Bikini or headscarf -- which offers more freedom?

[Spring Onion]

Well at least 1.2 billion Indians can see the faces of these so-called low caste Indian women to check out whether they are smiling or not.

Cheers, Doc

I dont want to troll like you otherwise i would have posted your beauties with flashing smiles and then would have asked you for comparison

 

[vsdoc]

Stop passing troll fatwas as you have been doing since yesterday.

It is you who brought up low caste Indian women and Bollywood beauties here.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Spring Onion]

I'm surprised how many MEN are choosing the bare skinned options and saying with a straight face "They just want to liberate the women". Of course they do.

)) No wonder our nehobours are infested with highest number of AIDS.


These men need some mental medication.

 

[Spring Onion]

Stop passing troll fatwas as you have been doing since yesterday.

It is you who brought up low caste Indian women and Bollywood beauties here.

Cheers, Doc

IT IS ONLY YOU who is trolling on this thread as well as some others bringing Pakistan into it.

'
It was you who have passed remarks on Pakistani women .

and i bet despite all your flesh showing and liberation of skin showing our women are far better

 

[araz]

Jana, there is a MULTI-BILLION dollar Fashion and Cosmetics industry worldwide which proves that you and your opinion is a small minority.

Women are VERY concerned about what men like.

The only people "imposing" these likes on to their individual choices are the women themselves.

Cheers, Doc

Doc
This is the problem highlighted in the original article.Even the westerners find it an abnormal and uncomfortable exercise to begin with. If you read the Quran, and I am a very humble student of this remarkable book, you will find in many a places, that Allah gives you a choice to go down the right or wrong path. If you decide to go down the right path, depending on your capability, he will test you. In general he will make your path easier which ever way you want to go. If you decide to go the wrong way your conscience will malign you , but after a little while you lose this capacity.In other words you have lost Allahs, grace.
The other point to ponder is from another one of your posts. Women like to ahve men admire them, but have no control over who does it. If you wear a hijab, to the outside world, you are nondescript, but to the people to whom you matter, and who matter to you, there are no restrictions. For instance I would want my wife to look pretty only for me and not be subjected to dirty eyes of the rest of the world. Ahijab/Burqa affords me the luxury while allowing my wife to beautify herself to her utmost. Similarly, you are allowed to expose yourself to the person who want to marry you before he actually does. From what I have heard from the ladies , the hijab offers them the best of both worlds.
Araz

 

[vsdoc]

)) No wonder our nehobours are infested with highest number of AIDS.


These men need some mental medication.

Thats simply because donkeys and goats do not get AIDS Jana.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Awesome]

)) No wonder our nehobours are infested with highest number of AIDS.


These men need some mental medication.

Personally it is plain and simple Islamophobia as more and more non-Muslims simply believe barring the Muslim dress would somehow help defeat Islam as well. The Islamophobes and the Mullahs have the most in common with each other.

They are both religiously motivated and equally extreme and support all curbs against freedom that does not conform with their worldview.

Hijab simply, although important and must, is not a requirement that barrs you from the faith. Non-hijabi women are practicing Muslims too. Which is why Europe is moving towards banning it - Which is why France is trying to ban Halaal food - it's why the Swiss banned the minarets.

Its all liberation as long as it curbs Islam's freedom .

Haha, half the people up there who have supported "liberation" have done so by supporting suppression of religious freedom. An oxymoron that is quite common amongst Islamophobes.

 

[vsdoc]

Doc
This is the problem highlighted in the original article.Even the westerners find it an abnormal and uncomfortable exercise to begin with. If you read the Quran, and I am a very humble student of this remarkable book, you will find in many a places, that Allah gives you a choice to go down the right or wrong path. If you decide to go down the right path, depending on your capability, he will test you. In general he will make your path easier which ever way you want to go. If you decide to go the wrong way your conscience will malign you , but after a little while you lose this capacity.In other words you have lost Allahs, grace.
The other point to ponder is from another one of your posts. Women like to ahve men admire them, but have no control over who does it. If you wear a hijab, to the outside world, you are nondescript, but to the people to whom you matter, and who matter to you, there are no restrictions. For instance I would want my wife to look pretty only for me and not be subjected to dirty eyes of the rest of the world. Ahijab/Burqa affords me the luxury while allowing my wife to beautify herself to her utmost. Similarly, you are allowed to expose yourself to the person who want to marry you before he actually does. From what I have heard from the ladies , the hijab offers them the best of both worlds.
Araz

Sir I respect your wisdom and your parenting style, being a parent myself, but I am sorry I do not agree with this post of yours.

