The Great Withdrawal
2005/01/03
Khalid Hasan
Over ten years
ago, I saw Iranian women throw off their hijabs and jilbabs the moment the
aircraft's wheels lifted from the tarmac of the
Tehran
international airport. It was a Swissair flight: they wouldn't have dared
risk that act of 'blasphemy' had it been Hawa-paimai-e-Milli
Iran
The general reaction of
the Muslim community, its Pakistani segment especially, since the horrific
events of 9/11 and thereafter, has been one of withdrawal from rather than
engagement with the society in which its members have chosen to live.
They have sought refuge in orthodoxy, reaching out to
an austere, unsmiling version of Islam that they see as their best
equipment for dealing with a world that has been turned topsy-turvy thanks
to OBL and his diseased worldview. More Muslim women have taken the hijab
which they mistakenly believe is their armour against the sinful West. Men
have grown beards and/or taken to placing those depressing round skullcaps
on their heads.
A woman in
Florida
- or was it
Texas
- insisted that the photograph on her driving licence show only her eyes.
A girl in a private Catholic school was told to leave after she refused to
take off her newly-donned hijab that the school argued correctly could not
be allowed as it was not part of the uniform. The various Islamic
societies and associations that keep breeding all condemned the school,
raising cries of discrimination, narrow-mindedness and anti-Islam
sentiment. What is going on?
America
is a vast country and a good deal can go on here without attracting much
notice, but
Europe
is different. The situation in
England
and
France
is especially worthy of attention. A recent article by Ghyassuddin
Siddiqui, founder of the so-called Muslim Parliament in England, published
in an Indian journal devoted to Islamic subjects puts it all together
rather well.
He writes, "If tomorrow all Muslim women don the
jilbab and men grow beards, will the condition of Muslims improve? More
likely they will still be despised and marginalised. Muslims must
recognise that it is their closed mind-set that has put them on the
slippery slope to insignificance. Sadly the pro-hijab conference recently
held in
London
, supported by Ken Livingstone, missed the point."
He writes about a young Muslim girl about to get
married, being reminded that women who look after their husbands
"properly" - which translates to getting beaten once or twice a
week without complaint - will be able to enter heaven through any of its
seven gates. "Muslim women are so used to listening to such garbage
that they simply laugh, ignore it and move on", Siddiqui adds.
Another girl was kept from going to school as according to her mother,
that was the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Another one was
withdrawn from school when she turned fourteen. Four years later the poor
thing was asking people if they knew of a "Muslim college" she
could go to.
Siddiqui recalls that during debate on the hijab
recently arranged by the Oxford Students' Islamic Society, his attempt to
make the point that the Quran stresses modesty of apparel for both men and
women received little sympathy. "More scary was the fact that these
young people of above-average intelligence seemed more interested in
securing a position in the afterlife than in improving their own and
others' lot in this one", he observes. He is saddened to hear a
number of Muslim girls say they would sooner leave school than abandon
either hijab or jilbab, the barrel-like garment that is the Iranian
(counter) revolution's gift to us, a gift the women of
Iran
are now dying to get out of.
Over ten years ago, I saw Iranian women throw off
their hijabs and jilbabs the moment the aircraft's wheels lifted from the
tarmac of the
Tehran
international airport. It was a Swissair flight: they wouldn't have dared
risk that act of "blasphemy" had it been Hawa-paimai-e-Milli
Iran
. According to Siddiqui, the parents of a Muslim girl at another English
school, while denouncing democracy and human rights as
"un-Islamic" wanted the school to have her dress as they - not
the school - wanted. Double standards are alive and well among the
faithful.
Siddiqui argues that by "emphasising hijab as an
obligation, not a choice, a faction is making the outward manifestation of
dress, rather than modesty in one's heart, the measure of Muslimness. By
making hijab or jilbab a criterion of Islamic identity our clerics are
taking on the role of God by laying claim to infallibility. Muslims have
to do a lot of soul searching. They shall have to begin by challenging the
forces of obscurantism.
They must recognise that these forces have brought
them nothing but defeat, humiliation and misery. Muslims need an
internally-generated intellectual revolution. Small pockets of
intellectuals already exist everywhere. What they need is a voice and a
forum for their growth and recognition. This bridge-building may ensure
that there is enough pressure on the rulers in the Muslim countries to
grant basic freedoms to their own people."
Khalid Hasan is Daily Times' US-based
correspondent. His e-mail is
[email protected]
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