to please them— by putting on make-up and wearing skin tights. To be like men I have seen woman giving her life, body and dignity, only to prove herself dominant through her external beauty. No matter what she does to please her master by making herself attractive, she only leads herself to exploitation and her value are measured by her outer appearance only not the traits she carries with her. Basically it is not her lonely fault; she has been taught from early childhood that her worth is proportional to her attractiveness. She is being groomed in such a way, that she assumes that purpose of being femine is being outwardly appealing and attractive for opposite gender. She is being psychologically compelled to pursue abstract notions of beauty. Barely understanding that such a pursuit is futile.
While being with herself, in her intra-psychic world, exhaustively exasperated—spending thousands of dollars to look skinny and live like man, she asks herself— is this my purpose? Is this real me? Had Almighty created me just to be physical? — She bursts in tears and replies to herself—I was slave, but people around me taught me I was free. I was object, but they swore it was success. They taught me that my purpose in life was to be on display, to attract, and be beautiful for men—making complete hoax—dismantling her intellectual potentialities. They made me believe that I am just a body—just a body!!! Leaving her in a peculiar predicament.
Being a woman myself and living within the complex nostrums of cultures, I sometimes fail to understand my purpose rather my being—Wujud. Being raised in a culture, where I am not supposed to ask any question but am taught to go with the flow. Consciously or unconsciously I have failed—or am failing to relate myself with ideologues of my culture which raised me. Paradoxically, this discernibly visible dissent is actually a clash between real being and how people perceive my being. As Yasmin Mogahed, put it in a spectacle way, “My value as a woman is not measured by the size of my waist or the number of men who likes me. My worth as a human being is measured on a higher scale: a scale of righteousness and piety. And my purpose in life—despite what fashion magazines says—is something more sublime than just looking good for men.”
While battling with trends, ideologues and culture—Almighty revealed His blessing on me—knowing my essence and unheard voice—tells me to cover myself, to hide my beauty and to tell the world I’m here to please God. God elevates the dignity of a woman’s body by commanding that it be respected and covered. Having Divine support I can proclaim—I’m not here to be on display and my body is not for public consumption. I will not be reduced to an object. I’m a soul, a mind and a servant of God. The beauty of my soul, my heart, my moral character, my intellect, and my mind defines my worth. With my veil I want to convey, I am covering irrelevant. And when you look at me, don’t see a body but a soul with a purpose like any other decadent of Adam and Hawa. You see, I’ve been liberated from a silent kind of bondage of your beauty standards, and I don’t submit to your fashion sense. My submission is to something higher.
While coming out of the reel world of beauty trends—entering into the world of real liberation and egalitarianism—Hijab—one gets muddled to see the chasm between real essence of Hijab and its misinterpretation and misrepresentation—tangled together. Therefore, this is something we should think about: why are we wearing the Hijab or the Niqab or any other form of Islamic modest dress? Or what is its purpose? What is our intention? Does Hijab mean seclusion? Is Hijab imposed on us? Is this for protection from men? Does Hijab deny woman’s identity? Is this sign of oppression or inferior being? Is this a sign of disembodied mind?
Let’s revisit the essential intricacies of Hijab. Hijab, for women, is an act of Honor and Dignity. An act of Modesty, Purity, Bashfulness and Righteousness. A Shield. Women should reclaim the Hijab. Reinterpret it in light of its original purpose and get back the ultimate control of their bodies. The Quran teaches us that individuals should not be judged according to gender, beauty, wealth or privilege but by their virtues. “Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you 49:13. This verse gives freedom from being object! It broadens my horizon as a human being.
Hijab and modesty is ordered upon women by the Merciful, ever-living, ever-Watchful God, as a protection and a barrier. It is an outward symbol of an inward spiritual reality and aspiration. The attitudes that Hijab and Islamic dress codes exist to protect man are an utter and total fallacy. The notion that Islamic dress code for women is only to protect man is outrageously false. But the fact is that this protection may occur is a benefit of the Hijab for the community, not its purpose. So, Hijab is not there to protect man. And this may seem heterodox interpretation but it isn’t. If you think it is there to protect you as a man, we have turned an act to be done for Allah (swt), into an act to be done for us. Man is not the lynchpin of Hijab. It is an act of obedience for Allah, it’s to protect women; it’s for her soul and being…So do not pervert the purpose of this command of God (swt).
Furthermore, Hijab does not mean seclusion, but rather being present in society, at same time being free from all except “The Lord”. In observing Hijab is a way of having control over the outward journey of the material world where power consumption, speed, and noise can over-come humanity.
