My Hijab is for Me and for God

wow... it seems we can do anything in the name of god or on the behalf of our faith, and its ok, or understandable. uuummm, this could be a powerful tool, the promise of heaven and fear of hell is pretty powerful in itself, dont you think our government realizes this? your a fool if you think they havent used your faith to control, motivate, persuade, and scare the masses. history offers many examples. as long as there is one true god there will be bloodshed in his name. religion constructs a false sense of increase. humans will deevolve and relive the dark chapters of history...from the faith that you release comes an athiest peace. -greg graffen

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Earlier this week a 16 year old girl was killed (strangled)in Toronto by her father her for refusing to wear an hijab. An obvious honour killing

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Ms. Hadia Mubarak

You say: I'm wondering if you're aware of rape statistics in America: "Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men. In 2004-2005, there were an average annual 200,780 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. About 44% of rape victims are under age 18..." (see http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html)

These women are ALWAYS victims, under every circumstance

And I say:
Where are the statistics for rape and incest in Islamic countries?

Ms. Hadia Mubarak

You say: I'm wondering if you're aware of rape statistics in America: "Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men. In 2004-2005, there were an average annual 200,780 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. About 44% of rape victims are under age 18..." (see http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html)

These women are ALWAYS victims, under every circumstance

And I say:
Where are the statistics for rape and incest in Islamic countries?

Rape statistics - er -what about Darfur? Even Mohammet was a rapist according to the hadith.

It was part and parcel of the enslavement, booty and slaughter in the agressive battles he took part in from Medina to fund his and his followers lifestyle and spread Islam within Arabia.

After leaving Mecca, Mohammed (now widowed) married Sauda, a widow from Medina, but returned to Mecca to marry the young Aisha for no other reason than he fancied a trophy wife. Plus all the rest!

On his return to Medina the plundering of caravans and battles with other tribes commenced, all of which were planned by Mohammed and in most of which he took part. After his death eight years later when all of Arabia had been converted to Islam, the invasion of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries started - again for the loot, lands and wealth they contained.

In India over seventy million Hindus were slaughtered and like the other captured lands most religious symbols were destroyed and replaced by mosques. Islam does not have a proud history.

And Islam has never stopped - it still lives off other countries as Arabias new wealth goes mainly to funding the spread of Islam, madrassas and terrorist groups - not the poorer Muslim countries who so desperately need help. They are still enslaved by Islam and have nothing, unlike the west, to offer so do not attract Islamic aid or charity.

Islam is about power and control. It is a philosophy and a way of life that allows Muslim males to do whatever they want, to whoever they want as long as they can say it is in defence of Islam.

And your defence of this flawed ideology is your Hijab. Read your history, the Koran, Hadeeths and Mohammed's biography, then justify your religious thinking.

Yes, Islam really dignified women by hijab; only truth is you know very little about women rights in Islam. Besides hijab Allah also wanted from women following.

Please read below some information about you in Islam.

Women rights in Islam as per Quran:

2:228, And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree (of advantage) over them
2:230, So if a husband divorces his wife (irrevocably), He cannot, after that, re-marry her until after she has married another husband and He has divorced her
2:282, and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.
4:3, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.
4:11-12, Allah (thus) directs you as regards your Children’s (Inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females:
4:34, Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.
53:27, Those who believe not in the Hereafter, name the angels with female names
66:10, Allah sets forth, for an example to the Unbelievers, the wife of Noah and the wife of Lut: they were (respectively) under two of our righteous servants, but they were false to their (husbands), and they profited nothing before Allah on their account, but were told: “Enter ye the Fire along with (others) that enter!”

Women rights as per Sahi Hadiths:

It is forbidden for a woman to be seen by any man except her husband when she is made up or well-dressed. (TR. P 430)
3. A woman is not a believer if she undertakes a journey which may last three days or longer, unless she is accompanied by her husband, son, father or brother. (TR. P 431 )
4. A woman must veil herself even in the presence of her husband's father, brother and other male relations. (TR. P 432)
5. She is forbidden to spend any money without the permission of her husband, and it includes giving food to the needy or feast to friends. (TR. P 265)
6. A wife is forbidden to perform extra prayers (NAFAL) or observe fasting (other than RAMADAN) without the permission of her husband. (TR. P 300)
7. If prostration were a legitimate act other than to God, woman should have prostrated to her husband. (TR. P 428)
8. If a man is in a mood to have sexual intercourse woman must come immediately even if she is baking bread at a communal oven. (TR. P 428) 9. The marriage of woman to her man is not substantive. It is precarious. For example if the father of the husband orders his son to divorce his wife, he must do so. (TR. P 440)
11. Majority of women would go to hell. (Muslim P 1431)
12. If a woman refuses to come to bed when invited by her husband, she becomes the target of the curses of angles. Exactly the same happens if she deserts her husband's bed. (Bokhari P 93)
13. The women who are ungrateful to their men, are the denizens of hell; it is an act of ingratitude for a woman to say: "I have never seen any good from you." (Bokhari P 96)
14. A woman in many ways is deprived of the possession of her own body. Even her milk belongs to her husband. (Bokhari P 27)

Below are comemnts by a reader of my article on Islamic mumbo-jumbo. This readers explain about all organized religions:

"I expose the falsehoods of all man made religions. These religions are just for business purpose. Arab religion is a derivative of Hindu religion. In Hindu religion the religious class is asking the masses to worship the stones. Shiv linga and parvati stones are the famous stones. Shiv linga is a male sexual organ and parvati is a female sexual organ. The Arabs have taken the parvati stone to mecca and calling it a holy stone came directly from paradise .How stupid and ignorant are the followers of this religion. The Hindus are spinning around the stone in India seven times clockwise and the stupid followers of Arab religions have just made one change....They made it to anticlockwise....What a great change .This parvati stone is a outstretched vagina, through which head of a baby is delivering out. The followers of Arab religions including the converts are saluting and surrendering their heads to this stone three or five times a day. They are kissing this stone (Parvati vagina and head of baby)during their very holy holy pilgrimage. If you will disclose to them this reality of worshiping the stone, they will desperately reply.. "no we are not worshiping stone, we are worshiping our god through this stone". What an intelligent answer . Stupid followers of a sadist god. He create them and asking them to raise their asses many times a day.

These poor followers are scarred of these gods. He has threatened them if they will not worship him, he will screw them in hereafter life. At other place this god has used another weapon "sex in the paradise",72 virgins for men. But no body ask this god,what about females, what they will get? I think Arab god is gay god, jealous of females .

Yousef Tabish "

Posted by SKM

Koranic immorality:

Allah allows pure Muslims to have sex with slave girls

By Syed Kamran Mirza
8/10/2005

Holy Quran emphatically permitted all pukka (pure) Muslims to have sex with their slave girls and concubines. Below are some of the Quranic verses on this issue of slave girls.

(QURAN - 70:22-30): "Not so the worshippers, who are steadfast in prayer, who set aside a due portion of their wealth for the beggar and for the deprived, who truly believe in the Day of Reckoning and dread the punishment of their Lord (for none is secure from the punishment of their Lord); who restrain their carnal desire, save with their wives and their slave girls, for these are lawful to them: he that lusts after other than these is a transgressor..."
This verse very clearly stated that Quran allows Muslim men to have sex with their wives (of course) and their slave girls too.

(QURAN - 23:5,6): "...who restrain their carnal desires (except with their wives and slave girls, for these are lawful to them..."
Again, Quran allows Muslim men to have sexual relations with their wives and slave girls.

(QURAN - 4:24): "And all married women are forbidden unto you save those captives whom your right hand possess. It is a decree of Allah for you. (Muhammad Pickthall's English translation of the Quran).

In this above verse Allah clearly says Muslims to have sex with captives (Booty from POWs) that they get from war booty.

(QURAN - 33:50):

"Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty;..."

This above verse is for Prophet Muhammad. Supposedly, Allah (SBT.) allows Prophet Muhammad to have sex with his slave girls he got from war booty.

The above verses are only a few I have mentioned out of numerous such verses scattered throughout the Quran. What could be more unethical matter than having sex with slave girls? Allah (SBT) graciously allowed Muslims to have sex with slave girls and captives from the war (POWs). Prophet Muhammad himself and his disciples routinely used to have sex with their slave girls. Besides having numerous wives, Prophet Muhammad had many concubines and slaves girls with whom he had sex. This fact can be supported by hadiths and al-sira.

To this above Quranic verses, some Islamic apologists will try to tell us that, actually Allah asked Muslims to marry those slave/concubines before they can have sex with them. Now let me explain some catch before some Islamic apologists try to sugar-coat these immoral Quranic verses:

Quran-4:24—“ Also forbidden are married women unless they are captives (of war), such is the decree of God. Lawful for you are women besides them if you seek them with your wealth for wedlock and not for debauchery.”

Quran-33:50—"Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty;..."

The above two Quranic verses are from Maulana Yousuf Ali’s translated Quran. Now let me examine the very meanings of verse (4:24)- “ Also forbidden are married women unless they are captives (of war), such is the decree of God. Lawful for you are women besides them if you seek them with your wealth for wedlock and not for debauchery.”

Readers please carefully read the above verse. The verse is unambiguously saying the following: you can not have sex with other people’s married women but if she is captives of war then it’s Okay to have sex with her because Allah permitted that; other women (besides captives and other people’s wives) are also lawful for having sex after you marry them with your money. Does not this verse very clearly establish the fact that Muslim men can have sex with women received from the war booty (Ganimater maal)?

If you marry your slave girl, will she still remain as the slave for ever? After you marry your slave girl do you still call her a slave? Will you call her my slave wife and the other my dowry wife? Do you still separate them as slave and free women? Why then Allah should tell about your wife in two different categories? Fact of the matter is, Allah permitted Muslims to have sex with slave girls and concubines (received from war booty).

Many Middle Eastern Muslims countries still follows Quranic privilege of having sex with their slave girls. In Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Islamic paradise Arab Muslim masters are routinely having sex with their maids even today. Frequently we get to read many horrific cases of sex-scandals about maids in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Very recently we read the news of numerous (hundreds of) sex-scandals with Indonesian maids in Saudi Arabia and this uncivilized custom still prevailing in the most Muslims countries even today?

Dear Hadia,

Your hijab can not hide your beauty at all; rather it exposes your extreme beauty of your face having lustful lips, rosey cheeks, sexy eyes etc. So what is your point of covering your hair only? I think this hijab is serving the purpose of subjugating women by men. Because, in islam women are the devout servants of men.

SKM

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped

I just want to thank D. Goebel for saying all that needs to be said. The foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that you love God with all your soul and that you love your neighbor like yourself.

If you do not believe in God, which is fine (for many years I did not, and my faith still wavers), remember that with these religions, for the first time in history, people were asked to love beyond themselves, to look past their petty and selfish existences to care about and love others. Most secular humanists agree that these are valuable morals in society.

I too, struggle with the details beyond these fundamentals. How could God ask a man to kill his son? If Jesus died to save us from our sin, how come we still live in a world where people wrong each other constantly? Why is it that men's supposed sinful nature falls upon women so that *they* must wear restrictive clothing and avoid leading religious services attended by men?

I just hope that people of any religion or no religion at all remember that online or otherwise, care for our fellow human beings is the responsibility of all.

There is a difference between disagreeing and attacking, between discussing and squabbling.

Hadia knows that she will elicit ridicule from people by what she chooses to wear. The thing it doesn't bother her. So criticize what she does for God all you want, she knows it's coming. This is why hijab isn't worn for men or for non-Muslims or for other Muslims, it's about God and His creation.
Empty criticisms won't get Muslim women to take it off. What about the people that spam these comments? I wish they cold be removed. ugh
Go Hadia! Keep fighting the good fight!

Hi
I would like to say that 90% of what our moslims nations practicing is not from Islam. Its complitly contradicting the tru Islam.
Such as Hijab, Khalifa & Baia , the prohibited things such as drinking, dancing, music, girl friends, converting to another belive, ...
The moslims teachers and sects wrote books in the name of Mohamad to make people belive in what they wrote.
The moslims teachers insult the tru islam and thinkink only about sex . They made our womens as a slaves they should be coverd all time ......
A question for moslimsD if a women should have Hijab then why God didnot put any punishment in the quraan if the women refused it?

Thanks God that USA do exist to helpe us to eliminate the fake islam and to practice the tru one
Mohamad
Specialist in Ideology

arif- it is evident you have no idea whatsoever what a "white" revert to islam in america experiences.

your statement is obviously based on what you imagine, and not what is reality.

your borderline hatred of islam, and outright racism are out of place in this conversation.

Melissa, In the 7th century arabia, christians, jews, pagans were free to keep unlimited number of wives. By allowing four wives, Islam was not encouraging men to take up four wives. It was in fact restricting the number a man could have. However note that in Islamic shariat law, marriage is a buisness contract in which the woman proposes to the man and the man accepts. Because the woman is the "seller" and the man is the "buyer", She can come up with any pre-nuptial agreement including demanding a monogomous marriage. This the reason why today muslim marriages are far more likely to be monogmaous than western marriages. The prophet of Islam gave women the power to dictate any terms and during pre nuptial. Unfortunately in many muslim countries, it is the parents who deny their own daughters the birth rights.

Melissa, In the 7th century arabia, christians, jews, pagans were free to keep unlimited number of wives. By allowing four wives, Islam was not encouraging men to take up four wives. It was in fact restricting the number a man could have. However note that in Islamic shariat law, marriage is a buisness contract in which the woman proposes to the man and the man accepts. Because the woman is the "seller" and the man is the "buyer", She can come up with any pre-nuptial agreement including demanding a monogomous marriage. This the reason why today muslim marriages are far more likely to be monogmaous than western marriages. The prophet of Islam gave women the power to dictate any terms and during pre nuptial. Unfortunately in many muslim countries, it is the parents who deny their own daughters the birth rights.

Australian ad on Ebay: "This Hijab are perfect for evening wear, yet still beautiful for wearing during day and night times. Specially During Exciting moments of Weddings and parties these hijab make you Attractive and very Special. And you feel it.Size is 110cm by 110cm. OUR PRODUCTIONS are for all age group no matter whether you are old and kid or young- no matter wherever you are from- they all are designed according to your needs."

I should add that hijab offers a certain je ne c'est quois charm as a last-minute fashion accessory: ….when you discover you have gotten so fat you can't fit into any of your party dresses. Or don't have time to shampoo your greasy hair or bathe; hijab also allows you to sweat prolifically yet discretely! While no one will offer you champagne at the fetes mentioned above, carrying your own flask undetected should not be a problem, along with your holster and other weaponry to fend off Legendary Depraved American Male Rapists, should any be attending.

Australian ad on Ebay: "This Hijab are perfect for evening wear, yet still beautiful for wearing during day and night times. Specially During Exciting moments of Weddings and parties these hijab make you Attractive and very Special. And you feel it.Size is 110cm by 110cm. OUR PRODUCTIONS are for all age group no matter whether you are old and kid or young- no matter wherever you are from- they all are designed according to your needs."

I should add that hijab offers a certain je ne c'est quois charm as a last-minute fashion accessory: ….when you discover you have gotten so fat you can't fit into any of your party dresses. Or don't have time to shampoo your greasy hair or bathe; hijab also allows you to sweat prolifically yet discretely! While no one will offer you champagne at the fetes mentioned above, carrying your own flask undetected should not be a problem, along with your holster and other weaponry to fend off Legendary Depraved American Male Rapists, should any be attending.

The hijab speaks unfortunate volumes about Muslim men.

Arif I couldn't agree with you more! There's definitely a disconnect when it comes to westerners and their converting to Islam.

Ismael Byrd the "white" convert. You know that Muslims love white converts don't you? An American makes it even better. If you are college educated it's a feather in the hat for the imam at whose hands you converted (you love REVERT don't you?), we see your story in those pamphlets and those videos that Muslims proudly show. They need you, they need assurance that Islam is not as stupid as they dare think it is for see we have a "White" convert.
You never answered a single thing I said about the curse of the purdah, the 4-walls concept of Islam for women but instead you rambled about me hating Islam, typical of Muslims, cant respond then claim Islamophobia, racist... what are you going to call me? A Kafir?

Now how could I be ignorant and uninformed? I was a Muslim for many generations and lived in one of those Muslim cesspools that makes news so often; news that makes Islam sound more stupid than you'd dare think. I tell you what, you go to any Islamic country (pick one) and live there, get a job and raise a family, granted you are a white convert which will get you favors that normal "natives" don't enjoy, however even with your favors you won't last long, your women will long to leave and go back to the kafirs.

You absolutely have no idea what an average citizen in a Muslim country goes through, let alone a poor woman with very little resources. You are the kind who can be seen sitting and chatting in the Muslim shop eating those tasty "Hilal" Gyro sandwiches, with a beard that looks more like fluff uttering words like, Alhumdullah!, Mashallah!, Bismillah! At every chance you get, you have no idea how stupid that sounds.

Your words;
"As muslims we know you hate us, we know you hate our religion (the Quran tells us all about you)"

sweet heart, if you had any brains you'd realize Mohammed said those words, he was the conniving maniac that the Kafirs could not stand, they laughed at his multiple wives, his child bride, his rapes, his loot, his plunder and above all else his claim to be a "Prophet".

Please explain why Allah needs his women to hide their hair and bodies for him? Ask that imam of yours before you spout off more rubbish.

for Ismael only,

As with many of us, you suffer from the three B's i.e you were Bren, Born and Brainwashed into your religion and in your case Islam.

For a synopsis of the flaws in foundations of all contemporary religions to include Islam see below. Please peruse and refute any of the conclusions with historical records.

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth. Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian/Jewish/Pagan sects.

3. Mohammed, an illiterate, hallucinating Arab, also had embellishing/hallucinating scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the Koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics with most of this misery being funded by the third Axis of Evil aka Iran.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centred and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’"
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations/embellishments and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus for an analysis of Jesus' life to include his illiteracy.

Halozcel:

If I am to be compared to anything that sits on a chessboard, it's the queen.

