A Relationship with God, My Foot!
THE INDEPENDENT: To some it is a symbol of female subjugation. But these women believe that their Islamic headwear is a versatile, liberating way of expressing their identities.

Jilbab. Niqab. Al Amira. Dupatta. Burqa. Chador. Even the language used to describe the various kinds of clothing worn by Muslim women can seem as complicated and muddied as the issue itself. Rarely has an item of cloth caused so much consternation, controversy and misunderstanding as with the Islamic headscarf or veil.

For those Muslims who literally wear their religion on their sleeves, hijab (from the Arabic for curtain or screen) can be many things. For some it is a cultural practice handed down through the generations, an unquestioned given that is simply adopted. For others the need to dress and behave modestly can define a person’s relationship with God, their religious devotion or even their politics. For others still hijab is a complicated journey, one with twists and turns where veils are briefly discarded on the ground or taken up with willing fervour.

“Muslim women wear hijab for many reasons including piety, identity and even as political statements,” says Tahmina Saleem, the co-founder of Inspire, a consultancy which helps Muslim women become vocal members of their communities. “Most do so willingly, some unwillingly”. The many faces behind the veil >>> Arifa Akbar and Jerome Taylor | Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: "The Subjugation of Women Reduces Them to a Level Lower Than Beasts"
"Islam Has Distorted the Concept of Honor"
Wafa Sultan: "If Islam really treated women with honor, we would see the positive consequences of that honor over the course of the past 14 centuries. Islam did not treat women with honor. On the contrary, it has distorted the concept of honor.

"My brother Rashid, I can call this pen a knife for 14 centuries, but it will never become a knife. It will remain a pen. Islam has turned these concepts upside-down, and has forced its followers to see things as their opposites - to view killing and beheading as an act of tolerance, to view taking a woman captive as an act of compassion, to view the plundering of spoils of war as their right, and to view masturbation against a little girl's thighs as marriage.

"Thus, it has destroyed the intellectual structure of the Arabic-speaking nation, and has produced people who cannot distinguish between things and their opposites - people with distorted thinking and warped mentality, as infertile as barren land, which cannot yield a thing.

"The best proof of this is the reality of Islam. When the Prophet Muhammad married the child 'Aisha, this was not an act of honor toward her childhood. When Muhammad married Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son, after seeing her naked and desiring her, this was not an act of honor toward married women. When Muhammad married the Jewish woman Safiya, upon his return from a raid in which he killed her father, brother, and husband, this was not an act of honor toward her. The same goes for all his marriages." >>> Wafa Sultan | Wednesday, February 4, 2009

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