Muslim women who wear Hijab do not want to be judged for their appearance, but be respected for their thoughts, ideas, perceptions, vision, and character. In the western world, the Hijab has come to symbolize either forced silence, or radical unconscionable militancy. Actually, it’s neither of them. It’s an act of worship—obedience to Allah commandment and simply a women‘s assertion that judgment of her physical person is to play no role what so ever in social interaction. As because my appearance is not subjected to public scrutiny, my beauty, or perhaps lack of it, has been removed from the realm of what can legitimately be discussed.
The Hijab is not there because women are unworthy or impure. The Hijab is not there because women are devilish creatures that always tempt man. It’s not to disdain them. The Hijab is not there to deny women. The Hijab is there to affirm women. The Hijab is there because women are manifestations of the Divine Beauty. The Hijab is there because women are sacred and the sacred must be protected against profanity. The Hijab is an expression of the presence of holiness in women. The Turkish poet, Fuzuli rightly, reminds us that precious things are always hidden and concealed we keep pearls and jewels in a beautiful jewellery box, we protect things we love most, we conceal things that we value, .For Muslim women, veiling is an honor, she shows that she is valued like pearls, like gemstones, like Gold, like the soul, and like all precious things that are veiled.
In the modern world beauty of women is least understood and most commercialized. In Islam, feminine beauty is a sign-post to something higher. By wearing the Hijab, a woman shows that she is not part of this deficient world. She is not part of this world in which everything is commercialized. She is part of another world in which women are valued and sanctified.
Furthermore, the Hijab does not symbolize a women’s subservience to man. It symbolized a women’s subservience to her creator. Whereas, some westerns have written that the Hijab is the reflection of the idea that women are the property of man. Firstly, the idea that a woman is the property of her husband is a western idea. We can find this in Shakespeare’s play. Petruchic says, referring to his wife: She is my goods my chattels; She is my house, my household stuff. In Islam, it is unlawful to obey a created being in what opposes Allah’s laws and the laws of feminine.
Is restriction always reprehension? One does not need to be a believer to realize that restriction can have positive effects. The Hijab and the Niqab are not only restrictions for women, they restrict what a woman can show and they also restrict what a man can see. By her choosing to wear the Hijab or the Niqab, a woman is using her own freedom!
Innately with a human being, there is a constant search to identify his/herself with something—be it metaphysical or physical in nature. The constant search for identifies. And among one of the most important identifiers today is the idea of clothing. When a person sees a woman in Hijab, her first identity is that of a Muslim. A Muslim woman who covers her head is making a statement about her identity. Anyone who sees her will know that she is a Muslim and has a good moral character. Many Muslim women who cover themselves are filled with dignity and self-esteem. They are pleased to be identified as Muslim women. But the concept of the Hijab is not limited to personal identity. It has also is the symbol of the Muslim Ummah, or community. Muslim women’s proudly identify themselves, as Muslim by wearing headscarfs.
Hijab is the sane voice of daughter of Eve against the evil attentions of men. She wants them to ignore her appearance and respect her for her personalities and mind. She was then to take her seriously and treat her as equals and not just chase her around for her bodies and physical looks. She wants to be evaluated for her intelligence and skills instead of looks and sexuality.
Note: Tragedy is the demystification and desacralisation of women. She is taught that if she want to be successful, she have to go against her nature and became ‘like men’ if there was nothing good and beautiful about being a women. We—the Daughters of Eve are accepting a faulty assumption. We are divorcing our nature and aspiring what we don’t need to. What truly grates is the inferiority complex within daughters, half-realizing their intrinsic value. We need to be proud of what we are. We need to disseminate that we are not objects and put voice to our perceptions as our silence is playing detrimental role to our personality and identity. We need to re-conceptualize ourselves. It’s high time to realize that when something becomes common, easily available and accessible; it loses its sacred dimension.
“All opinions are that of the author and not necessarily those of the website that it is published under.”
“Let’s revisit the essential intricacies of Hijab. Hijab, for women, is an act of Honor and Dignity. An act of Modesty, Purity, Bashfulness and Righteousness. A Shield. Women should reclaim the Hijab” what about the women that is not use Hijab? Are they dirty?