While it is unfortunate that women is so many Muslim countries ARE forced to wear the hijab and sometimes the burqa, this is un-Islamic. A main teaching of Islam is "there is no compulsion in religion." The governments of these countries are NOT following Islam, though they may think they are. Look it up, wiseguy, and I don't mean on wehatemuslims.com!

As I was saying, women may be forced to wear hijab in other countries, it is not the case here in America. For the last time, and try to get it through your thick skull, WEARING HIJAB IS MY CHOICE. If it wasn't, I would be ripping it off the minute I stepped out the door. Guess what? I keep it on.

I don't know why it is so hard for you to accept this. How is my decision to wear hijab, or Hadia Mubarak's decision, or Betty Boop's if she wanted to for that matter harm you or anyone else in any way whatsoever?? Live and let live. Also, love thy neighbour. That one's in the Bible, in case you haven't noticed.

Arif,

Can you say something MORE ignorant and uninformed? And your Aristotelian logic display is nothing to be proud about either.

Can those people who dislike and hate Islam please just say that at the beginning, why do u spend so much of you're ever shortening time span and life on earth writing things you have no basis or rationale for except for what seems like personal animosity. Why the charade? I say you have no basis for it because I used to be one of you, a muslim-hating christian, then a religion-hating atheist. I studied and continue to study Islam like none of you EVER have and I have never found the first thing wrong with it. I looked. I specifically looked for the inconsistencies, the flaws, etc. However, when i found what i assumed to be one, a "gotcha" i made sure i asked the most knowledgeable muslim I could find. He/She didn't evade the question, they explained it perfectly from Islam's many religious sources that are documented, many are even translated. At the end of this time, I HAD to become muslim. But that's the difference, asking someone who knows and someone who doesn't and makes up stuff which pretty much every christian pastor does.

As muslims we know you hate us, we know you hate our religion (the Quran tells us all about you), most of you it seems don't believe in God or have taken yourselves as god. This we expect, its been that way since the beginning. We know it bothers you that so many people are becoming muslim.

However, we will do everything in our power to make sure that terrorists will not harm you (whether they are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or call themselves Muslim), that we will speak out against them, inform on them to local authorities if we know or see anything, all so you can live a relatively useless and fear-filled life clinging to your money and wealth, trying to lose weight and find the next sale at the mall.

You can change all that by learning about the statement "There is nothing worthy of worship except God and no man is worthy of being followed except Muhammad, the Last Messenger of God."

"Concerned the Christian Now Liberated",

You need to look at your own book, that's been changed and twisted over the years, as admitted by every biblical scholar. That is full of anti-woman passages. That is laced with genocidal violence. Do u know why various groups who end with "ite" like Amorites are not around anymore to be scared of Jews and Christians, because they were all exterminated as documented in the Old Testament. Why have muslims let Christians and Jews always live with them over the centuries, as is apparent with a kindergartener's understanding of history, if we are so bent on killing all of you? The fact that this is a rhetorical question and defeats not only your's but everyone's asinine arguments and comments on here, I hope and pray will not go unnoticed.

After that, you should sit down and have someone explain any passage/verse, ill be happy to with the knowledge i have, that you find objectionable and then we'll see. If you are not willing to do that you are intellectually and juridically (i.e. you have no sense of fairness or justice) retarded and therefore there is NO WAY you raised your son or any other of your children except to be a concealed degenerate who is hopelessly teetering like so many of my other american friends on the brink of their physical or mental end. That is unless Allah guides them.

What christians have trouble with is not only do they worship Jesus, peace be upon him, a man who walked on the earth, but they also deny him and his message.

Jesus ordered women to go around with their head covered as well as foretelling of the coming of a great comforter, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Paul, who legally sanctioned lying, in order to spread christianity and abolish the laws and rules Jesus followed, ordered women not to wear gold or pearls or costly clothes. Will christians simply stand up and admit they follow what they want to follow, leave what they want to leave, and then bastardize everything else? Of course not. Be the hedonists that you are, declare it openly and proudly but that gives you very little moral standing when you are trying to tell everyone else what to do.

I would not want to have to tell most American mothers but all of you who thinks it says something personally about your child-rearing abilities that muslim women wear hijab, then I would have to if asked tell the truth. What Sister Hadia, may Allah bless and keep her, didn't mention in her statistics was how many abortions the US people are the proud non-parents of each year, millions. And that's just how many girls get pregnant. This doesn't count the ones who follow thru with the pregnancy. This doesn't count the number of girls with all kinds of diseases they get and they live with. But i am not singling out my country alone. I am a white american, just as apple pie as the rest of you who think you own it, but there are problems all over the world. But its a known fact that if u look up AIDS statistics in Africa. The countries most affected are Christian and the non-christian tribal regions. In the city of Rochester, NY, it was reported that 72% of all girls in the third largest city in NY, are sexually active based on a high school written survey.

It's ironic that the racist white christians who founded the US thought africans "heathen" and often pointed to their lack of clothing or nakednes altogether as beign an issue...if they could only see their progeny at any local mall.

Surprisingly no one has commented on the frequency of dressing little girls in hijab in America. Outside Dar Al-Hijra mosque I saw a man leading a child by the hand as she stumbled along in a full black chador that was much too long. In this area of N. Virginia one sees more and more little girls wearing headscarves as well. Islamists have bought into ideologies such as Sayyid Qutb's that America is depraved. Of all segregating cultural motifs, morality is the most popular according a recent study just reported by the Washington Post. Certainly this appears true from the rationale for wearing hijab as presented in this forum. May I remind that the Muslim Brotherhood's goal is to form a society within American society and in one respect the frequency of hijab could be seen an indicator of how this fundamentalist goal is progressing.

Surprisingly no one has commented on the frequency of dressing little girls in hijab in America. Outside Dar Al-Hijra mosque I saw a man leading a child by the hand as she stumbled along in a full black chador that was much too long. In this area of N. Virginia one sees more and more little girls wearing headscarves as well. Islamists have bought into ideologies such as Sayyid Qutb's that America is depraved. Of all segregating cultural motifs, morality is the most popular according a recent study just reported by the Washington Post. Certainly this appears true from the rationale for wearing hijab as presented in this forum. May I remind that the Muslim Brotherhood's goal is to form a society within American society and in one respect the frequency of hijab could be seen an indicator of how this fundamentalist goal is progressing.

Converts living in the West must never defend the hijab because they know absolutely nothing about what bothers those who see and know what it really signifies. The hijab is a form of female subjugation, it is simply the extension of purdah; an Islamic form of female subjugation. I wish female Muslim converts would live in predominant Muslim countries once they convert, there they would see first hand how "liberating" the purdah (hijab) really is, I would like to hear of that "power" they talk about or about wanting to wear the burka, hijab, nikab for Allah.

The feeling of power is only in the West because in the West they are making a statement, there is no freedom lost it's only a matter of wearing a different dress one that they know defies the norm.

In Islam - True Islam, a woman must stay within four walls or be confined to her home space. If or when she leaves the four walls she must observe purdah if she is an observing subjugated muslima. Many if not ALL women in Muslim countries suffer because of the curse of Purdah, it is a severe form of female oppression. They are kept from working, they cannot pay bills - In most Islamic countries people pay their bills by physically going to the banks. Heat, lack of transport pause great burdens for women who have no male in their families. Males typically buy the groceries, pay the bills, run errands, drive the cars etc. in their absence the woman must do all this and that too wear the stupid encumbering Islamic dress that is not practical but a huge hindrance. This is not trivial; it is a human rights problem that is simply not addressed.

By condoning and glorifying this hideous form of female abuse in the West we are making sure that women of all faiths continue to suffer under the curse of Islamic purdah that was not only practiced by their prophet Mohammed but is carried on till this day. Shame on those people who say they are doing this for their God, God does not want your face hidden, if He did then he would have created you with a tent. It’s a faulty thought, it’s like a car manufacturer that makes a bad product and sends a patch to all its customers, is Allah imperfect? That he made a mistake? Now the "solution" is to cover up?

Muslim women wearing the hijab never concerned me before 9/11. Now it does and it will be so until the Muslims cleanse their book of death aka the koran of all militaristic and anti-female passages.

After reading many comments by many of you who regard the hijab as an insult to their sensibilities and who claim that there is no basis in Islam for the hijab and that Muslim women should lay aside the hijab and espouse western values of modesty so they can fit in I have the following two comments.
1. As a native american of Cherokee decent living in Oklahoma, it really comes off as history repeating itself to hear this kind of bigoted drivel coming from supposedly educated people. One hundred years ago the same argument was made against the Indian peoples of my state. Boys and men should cut their hair, stop speaking their native languages, and live in houses so they can be part of the greater American society for their own good. They cannot be happy living like that, they need European/white values so they can truely be happy. They must integrate or die. Native dress is a symbol of resistance to the American way of life and a slap in the face to intigration. We know, far better than them, what is good for them.Our culture/heritage/religion/philosophy is superior and so must be adopted...... All of this is social psychology, the dominant culture sees any deviance from minority groups as a rejection....a good example of this phenomenon is seen from reading many of the posts here. It is very interesting to see that the hijab bothers so many...especially when they don't wear it and it impacts their life in no way.

2. I am also a Muslim women who wears hijab and I have noticed that some people become very disturbed when you want to be modest. Frankly the objectification of women that was cited as a reason for hijab is a very ligitimate one and needs to be considered in a larger debate on the nature of our society as a whole. Many Muslim women have a deep understanding of why God has asked that women (and men) observe modest dress and behavior. You are seeing a multitude of young Muslim women flocking to the veil. There are several reasons behind this 1) to practice thier own religion 2)as a reminder of what really matters in life i.e. morality, intelligence, and a life focused on the worship of God. Too many young girls are learning in this society that all that matters is how skinny you are, what your measurements are, and if you are attractive. This is a terrible trajedy as evidenced by the amount of young girls getting breast implants, the increase in depression among girls after the age of 13, anorexia ect. Muslim girls who wear hijab understand that what is on the inside matters more and refuse to buy into the Paris Hilton lifestyle 3) a rejection of the idea that in order to be successful or accepted you have to adapt western fashion, finally 4) a growing sense of Muslim identity worldwide which is growing everyday.

Maryjane: ``Alot of you Islamophobes have absolutely NO IDEA what you're talking about. You exemplify the teachings of a religion solely by the actions of a certain group of people from a specific country. Just because a few extremist believers who identify themselves as being "muslims" decide to run a plane into a building, doesn't mean that Islam teaches its disciples to terrorize and kill innocent people or "non-believers." Just because the Taliban oppressed the Afghan women and forced them to voer head to toe, doesn't mean every single Muslim women is oppressed and forced into wearing it.``

Actually Maryjane the Islamist movement is not but a few handful of extremists, you seem to be ignoring the extent of influence exercised by radical muslims across the mid east. Just look at the red mosque siege just recently in Pakistan.

If atrocities are being perpetrated in the name of Islam then both Islam and individual extremists should be held accountable. It takes very specific reasons for an entire government to decide to cover up women or else they risk legal punishment. These specific reasons pertain to the religion of Islam itself, as I said in previous posts you cant have such acts prop up in an ideological vacuum.

You accuse us of Islamophobia and enjoy putting yourself on a moral high-horse just because you feel you are defending an entire community. You are so adamant in apologising for violence perpetrated in the name of Islam and that in my opinion is morally deplorable and is counter-productive to this discussion...With your kind of ignorant rhetoric the muslim world will only continue to plunge into an abyss of religious fanaticism and we shall never get to the bottom of the debate between state and society in the muslim world.

Enjoy playing the naive relativist card, but do please remember that people are dying in the name of religion, especially Islam...It seems to me you have lost any sense of decency or respect for humanity by just pretending that these people were killed by a bunch of lunatics and that any other argument is a smokescreen for western imperialism.

On a side note leave the personal attacks at the end of your posts to yourself, it only makes your arguments seem much more ridiculous then they already are...

One day while Allah was creating he made the woman, right away he said, "Oh Crap! cover this up quick!"...in Arabic of course, but alas the belt had moved on. From that day onwards all believers in Allah must cover themselves up if they are women.

Nice! i like the way you explain.

one of the brother above ask that why in Islam a man can have five wifes where a women can have only one husband.

well, yes it ism but to found the reason of that, we should have some background realities. here i would like to say this that the Quran says that a man can have 4 wifes but there should be a equal opportunity for all the wifes, which is really hard and you can not be able to make it.

another thing, if you see the history of world there are number of wars in which we can feel that the death tool of men is high compare to women. so it can make a serious problem for a women to get marriage.
and there are other number of reason can discus for this matter.
but we can simply say "GOD knows better"

wa salam

Maryjane,

No,you are wrong.I am writing 'concrete',not 'abstract'.
Quran,Cow chapter 2.222 says,They ask you 'menstruation'.Say,They are hurt and a 'pollution'.
A canonic hadith says 'women are filthy creatures'.
Arent these 'insult' to women ?
2.223 says,'your wives are as a tilth unto you'
Dear Maryjane,are women 'tilth'?
2.282 says,'two women equals one man'.Are you 'half' human ?
4.34 says,man can scourge woman.
4.3 says,man can take 'four' women.
Arent these 'humilliation'?

Dear Maryjane,
If you have conscience,please you stop to advocate 'violence' and 'backwardness'.
Besides,I am not sitting behind a computer the whole day.
I observe NYSE and at least 6-7 worldwide stocks and currency markets,I observe 'horse races' and NBA and Soccer,I view at least 3-4 films in a week.

Hijab for Allah alone?

My, my, my! So God (Allah) needs to have the women cover the hair He created because the Creator of the universe might be tempted to do what ???

It is far better for Muslim women who have the freedom to reject the hijab/nijab to prove that it is possible to be chaste and modest with the rest of one's dress - to be feminine and elegant without wearing sexually provocative clothes, backed up with chastity and modesty in thought, word and behaviour without wearing the hijab/nijab. Live the spirit of the hijab/niqab, which is noble - namely not to project oneself as a sex object and unwittingly arouse sexual desires in all men whom one happens to come across.

In cultures where nudity or going about topless was considered normal: All the women dressed or remained in the same state of undress, the emphasis being on all. The state of undress was not sent out as a sexual signal. There were strict codes that governed sexual behaviour and interaction of the sexes. But in a culture where the state of undress is a sexual signal, it is not surprising that it is interpreted as such.

Victoria:

The response you got from Jack (seemingly, seemingly a new blogger) was exactly the one you were seemingly seeking with that particular post about cats wanting to bite, the cockroach that visits your bathroom every night, and your mother's sense of liberation by discarding her bra - all of which has little if any relevance to the discussion at hand. My perception: You seem to lack insight into your own un/conscious intentions.

The hijab IHMO conveys only the meaning: My hair is an object of sexual desire. It turns the men on, therefore I should cover it. With a heavily made up face the man gets to focus extra attention to my face. The modesty of the rest of what I wear doesn't matter at all - the chastity of my intention, the veiled message I convey with my eyes, my words, my body language.

The nijabists claim that the face is even more beautiful and seductive than a woman's hair and therefore needs to be covered as well.

Who is right?

Question: Of what use is a hijab/nijab if the woman pays no attention to what it was really meant for and acts in accordance with it? We just read that a young woman sees nijab as a means of exercising power. What power?

For Samir K and MaryJane only,

Christians are well on their way in identifying the flaws of their brand of "Jesusism". Ditto for Jews and their brand of "Abrahamism". Islam needs to do the same. Are you brave enough to try? Here are some starting ideas to cleanse/"deflaw" Islam.

Part 1 of the "cleansing/deflawing".

"The 77 Branches of Faith is a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true faith (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"30 qualities are connected to the heart"
(five at a time)

"1. Belief in Allah"

No problem but "aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

No problem but evolution and the Big Bang cannot be ignored and the "akas" for Allah should be included.

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item to delete. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in Heaven just as there are no angels to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for infidels.

Does anyone notice that as soon as an infidel dares to criticize any facet of the islamic faith, how quick the followers of that faith start the name-calling. A critic becomes an "Islamophobe". So much for islam being a religion of tolerance.

SAMIR K thinks only muslims can understand the nature of Islam.

"Take it from these anti-Islamic extremists to preach to Muslims what they 'forget' about their own religion. "

And what about what ex-muslims tells us about your so called "religion". Did they automatically loose their qualification to teach us and warn us all about what the true nature of Islam is all about when they left as apostates?

Thank God (BTW, my God, who would quickly disavow any favorable association with Allah) we have ex-Muslims to share their stories on how Islam is actually practiced and how the Koran is interpreted among those living under the tyranny of Islamic law. If not for them we'd be left with lectures (more like lies) by the Ramadans, the Siddiqis, the Espositos and all those other propagandists who've come to this WaPo forum to spread their lies and half truths.

Thank God for Ayeen Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq, Nonie Darwish, Walid Shoebat.
These people have all lived Islam in culture where Islam dominates, and saw the misery, poverty, and violence it breeds. They want no part of it and warn us about Islam's goals and methods of Da'wa.

Yes, we know of these people Samir.

I know you wish we didn't.

Alot of you Islamophobes have absolutely NO IDEA what you're talking about. You exemplify the teachings of a religion solely by the actions of a certain group of people from a specific country. Just because a few extremist believers who identify themselves as being "muslims" decide to run a plane into a building, doesn't mean that Islam teaches its disciples to terrorize and kill innocent people or "non-believers." Just because the Taliban oppressed the Afghan women and forced them to voer head to toe, doesn't mean every single Muslim women is oppressed and forced into wearing it. Those who wear it, chose to do so. None of you have any credibilty to claim that any of these women are forced because unless you personally know of someone, you're making up lies.

Here in America it is accepted for a women to expose her body and prance around half-naked, but women who want to be more conservative and cover their bodies and head are criticized. Funny how that works out. It proves the fact that you are unaccepting, close-minded people who embrace the degrading of women.

Maybe you ignorant fools who criticize Islam and the women who decide to cover themselves should read a book or get a life instead of sitting behind a computer the whole day posting uneducated, biased comments.

As for No Dhimmi, you're pathetic.
Karim Islam, you're just plain creepy.
CCNL, you talk like a 5 year old ("flying wingie thingies"....)
Halozcel, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, read a book and stop making up pathetic lies.