I am neither a student of Islam nor have I read the Koran, so I will not swim in unchartered waters, and I ask your indulgence for that.

I will however tell you where I come from, as an individual.

My wife and I, as all good parents, will bring up our kids instilling in them the best values of humanity, integrity, honesty, loyalty, compassion, and patriotism. We will teach them right from wrong. We will be honest with them about the world and the good and bad people they are likely to come across. We will teach them the difference between a good touch and a bad touch. We will teach them the value of trust, but also the necessity for caution.

Beyond this, we can only advise them and try to uide them so that they do not make the mistakes we made. But they will likely make their own mistakes. And they will learn from them. And we will be there to support them, without ever being judgemental, should they ever be struck down and need time to find their feet again. We will give them an education. We will give them all the tools we can to go out into the world. But beyond that we cannot and we will not stifle their own discovery of the world and of life, and ALL the joys it has to offer.

Cheers, Doc

 

[JonAsad]

Well if one day one of our kids tries to commit suicide, rob a bank, kill some one, we will teach them right from wrong and bla bla like that doenst suffice.
Come to the reality every parents have a dream for their child and unfortunately not every parents dream come true.

I wonder what will the ultra modern parents will teach their daughters, Bikini or Headscarf, and what will they eventualy choose.

 

[vsdoc]

Well if one day one of our kids tries to commit suicide, rob a bank, kill some one, we will teach them right from wrong and bla bla like that doenst suffice.

No perish the thought. We would simply cover them in a big black cloak and hope for the best. Fingers crossed.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Originally Posted by vsdoc
"Beyond this, we can only advise them and try to uide them so that they do not make the mistakes we made. But they will likely make their own mistakes. And they will learn from them. And we will be there to support them, without ever being judgemental, should they ever be struck down and need time to find their feet again. We will give them an education. We will give them all the tools we can to go out into the world. But beyond that we cannot and we will not stifle their own discovery of the world and of life, and ALL the joys it has to offer."

@ vsdoc
On the button, Doc.
As a parent myself; i (may be slowly) have come to that conclusion. And am perfectly happy with it.
Thanks Doc, and Cheers!!

 

[Condor]

Embracing the Veil

Yvonne Ridley

LONDON — I used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed creatures — until I was captured by the Taliban.

In September 2001, just 15 days after the terrorist attacks on the United States, I sneaked into Afghanistan, clad in a head-to-toe blue burqa, intending to write a newspaper account of life under the repressive regime. Instead, I was discovered, arrested and detained for 10 days. I spat and swore at my captors; they called me a “bad” woman but let me go after I promised to read the Quran and study Islam. (I’m not sure who was happier when I was freed — they or I.)


Back home in London, I kept my word about studying Islam — and was amazed by what I discovered. I’d been expecting Quranic chapters on how to beat your wife and oppress your daughters; instead, I found passages promoting the liberation of women. Two and a half years after my capture, I converted to Islam, provoking a mixture of astonishment, disappointment and encouragement among friends and relatives.

With disgust and dismay, I watched here in Britain as former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described the Muslim niqab — a face veil that reveals only the eyes — as an unwelcome barrier to integration, with Prime Minister Tony Blair, writer Salman Rushdie and even Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi leaping to his defense.

Having been on both sides of the veil, I can tell you that most Western male politicians and journalists who lament the oppression of women in the Islamic world have no idea what they are talking about. They go on about veils, child brides, female circumcision, honor killings and forced marriages, and they wrongly blame Islam for all this, their arrogance surpassed only by their ignorance.

These cultural issues and customs have nothing to do with Islam. A careful reading of the Quran shows that just about everything that Western feminists fought for in the 1970s was available to Muslim women 1,400 years ago. Women in Islam are considered equal to men in spirituality, education and worth, and a woman’s gift for childbirth and child-rearing is regarded as a positive attribute.