You seem to think that a woman becomes a woman only if she wears hijab, otherwise she is “like a man” or ” pretending to be like a man” . What an extraordinary logic! you do not make any sense. So according to you, only a piece of cloth covering hair transforms a woman into a true real woman! without it, she is not a woman and from what you are saying she is not modest, is immoral! so in your eyes, all the women in the non-Muslim world as well as Muslim women wishing to expose their hair, have no morality ! Obviously you and the Islamists who have programmed your head, are defining morality as being located in woman’s body! so according to you lot, morality is not in having the qualities of honesty, fairness, tolerance, respect for fellow humans, compassion towards the weak & vulnerable etc. but is located in women’s body! no wonder all Islamic countries programmed by political Islam or Shariah Laws, are in dire state of immorality in terms of theft of public money, abuse of women and children’s rights, cruelty, intolerance and violence as well as a wide rage of immoral (non-appearance based) behavious. because to them, this piece of cloth over women’s body represents the alpha & Omega of morality and the symbol of the political Islam which has caused so much suffering in the Middle East. Do you know that the highest incidents of sexual harassment and assaults on women is in Islamic countries despite the fact that over 95% of women there are covered up with hijab/niqab. What does this UN statistics tell you? you seem, in your irrational, article, to produce Islamist thinking parrot like, unable to show any individual thinking. If you had, you would have backed up your argument with statistics or sociological arguments to show how hijab protects women. on the ground, we see the opposite. I ask you, what do sexually repressed Muslim males do with their unacceptable sexual fantasies (causing guilt/self hate) fuelled by the temptations of the mysterious, hidden, covered up feminine world behind the hijab/niqab? Too often they project their self-disgust (to get rid of it and preserve their good Muslim self-image) on to their object of desire, whom they blame for causing them to have “impure” thoughts. We call this unconscious psychological defence mechanism, ” projection” in the field of Psychotherapy. The Nazis, like modern Islamic fundamentalists, were also obsessed with virgins and women as submissive housewives and perfect mothers. Their extreme masculinity values, above all else, male bonding and sacrificing their lives for the fatherland’s high ideals of racial or religious purity, with the promise of glorious martyrdom. How different is this from Islamist ideology? think about it. Aren’t both Fascist mindsets promoting the abuse and denigration of “impure” women. Arguably such societies are in the grip of mass psychosis. Like a paranoid psychotic they split the world between those they hopelessly idealise as pure and good, and those they denigrate as evil and out to destroy them. It is not unusual for a paranoid psychotic to nurture delusions of grandeur and an imaginary hotline to God. This operates unconsciously, the “projection” and the “splitting” mechanisms and have tragic consequences, causing much cruelty and suffering for women and “the other denigrated as evil” who are at the receiving end of this unconscious mechanisms which are activated as described above. Western and feminists have for too long agonised about what right we have to assume that the sexual freedoms enjoyed by Western women should be a global gold standard of how to live in the modern world. The debate always becomes ensnared in multiculturalism — that we must respect the diversity of beliefs and traditions even if these include human rights abuses of women in Muslim countries. But we only have to look around us to see how, in the most sophisticated levels of society where women are seen as equal on all levels including sexual equality, men also benefit — they are more tolerant, more able to enjoy intimacy and less aggressive towards women and each other. So attitudes towards gender and sexuality are not just a feminist issue for women to discuss while the men set about combating terrorism.
To understand the violence of the Islamic fundamentalist fascist mentality, skewed gender relations and repressed sexuality, far from being peripheral, have to be confronted head on. Otherwise, the abuse of women by unconscious Muslim male aggression, fuelled by sexual repression causing psychological projection and splitting described above, will enflame the whole world with aggressive Islamic terror. For the same reasons, your labelling of non-covered women as being IMMORAL is extremely dangerous. It underlines the Islamic state, Islamist ideology of demonising the other non-Muslim or perceived apostate, labelling the different OTHER as bad, decadent, and immoral who must be killed (to maintain the idea of oneself as pure) – in your case: the decadent immoral others are the uncovered woman who you demonise to maintain your deluded self-image as the pure, real woman with hijab. This perception has psychological consequences, activating unconscious processes of splitting, leading to the urge to separate yourself from the OTHER, and to inflict harm on them. I urge you to revise your demonization of uncovered women. You are not pure and modest because of that piece of cloth, in any rational intelligent human being’s eye. You might be in your own eyes because of the silly incorrect way of defining “morality”, but intelligent people do not measure modesty/morality by the appearance of women’s body. The surface cover does not show what’s in the depth, the hidden heart. Your adherent to Islamist ideology has trained you to get fixated on women’s appearances, ignoring the real correct definition of morality or modesty which has nothing to do with appearances. It is deep in the heart. With the emphasis which political Islamic ideology places on Hijab as its main symbol, how easy it becomes to hide under a hijab, the ugliness of character in the form of qualities of judgemental prejudice and self-rightousness.
The Niqab Selfie in islam
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