Thank you, good day.

Paganplace ``She tells us this is what *she* is doing, and what it means to her, and, well, she has that right... I frankly find that the 'criticism' on this board is 'No, you can't do that!' ...citing things other people are doing in other countries to say 'All you need to know is that Muslims is bad, look at these atrocities, therefore Ms Mubarak is lying about what she sees in this,' ...that isn't *criticism,* it's *xenophobia.``
And I can easily say you are resorting to the label xenophobia to circumvent the actual issue which I am bringing up, the issue of the inherent predispositions to violence and oppression found within Islam. Isaac Webster put it very nicely in a previous post; To presuppose that western Muslims have Islamic authenticity because they are devoid of any religious extremism is a weak argument which ignores what is actually written in the book and at the same time is ahistorical and negates any geographical or regional space outside of the west's orbit and thereby, as he also puts it, makes non-western Muslims a reactionary underclass within their own faith who haven't cherry picked their holy book to conform with modernity yet..
It's not a lack of understanding nor is it ignorance on my part; it is a simple evaluation of what is written in the Koran and how its treatment of women is interpreted across the globe. There is a correlation between violence in the name of Islam and Islam itself, when I critique the blind acceptance of tradition I critique people who resort constantly to a highly individualized and personalized notion of faith to defend what is essentially a selective interpretation of a religious system. Your argument that it has all to do with ignorance and xenophobia is exactly the finality of this blind acceptance of tradition: you feel Islam and other religions are so righteous and benign that tyranny cannot be in any shape or form associated with them.
The reality is that civility has ceased to exist in many parts of the Muslim world and a serious discussion must be had over why is that so. It is imperative that our discussion include criticism and analysis of the Koran to better understand why these texts are being used as vehicles of totalitarian propaganda and catalysers to civil wars within that part of the world. I understand there is a mob of people out there whose vision of Islam is shaped entirely through negative imagery pumped out by the mass media, but that if you ask me that is in essence a lazy argument which yet again ignores the elephant in the room, the one which has - religion just might be a factor - written all over it. I find that every time we seem to question the legitimacy of Islamic precepts we get arguments from people like you who fear that any discussion is bound to devolve into mass murder. Let me remind you that no liberal democratic society would ever ponder the mass slaughter of any segment of society just because of a religious belief.

Samir: Ad hominem, attack the man not his arguments, not even worth responding, I mean the debate stops when you start calling people names like Islamophobe (typical post...typical semantics). But sorry I offended you and your precious fairy tale. You see unlike you I haven't put on my religious/ideological blinkers. This is the problem with religious people, they excuse themselves from any attempt at rational discussion, because hey, an infidel just doesn't know what he's talking about now does he, I mean only a Muslim does. Ridiculous

I love it when Islamophobes (listen up Toulouse Roy, No Dhimmi, Concerned Christian, et. al) quote non-Muslims to tell us what Islam "really teaches."

Take it from these anti-Islamic extremists to preach to Muslims what they 'forget' about their own religion.

Its like telling Jews, anti-Semites know "real Judaism." Sorry that argument doesn't fly.

As for Ms. Mubarak and Victoria, thanks for your posts.

They are really helpful to me as a Muslim and someone who is proud to be one till the end of time.

Shukran ya habibi.

W'salaaam and peace of Allah be upon my sisters.

"More importantly, however, is that I wear my hijab for God."

I have two cats. They are brother and sister Maine Coon Cats. They perch, one on each shoulder, when I walk into town.

I wear my cats for God. They make me feel closer to Him.

They're also more fun and more comfortable than a hijab. And they're alive, which God prefers to cloth.

it seems to me that whenever any of the panelists put forth a positive image of islam, it is immediately denounced as a whitewashed version, an apologists view, or a selective understanding of islam.

hadia mubarak states why she wears a scarf and its a problem.
why is it a problem if she chooses to wear a scarf? its her choice, her body and her hair!! and if she or any muslim woman regard it in a special light then why is that a problem???

others can choose their clothing, I as a muslim woman choose mine. And my decision includes my hijab whihc I am fine with-

do not tell me that I am not liberated and oppressed and other garbage. Its a concious choice that I made.

yikes- stop trying to tell me how I should dress!!!

After being raised in the Nation of Islam, which most Sunna Muslims dismiss as heretic, my African American family embraced the Sunna, and as a teen I had to read Hadith, which, even as a teen I rejected.

"A woman can't get into paradise if her husband dies displeased with her? What kind of non-sense is this?" I argued with my mother and aunts who were buying into this. I debated so much of what I read about women's roles in the Hadith.

I also took issue with Arab traditions sold as Islam.

"Why do I have to dress like an Arab, pray in Arabic like an Arab, and take my shoes off in our house like Arabs? What does that have to do with my relationship with God? And why can't God hear me praying in my native English?"

I had so much to sort through as a young woman. My book, "Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam" tells the challenges and triumphs of my separation from Islam.

When my mother and some of her sister friends began interpretting Quran for themselves and hosted a radio show called, "In Light of Quran," they began raising some of these questions as well. But their show was discontinued because of threats against their lives because they were telling Muslim women they didn't have to wear veils to maintain their faith and because they challenged some other Hadiths. That was 20 years ago, thouth. It sounds like things are getting better. Progress is underway, I hope.

watch a Rockstar take on militant Islam!
here's the link to an interesting musical debate between moderate and extremist islam
rockstar and the mullahs http://youtube.com/watch?v=RJmAmSL19Vk

watch a Rockstar take on militant Islam!
here's the link to an interesting musical debate between moderate and extremist islam
rockstar and the mullahs http://youtube.com/watch?v=RJmAmSL19Vk

watch a Rockstar take on militant Islam!
here's the link to an interesting musical debate between moderate and extremist islam
rockstar and the mullahs http://youtube.com/watch?v=RJmAmSL19Vk

watch a Rockstar take on militant Islam!
here's the link to an interesting musical debate between moderate and extremist islam
rockstar and the mullahs http://youtube.com/watch?v=RJmAmSL19Vk

watch a Rockstar take on militat Islam!
here's the link to an interesting musical debate between moderate and extremist islam
rockstar and the mullahs http://youtube.com/watch?v=RJmAmSL19Vk

I think it's interesting that many of the cultures with the lowest rape rates are also those in which both women and men co-exist in a state of relative undress. In many cultures it is normal for nursing women to go topless.

In Europe, women at topless beaches carries much less of a charge than it does in the US.

So these variations imply that it is not necessarily "male nature" to become inflamed at the sight of a woman's flesh. Nor is necessarily male nature to objectify women. If you live in a culture in which it is necessary to protect yourself by wearing concealing clothing, then it is probably your duty to work toward changing that culture. Wearing the clothing is just enabling behavior.

However, I respect your right to make that choice.

Halozcel-

Racism against "colored" people was firmly entrenched in American society in the Sixties. What started the change was when very brave people, black and white alike, stood up and said, "No more". They were greeted with violence and hatred, especially in the South. But this time, instead of being hidden, American TV broadcast the violence the racist South visited upon the nonviolent protesters, and White America woke up and became disgusted with the racists. That was the beginning. White America could no longer look at their American mythology and reconcile it with their treatment of black people.

What will it take for Muslims? I honestly don't know. But somewhere there is at least one brave Muslim who will look at the Qur'an, then look at the violence and hatred in Muslim society and say, "No more".

CCNL,

I did not say it was always the case, but that it always SHOULD BE the case.

And just because they don't always have the choice doesn't mean that those who live in countries where they do have a choice shouldn't wear hijab.

To tell them otherwise is as bad as those countries where they are told they must wear it.

The Duchess of Brimestone Court:

Islamic women in Islamic states have a choice not to wear the hijab?? She has a choice in determining what religion she belongs to? She has a choice where to say her prayers??

Asim,

Do you believe in "pretty wingie flying talking thingies" as your religion dictates i.e.the same religion that dictates every element of a woman's life in order to keep her quiet and pregnant????

Halozcel,

Would you say that a woman who chooses to cover her head for modesty and is not a Muslim is likewise a pawn?

---

As I've had more time to think about it, the more comments like that bother me. The choice of a Muslim woman to wear hijab is no different from a Quaker woman choosing to wear plain-dress, for a Jewish woman to cover her hair, for a woman of no particular religion to wear a head-scarf. It is a personal choice of attire that in the end, doesn't care what religion you are, or those around you are.

Or at least, it should be. That people get all hot under the collar about it because a Muslim woman chooses to wear hijab is foolish, at best. That they get annoyed when she tries to explain her reasons for wearing it, her personal reasons, is disturbing. Her religion, her attire, her choice. Simple.

"Morton Grove said, "when the girls go out in public, "What they're wearing becomes a concern, which can lead to rape and unwanted pregnancy."

The problem here is, when using this as an argument to try and make girls 'dress modestly,' ...what it does is reinforce the idea that if men do crimes, it should be blamed on the victim.

This is hardly unique to Islam, ...we still hear it from Christian conservatives... and while I do find the younger age at which girls are being taught to imitate hypersexualized images of women from various sources alarming, the answer is not to say, 'Men can't control themselves if they see hair or skin, be a prisoner of concealing clothing, don't learn to be aware and protect yourself if necessary... Feminism is to blame for rapes we used to ignore and cover up more being reported... make it go away...'

The answer is more awareness and respect for others, and more sexual literacy and maturity, not treating people like animals who can't control themselves without religious constraint, nor acting like fabric is really protection, or that failure to hide is to blame for rapes.

Anonymous,posted July 29,2007 9:14 AM,

Let not the believer Take for friends Unbelievers(non-muslims) rather than believers,if any do that,in nothing will there be help from Allah,except by way of precaution,that you may guard yourself from them.3.28
That means 'muslim can say Lie to non-muslim'

Nusayba,

'It is my personal choice' is a tragi-comic theater,film that I have seen at least 1000 times.You are a 'pawn' in this film.
Quran 2.222,2.282,4.3,4.11,4.34,33.33 insult,humilliate and enslave the women.
Please,unchain your mind,you shall find the 'correct path'.

Wiccan,
'American can learn from their mistakes'
When will muslims learn their islamic mistakes ?

Listen to why a British Muslim woman has chosen to wear the veil (niqab). Read the comments:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=APImSk8Zc1o&mode=related&search=

Brother Asim summed up so beautifully the essence of Hijab and those who do not believe in it to leave alone those who believe.

Sister Hadia responded to those rude comments and remarks so peacefully and beautifully. This is how Prophet Muhammad may peace and blessings be upon him, advised the believers.

I know many American mothers of teenage girls who remain ever so concerend about the way their daughter and sons as well dress. They sincerely appreciate when I leave my home modestly covered and wish their daughers do too.

Please refer to an article published in Chicago Parent magazine of June 2007. "You're Not Wearing THAT.....!" By Rebecca Sweat. In this article Ms. Sweat gives wise advise to parents of young girls who choose not to dress modestly. Ms. Linda Marks, superintendent of Golf School District 67 in Morton Grove said, "when the girls go out in public, "What they're wearing becomes a concern, which can lead to rape and unwanted pregnancy. The fact is we live in a real world with many, many sexual predators. But most girls aren't thinking about that." And furthermore, Gary Hill of Winnetka a clinical psychologist and director of clinical services at the Family Institute at Northwestern University shares his concern in this article...."when a girl dresses provocatively, she might be thinking, "I'm not trying to come on to boys; I'm trying to compete with other girls.' But what girls don't always understand is that when a boy looks at that kind of dress, he's thinking sex, but girls often don't go there so fast."

Hence, what sister Hadia Mubarak shares with us is not just about choice it is about doing what is safe and right. I thank God Almighty for guiding me to do what is good and beneficial for me.

Before you decide to kill yourself in the name of your God, Allah be His name, make sure Allah isn't really a Devil. You know, like the Devil, Lucifer the one that Moses made the deal with. I understand that Gabriel is the angel Muhammad made his deal with to become the *second* most important person right after Moses, the most important person who ever lived. Did Moses found Islam too?

http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul IS WRONG. There really was a supernatural being in that burning bush, at the time the biggest Devil of them all. So Gabriel is challenging Lucifer for control of hell? Ah, kinda like the Ayatollahs challenging his holiness for rights to the evangelical, those who faith angels dollars.

Are you making any money at what you are doing? Does that influence what you faith? Remember, Devil may care.

Isn't Allah supposed to be Almighty? How come He needs people to do His work? Jew and Christian Gods have the same limitation. They can't seem to get what they want without people. That's NOT God. It's Devil and Devil cares about the evangelical dollar. He needs the money to pay His agents, Rabbis, Priests, Preachers, Ayatollahs, etc leading their flocks to hell.

The bigger the flock the greater the reward. The big money goes to the pope and America's pastor. Will that ever be an Ayatollah? Devil cares. You can take that to the bank, they need the money too, something about faithing sub-prime borrowers.

Dear Ms. Hadia Mubarak,
I just read your comments about why you wear the hajib. I liked your argument. However, as well thought out as your reasoning was, you managed to ignore the obvious, Ms. Mubarak.
Islam, clearly recognizes four classes of people: non-believers, believers, slaves and women. Women are the only category within Islam that can not change. They can not become male and enjoy full citizenship, as do men, under Islam.
So, Ms. Mubarak, you ignore that Islam does not treat women equally as men. [Reference: 'What Went Wrong' by Bernard Lewis.] Kindly, note, Ms. Mubarak, that Mr. Lewis does not know me, nor agree with me.]
Secondly, Ms. Mubarak, using the example of Saudi Arabia's treatment of women or the Taliban's treatment of women isn't necessarily in error.
Granted, the treatment of women, is spelled out in the Koran, etc., but don't tell me geography doesn't count. Saudi Arabia is the home of the two most holy sites in Islam: Mecca and Medina.
I think it says something to the world (both Islamic and non-Islamic) that women are treated so poorly, within the boundries of Saudi Arabia. If you Ms. Mubarak are willing to post that Islam treats women fairly, then you can't logically tell me that the treatment of women, in Saudi Arabia, is laudatory or Islamic.
By your own definition, women in Saudi Arabia, are treated way less than the Koran or Prophet, himself, intended.
I am also a little stunned, Ms. Mubarak, that as a western Muslim woman, you never acknowledge that women in Saudi Arabia or in Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, were forced to wear the hajib/burka.
How is it that western Muslim women never seem to appreciate that fellow Muslim women, in Saudi Arabia, at the extreme example, have no choice but to wear a hajib/burka? How is it that western Muslim women don't see that wearing a hajib/burka helps to buttress the second class status of women in Muslim countries?
That the Saudi religious police beat non-cloaked (without their hajib/burka) school girls until they ran back into their burning school, for their hajibs/burkas, because it was un-Islamic to be un-covered, says it all Ms. Mubarak.
Therefore, Ms. Mubarak, I am of the opinion, that your reasons for wearing a hajib, are disconnected from the reality of what wearing a hajib/burka means to your fellow Muslim women, within the Muslim world. It is sad Ms. Mubarak, that you and other western Muslim women, don't appear to give any to thought to Muslim women who have no choice about whether to wear a hajib/burka or not.
Indeed, Ms. Mubarak, why not have a day, where western Muslim women, go without their hajib/burka for their sisters, in Muslims countries who have no choice in whether or not to wear a hajib/burka?
Respectfully,
Isaac Webster
Detroit, Michigan

Good post, Asim.

You do bring up a couple of important points back up there, Victoria: just a bit on social interaction, here, which actually Asim touched upon.

"also, in american culture, as opposed to others, it is considered dishonest not to meet someones eyes.
the idea is that you have something to hide."

It does, in fact, hide things, btw. Deprives people of social cues that can mean someone's standing there with unknown intent, ...they could be angry, depressed, in distress, ...anything.

As a matter of fact, in the culture at large, not meeting people's eyes can be a classic sign that one *is* in fact being or has been abused. Post-traumatic stress comes with shame and avoidant mannerisms: It's a cue one looks out for in certain situations; in helping professions: these are in fact related to dominance behaviors, ...in this case, yes, submission... I would have to wonder if that part of the custom didn't come about in part because it imitates someone in fact cowed into such submission.

People also commonly, however fleetingly and unconsciously, avert their eyes when they're *lying,* and this tends to register subliminally for many in a millieu where eye contact is the norm.

It's part of why meeting the eyes is *usually essential* to social interaction in many cultures, not just American: to avoid doing so *does in fact hide things.* People walking around with obscured or foreign postural cues who won't make that human contact can in fact make folks uncomfortable, ..that's not something one can expect to change any time soon, even if for our part, Westerners can learn to understand what it's really supposed to be about.

The reverse of this is often seen when Americans go to some other countries, and can be seen as obnoxious when to their own minds, they're just being gregarious. (not that the obnoxious doesn't happen.)

"americans are very forthright and open and guileless in this way- "

I'd like to think it's one of our better traits. :)

But don't presume there's never any 'guile' or in fact, real contact involved, though. These things are a whole world of human interaction, much of it unconscious for most: but very real: it's both part of how we get along with each other, and a world of cues which can be and often are exploited by manipulators, cons, takers, proselytizers, sociopaths and all manner of bad elements, which speaks to the fact that things like eye contact *are* a form of communication.

"i have to be honest, ive had the experience of being with ladies in hijab and had ladies without offer the greeting of peace- to be pointedly ignored by the hijabi ladies."

When I've lived in the big city, I've been on the other end of that... It's not something which exactly helps with Muslim women being an accepted part of society, because it *is* in effect a refusal of communication, and, something which isolates. ...it's just going to come off as 'unfriendly.' It's hard to *not* register it as that on some level, even when one knows better.

I think part of what hijab can *represent* to Americans is an idea, 'Wow, they can't or won't even *look* at people. What are they doing here?' ...in fact, what's to many Muslim women modesty and piety is in fact 'teaching' people around that if you see that garment and mannerisms, ...stay away. They don't like us.

As Asim pointed out, one has to adapt, too, if one wants to really be part of America. I'm obviously all about diversity, but if one wants social acceptance, one does have to *show up.*

I know this is rather off-topic, but I can't help but put in a word on the people who are berating Ms. Mubarak about her wearing the hijab, and wearing makeup.