When Islam offers women so much, why are Western men so obsessed with Muslim women’s attire? Even British government ministers Gordon Brown and John Reid have made disparaging remarks about the niqab — and they hail from Scotland, where men wear skirts.

A personal statement

When I converted to Islam and began wearing a headscarf, the repercussions were enormous. All I did was cover my head and hair — but I instantly became a second-class citizen. I knew I’d hear from the odd Islamophobe, but I didn’t expect so much open hostility.

Cabs passed me by at night, their “for hire” lights glowing. One cabbie, after dropping off a white passenger in front of me, glared at me when I rapped on his window; he drove off. Another said, “Don’t leave a bomb in the back seat” and asked, “Where’s bin Laden hiding?”

Yes, it is a religious obligation for Muslim women to dress modestly, but the majority of Muslim women I know like wearing the hijab, which leaves the face uncovered, though a few prefer the niqab. It is a personal statement: My dress tells you that I am a Muslim and that I expect to be treated respectfully, much as a Wall Street banker would say that a business suit defines him as an executive to be taken seriously. Among converts to the faith like me, the attention of men who confront women with inappropriate, leering behavior is not tolerable.

I was a Western feminist for many years, but I’ve discovered that Muslim feminists are more radical than their secular counterparts. We hate those ghastly beauty pageants and tried to stop laughing in 2003 when judges of the Miss Earth competition hailed the emergence of a bikini-clad Miss Afghanistan, Vida Samadzai, as a giant leap for women’s liberation. They even gave Samadzai a special award for “representing the victory of women’s rights.”

Some young Muslim feminists also consider the hijab and the niqab political symbols, a way of rejecting Western excesses such as binge drinking, casual sex and drug use. What is more liberating: being judged on the length of your skirt and the size of your surgically enhanced breasts, or being judged on your character and intelligence? In Islam, superiority is achieved through piety — not beauty, wealth, power, position or sex.

I didn’t know whether to scream or laugh when Italy’s Prodi joined the debate by declaring that it is “common sense” not to wear the niqab because it makes social relations “more difficult.” Nonsense. If this were the case, why are cellphones, land lines, e-mail, text messaging and fax machines in daily use? And no one switches off the radio because they can’t see the presenter’s face.

Under Islam, I am respected. It tells me that I have a right to an education and that it is my duty to seek out knowledge, regardless of whether I am single or married. Nowhere in the framework of Islam are we told that women must wash, clean or cook for men.

As for how Muslim men are allowed to beat their wives — it’s simply not true. Critics of Islam will quote random Quranic verses or hadith, but usually out of context. If a man does raise a finger against his wife, he is not allowed to leave a mark on her body, which is the Quran’s way of saying, “Don’t beat your wife, stupid.”

And in the West …?

It is not just Muslim men who must re-evaluate the place and treatment of women. According to a recent National Domestic Violence Hotline survey, 4 million American women experience a serious assault by a partner during an average 12-month period. More than three women are killed by their husbands and boyfriends every day — that is nearly 5,500 since 9-11.

Violent men don’t come from any particular religious or cultural category; one in three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime, according to the hotline survey. This is a global problem that transcends religion, wealth, class, race and culture.

But in the West, men still believe that they are superior to women. They still receive better pay for equal work — whether in the mailroom or the boardroom — and still treat women as sexualized commodities whose power and influence flow directly from their appearance.

And for those who are still trying to claim that Islam oppresses women, recall this 1992 statement from the Rev. Pat Robertson, offering his views on empowered women: Feminism is a “socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Now you tell me who is civilized and who is not.

 

[ice_man]

I'm surprised how many MEN are choosing the bare skinned options and saying with a straight face "They just want to liberate the women". Of course they do.

come on Asim everyone wants to be "COOL" and be "MODERATE LIBERAL" everyone is freaked out being labeled as conservative or TWO FACED hypocrite!! internet is an amazing thing it allows anyone to be whoever they want to be !!

