Egyptian Intellectuals Discuss the Hijab

June 17th, 2007 By: Michael van der Galien | Tags:

An interesting discussion about the hijab.

Bahija Hussein: Allow me to finish. No one is entitled to criticize me for not wearing a hijab. It is between me and my God.

[...]
The hijab of our times – which is prevalent in Egypt – does not just erase the girl’s mind, but also her humanity. It erases the humanity of the girl by viewing her as merely ‘awra [parts of the body that must remain covered], and the cause of all disasters and calamities, and by believing that having her wear this all-encompassing tent is what the religion is all about.

Watch the video - one of the other participents, Su’ad Saleh, compared a woman who does not wear a hijab to “an unwrapped piece of candy.”

It is interesting to see that these kinds of discussions take place in Muslim countries like Egypt right now. On the one hand, it is an encouraging sign - moderate Muslims are not letting fundamentalists take over that easy; on the other hand, it is also quite worrisome that it is necessary, especially because of something the moderator said: “But this school of thought which you oppose is the one that prevails, while moderate Islam is nowhere to be seen.”

In other words, moderate Muslims themselves fear that they are losing.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • SphereIt
  • NewsVine
  • TailRank
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  1. munaeem
    June 18th, 2007 at 06:50
    Reply | Quote | #1

    woman who does not wear a hijab to “an unwrapped piece of candy.”

    These hypocrites abuse and torture wrapped piece of candy too.

  2. munaeem
    June 18th, 2007 at 06:53
    Reply | Quote | #2

    The Quran says it is a guidance for those who can differentiate between right and wrong.

    99.9% of Muslims are hypocrites. They do not follow the golden rules of conduct set for them by Allah and The Prophet.

  3. nara
    June 18th, 2007 at 15:31
    Reply | Quote | #3

    what u wrote really hurts!! it also shows ignorance about islam ..TRUE ISLAM
    im a muslim girl who DECIDED to wear hijab after living part of my life without it in this lie of FREEDOM ..believe it or not, i feel much free in hijab ,much respected and comfortable …and NO ,im not a fundamentlist…im a moderate highly educated ,succesful muslim who loves her religion and obeys her GOD …and so is most of the people i know …
    Mis. husain and those like her dont reperesent islam or even understand it ..and believe me..most muslims dont listen to their crab,we keep them speaking to themselves ..i donno from wear they bring their thoughts!!!…actualy the number of EDUCATED,MODERN girls form even classy familes who wear hijab is increasing ..not forced..or even ecouraged by their families .. its increasing on daily basis…
    And hijab is not a tent!!.. its beautiful,stylish and respectable .

    it really hurts to live misunderstood and misrepresented by others around u..
    peace

  4. mvdg
    June 18th, 2007 at 16:15
    Reply | Quote | #4

    Munaeem: incredibly offensive, isn’t it? I also find it interesting to see that if one truly believes in it, one degrades oneself and all the others to mere animals.

    Nara: what exactly I wrote hurt you?
    You are, of course, free to wear the hajib, but it’s the mindset behind it what matters - i believe it is important to talk about that.

  5. zoi
    August 14th, 2007 at 15:02
    Reply | Quote | #5

    I think everyone has a right to wear the tye of clothing they want whether it be the hijab or something else amd that right should be respected

  6. Islamic Products
    September 13th, 2007 at 21:38
    Reply | Quote | #6

    We should all have a liberal mind when it comes to dress sense whther dressing with a hijab or a gothic suit i accept all

PoliGazette Comments Policy

PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree. Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors. Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.

(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should not be posted.

(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.

(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.

(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.

(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements. Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.

Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors by email only.


Warning: is_writable() [function.is-writable]: open_basedir restriction in effect. File(error_log) is not within the allowed path(s): (/home/p6525pol:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php:/tmp) in /home/p6525pol/public_html/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 500