It's very simple - when you take a picture of a person, a little bit of makeup goes a long way to ensuring a person looks like a healthy, normal human being, and not ill/pasty/a walking corpse (depending on the individual's complexion). I know that without makeup, I look like a walking corpse on video, and in a number of snapshots, I look ill, even though I'm perfectly healthy.

As for the choice to wear hijab, it's no different from a woman of various christian denominations choosing plain dress. I wear a head covering, and simple, inexpensive (or home-made) clothing because it's my interpretation of Quaker plain-dress. And I get strange looks from some people when I go out, because they don't understand. And if they ask, I try to explain - as Ms. Mubarak has done here about her choice to wear hijab.

So, anyway, having just repeated, in different words, what several people have already said, I shall now go play the game I was planning to when I got onto the site, and got side-tracked by reading OnFaith.

"My belief in God and my ultimate accountability before God is the driving force of my behavior in life."

Hadia: Then why do you show your face? I will not make the quotes because you know what is written.

"shifting the focus of attention from a woman's physical attraction"

Hadia: Why do you wear the make up? This is counterthinking. I will hide my hair -but my face I will show and I will paint my face to draw attention.

You are confused.

I am younger than you -but I can figure this out. Maybe you can't even think your way out of a paper bag.

Nusayba-

I don't think it will come to that unjust internment. Americans can learn from their mistakes; it's what gives me hope.

Halozcel:
Are you trying to tell me that my decision to wear the hijab was in fact, NOT my decision? I suppose my father threatened to kill me or marry me off to an 80-year old Afghan warlord if I refused to comply.
I'm just wondering how you would come to that conculusion when you don't know who I am or anything about me, just like you know nothing about Islam or Muslims besides what you see on FOX News. Reality check: it's not all true. Actually, a lot of it isn't true.
What Muslims in the States are going through now is remarkably similar to what Japanese Americans went through during World War II. I just hope it doesn't come to the same conclusion.

The Veil: It’s the Context and not the Issue

To start with,the veil issue has been clearly politicized and has drawn more attention than it really deserves when there are more pressing issues such as the daily carnage in Iraq and Palestine that warrants all the attention they can get; am not sure whether the “Veil Row” instigated at one time by Jack Straw in the UK is well-meant or whether it is to distract from such pressing issues. The post 9/11 milieu of tension, suspicion and some times paranoia that terrorists, meaning Muslims, are lurking in the shadows every where and where this situation has become a window of opportunity for the Bashing of Islam and Muslims indiscriminately, from the Danish cartoons, the Pope’s negative remarks about Islam and Bush’s shameful juxtaposition of “Islamo-Fascism.” It’s in this nervous context that the Veil issue needs to be seen and understood. It’s the context rather the issue that matters most and needs to be dealt with.

The veil issue is much simpler: Hijab including the head cover for Muslim women is a STATEMENT of Modesty and Piety and according to a majority of Islamic scholars is prescribed by the Koran; therefore the Hijab was not meant as a separate cultural identity in the first place-but seen and erroneously or deliberately interpreted in the west in contrast to and within the new cultural context of Western societies to which the Muslims immigrated looking for freedom and opportunity. It follows therefore that Hijab should be seen in its original context of Modesty and Piety and can reflect-like so many other cultures-a certain cultural diversity but not at all a sign of separation. . Modesty is an Islamic code of behavior and the Hijab is only one outward manifestation of that Modesty. As the ancient Greeks said “In diversity there is unity.”

Niqab-fully covering the face-is not Islamic at all in any way, shape or form and so is the Burqo-the trade mark of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan and only in such a case is a sign of extremism, narrow-mindedness and repression of Muslim women. Am asking those who wear or demand the wearing of the Niqab or the Burqo to show us any Quranic or Prophetic injunction or proof that the Niqab is Islamic. I have never read or heard that a single Muslim woman is reported to have put on a Niqab or Burqo during the era of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) which is the example par excellence for Muslims to emulate.

Am not contesting the right and freedom of Muslim women to wear Niqab or Burqo but am rather contesting that it has nothing to do with Islam-just as much as I don't contest the right of any western woman to wear a mini skirt or a swim suit. However, if western women have the right to wear such clothes, then why do not their Muslim sisters have the right to wear Hijab. Many Muslim women refer to Mary, the mother of Jesus and her head cover as an example of Modesty and Piety to be emulated; Mary being a revered figure in the Koran and the only female to be specifically addressed by her name and where a whole chapter of the Koran is dedicated to and in her name as well as the virgin birth which Muslims believe in.

As a human being of the Muslim faith, I would find it unnatural and quite awkward to communicate with a Muslim woman wearing Niqab or Burqo; the human face is a God-given natural medium of communication-that simple. I really wonder where and how this practice of wearing the Niqab came about-extremely very few Muslim women wear it even in Muslim countries any way. Muslim women during the ages communicated with men in public and with society at large with their faces uncovered, and for God's sake what is there to cover in a face-it's just a face and it really makes it easier and human to communicate with the Hijab-face uncovered- but not with the Niqab or Burqo-face completely covered; besides how can school children communicate with a masked woman teacher? What about airport security? What about a photo for a drivers' license? Niqab is an unnecessary self-imposed burden and an impediment to natural human communications. The absence of Niqab does not and should not in any way compromise the modesty or piety of a Muslim woman; Islam emphasizes modest behavior and a modest code of dress as part of that behavior, clearly to the exclusion of Niqab and Burqo.

It’s a popular misconception in the West that Muslim women are forced to wear Hijab and therefore it’s a sign of repression. Generally, pious Muslim women wear the Hijab happily and willingly; of course there are a lot of pious Muslim women who dress modestly but don’t wear the head cover. Muslim women should not be forced to wear Hijab or head cover but also they should not be forced to remove it. One can understand but not condone at all that Muslim countries such as Turkey(presently democratic but such rules have not yet changed because of the military's threats to over throw the government)since the days of it’s atheist dictator/founder Ataturk- and Tunisia with its brutal dictator, also force women to remove their head cover because these are essentially repressive military dictatorships and are not different from those who force women to wear Niqab and Burqo; but one can never understand or condone why a genuine democracy such as France forces Muslim women to remove their head cover which is an infringement upon their personal choice, individual and religious freedom guaranteed by French law. By the same token, would France force French women to cover up on the beaches of the Rivera and if not why? In principle, therefore, those who impose Niqab and Burqo on Muslim women and those who force them to remove Hijab are equally repressive.

However, Muslims living in West need to be sensitive to the culture and values of their new homelands as Westerners do when they are in Muslim countries; Muslims need to and can integrate into their new societies while being true to their Islamic faith: Islam has that much built-in flexibility and adaptability and for over fourteen centuries proved it’s universality across all major world cultures.

There is so much to be learned form 800 years of multi-cultural, multi-religious, peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Muslim Spain in such a unique human and cultural synergy resulting in a brilliant contribution to human civilization until it was destroyed by the Catholic Church thru the imposition of the infamous and brutal Inquisition on both Muslims and Jews before and after 1492 AD.

Moreover, Western societies need also to accept Muslims as full fledged-citizens and partners and as an integral part of a multicultural diversity-again, there is human unity in diversity- and not to try and re-invent new western ISLAM in the image of the west; after all for Muslims to be Muslims, they have to be true to their faith. Bashing of Muslims on every occasion by western media, Xenophobia, predijuice, racism and especially stereotyping of Islam and Muslims, linking Islam and Muslims to violence and terrorism should end once and for all as its unfair, counterproductive and creates a siege mentality among Muslims and hinders their integration into western societies. Such practices not only offend Muslims but it also inflicts untold pain and agony on them.

Finally, Muslim women should choose whether to wear hijab or not and their choice should be respected either way.

halozcel,

The Quran repeatdely condemned and cursed the liars-in fact the Prophet(pbuh)before his mission and revelations was called Muhammad the Honest-in Arabic AL Ameen.He also affirmed that "Who he lies will surely take his place in hell."

Clearly you have not read the Quran or the Sunnah-it turns out that with your cheap propaganda that you are the liar.

Dear Ms. Hadia,

Your "hijab" is not for you, nor for God, but it's the sign that makes a woman subdued, sujugated, submitted to man,i.e. that tells that women are servant of men. Most of all this is the sign that tells that you are a fanatic blind believer of islam; just as a bearded man is a fanatically believer of Islam.

Your hijab only covers your hairs (the most neglected and unecessary part of a woman) and nothing else! I can clearly see your beautiful eyes, lustful cheeks, eye brows and very attractive sexy lips and I need nothing more from you. Please tell me you are talking about protecting chastity (?) but how you think this wierd hijab can protect your chastity? Tell me, if you go to a wrong place in wrong time with your hijab; do you think horny men will spare you beacuse you only covered your hairs? Who needs hair and what for? At least I don't need hair all I need is your beautiful face which you kept open for me. What else I need from you?

I am sure you know nothing about Islam. If you really want to experience real islam then go to some Arab Islamic paradise and live there for some years; and then come back to lecture about hijab and Islam.

Please read this article below to learn all about women in islam.

Women in Islam: By Abul Kasem

http://www.islam-watch.org/AbulKasem/WomenInIslam/women_in_islam.htm

Please read it to know real women rights in islam. Thanks.

Karim (born muslim)

Ahh, Victoria, for your hidden eyes/hidden head only-

And still you have not come to grips with the flawed foundations of contemporary religions (the basic issue of the On faith blog) and in your specific case that of Islam.

Founder, Mohammed- an illiterate, hallucinating Arab,

Biographers- literate but hallucinating (they also saw "pretty wingie flying talking thingies). They not only made belief in these "thingies" a requirement for all Muslims, they also added a militaristic, anti-female agenda to their book of death aka the koran.

The militaristic part of the agenda is still being pursued as noted by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics with most of this misery being funded by the third Axis of Evil aka Iran.

mr roy- i sincerely think you have me confused with someone else-

maybe you could illustrate where ive invoked fear or danger.

?

and

??!

Oh, give me a break already.

Okay, here - exposing my long beautiful hair to the air and light of day is the wish of MY God, so don't even try to put that crap on my head.

MY God also says that people who impose their religion on others are despicable.

Moreover, MY God feels offended whenever SHE sees women covered up as if they're dirty and disgusting.

Now, perhaps you should get involved in a REAL issue, such as addressing the demons from hell who are representing YOUR God?

Check out the garbage from the horse's own mouths:

The Truth About Islam
http://islamwatchers.blogspot.com

Well, Roy, my only real point of contention with you on much of your second-last post there is this:

"Ms. Mubarak therefore has a certain symbolic burden of proof on her shoulders. She tells us this is being done in the name of God and her own faith."

She tells us this is what *she* is doing, and what it means to her, and, well, she has that right... I frankly find that the 'criticism' on this board is 'No, you can't do that!' ...citing things other people are doing in other countries to say 'All you need to know is that Muslims is bad, look at these atrocities, therefore Ms Mubarak is lying about what she sees in this,' ...that isn't *criticism,* it's *xenophobia.*

It's also as simple to me that she has a right to talk about, ....and teach others of her faith, her *own* interpretation of this. Symbolism changes, too, this is part of modernity, too.

I certainly don't "blindly accept other people's traditions cause of antiquity," ...what a silly assertion to make of an American Pagan in this day and age!

(I mean, really, probably a majority of the 'faithful' here think I'm supposed to be eternally tortured for my troubles, and a good chunk of the rest seem to be trying to 'save me' through from the woes and perils of not accepting some certainty of future oblivion. ;) Hardly a 'blind accepter' here. )

There's just a line past which I think folks are blindly refusing to accept any complexity about these things. *That* is intellectual laziness to me.

American constitutional standards, certainly, don't tend to go to 'symbolism,' in quite the way you're advocating, (in fact, given the theocratic ambitions of some of the politics here, I'd really rather things stayed that way) ...this means we accept a lot of things we may not happen to like.

And it's the abandonment of civility that I find the most threatening. The insistence, it seems, that Muslims are nothing but these terrible images, isn't exactly something I find helpful in interfaith relations, ...in fact, in a way, by shouting down and *erasing* the very people who, perhaps, have the very better visions that can improve things in the Muslim part of the world.

I'd hope they're actually *teaching* this stuff.

Anyway. It's late, and I'm on an odd schedule this weekend, so I'm about wiped. Night.

Victoria: Muslim theocrats murdering young schoolgirls because they tried to get an education in places like Afghanistan is frightening. The potentialities offered by religious discourses and their destructive universalistic messages of global holy war and apostasy is what frightens me.

This is typical of left-of-center muslim apologists who use alarmist rhetoric which frames people like me as advocating the all-out genocide of muslims. Your invoking of fear and danger because I am simply trying to take a stand here is morally deplorable and morally degrading for the simple art of debating a topic.

Paganplace: Forgot to add this little sidenote. You use the word imperialistic as if the muslim world has never known that label...

Paganplace: A democratic constitution is what defines these standards and this constitution does not tell its citizenry that no tradition can be respected. However given that a secular and rational decision-making process is what drives policy in our societies people of faith must realize that our standards do allow them free expression, but their expression should in no way be exempt from criticism. I never said in any way that the hijab should be banned, however I feel that the ideological framework from which it stems is dubious, highly questionable and in MOST cases across the globe imposed and taken for granted as a given for women raised in Muslim families.

Enlightenment standards do uphold freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. Liberal societies depend on the mobilization of a collectivity of people willing to co-exist regardless of ethnicity, culture ect. The problem with religions like Islam is that they have totalizing tendencies and usually conflict with secular systems given that there can't be a separation of temporal and spiritual authority, the problem is the message itself because it preaches a form of exclusivity. Ms. Mubarak therefore has a certain symbolic burden of proof on her shoulders. She tells us this is being done in the name of God and her own faith but yet across both Muslim and non-Muslim societies women are coerced into covering themselves or else they risk A) in the case of a Muslim society, legal reprimanding by the authorities or B) in the case of non-Muslim societies, total ostacization from their families (one need to only look at the rise of parallel communities in London).

I feel as a citizen of a liberal social democracy (Quebec in my case) that the standards I uphold are defendable given that they are maximizers of social harmony and political stability. I find it intellectually weak to just blindly accept anyone's age old traditions just by virtue of their longevity in other parts of the world and the fact that a large number of people are associated with them. I am not being ``coercive`` or framing my words in a hegemonic semantics game of western concepts and discourses (as many proponents of post-modern relativism would say) or trying to acculturate muslims into becoming surrogate westerners. All I am asking is that they stop using a double-standard of using free expression as a carte blanche against practices which in some (or many) instances are coercive in every sense of the word.

welll who decides roy?

are you saying that the needs of maintaining a cohesive society supercede those of the individula?

and are you saying you know what is better for someone, than they themsleves do?

that is scary language.

halozee- leave the girl alone, pick on me- im old.

i think youre confusing hijab with niqab.

hijab is a scarf.

niqab is a face cover.
and indeed niqab has been found to be detrimental to the health of women.

And where does *that* end, Roy?

Who makes the 'standards' of what we're 'free' to wear? What happens to the 'liberal society' and 'neutral space for cultural or religious expression?'

Who gets to judge which traditions should be respected?

We respect diversity. Eyes open. But that respect is *part* of a pluralistic society. Not its enemy.

I happen to know where the disrespect leads. On more micro bases than I could count.

For the macro basis, well, look at what's going on in the world.

"It is detrimental that we uphold a certain standard given that liberal or enlightenment standards are what gives women like Ms. Mubarak a space to express herself in. "

You'll have to explain how this follows. We should compromise our Enlightenment standards to preserve our Enlightenment standards?

What right could we possibly have to intervene in someone else's very real coercions when we become coercive ourselves?

That just makes it 'us vs them' which is apparently what some on both sides are trying to provoke, but if you want to talk about what this *represents,* it's in fact highly symbolic of where Western pluralistic society can be tempted to fall back on those old imperialistic prejudices that set the stage for this global mess in the first place.

Nusayba,

One of the islamic characteristic feature is 'Lie'.
3.28 encourages muslims to speak lie.
'It is my personal choice' is a BIG LİE(I am not sure you are 16)
This 'Theater' was played many times in muslim countries and now 'theater' came to USA.Someone may say 'I am 12 years old and it is my choice',or 'I am 10 years old and it is my choice' so on.This is 'tragi-comic' theater.
Islam is the Lie of bedouin,nothing else.
Hijab is the mark of oppression and subjugation,not a 'human right'.
Hijab is against 'woman health'.

Paganplace: I can understand the argument on a micro or individualistic basis, she is free to wear what she wants, but the relativism i am attacking is the idea of freedom for freedom's sake which negates the larger civic responsibility of upholding a certain standard by which we measure what freedom constitutes...Liberal society gives us all a neutral space of cultural or religious expression, but to blindly respect the traditions of others simply because we feel we may be infringing on their individuality may seem right but it isnt. It is detrimental that we uphold a certain standard given that liberal or enlightenment standards are what gives women like Ms. Mubarak a space to express herself in.

Victoria
Wearing the hijab simply means you bought the snake oil.
Sucker.

One thing I like about America.They don't kill you for being a non-believer.

If Islam had discovered America,and not the Christians,we'd all be praying 5 times a day facing Mecca,and our womenfolk would be dressed like nuns.
We'd be spreading the "one true religion",by the word,by the sword and by the bomb;and would have bullied the world into submission by now.
Kinda glad the Christians got here first.

i dont really think many american women feel ashamed when they see hijab-

i think many times they perceive that the women are being 'oppressed' and feel sorry for them.

i know years ago, i used to feel a little sorry for the women i saw because i didnt understand what it represented.

now, i think people feel a bit afraid.

also, in american culture, as opposed to others, it is considered dishonest not to meet someones eyes.
the idea is that you have something to hide.

americans are very forthright and open and guileless in this way- (another spelling error? hope its not interpreted as hate!)

i have to be honest, ive had the experience of being with ladies in hijab and had ladies without offer the greeting of peace- to be pointedly ignored by the hijabi ladies.

i returned the greeting enthusiastically of course, and gently chastised the ladies for their judgementalism.

the ladies in here are more knowledgeable than your average american.

be friendly to people in the imtiation of the exemplary manners of the Prophet(pbuh).

when he shook anyones hands, he clasped them with both hands, and didnt let go until the other person pulled away.

also, he said, "even smiling in the face of your brother or sister is an act of charity"

peace

Try to see the other stuff, here, Nusayaba.