 

[Fighter488]

Hysteria and the veil​

By Gwynne Dyer


Monkey see, monkey do. Soon after France’s National Assembly passed a law making it illegal to wear a full-face veil in public, British MP Philip Hollobone announced a private member’s bill last weekend that would make it illegal for people to cover their faces in public in Britain. Neither bill mentioned Muslims by name, of course.


Hollobone has previously called the Islamic veil “offensive” and “against the British way of life,” so we may safely assume that his bill is not aimed at people wearing motorcycle helmets. We can also assume that it will never become law, for British immigration minister Damian Green immediately replied that “telling people what they can and can't wear, if they're just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do.""

Good: the last thing anybody needs is for another major European state to copy the French initiative. But it cannot be denied that a great many Europeans feel profoundly uneasy when they see these shrouded, masked women moving silently in their midst.

I grew up in regular contact with women wearing traditional Middle Eastern costumes, and it didn’t make me uneasy at all. They were Catholic nuns, wearing the head-to-toe shroud and with not a wisp of hair visible. Their faces were not covered, but in other respects they were dressed just like the women that Philip Hollobone finds so offensive. Indeed, becoming a nun was colloquially known as “taking the veil.”

The veil is not Islamic at all. Indeed, it predates all the Abrahamic religions. They all come from the Middle East, and that’s why they all -- Jews, Christians, and Muslims -- used to be obsessed with female “modesty.”​

The principle of “modesty” was a way of controlling the behavior of women who had the power to upset the social order, so how poor women behaved didn’t matter. The early Mesopotamian laws ordaining the veiling of women applied only to the wives of powerful men. Several thousand years later, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine upper class women still went veiled, while their poorer sisters moved freely with their faces uncovered.

We cannot know what proportion of women in seventh century, pre-Islamic Arabia went veiled, but until quite recently, poorer and rural Arabian women, and especially Bedouin women, covered their hair but otherwise went unveiled. It seems a safe assumption that the situation was not much different in the time and the Prophet (S).

I would also observe that most Muslim communities down through history have required the concealment of a woman’s hair but not her face.

Traditionally, only rich and powerful men’s wives… wore niqab (a mask concealing all but the eyes) in most Muslim societies. The burqa, a more extreme form of concealment that hides even the woman’s eyes behind a cotton mesh grill, was largely confined to the hill tribes of what is now the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier area.

So why have women in non-rich Muslim families living in major European cities now taken to wearing full-face veils or even burqas? Not a lot of women, to be sure: France estimates that only 2,000 women go about fully veiled, and the real numbers for Britain are unlikely to be much different. But why are they doing it at all? Two generations ago, their grandmothers almost certainly did not.

One reason is fear, on their own part or that of their husbands, that the majority society’s values are so… seductive that Muslims must be completely isolated from it. This also explains why you regularly see little girls as young as two or three wearing hijab (i.e. with their hair completely covered) in Paris and London: their parents believe that the habit must start very early if it is to withstand the majority society’s influence.

A second reason is defiance: think of it as a… version of “we’re out and we’re proud. Get used to it.” And both anecdotal evidence and personal observation suggest to me that a large proportion of the fully veiled women in Britain -- maybe as many as half -- are actually recent converts to Islam who grew up in the dominant post-Christian culture. Same for France. Converts often get carried away.

So which part of this is a threat to public order? None of it, obviously. Why did a ridiculous law banning the full veil pass through the French parliament without opposition, whereas a similar bill will never reach the floor of the British House of Commons? Not because the French are more anti-Muslim than the British, but because they are the heirs of one of the great battles between religion and the secular state.​

Britain hasn’t seen such a battle since the 17th century, and the official religion just gradually retreated to the sidelines of modern life without a fight. The fight was long, bitter and much more recent in France, so the French state takes public displays of religious allegiance a lot more seriously. But it is still behaving stupidly.

And what about Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland, where similar bans have been or are being discussed at the national level? They should be ashamed of themselves.


tehran times : Hysteria and the veil

 

[Spring Onion]

Thats simply because donkeys and goats do not get AIDS Jana.

Cheers, Doc

The reply to your above post should have been that dogs and monkeys get BUT nah i wont say that.



I thought you were only a troll but seems you deserves scoring much bellow that. over to