And, look around. The fact is that to many of these people, (and in fact, to many Muslims) the hijab and the like actually *are* symbols of womens' oppression. There actually are different cultural standards, and, you'll notice they are thinking about certain horrors of the East, not American Muslims making their own choices. Of course there are not-inconsiderable cultural pressures in any culture, particularly in authoritarian-based religions.

The fact is, I think it's improper to tell an American Muslim woman *she* can't *make her own decisions,* (which is actually, quite ironically, high on the list of conservative Christians: trying to use the government to say young women, or all women, can't make their own decisions about their own bodies and what it means.)

I say, freedom is freedom.

Forcing people to assimilate their personal expression in the name of 'freedomeyness' is just as wrong, Unamerican, and missing the darn *point* as is *enforcing* Christian belief.

"This country was created as a place where people could practice their religion freely, and I'm doing that. Is that a crime, to represent what this nation stands for? It was supposed to be a haven for the oppressed, so to speak, and it's not anymore."

Not for long, if I and a lot more people than you might be led to think have anything to say about it.

Don't let anyone tell you you can't put that on.
Also, don't let anyone tell you you can't take it off.

OK?

Your explanation is very reasonable and intelligent, particularly regarding gender. And I appreciate how you admit to not being an expert in the domain of apostasy, rather than giving unsubstantiated views.

First, I am AMAZED at the time and effort some of the commenters have put into attacking Hadia Mubarak for her personal decision to cover her body. That's really pathetic. Get some lives, please.

Second, let me tell you something about myself. I am a 16 year old Muslim girl, born and raised in the USA. I wear the hijab, and it was my personal choice. In no way whatsoever did my parents or family influence me. And it was the best decision I ever made.

Wearing hijab does empower me. Not flaunting my "goodies" makes me feel confident and proud. I love stepping out the door wearing my hijab. I know I don't care what people think and I love it. There's no adequate way to describe the feeling of power. People may not understand why you're wearing it, and hate you for it, as I have seen in this forum, but in the end, it's all good.

And how is wearing my hijab a slap on the face to American culture?? This country was created as a place where people could practice their religion freely, and I'm doing that. Is that a crime, to represent what this nation stands for? It was supposed to be a haven for the oppressed, so to speak, and it's not anymore. Instead, "good" American citizens like the ones writing here abuse you for practicing your beliefs, even though it does not harm them or affect them in any way, except to maybe make them feel ashamed.

First, I am AMAZED at the time and effort some of the commenters have put into attacking Hadia Mubarak for her personal decision to cover her body. That's really pathetic. Get some lives, please.

Second, let me tell you something about myself. I am a 16 year old Muslim girl, born and raised in the USA. I wear the hijab, and it was my personal choice. In no way whatsoever did my parents or family influence me. And it was the best decision I ever made.

Wearing hijab does empower me. Not flaunting my "goodies" makes me feel confident and proud. I love stepping out the door wearing my hijab. I know I don't care what people think and I love it. There's no adequate way to describe the feeling of power. People may not understand why you're wearing it, and hate you for it, as I have seen in this forum, but in the end, it's all good.

And how is wearing my hijab a slap on the face to American culture?? This country was created as a place where people could practice their religion freely, and I'm doing that. Is that a crime, to represent what this nation stands for? It was supposed to be a haven for the oppressed, so to speak, and it's not anymore. Instead, "good" American citizens like the ones writing here abuse you for practicing your beliefs, even though it does not harm them or affect them in any way, except to maybe make them feel ashamed.

First, I am AMAZED at the time and effort some of the commenters have put into attacking Hadia Mubarak for her personal decision to cover her body. That's really pathetic. Get some lives, please.

Second, let me tell you something about myself. I am a 16 year old Muslim girl, born and raised in the USA. I wear the hijab, and it was my personal choice. In no way whatsoever did my parents or family influence me. And it was the best decision I ever made.

Wearing hijab does empower me. Not flaunting my "goodies" makes me feel confident and proud. I love stepping out the door wearing my hijab. I know I don't care what people think and I love it. There's no adequate way to describe the feeling of power. People may not understand why you're wearing it, and hate you for it, as I have seen in this forum, but in the end, it's all good.

And how is wearing my hijab a slap on the face to American culture?? This country was created as a place where people could practice their religion freely, and I'm doing that. Is that a crime, to represent what this nation stands for? It was supposed to be a haven for the oppressed, so to speak, and it's not anymore. Instead, "good" American citizens like the ones writing here abuse you for practicing your beliefs, even though it does not harm them or affect them in any way, except to maybe make them feel ashamed.

Which, by the way, is what it really comes down to: Ms Mubarak has the right to express her religion in this way, and take what meaning she derives from it. No, no one should be *forced* to, in the Western view. These *are* our American values, if you asked me.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, where's using slurs against Italians come into this, Terry?

I've got significant Italian ancestry, and I'm *defending* the freedom of expression here. Gods.

Hadia, your position is sound and coherent-keep it up.

Victoria, Welcome back-I missed your posts lately.But pls don't waste your time on the like of -un-Xtian and the un-liberated from his recyceled nonsense...

Maryjane: your post expressed my thoughts;you are a decent and honest human being.Thanks

All of you who have questioned Muslim women dress should think about if the script was to be flipped and someone dared to criticize your dress as being to short or to tight and down right inappropriate for "civilized sociality, you would not stand for it, not one minute not one second.
How hypocritical can you get, only G-D knows. That person are persons would get an ear full of"I told that so-n-so where they could go and the quickest way to get there".Yet and still you would heap insults on someone who is going about their on business brothering no one, but you with all you hypocrisy and no doubt insecurity with nothing better else to do but "pick" at some strangers modest dress because of your wop sense of "freedom of expression".

Your point, Concerned?

Paganplace and Wiccan,

Sorry about the CNN attending the local spirtitual seance but please invite them for the local medicine man visit or is that vodo man??? And what again are the foundations of the said many pagan practices?

How about:

"The combination of Wicca with no harm to others and do what thou wilt made its first known appearance in The Old Laws by Gerald Gardner, 1953. A similar phrase, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law, appears in Aleister Crowley's works by 1904, in The Book of the Law (though as used by Crowley it is half of a statement and response, the response being "Love is the Law, love under Will"). The rede in its best known form was used by Doreen Valiente in several writings. In the form of the "eight words" couplet it was first recorded in a speech she delivered in 1964. In 1974 a complete poem entitled "The Wiccan Rede" was published in the neo-Pagan magazine Earth Religion News. It was shortly followed by another, slightly different, version, entitled the "Rede Of The Wiccae," which was published in Green Egg magazine by Lady Gwen Thompson. She ascribed it to her grandmother Adriana Porter, and claimed that the earlier published text was distorted from "its original form."

Hmmm, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" must be right up there with short phrases to live by. I love short, to the point phrases. They eliminate all the "Vatican speak".

Hrm, well, Victoria, I did find one of my posts up there put in for review because I (quotingly) referred to what one might have been called at some points in Western if one bared a shin, etc, (the 'w' word, so to speak,) so, I figure it's just as possible something referring to sexual violence or excuses for such might have caught Pelican's posts in the filter. Can't have people *calling* each other that on a board such as this.

Oh, and I'll note for Pelican that Wicca and in fact most Pagan sects have no 'problem with women,' at least on anything approaching certain others by orders of magnitude.

(An advantage of our modernity and Goddess-worship, I'm sure, as well as a legacy of feminist spirituality among the community: some even presume that because there are Goddesses in our faiths that *men* must be excluded from the clergy, ...projection, much? :) )

Anyway, Victoria, it's certainly no secret that there's an awful lot of rape and sexual abuse in both Muslim and Christian societies, ...Gods know I'm aware how common it is *here,* ...I certainly thing having people all repressed, ashamed, controlled, and conflicted about their own sexuality is in fact a major cause of these things: males in this society can really have the deck stacked against them when they're taught this combination of shame and entitlement... then exposed to an environment where the media use the big sex-shaped *hole* in their lives to sell them other things to fill the void...

I mean, look at Abu Ghraib: whatever else you may say about these things, they are not the actions of sexually-well-adjusted people. But certainly, these religious and cultural conflicts are all bound up in the fact that sexuality is all bound up *by* the religions in question.

As for how attire goes, it shouldn't be treated as some sort of talisman that is supposed to protect or in fact, truly liberate, when the ideas behind them still tend to go unquestioned. It's not an all-or-nothing, all-at-once process.

Heels and bras have in recent history been seen as signs of women's oppression, ...some of the more rabid feminists ended up in fact, demonstrating against anyone wearing heels, which seemed to me to go against the notion women are capable of making our own decisions in the first place, if we can't protect ourselves from uncomfortable footwear.

Heels, on occasions I wore em, never particularly bothered or impeded me, for instance, ..I remember some of the lesbians I hung out with telling me how vulnerable I was till I showed them my kung fu in em. :) (and, once I started getting arthritic, that was pretty much the end of that. Fine. :) )

Eventually, folks got over those as symbols, to some extent.

Went from 'This means you're oppressed and inferior' to '...Oh, you're wearing heels today.' Which is one thing about stuff like this, ...The meaning of these expressions can be changed. It just takes time and will. And, I think, a diverse approach, ...from refusal to wear the things, to refusing to let them mean 'oppression.'

no , it took the same amount of time as always.

also you can never post more than 2 links at a time, ive experimented with that too.

so where are the stats then?

ive made many posts that said they were being held for the bloggers to okay them and they just disappeared also.

stuff happens

wheres the stats?

also we havent even delved into the stats on physical abuse in america-

it is curreently estimated that a full 1 in 2 women have experienced some sort of physical abuse at the hands of men in their lives.
these are form reported cases. who knows how many go unreported.

other interesting stats are women in prison for murder- an exhorbitant percentage (compared to men in prison) are described as self defense in response to chronic abuse.

i know these are adjectives, and not stats- im too busy right now to find them.

ok, wheres the stats?
i love stats.

no- you just made too many posts in too short a period-

sometimes that happens when i make 2 posts!

heres an experiment- ill use the word 'rape' and see if it posts quickly as i havent made any other posts

Pelican:

"I have tried to post a comments twice regarding rape statistics for the Muslim world, answering Bahia's post above."

Probably you just used some words that got flagged for review as likely abusive: when discussing rape, that's bound to happen. The computer can't tell what you intend.

And, Concerned, seances are a Spiritualist thing, not a Pagan one. Grow a clue.

Maybe it would be a good thing if Bahia spent some of her time preaching to these guys in the British mosques and dealing with what this Saudi imams are preaching in their mosques about women. One of the main imams on this video is an American whom authorities are trying to identify as he may be a man who escaped from prison here and made it to England. If he did, he's certainly received a very warm welcome — and a place of honor in this mosque.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2668560761490749816

CCNL-

By the way, I notice that you have not parsed the second (and third) parts of the Rede. Now why is that?

CCNL-

I don't do seances. If the dead need to find me, they'll find me. They have before.

I have tried to post a comments twice regarding rape statistics for the Muslim world, answering Bahia's post above. In Muslim countries the rape rate is as high, or likely higher, than in the United States, and most of it done by Muslim men to imported maids or by Muslim men to their relatives (see Hirsi Ali, The Caged Virgin).

In that post I also talked about the gang-rape of non-Muslim women in Europe by Muslim immigrants for the "crime" of not being veiled. I related how the Grand Mufti of Australia blamed women for their rapes for being "raw meat" that the rapists (likened to sweet little cats) shouldn't be expected to stay away from. Can you blame the cat? asked Al-Halili. And I also talked about the standardized rapes of women in Evin Prison in Iran.

On the chance that it was the length of the post, I will try this shortened version.

Another "disappeared" post talked about the preaching at Brixton mosque shown in the Dispatches Mosque videos (you can Google this). That one never made it, either.

If these are being censored, then I am out of here. It is completely unfair to allow Bahia to make a claim that about the rape rate in America while censoring information about the rape rates in Muslim countries — the use of rape as a tool of control — and the punishment of the victims of rape with death in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

So, if I don't see this post in five minutes, I'm out of here and will respond about it elsewehre on the internet.

well of course jack my kittens are expressing themsleves in the natural order of the world- ittens are curious and anything that moves they chase and bite.
its what kittens do.
but im not a kitten, im a owman- and kittens have a limited ability to instruct m in the ways of the world.

thats why they also want to bite the legs off, because they move- i cant really say that the kittens have any desire to kill that big fat roach- also i think that big fat roach (hes like 3 inces long) is not so bright as he comes into my bathroom for his questionable refuge every single night (i know its him because hes missing half a wing).
but hes a roach and im a woman and i also dont look to him to teach me a great deal either.

all i can do is be a human, have compassion and not kill him.

what a funny funny thing to pick out of my statement.

go read the main board- i talk about this issue of violence and life there-

i will just assume since you had to pick out the silliest thing i said, that the rest had substance and you were unable to find any refutation for the reasoning, but were driven to find SOME fault, no matter how off topic

ps niqab is not an islamic custom- it is pre-islamic and was spread through persia form byzantium through traders who came with their harmens (not muslims) men like to have lots of beautiful women at their sexual disposal.
who knew?
just watch a rap video.

so the women wore face veils so the men couldnt gaze upon their (seemingly) heavenly beauty.
also, only really rich men could maintain a harem anyway.

when the local women saw this, they wanted to be perceived by their neighbors as being too beautiful to be gazed upon too!
they also wanted their neighbors to think their husbands (and by extension they) were incredibly wealthy.

so here we have a case where women COVER UP to be perceived as attractive-

but were in america and know the power of advertising- so we know to look inside the box and not believe the package.

in islam, even these cultural niqabis (face veil)
must show their faces to potential husbands before they marry.

also, it is forbidden in islam for a woman to be married against her will-
a marriage must have the consent of both parties.

its not the fault of islam if there are alot of jerks out there like fathers and husbands who abuse some poor women.

the entire world is dragging itself out of these patriarchal bully mentality in regards to women.

ive seen its active impact on society in my short life, my mom went form a housewife whose floors you could eat off of-
to the early 70s when she took off her bra and proclaimed "im not married to my house" and then burned it and became the first woman union steward in hr union, breaking throuhg the glass ceiling.

despite all our efforts (my lil bro and i) she never put that bra back on- even when it was really really apparent that she needed it.

really apparent.

i really hate high heels too. they hurt my feet and i love my feet.

Pelican Brief and Wiccan,

Please invite CNN Headline News to your next seance or the next visit from your guardian "thingie".

Well,

On this: "when was the last time you heard of a man (a real man) seeking breast enlargement or spending large sums of $ having extensions put in their hair to attract more women?"

Have you watched television lately? How about 'Hair Club for Men?' How about all the money that goes into 'male enhancement' products, and, yes, even cosmetic surgery?

And, on this:

" Toulouse Roy:

Your argument Paganplace relativizes the notion of freedom within a liberal democratic polity to a degree where it seems to lose any significance."

But, isn't that what liberty is all about? I didn't say that women aren't forced or pressured to wear the hijab, ...but to assert that it's *impossible* for one to find meaning and empowerment, even, in it, is frankly, absolutism of a sort inimical to the very ideals of liberal democracy that you claim to represent: in your reply you seem to be saying that you know better for Ms.Mubarak than *she* does, which, frankly, can often be another form of sexism, proclaiming Muslim women *incapable* of making their own choices.

I'll take the situational relativism, thanks very much.

A lot of effort seems to go into giving 'relativism' a bad name, these days, mostly from people trying to *assert* that their version of their religion should be obeyed absolutely.

My absolutes here are *that* there are certain absolutes about our liberty.

You cannot force people to be 'free,' never mind force them to *express* being 'free' in ways of your choosing.

I see nothing relative about that.
It goes for the right *not* to dress like that, too.

On hijab: I think a lot of the Western ...hostility to this custom, has as much to do with our own changing gender roles, assumptions, and customs.

I certainly don't think one should feel *obligated* to show skin, ...in some circles in the West, there's kind of a cultural bias that one *should,* if one's 'attractive enough,' (certain mens' sense of entitlement creeps out, there, in American culture, even in compliments: in some ways, a bias has come about that the only reasons one *would* cover up must either be shame, prudishness, or to hide something unattractive. And I think this contributes to the impression that no one would *willingly* dress in another way than this. )

I always saw my personal modesty as (apart from just part of my personality) as a useful *modulation* of what's, to me, a positive sexuality, and have heard from a number of Muslim women, really, similar ideas about social comfort, even if there are cultural and religious differences about what sex, roles, and even bodies mean.

Clearly, the hostility to Muslim dress is also part of the religious xenophobia of our times, as well: I was struck a bit by the Christian who pointed out he never got questioned by a Muslim in this manner for wearing a cross, but certainly I've observed that the recent power of the Religious Right and the general atmosphere has caused a lot of Pagans to tuck our religious symbols away in daily life, ...as well as a toning down of a development I noted with some interest: the development of a distinctive, if eclectic, Pagan style of dress.' More 'stealth,' even as we've had to put a lot of effort and visibility out there to fight defamation and to secure and defend our rights before they're taken away.

As you illustrated, Roy, with some hostility to the idea of people having distinct customs in what's a pluralistic society, a lot of people are having some renewed difficulty of late, it seems, in seeing people who are different *as* part of this society. That's, in part, about control and conformity, as much as the oppression of women in many Muslim countries, and, surely, even here in America, is all too real.

The difficulty, here, perhaps, is not about the garments involved, but in how we *react* to them. If you see a headscarf and immediately say, "You're oppressed, I know better than you, woman, don't do that," ...that's hardly inclusive. It's quite the opposite.

I don't think it's *really* the ideal of Enlightenment liberty for everyone to conform to the corporate idea of 'how people should dress,' which, I've noticed, has been, in its own way, forcing women to give up a certain amount of practicality in clothing, if we don't want to sacrifice femininity...

WICCAN:

No, I'm not a Sufi. My beliefs don't easily conform to any one belief system, I think because I have lived so many places and been exposed to so many religions. So I have a kind of eclectic background, and though I don't belong to any religion, I am completely confortable going to Friday prayers in Istanbul and mass in Rome and old-fashioned camp meetings in Alabama and fire dhikr in Tennessee. I am probably closest in belief to Orthodox Christianity, though I don't actually believe that Jesus was the only "christed" being to walk the earth. I have a problem with the "last" or "only" word of God because I think that God keeps revealing more of Him/Herself to us as our ability to perceive Them increases. You'll notice I'm struggling for words because I don't believe does or even can have gender at all. I tend to like churches most that have a lot of music and that do not tend to try to exclude me on the basis of my being a woman. But as all religions — and particularly Christianity and Islam — but even also Buddhism and Hinduism have big trouble with women still, so I try to be tolerant of that. The only faiths I know of that give women complete equality in spiritual areas and those of the priesthood are the Reform Jews and the Bektashi Sufi orders.

Pelican Brief-

Well said! CCNL has won his "war" with the "irrational" parts of his religion, and seems determined to free all of us as well. I think his reasoning goes like this:

I am human.
I cannot see angels.
If I cannot see angels they do not exist.
If I am human and cannot see angels, then other humans cannot see angels.
If other humans see angels, they see something that doesn't exist.
If humans see something that doesn't exist, they are hallucinating.

But it's not my fault he can't see angels, or the auras that surround living things, or the spirits who stop and visit.

By the way, would you be Sufi?

for ... Concerned the Now Liberated Christian

That some people are color-blind does not mean that other people can't see the color green (or blue) — hundreds of shade of green or blue. For some people there is no blue or green; for others, there is cerulean, kelly, azure, chartreuse, lime, sky, seafoam, slate, shamrock, hunter, pear, pine, fern, emerald, celadon, cornflower, royal, sapphie, tsteel, denim, navy, Prussian, midnight, periwinkle, Klein, cobalt, Eton, indigo, ultramarine, aquarmarine.

That you have not had mystical experiences, does not mean they do not exist. For some people they are as common as your ways of approaching reality are for you.

But it is something that it's impossible to convince others about. It is a simple fact that people who cannot remember previous (or more likely lateral simultaneous) incarnations will never believe in them; but those who believe they have had such experiences can never convinced that they do not exist, because even a momentary experience of one, it is said, simply removes all doubt.

You seem to be determined to classify the mystical, transcendental, revelatory gestalts and religious experiences of living and historical people as "hallucinations".

Well, as Thaddeus Golus pointed out: What you say goes for you, but only for you and those who agree with you.

The potential danger for you in this is that if you become hostile to the idea that any such thing as a revelatory or mystical experience can occur, you will not change the fact that they occur in the lives of others, who are then subsequently carrying the glow of that experience every day of their lives, but they will certainly not occur in your own.

You have already put the Universe and its ultranconscious elements on notice that you won't be accepting any such experience and ...

... well, it's not in their nature to force it.

The hijab in Islam is pretty basic and is a personal decision. Think of it this way: 2 women are walking down the street; 1 is wearing basic summer attire such as a tank top and shorts, her hair blowing in the breeze and the other is wearing loose clothing which covers her skin and she has her hair covered. Which woman is going to get the most stares by the man? If you say the woman that is covered, what BENEFIT does the man come away with?

The fact is is that men are more visual than women. It doesn't make them any less of a human being, it's just the way God created them....EQUAL but DIFFERENT. Men are also required in Islam to cover from their navel to their knee....when was the last time you heard of a man (a real man) seeking breast enlargement or spending large sums of $ having extensions put in their hair to attract more women? Facts are facts and people are people - some crave the physical attention and some don't. Would a Nun be criticized or demeaned for her choice to cover? Was and is Mary (peace be upon her) criticized for her choice? Do they feel superior for their personal choice? I think not. Hijab is a personal choice just like worship is a personal choice.

"i have 7 kittens who want to eat him"

Victoria,

Your kittens are teaching you something about the natural balance of the world. The same world you believe Allah created.

Open your eyes.

By what proof do you have that Muhammad was visited by the angel Gabriel, as you should know, Jesus performed many miracles, witnessed by many people, not only his followers, to show as proof that he was the Messiah, the living Son of God, by what proof do you have, other than his word alone that Muhammad was a prophet sent by God. Jesus coming was testified to by the old testament writings, by what old testament writing was Muhammad predicted. What proof can you point to, what other than his own word, can you point to, what miracle, how do you know the angel was from God, how did Muhammad know the Angel was from God?

Clothing is a personal expression. I do not care for revealing clothing and my personal preference is to dress modestly. However, modest clothing is no guarantee against rape. Almost thirty years ago, I was raped in my own bedroom by a stranger who broke into my house. I had, after a long social evening with friends, come home, went to bed fully clothed ((in a button-down, long-sleeved blouse, jeans, and a tight-fitting belt)--Yeah, real provocative) and still this happened. I was advised by professionals not to report the rape because I had committed the dreadful sin of drinking wine with dinner with my friends. I'm still mad as hell about the whole thing and at one time considered wearing Muslim dress, although I am Catholic, to shield myself from men in general.

--Mary

Clothing is a personal expression. I do not care for revealing clothing and my personal preference is to dress modestly. However, modest clothing is no guarantee against rape. Almost thirty years ago, I was raped in my own bedroom by a stranger who broke into my house. I had, after a long social evening with friends, come home, went to bed fully clothed ((in a button-down, long-sleeved blouse, jeans, and a tight-fitting belt)--Yeah, real provocative) and still this happened. I was advised by professionals not to report the rape because I had committed the dreadful sin of drinking wine with dinner with my friends. I'm still mad as hell about the whole thing and at one time considered wearing Muslim dress, although I am Catholic, to shield myself from men in general.

--Mary

SAM, the only people who think that polygyny is good for women are men. Women under Islamic law have no rights to the children they bear, making them beasts of burden. And your argument that polygyny is better than "too many mistresses and unwanted children that will end up abused and in the streets" is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. Men who father such children, take mistresses, visit prostitutes and leave chidren they father in the streets are the problem—not monogamous relationship.

And, if I'm reading my Qur'an correctly, monogamy is preferred. That means that all you guys running around with your multiple wives who have few if any of the rights today that Muhammad gave them in the 7th century, are COMPLETELY UN-ISLAMIC.

And I don't know even ONE woman in a polygynous relationship with her husband who actually feels he is treating all wives equally.

In fact, most of the women I know in this position just think their arrogant husbands treat everyone unfairly and think they are Allah himself. They are constantly reminding them that they are chattel, inhibiting their movement and thinking and sometimes incarcerating them in the house, and sometimes forcibly take their young daughters to have FGM performed on them in Egypt or elsewhere, sometimes as early as four years. I'm reminding you here that FGM was an ancient Egyptian custom, not part of the Qur'an, never mentioned in the Qur'an, and mentioned in only one hadith, where the Prophet appears to be trying to limiting the vicousness of the practice, not condone it. And that's just to offer the possibility of stemming the spread by Islamists in Turkey of the practice that has never existed there before.

This is my deep distrust of Islam now. If you go back and read the Qur'an it's very clear that Muhammad believed women were equal, treated them as equal, was determined to wipe out the gendercide of female children, and engaged women as intellectual and spiritual women of tremendous value.

Now what we have is adolescent thugs raised on Qutb's misogyny and arrogance — claiming he never married because he couldn't find a woman "pure" enough, and, frankly, exhibiting enough neurosis to get him committed in any country practicing any reaseonable psychiatric protection of the population at large.

Radical Islam is a war against women, and no one will say that. Nobody will come right and say that Qutb exhibited every single facet of the sexual psychotic. And that's before you even begin to realize that the man obsessed about sex all the time, and raised his followers to believe they were promised total control of women. And they have spread that vicious control by extreme shari'a law brought about and enforced by the sword (it has never been voted into office by any Muslim population). And the minute they get control, every woman loses 100% of her rights. Shi'a or Sunni.

And my fury at this insanity is that a woman like Tarzina Khutan can be divorced by her husband for failing to produce a child — divorced by a husband who loved her under pressure from his family, who blamed her entirely (and apparently never heard of low sperm motility factors). Then the husband decides he can't live without her. They try to get married again, but they can't. The imam tells them that she must marry another man, sleep with him at least once, then divorce him, and then, after an appropriate period of time, she can remarry the husband she loves and who loves her. BOTH THEIR FAMILIES (it's none of their business!) agree that this is what she must do.

BUT ... Tarzina doesn't want to sleep with any man but he husband. The families are adamant that this is the only way their remarriage can be allowed, since that's what the imam said.

So, last week Tarzina Khutan, who'd been psychologically beat to a pulp by her husband's family, experienced being divorced by bearing no children, who'd lost the only man she loved, who'd then seen the hope of having him ask her to come home, only to be stopped by her screwed-up literalist family and her ignorant, jot-and-tittle imam imam couldn't handle sleeping with some strange man in the village with whom "arrangements" had been made that he could have a one-nighter with a married woman with the imam's consent.

So, she killed herself with the only weapon she could find: eggplant herbicide. Now everybody is so distraught. Yeah, right.

If the ulema of this religion cannot manage to straighten out insane rulings and precepts like this, NOBODY in any country, Muslim or otherwise, should be listening to them about a damned thing. People should start refusing EN MASSE to attempt Friday prayers, Eid celebrations or anything else, until they get all eight madhabhs to SIMULENTANOUES revoke all shari'a courts everywhere on earth until all this BS gets straightened out, until every imam they know swears to stop preaching violence and storing C4 and mercury switches in the local mosque.

The Islam that is practiced today worldwide bears no resemblance to original Islam and violates the spirit of every single transcendental divine precept held in the Qur'an. It is a travesty, an act of egregious blasphemy against a vital revelation, and bespeaks a haughty, arrogant, vicious attempt by men to use a religion to control women for sex and work.

Now, I don't care if you don't like plain-speaking. I am sick to death of the ulema coming onto boards like and parsing their surrah and their ahadhitha and their sunnah to try to pretend that there isn't a GRAVE problem here.

And if you would like to see an end to prostitution, "mistresses" and the like, I would suggest you start a movement that demands that Muslim men be responsible for their own seuxal behavior and CONTROL THEMSELVES, NOT THE WOMEN.

And you might want to have those "temporary marriages" that imams are validating all over the planet illegalized as well. Muslim men are using them and the children born to them have NO RIGHTS. So don't give that specious argument that polygyny is so that children will have rights. Muslim men have a tremendous little population explosion going on with the women who are temporary mates. The women are ruined, and the children are bastards.

Don't tell me this is Islam, because I'm never going to buy it. And I want the ulema to stop pretending that it is—and to stop exhibing the UNBELIEVABLE SPINELESSNESS it is not to deal with these problems.

And don't anybody tell me that Tarzina Khutan went to hell for that suicide, or her husband, either. I think the more likely inhabitants of hell to come are first and foremost the imam, and then her husbands vicious little family, and then her own family who treated her like a person of no rights whatsoever (and that's another wound in itself).

Because I believe that Allah NEVER meant the things Islam in Allah's name to be done. Not the abuse and control of women (who should have equal rights to be imams themselves), not the violence, not the supremacist better-than run by Muslims ad nauseum. None of it.

It's enough. Stop using these websites to complain to Americans that you're just SO misunderstood — as people and a religion. Americans understand MUCH MORE than you think exactly what's going on here.

Stop this incessant, transparent PR and go solve your own problems, which are MASSIVE and are not going to go away because some little fluff-ball airhead in a hijab comes on to "defend her religion."

Who ought to be featured on this website are women like Konca Kouris. But yeah, I forgot, she's dead. She was tortured for 38 days by the Turkish Hizbollah (no relation to the Syrian one) and then murdered for her work on women's rights in Islam. The police looked for her but couldn't find her because she'd been moved around the country folded up in a sofabed.

Kouris knew her life was at risk long before she was kidnapped on her front porch in front of her five-year-old son. She left a will, and in it she requested that if she died her 17-year-old daughter be allowed to sit on the front row at the funeral.

After being tortured and murdered trying to return Islam to its senses, the imamry ruled that her request for her daughter was "halal".

Her daughter was forced to the back of the mosque and denied the opportunity to speak.

"My hijab is for me"

"Why not the niqab?

It seems in your picture you wear makeup? And should you not "lower the gaze" and "not show yourself to non-maharam"? You are perhaps influenced by western thought?

This is a matter of great debate. Your opinion?"

When you show your made-up face:

Isn't it like stamping your feet and saying

"LOOK AT ME"

How would a woman know who is the father of her child if she is married to two, three, or four men? Muslim men are allowed to marry more than one wife under strict conditions. It is better than having too many mistresses and unwanted children that will end up abused and in the streets. Children of a man who is married to more than one woman have equal rights in every thing.

Think Ann Nicole, Terry Chiavo, legalised prostituion in wars!

First, I notice in the pretense to disagree with terrorism this woman gives immense air play to the words of terrorists themselves and them feints hopelessness in the face of these "oppressed", implying that they ARE oppressed by Americans and that it's everybody else's fault but their own.

Second, I notice that the implication that she must be veiled is a commandment of Allah. A literalist interpretation — actually a Wahhabi interpretation — of one verse of the Qur'an, interpreted in the 7th century style. This woman needs to read a little Fazlur Rahman and stop sucking up to the little Wahhabi master who run the Georgetown center.

Third, just for historical reference, since this "senior researcher" fails to point it out: the veil was first worn by Sumerian temple prostitutes and adopted by upper-class women later on. From there it was passed down into cultures in the Middle East. DURING MOHAMMED'S LIFETIME THE ONLY WOMEN WHO WENT AROUND IN COVER WERE MOHAMMAD'S WIVES. So let's stop the affection of being a wife of Muhammad dressed like a nun (the wife of Christ) and stop pretending that God made a mistake when he created the female form — and implying that men are animals that can't take their eyes off you.

Your argument Paganplace relativizes the notion of freedom within a liberal democratic polity to a degree where it seems to lose any significance. My arguments are based not on my own little standards but on the simple principles of the European enlightenment, those which helped found the democratic societies we live in. I do firmly believe in freedom of religion and I do believe that pluralism (in any sense of the word) is a necessity. But what are we to say about those women who are forced into the hijab (you cannot deny that is a reality in western countries) and better yet those that wear the niqab or the burqa? Muslim women who choose the hijab may rightfully do so, but they must recognize that their statement on collective or societal grounds represents a larger constituency of people who in many parts of the world oppose our division of the temporal and the spiritual. The problem with your argument is that in the grander scheme of things, if we relativize the freedoms of our liberal societies to a point where any statement inferred from religion is accepted because we don't want to tread on individual rights, then we have lost that sense of civic responsibility which obliges to draw a distinction and take a stand in the event that a religious group seek exclusivity just by virtue of their religious or cultural practices. I can tolerate the wearing of the hijab, but Muslim women should not delude its opponents by saying it's a simple matter of choice. I refuse to look at religious statements of the sorts on a case by case basis, given the weight and influence such beliefs and practices carry in our societies.

As for Maryjane: typical relativistic arguments who embody how so many are not willing to take a stand and just let the oppression continue. Perhaps you should tell that the countless female victims of Muslim theocracies. There is a genuine voice for liberation from these feudal customs in the Muslim world and the more we brush this issue off as just a matter of respecting the ``other`` we will simply be going nowhere. You seem to forget that the Muslim world also make judgments about the west and its standards. You also seem forget that were trying to have a discussion here...

God is not interested in your Hijab. Neither does he support radicalized islamic Jidhad against the west.

Maryjane,

Victoria and other "liberal" Muslims like her refuse to come to grips with the flaws in the foundations of Islam. The hijab is a symbol of these flaws. It represents to many of us non-believers the conduct/symbol of the "koranic crazies".

Correct the flaws and wearing of the hijab will no longer be an issue since the garb will also fail historical review.

Ms. Mubarak wrote:

"As the conversation progressed, I felt something profound taking place within some of these young men. They realized for the first time that denouncing and countering terrorism does not mean they are departing from their faith or people. As we quoted one Islamic reference after another, they recognized – somewhere in their consciousness – that our position was authentically grounded within Islamic textual sources..."

I have personally decided to wear the hijab and I relish in the freedom the hijab gives me, the freedom from having my body exposed as a sex object or from being judged on a scale of 1-10 by strange men who have no right to know what my body or hair look like...By forcing people to look beyond her physical realm, a woman is valued for her intellect, personality and merit....More importantly, however, is that I wear my hijab for God...My desire to be with God in the hereafter motivates me to make certain sacrifices even if they might make me unpopular or elicit ridicule by others.

Christopher responds:

Thank you for an insightful and helpful addition to the dialogue at hand. It is all too common for people to forget that most of the victims of the recent disease of terrorism are fellow Muslims, and therefore fail to take stock of positions such as yours. It is almost always possible to engage people in dialogue, except when they have foreclosed it themselves. Hopefully other people dealing with extremists and radicalized elements of their own traditions will see this example and take heart.

You have offered a powerful and devout feminist defense of the wearing of culturally modest and appropriate garments. You have claimed your body and taken it away from others who have no rights to it. And that is an admirable thing. There are many ways devout religious people can seek proper relation with Divine power and grace, and being willing to take control and responsibility for one's own body should be embraced by true feminists everywhere.

thank you wiccan for your sincere thoughts-
paganplace aso brought her unique perspective

ive been on both sides of the fence (actually 3)

the ultimate egalitarianism on the surface SEEMS like it would be nudity, but then other criteria would come to bear-

as a matter of fact, there are rules of ettiquette even in a nudist colony.
one could even accuse them of being victorian in their social code. but thats another issue

youre so funny concerned-
do you really imagine that ive never spent any time thinking about wearing the hijab?

it was a deliberate decision, i didnt have anyone to tell me one way or the other-

and i have a tinkerbell t-shirt in my closet and when i wear it, i wear it with my pink hijab (i have 2). my mothers nickname was 'elf' and i claim my right to wear it.
as a matter of fact, every drawing and painting my mother ever did- she put wings on the things- and pretty ones too. she was very lacey like that.
(i thought it was somewhat tedious artistically but id die before i told her that)

did i have a point?

there goes my little butterfly mind chasing after bright and shiny objects again-

for the record- ALLAH loves beauty-

and i do makeup artistry myself and wear it now-(sometimes) but didnt for years and years and years...
i also shaved my head two different times, once in imitation of saint claire, and once to renounce vanity-

well between chasing kittens and throwing the giant cockroach in the back yard who camps out in my bathroom every night out ive lost my train of thought entirely. well i dont really throw him, he climbs onto my dustmop kind of dutifully- its our routine. you think hed find a less dangerous squat though i have 7 kittens who want to eat him or at least bite off his legs.
peace

I guess next inline to talk about are the nuns their dress habits. We should point out to them they are infringing on our freedom walking on the same sidewalk we do dressed the way they do. Who do they think they are? What a nonsense garbage you all spout!

". . . only to those apostates who were guilty of treason against the Muslim state."

no, there is no such thing as a 'muslim state,' any more than there are 'christian' or 'hindu' or 'shinto' states. states are political units and, as such, are not capable of religious affiliation.

do not presume too much. remember that your god is just a myth.

as for the hijab. you have it exactly backwards. as any fashion designer can tell you, in order to feed a fetish, one hides and covers the object of desire.

your all-encompassing, flowing garb does not protect your body from becoming a sexual object but rather ensures that that will be the case. ask any nun. better yet, ask a catholic school boy.

Ms.Mubarak, thank you for your sharing your interpretation of your Muslim faith. I personally do not understand the huge objection Christains voice over the dress of Muslim women. If you dress this way of your own free will, what does it matter what you wear or why? I wear a symbol of criminal execution on a chain around my neck. No Muslim has ever aked me to explain myself or complained that I was offensive, or claimed that I was somehow "forced" to wear it. I wear a cross as a testimate to my faith, just as you dress as a testimate to yours. God allows us all so many ways to testify to our faith, but the MOST IMPORTANT IS OUR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER. Christ did not say, "love your neighbor, if she's dressed like you." Christ does not say, "find out why this person is dressed as she is, and if the answer is satisfactory to you, then love her." He says, love your neighbor, however she is dressed and for whatever the reason. Understanding or even agreeing with someone is not a prerequisite for loving. Christains, look beyond the hijab and see a sister!

Koranic duels ease terror :

SANAA, YEMEN - When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and four other Islamic scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theological contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stakes gamble would end in disaster.

Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a Sanaa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing peace to his troubled homeland.

"If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence."

The prisoners eagerly agreed.

Now, two years later, not only have those prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, eager to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic militants have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously seen by the US as a failed state, like Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Since December 2002, when the first round of the dialogues ended, there have been no terrorist attacks here, even though many people thought that Yemen would become terror's capital," says Hitar, eyes glinting shrewdly from beneath his emerald-green turban. "Three hundred and sixty-four young men have been released after going through the dialogues and none of these have left Yemen to fight anywhere else."

"Yemen's strategy has been unconventional certainly, but it has achieved results that we could never have hoped for," says one European diplomat, who did not want to be named. "Yemen has gone from being a potential enemy to becoming an indispensable ally in the war on terror."

To be sure, the prisoner-release program is not solely responsible for the absence of attacks in Yemen. The government has undertaken a range of measures to combat terrorism from closing down extreme madrassahs, the Islamic schools sometimes accused of breeding hate, to deporting foreign militants.

Eager to spread the news of his success, Hitar welcomes foreigners into his home, fussing over them and pouring endless cups of tea. But beyond the otherwise nondescript house, a sense of menace lurks. Two military jeeps are parked outside, and soldiers peer through the gathering dark at passing cars. The evening wind sweeps through the unpaved streets, lifting clouds of dust and whipping up men's jackets to expose belts hung with daggers, pistols, and mobile telephones.

Seated amid stacks of Korans and religious texts, Hitar explains that his system is simple. He invites militants to use the Koran to justify attacks on innocent civilians and when they cannot, he shows them numerous passages commanding Muslims not to attack civilians, to respect other religions, and fight only in self-defense.

For example, he quotes: "Whoever kills a soul, unless for a soul, or for corruption done in the land - it is as if he had slain all mankind entirely. And, whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely." He uses the passage to bolster his argument against bombing Western targets in Yemen - attacks he says defy the Koran. And, he says, the Koran says under no circumstances should women and children be killed.
If, after weeks of debate, the prisoners renounce violence they are released and offered vocational training courses and help to find jobs.

Hitar's belief that hardened militants trained by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan could change their stripes was initially dismissed by US diplomats in Sanaa as dangerously naive, but the methods of the scholarly cleric have little in common with the other methods of fighting extremism. Instead of lecturing or threatening the battle-hardened militants, he listens to them.

"An important part of the dialogue is mutual respect," says Hitar. "Along with acknowledging freedom of expression, intellect and opinion, you must listen and show interest in what the other party is saying."

Only after winning the militants' trust does Hitar gradually begin to correct their beliefs. He says that most militants are ordinary people who have been led astray. Just as they were taught Al Qaeda's doctrines, he says, so too can they be taught more- moderate ideas. "If you study terrorism in the world, you will see that it has an intellectual theory behind it," says Hitar. "And any kind of intellectual idea can be defeated by intellect."

The program's success surprised even Hitar. For years Yemen was synonymous with violent Islamic extremism. The ancestral homeland of Mr. bin Laden, it provided two-thirds of recruits for his Afghan camps, and was notorious for kidnappings of foreigners and the bombing of the American warship USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 sailors. Resisting US pressure, Yemen declined to meet violence with violence.

"It's only logical to tackle these people through their brains and heart," says Faris Sanabani, a former adviser to President Abdullah Saleh and editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspaper. "If you beat these people up they become more stubborn. If you hit them, they will enjoy the pain and find something good in it - it is a part of their ideology. Instead, what we must do is erase what they have been taught and explain to them that terrorism will only harm Yemenis' jobs and prospects. Once they understand this they become fighters for freedom and democracy, and fighters for the true Islam," he says.

Some freed militants were so transformed that they led the army to hidden weapons caches and offered the Yemeni security services advice on tackling Islamic militancy. A spectacular success came in 2002 when Abu Ali al Harithi, Al Qaeda's top commander in Yemen, was assassinated by a US air-strike following a tip-off from one of Hitar's reformed militants.

Yet despite the apparent success in Yemen, some US diplomats have criticized it for apparently letting Islamic militants off the hook with little guarantee that they won't revert to their old ways once released from prison.
Yemen, however, argues that holding and punishing all militants would create only further discontent, pointing out that the actual perpetrators of attacks have all been prosecuted, with the bombers of the USS Cole and the French oil tanker, the SS Limburg. All received death sentences.

"Yemeni goals are long-term political aims whereas the American agenda focuses on short-term prosecution of military or law enforcement objectives," wrote Charles Schmitz, a specialist in Yemeni affairs, in 2004 report for the Jamestown Foundation, an influential US think tank.

"These goals are not necessarily contradictory, with each government recognizing that compromises and accommodations must be made, but their ambiguities create tense moments."
Some members of the Yemeni government also hanker for a more iron-fisted approach, and Yemen remains on high alert for further attacks. Fighter planes regularly swoop low over the ancient mud-brick city of Sanaa to send a clear message to any would-be militants.

An additional cause of friction with the US is that while Yemen successfully discourages attacks within its borders on the grounds that tourism and trade will suffer, it has done little to tackle anti-Western sentiment or the corruption, poverty, and lack of opportunity that fuels Islamic militancy.

"Yemen still faces serious challenges, but despite the odd hiccup, we sometimes have to admit that Yemenis know Yemen best," says the European diplomat. "And if their system works, who are we to complain?"

As the relative success of Yemen's unusual approach becomes apparent, Hitar has been invited to speak to antiterrorism specialists at London's New Scotland Yard, as well as to French and German police, hoping to defuse growing militancy among Muslim immigrants.

US diplomats have also approached the cleric to see if his methods can be applied in Iraq, says Hitar.

"Before the dialogues began, there was only one way to fight terrorism, and that was through force," he says. "Now there is another way: dialogue."

By James Brandon - Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor-from the February 04, 2005 edition.

"My hijab is for me"

Why not the niqab?

It seems in your picture you wear makeup? And should you not "lower the gaze" and "not show yourself to non-maharam"? You are perhaps influenced by western thought?

This is a matter of great debate. Your opinion?

I don't understand why every ignorant fool feels the need to post his or her unnecessary comments about the way they feel about why Muslim women wear a hijab.

Quite frankly, it's none of your business. They have their reasons for doing it and if you don't agree, nobody asked for your opinion.

You have your religion, they have theirs. You have your beliefs, they have theirs. Making these cynical jokes and asking insulting rhetorical questions, it's ridiculous and many of you close-minded people should maybe do some research before posting ignorant comments.

And just for the record,

"Concerned The Christian Now Liberated:
Victoria,

While you sweat in your hijab, spend some moments reviewing who required you to wear it. We non-believers would like to see your historical review. It might get you started on reviewing the fundamental flaws with the foundations of Islam. Some questions for your historical consideration: Do "pretty girlie wingie flying talking thingies" wear a hijab? If not, why not??? When Peter Pan plays in an Islamic state, does Tinkerbell" wear a hijab? If not, why not???

The writer of that comment thinks he or she is a funny character, but your a just a narrow-minded fool with nothing better to do but try to be a jerk.

Nivedeta, Victoria and others:
I agree with other commenter, like Nivedeta that Islamic values you mentioned are not seen in Muslim societies. I know personally Muslim girls doing hijab just to please their Father or in fear of displeasure of parents or brothers.

But at the same time I had an opportunity to meet Muslim girls, including someone in my family, who willingly took hijab and when confronted by parents and other relative for not to wear it, they just replied that they're doing it to please God and to be sincere in their faith.

My personal opinion is, there are Muslim girls doing hijab for either in fear of their parent or out of sincerity. And those who are doing it for fear of rebuke will sooner or later remove it when that fear or benefit doesn't exist.

Now philosophically speaking, the ultimate freedom human being should have is right to be naked. They born like that and thus they should live day by day like that. And in fact this way, there is more equality. But unfortunately this is not practical because of weather conditions and as well as perceived sense of status we all have in our beings.

Different culture have different sets of values, each has its own advantage and disadvantage. In case of Islam, there is an intersection of religion and culture and thus you will find where ever you go, Muslims have very similar set of values. And hijab falls in that intersection.

Non Muslim perceive Hijab as an insult, reason being it acts as demarcation between us and them, and as well they may feel inferiority/superiority complex.

One must understand, socially if anyone face difficulties then it is Muslim women who do hijab and one must also understand they are doing it out of sincerity or conformity. And I hope American women respect them for their sincerity and have patience with those who are doing it out of conformity. Because sooner or later conformist will revolt and sincere will make this world beautiful.

Sr Hadia:

Thanks for posting interesting and informative article. I really admire you for taking pain and interest in explaining and debating with other Muslims students around the world.

I have my share of meeting with Muslims who are misguided as you have explained. But at the same time with patience, knowledge and humility you can help them see truth. I believe most of this misguidance was due to lack of education or complacency.

Merry Meet, PaganPlace. Thanks for the comfort. Victoria catches enough grief from the ignoramuses on this forum without me adding to it, however unintentionally it was. And I can relate to not wanting to be seen as only a sexual object. I am blessed (HA!) with an hourglass figure. The only blessing is that there's enough behind to keep the front from making me tip over :-). In my youth I met too many guys who were amazed that someone like me had more than air pressure keeping my ears apart. I understand wanting to be a person, not a body.

You said, "In fact, it's usually the shame-filled religious conservatives that insist, "This immodesty means you're a 'loose woman' and deserve what you get when those men 'lose control.'" Comes from a view, or remnants of a view that women are temptresses that must be contained, making men *not* responsible for their reactions." I feel this view is insulting to men and women alike, reducing us to nothing more than our genitals. Like you said, people will live up, or down, to our expectations.

And, that got long... One of those verbose days for me, I suppose. :)

Ms Mubarak, I happen to think it's a good article, and thank you for engaging with the discussion that follows.

Wanted to answer Toulouse Roy on this, though:

"Ms. Mubarak you claim to be wearing this scarf in the name of god and god only, but yet you are at the same time making a social statement that in your view places you above the pack because you feel you lack a sense of alienation from a more elevated (or spiritual) lifestyle that women who enjoy prettying themselves up do."

She didn't show any lack of respect for people that *don't* wear the hijab, Roy, ...I think she's entitled to say how, and that, it has religious and social significance for her. She's allowed.

And, besides, I think the one she's wearing in her photo here is quite pretty, actually. Note it's *adorned,* even.

"Your sense of purpose and your egotistical view that you are connected to a higher state of mind and higher state of being and that the rest of liberal democratic society are in a state of alienation is exactly what fuels movements like the islamist movement. As so long as we conjure up elusive ideals like the one you advocate through the wearing of the hijab, the more we will have societies where some will feel they will have a right to impose such things."

Maybe, Roy, it's really about what people bring to these things. Including yourself. First you accuse Muslims of 'false humility,' then call her egotistical, and trying to impose things, ..all by your own standards.

Is that freedom?

Liberal democratic society has its ways of trying to impose its own standards, too, ...namely, through 'fashion' and the media. Yet, freedom to choose is freedom to choose.

Yes, it'd be naive to think that in countries with extreme social pressure, religious commandments, and even government enforcement, that all those women choose to conform to those standards freely.

But in a free country, she's actually allowed.

Well, Wiccan, I do think that Western experience shows that enforced modesty in women can often have the opposite effect intended than to reduce 'lustful thoughts' or sexual assault of exploitation:

When floor length skirts were mandated, ankles were fetishized. Showing a shin or having one's hair loose might be taken to mean one was a 'loose woman.' (quoted language softened for filters, oops. :) )

Now there's commercials for 'Girls Gone Wild' videos on TV, with a little bit blurred out, and everyone flips out with either titillation or indignance about seeing Janet Jackson's nipple for a half a second.

There's little difference regarding *what or how much* is covered, it's... attitude. Repression and senses of entitlement, vs, respect and, well, maturity.

It's a little easy for us, as Pagans, (and, probably as much of liberal America,) anyway, to be idealistic about certain things, coming from a standpoint of a certain sense of valuing an unashamed openness, awareness of responsibility, and celebratory sacredness about our bodies and our sexuality,
...because we shed a lot of the buildup about 'forbidden fruit' and 'temptation' and the like:

I think it shows in the kids raised Pagan, who are to my experience quite together, act with great respect, little confusion, and good senses of boundaries.

Especially compared to a lot of the Catholic school boys I grew up around, and, yes, how one can be treated in society at large.

Many men (and women) really are visually-oriented , sexually: experiments with pupil-tracking cameras show people unconsciously check people out all the time: the relative societal modesty-tabooes don't necessarily bear on any absolute sense of what's essentially 'sexual' or 'non-sexual,' 'respectful,' or 'disrespectful:'

...it's the attitudes we bring and really, a rich nonverbal language of human courtship and other interactions that can vary widely by culture.

It's a form of communication. There's a lot of languages to play with. I just think that if you *teach* men that their sexuality is a slavering beast that must be constrained externally, a lot of em will believe it and live down to expectations, instead of coming to more mature awarenesses.

Personally, I tend to cover up a fair bit, partly cause I can't take the sun, partly cause it's my style, and partly, actually, cause I don't particularly like how some men react to certain things. Of *course,* by and large, for the most part, say, American men are mature and respectful about it, (much more than the impression the media might leave one with,) but the exceptions tend to be pretty loud, if not dangerous, as rape statistics show.

In fact, it's usually the shame-filled religious conservatives that insist, "This immodesty means you're a 'loose woman' and deserve what you get when those men 'lose control.'" Comes from a view, or remnants of a view that women are temptresses that must be contained, making men *not* responsible for their reactions.

I think those reactions mostly turn bad when repressed and displaced. But, really, all women, must deal with them in this culture every day, to one degree or another.

One can be sex-positive in (or looking at) floor-length Victorian grey, or repressed (or looking at) in a bikini. The reality is about respect, for ourselves, and others, and the fact is, that's what good parents teach. I'm sure you do.

Ms. Mubarak:

Thank you for your poise and courage. It must be difficult for you to be a voice of reason and moderation when you are attacked by both extremes (from extremists who claim to own Islam and from extremists who fear Muslims).

I have a follow-up questions based on one of the posts above. How do I as a non-Muslim know whom to trust in Quranic interpretation? All of the panelists in this project based their "This is Islam" statements on the Quran, so do the extremists.

Although I don't practice anymore, I was raised Catholic and I admire that the Church has a codified interpretation of scripture -- that way no rogue preacher can claim to teach extremist ideas under the mantle of Catholicism. (I actually saw the bishop disband a group at my local church for becoming too extremist.)

Is there any such protection for you as a Muslim? Are you convinced that your explanation of Islam would be endorsed by more Muslims than those who endorse extremism?

But what of new research claiming that the hijab is a relic of Arab tribalism and not required by Islam? Textual analysis of Arabic as used at the time of Muhammad shows the Arabic used does not say cover the hair, but cover the hips. This makes more sense, as a woman's hips are far more suggestive than her hair, especially in a desert environment where the sand and wind will make your hair quite, well, unattractive.

Personally, I agree with Reza Aslan that the Arabs hijacked Islam and infused it with their own petty tribal peccadilloes. Sorta the way the Italians hijacked the Papacy until modern times.

Dear Hadia,

The statistics you cite are unfortunate, nevertheless rape is an act of violence, not a response to female dress. As a young professional consider the standard Washington D.C. business suit as the appropriate mode of conveying professionalism and hijab for private religious functions, otherwise cloaking in the professional environment signifies that your personal sectarianism overrides all else. Furthermore you might check out George Mason University's "Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics" online. Statistics for rape in the Muslim world are not even available for the following reason: "Under Islamic Law, ordinances
require women reporting rape to
provide a set number (4) of credible
male witnesses to verify the
crime. Victims unable to provide
these witnesses are often charged instead with adultery." At least in the U.S. we confront and deal with the problem openly. Hijab is not a solution.

Dear Hadia,

The statistics you cite are unfortunate, nevertheless rape is an act of violence, not a response to female dress. As a young professional consider the standard Washington D.C. business suit as the appropriate mode of conveying professionalism and hijab for private religious functions, otherwise cloaking in the professional environment signifies that your personal sectarianism overrides all else. Furthermore you might check out George Mason University's "Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics" online. Statistics for rape in the Muslim world are not even available for the following reason: "Under Islamic Law, ordinances
require women reporting rape to
provide a set number (4) of credible
male witnesses to verify the
crime. Victims unable to provide
these witnesses are often charged instead with adultery." At least in the U.S. we confront and deal with the problem openly. Hijab is not a solution.

In muslim countries you have great freedom to wear a hijab. If you wear a hijab, you have freedom to walk around, unmolested.

What a wonderful spin.

But are you really free to wear a tank top and shorts? Freedom means choice.

So are those enforcers in Saudi Arabia and in other countries who punish women who don't cover themselves... are they muslim blasphemers?

Victoria-

I think I misunderstood the original poster, and made you misunderstand me. I was surprised to find what I thought was a Muslim woman who saw this aspect of wearing concealing clothes as a rebuke to men (and to her skills as a mother). It has always seemed to me that the "boys will be boys" attitude was very disrespectful to men. To me, this attitude says because you are a man you have no self control or respect for others, and we all know that's not true.

I have no problem with the hijab. But even if I did, if you want to wear it or not wear it, that is your decision alone, and you should not be obliged to explain why. I do have some problems with the burka, one, because my cultural bias is to want to see the face, and two, because the times I have seen women wearing them it did not seem to be a free choice, but one imposed on them.

Victoria, you should know me well enough by now to know I would never impinge on the free expression of anyone else's faith. I did not mean to offend you or Ms. Mubarak, and I am truly sorry that I did.

It seems to me that muslins are always hiding behind a rhetoric of humility and credulousness(don't worry all other religions do the same).

Ms. Mubarak you claim to be wearing this scarf in the name of god and god only, but yet you are at the same time making a social statement that in your view places you above the pack because you feel you lack a sense of alienation from a more elevated (or spiritual) lifestyle that women who enjoy prettying themselves up do.

Your sense of purpose and your egotistical view that you are connected to a higher state of mind and higher state of being and that the rest of liberal democratic society are in a state of alienation is exactly what fuels movements like the islamist movement. As so long as we conjure up elusive ideals like the one you advocate through the wearing of the hijab, the more we will have societies where some will feel they will have a right to impose such things.

Victoria,

While you sweat in your hijab, spend some moments reviewing who required you to wear it. We non-believers would like to see your historical review. It might get you started on reviewing the fundamental flaws with the foundations of Islam. Some questions for your historical consideration: Do "pretty girlie wingie flying talking thingies" wear a hijab? If not, why not??? When Peter Pan plays in an Islamic state, does Tinkerbell" wear a hijab? If not, why not???

To Muslims the Koran is the very word of God, who spoke through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad: "This book is not to be doubted," the Koran declares unequivocally at its beginning. Scholars and writers in Islamic countries who have ignored that warning have sometimes found themselves the target of death threats and violence, sending a chill through universities around the world.
The Hadith No. 284, The Muslim, volume one, says that any Jew or Christian, who heard of Muhammad but did not convert to Islam, and died in disbelief, would rot in hell! Thus Islam withdraws from all Jews and Christians the right to believe in their faiths, and practice them as such.
"The unbelievers of the People of the Book and the idolators shall be in the Fire of Hell therein dwelling for ever; those are the worst of creatures. But those who believe, and do righteous deeds, those are the best of creatures..." (XCVIII: The Clear Sign: 5)
Here those Jews and Christians, who spurn Islam, have been lumped together with the idolators such as the Hindus, and classified as 'the worst of creatures'. Therefore the Koran commands:
"O believers, take not as your friends those of them, who were given the Book before you, and the unbelievers, who take your religion in mockery and as a sport..." (V: The Table: 60)
"The true believers say: Has not God ordered a chapter that commands the holy war" (Sura 47:22); or elsewhere: "Kill the idolaters wherever you find them, imprison them, besiege them, ambush them" (Sura 9:5); and, "Make war on unbelievers" (Sura 9:29). "When you come upon unbelievers, massacre them, tighten the bands of the captives that you will have taken. Then you will set them free, or you will release them for a ransom" (Sura 8:57).
"To Allah, there are no animals viler than those who do not believe and remain unbelievers" (Sura 8:57). That is why it is necessary to Islamize them by force and by humiliation. And those who resist Islam and its founder must be chastised, according to the Koran: "Here is the fate of those who fight Allah and his messenger: you will put them to death or you will make them suffer the torture of the cross; you will cut their hands and their feet alternately. They will be driven from the country" (Sura 5:37).
"Do not display cowardice, and do not call the infidels to peace when you are superior to them" (Sura 47:22). THIS ALLOWS THEM TO MAKE PEACE SO THAT THEY CAN MAKE WAR AGAIN LATER.
4.89": They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
"4.90": Except those who reach a people between whom and you there is an alliance, or who come to you, their hearts shrinking from fighting you or fighting their own people; and if Allah had pleased, He would have given them power over you, so that they should have certainly fought you; therefore if they withdraw from you and do not fight you and offer you peace, then Allah has not given you a way against them.
"4.91": You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority."

Well, at least this article explains all those recent headlines I've been reading in the Post and the NY Times:

"Would-be Rapist Thwarted by Hijab"
"Woman More Valued In Society After Hiding Herself From Society"
"Supreme Court Rules Men Have No Right To Look At Women"

Oh, right, these things never happened. Ms. Mubarak, I find your account of your outreach tour to be very interesting. But your comments on the rationale for a hijab are baffling. If anything, the hijab is a physical barrier ironically created because (as the theory goes) apparently Allah-fearing observant Muslim men still can't keep from just flipping out and raping everyone in sight unless everyone wears masking clothing. Can you not see the contradiction inherent in the use of the hijab? In a truly observant Muslim community, Allah's will should be done - precluding any need for protection from the predations of your fellow Muslims.

Worse, the use of the hijab or burqa in a secular society like the US is an affront. Unlike other religious symbols like a skullcap or a crucifix necklace, the hijab is such an overt religious rejection of everything around it that it is galling. The use of it is a screaming physical statement that "You are not worthy to behold me, infidel." What you term "modest, security, and protection" is really a continual slap in the face of everyone you are inherently accusing of being beneath you (let alone men, who apparently are all prospective rapists anyway). If you really don't want "strange men" to commit the horrible crime of looking at your hair, then shave it off and/or never leave the house. Otherwise expect to be justifiably criticized for the insult and burden you are placing on others in pursuit of your own selfish "modesty".

Oh, and it doesn't help that male terrorists from the West Bank to Pakistan constantly use the hijab and burqa in their efforts to pretend to be women while fleeing from police (so much for that vaunted martyrdom). These activities have done little to quell public fear that is of the most obvious sort: if you are covering yourself in a body-covering, what ARE you hiding?

wiccan- she was commenting on one of the practical aspects that arise from the wearing of the hijab- not the WHY of it.

im sure your son is not a raging hormonal out of control sex maniac undressing every woman he sees with his eyes and filled with salacious and iuncontrollable lusts- just lurking and waiting for any oportunity to unleash his wanton ways upon the female population.

but as an american woman who wears hijab- your diminishment or reaction of feeling demeaned in regards to your menfolk are not in any way part of my personal reasons for wearing it.

i am sorry for your reaction, but am not responsible fo it, and if you feel you must compare what i do for instance, with how it reflects on you to yourself-
i cant help that.

just as you declare your own rights to express your personal beliefs without restriction or persecution, i also declare this same right.

you have to allow me my rights also, without judgement or projecting upon me your own concepts.

when i put on my hijab, i am not in any way thinking about feeling superior to women without it-
in fact, sometimes i feel a little sorry for uncovered women, not out of any oneupsmanship -
but because i think to myself that the energy expended in the making oneself physically attractive, may be detracting from the efforts expended towards the development of the inner self.

of course one does not preclude the other, but we do present in society what we are inside to a degree- and sexually attractive dress does have the side effect of sometimes attracting the wrong kind of attention.

my hijab is for the sake of pleasing ALLAH-
you have your own goddesses and your own way of expressing your desires to please them.

this is mine.
please allow me the freedom that you yourself enjoy.

believe me, in a societal sense, the hijab in no way is advantageous for me.

so while youve focused on the one practical element, and made unfounded suppositions for her reasoning,
somehow you missed the stated purpose, that hijab is for ALLAH alone.

one of the practical side effects is that men are indeed forced to treat us as intellectual and spiritual individuals as there is no other communication being made to them.

is it insulting to men?

wel, ive asked alot, i mean ALOT of men, and their response is that men are indeed visually stimulated to a degree-

but islam is not a religion of cowardly ways- just as you proudly display elements of your chosen faith in society, we do also.

what is the difference?

when you wear a pentagram for instance (whether you do or dont is not the point) or t-shirt or bumper sticker or any thing you have that physically decalres your own faith-

are you casting judements against christians in doing so?

or are you simply expressing yourself?

please try and have suspicion for the good on people also.

what i am or how i look doesnt reflect on who you are or what you choose to believe.

To the mother who has raised a son that respects women ("What Hijab Signifies"):
I'm glad you've raised a son who treats women as his equals and I'm sure all the women in his life (wife, daughters, colleagues) will be grateful to you for that.

I'm wondering if you're aware of rape statistics in America: "Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men. In 2004-2005, there were an average annual 200,780 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. About 44% of rape victims are under age 18..." (see http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html)

These women are ALWAYS victims, under every circumstance.

But my point is, do not delude yourself for a minute to think that rape is a "Muslim problem."

I do not wear hijab because I'm afraid of getting attacked. I wear this hijab for God first and foremost. Second of all, it's about not wanting to even be looked at by other men in a way that is inappropriate or sexually suggestive. Check out the meaning of "scopophilia" - the love to look. Men love to look at women, and they especially love to look at women who are provocatively dressed and showing a lot of skin.

I have decided NOT to be one of them and therefore I wear hijab (which is loose clothing + headcover, not just the headcover). Of course, a woman could be modest without necessarily covering her hair. But I dress the way I do because I believe this is what God wants of me.

Thank you for your comments,
Hadia

Nadia Mubarak says wearing hijab gives her "freedom from having my body exosed as a sex object."
But wearing hijab signifies much more in the American context. It demeans me as the mother of an adult son. It insinuates that I, and millions like me, have raised lust-crazed, impulse-driven, sex-objectifying sons against whom Muslim congregants must cloak themselves. Curiously, I have never heard another woman protest the hijab as an insult to their mindful childrearing efforts, often life's most important work. The wearing of hijab should be seen as a convention more appropriate to addressing sexual intentions within the Islamic world, not within America.
Mohammad recommended hijab to repell assaults by 7th century rapists. The cultural anachronism insults American motherhood, for we have raised our sons not only to respect women as social equals, but to dignify them with equal treatment under the law. As mothers we are not failing.

Bottom line.

God is make believe.Like Santa Claus is make believe.Like the Tooth Fairy is make believe.
Humans like to make believe.It feels so good
to think that death can be avoided by pretending
there's a place in the sky for all good Muslims
to go to,instead of dying.
Its a belief motivated by the fear of death.
And its so very childish.

Mohammad Siddique Khan, said "Until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation."

Wars are like grizzly bears, easy to catch and impossible to turn loose. Ask Mr Bush.

The last time America faced those with that firm a resolve it became a common statement, "when we get done Japanese will only be spoken in hell." Are we headed for, "when we get done the only place the Koran will be read is in hell?" All the meters are pegged to red and beyond.

Food for thought, http://www.hoax-buster.org says the Bible is a hoax, not the word of God. Do Muslims have what it takes to ask the hard questions about the Koran? Is it really the word of God. My experience is that Christians and Jews don't have what it takes to ask the hard questions about the Bible so don't feel bad that Muslims can't ask the same question about the Koran.

I'll spare you my usual arguments but note that God does not need people to do His work, created the universe with no help at all from people. Does that suggest something about killing one's self to kill others in the name of the Koran, sorry, meant to say in the name of Allah who clearly needs people to get what He wants? Think about it but I have no faith in what you will think. Once the Devil gets his claws into a person that person will kill self to get to Devil's kingdom, hell.

What Ms. Mubarak fails to see is that her reading of the Koran is a highly selective one. The problem with Muslim apologists is that they always claim to carry religious authenticity and always presuppose that religious systems are benign and righteous discourses which help the poor or advocate social justice.

The reality with Islam is that certain passages do sanctify the murder of non-believers and glorifies martyrdom in the name of allah. As so long as moderates shield their faith by invoking spiritual niceties about the virtues of being a Muslim in the west, extremism will continue to flourish abroad since we will continuously fail to recognize that the islamist message is inseparable from the Koran itself. You have to understand that those perpetrating suicide bombing attacks or honor killings carry them out with a set ideological framework in mind. They have a scriptural basis for their acts and herein lies the problem with your religion.

On a side note, when we look at the ranks of groups such as Hamas, these groups are not ran by poor, ignorant or uneducated political activists, but are usually ran by middle class professionals who are heavily attracted to an ultra-literalist reading of the Koran and have the end goal of a global caliphate in mind. Political Islam is not the mindless ramblings of an oppressed bunch but an ideology which legitimizes its precepts on a scriptural basis and applies itself using the techniques of 20th century mass political totalitarian movements.You can have religious extremism recede in a society, but to think that the violent potential of religion proper will somehow vanish or simply cease to exist is a naive and utopian argument.

As for the treatment of women in Islam, I find it absurd to say that your hijab is some kind of basileus against sex-depraved men. This is another ridiculous notion stemming from religions like Islam that human beings are innately lustful and impure creatures whose appetites for sex must be tamed through bizarre contraptions such as the hijab in this case. Christopher Hitchens was right to say that religions view the birth canal as a one-way street! You are essentially trying to deny what is a fundamental biological imperative to our species. Looking past any highly individualized or subjective conception of the hijab, I wonder how empowered burqa wearing women feel? To deny your own physical appearance by sheltering yourself behind a headscarf is a testament to the absolute debasement of humanity found within religions. I find your argument rather condescending and insulting to those who believe that beauty in women is not just sexual. Beauty can fall in a multitude of categories which go far beyond your narrow definition of it carrying only the weight of sexual reproduction and sex for pleasure's sake.

"What hijab signifies:
Hadia Mubarak claims "hijab gives me freedom from having my body exposed as a sex object."

The public wearing of hijab by women of the Islamic faith in America demeans me as the mother of an adult son. It insinuates that I,
and millions like me, have raised lust-crazed, impulse-driven, sex-objectifying sons against whom Muslim congregants must cloak themselves."

Ma'am, I've thought this myself many times. It seems to me to be very insulting to Muslim men, and men in general, that society considers them such animals that women are forced to conceal themselves so they won't be attacked.

Dear Melissa,
Thanks for your question. The fact is that polygamy was a common practice in pre-Islamic civilizations, including Christian, Jewish and pagan civilizations. Islam did not prescribe polygamy; rather it restricted polygamy. In fact, God establishes monogamy as the standard in the Quran. In verse 4:3, God says that "…marrying one [woman] is more suitable in order to prevent you from doing injustice."

Furthermore, in cases where Islam allows polygamy, it was specifically intended as a means to take care of orphans, widows, and those women who've been abandoned by society. In no way, shape or form does the Quran encourage men to marry more than one woman to satisfy their own lusts or desires. When Muslim men actually do this in certain parts of the world, they are violating the spirit of the Quran and exploiting a privilege that God allowed for specific circumstances.

Furthermore, while Islam specifies that polygamy is allowed for the purpose of taking care of abandoned women, it also places many conditions upon that practice, which is that husbands have to be able to provide financially for each woman, provide each with a separate home, provide for their children, treat them equally and with justice, etc. But even then, God says, "No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to deal with your wives equally" (4:129), which is an indication that it is preferable to marry only one wife, and that God will hold a man accountable for any injustices he inflicts upon her.

For Ms. Mubarak only,

For Dr. Jackson only,

As with all pro-Muslim commentators especially those bred, born and brainwashed in Islam, you missed the important issue i.e. the flawed foundations of Islam and all the flawed foundations of contemporary religions.

Please peruse the following followed by your own critique of the flawed foundations of religions:

A synopsis reiterated many times because of its importance:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth. Analyses of his life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists)via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian/Jewish/Pagan sects.

3. Mohammed, an illiterate, hallucinating Arab, also had embellishing/hallucinating scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the Koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers , the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases and the Filipino koranics with most of this misery being funded by the third Axis of Evil aka Iran.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centred and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’"
The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations/embellishments and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus for an analysis of Jesus' life to include his illiteracy.

Excellent post. She is a true role model for women of all faiths.

Hadia Mubarak claims "hijab gives me freedom from having my body exposed as a sex object."

The public wearing of hijab by women of the Islamic faith in America demeans me as the mother of an adult son. It insinuates that I,
and millions like me, have raised lust-crazed, impulse-driven, sex-objectifying sons against whom Muslim congregants must cloak themselves. Curiously, I have never heard another woman protest the hijab as an insult to their mindful childrearing efforts, often life's most important work. The wearing of hijab should be seen as a convention more appropriate to addressing sexual intentions within an Islamic world, not within America.
Mohammad recommended hijab to repell assaults by 7th century rapists. Within the context of our society the anachronism insults American
motherhood, for we have raised our sons not only to respect women as social equals, but to dignify them with equal treatment under the law. As mothers we have not failed.

If women and men are equal, then why does it explicitly state in the Koran that one man may take four wives?

Just one comment...How many people actually practice what you have just underlined, be in women's empowerment, marriage or choice of religion of "kafirs"?

Hadia, thank you for such a thoughtful post. It's interesting that you would have one of your most intense debates on extremism in East Africa.