You know that someone has no knowledge of Islam when they consider forced marriage to be an Islamic practice, or when they completely ignore the fact that the Prophet (pbuh)’s first wife was a successful businesswoman 15 years his senior.

Also if they see inter-racial marriage as an un-Islamic practice when it is actually encouraged: Maria the Copt, one of the wives of the Prophet (pbuh), was a black Egyptian slave.

My fav: How Islam from day one was about extreminating Jews and Muslims hate Jews- leaving aside the millions of Jews who lived and found sanctuary in Muslim lands for hundreds of years and the fact that Kosher is the only non Muslim meat we can eat and Jewish women along with Christians the only non Muslim women we can marry

Basically its transferance - Christian guilt for anti-semitism and the holocaust can be fobbed of on Muslims and zionists can play along to justify stealing Palestine

To add to Tia’s list about forced marriage- when they thing FGM and Honor killings or killing civilians are Islamic

“Well, it doesn’t seem like pedantry to me” That’s because you’re interested in the small differences between them, not what they have in common.

“Hajeeb” And now that George Carty mentions it, yes. That one annoys me too.

I think this amounts to quibbling over terminology that boils down to an attempt to deflect the real issue. Whether you call it a burka, burqa, niqab or hijab, it’s still symbolic of a mentality which dictates that women must cover themselves in public.

The burka, or whatever, is a cultural imperative, not religious, that pre-dates Islam. It goes back to the time when Sultan’s took many very young wives. These child-brides made the bearded old husbands jealous and very insecure, so they covered their wives in veils in order to discourage any extra-marital temptations.

The burka is symbolic of this male insecurity that has been deeply embedded in Mideastern cultures for many centuries. Women are born temptresses who would be harlots if they weren’t controlled absolutely by their husbands. There is no other reason to wear these oppressive, black garments in the withering heat of the Mideast.

The fact that a few Muslim woman living outside the Mideast insist on covering themselves is irrelevant. A lifelong slave will refuse to remove his manacles because he may have become content in his servitude or simply fear a beating by his master. Either way, it is the only life that he knows. That does not mean that manacles should be accepted as optional clothing in a free society, which is what France happens to be.

Wearing a burka is an archaic cultural phenomenon that is symbolic of the oppression of women in male dominated societies that would make them second class citizens.

I think France faces a more difficult challenge with this issue than the US. In the US, most Muslims have fully integrated into the society and they’re not living in separate communities within the country. My city has a large Pakistani and Iranian population which are quite ‘Americanized’. While we see women in burqas all the time, we also see them as neighbors rather than just Muslims. In France, a large percentage of the Muslim population has been ghettoized, and there is a big unemployment problem. A couple of years ago, there were major riots in that country that spread outside of the Muslim areas. I think the French may be reacting to a Muslim community which has a penchant for turning violent and appears to want to exist as a separate Islamic state within their country.

Eudaemonion sums my thoughts on the issue, especially the racism and lies which John and ilk routinely use in their orientalist straw man arguments. Of course these are the same old refuted arguments of a dying culture trying to relive its glory days as an empire. You’d think a country like France would have more pressing issues(their economy, perhaps) then the few woman who wear burqa. I’m not surprised because France is most racist country in Europe, and on top of that their “leader” is a former Mossad agent. A “free society” which won’t allow woman to wear as she wants. I think its high time that such “western culture” be sent packing back the cesspool it emerged from.

“A “free society” which won’t allow woman to wear as she wants.” Or what her husband, father or brothers will beat/kill her for not wearing.

We wouldn’t allow a Klu Klux Klan outfit, so why allow the niqab?

Personally, those who wear the Burqa and Niqab are anti-Allah if their main aim is to hide the body which Allah had bestowed upon them. I read a case of a woman in that mad Saudi Arabia requesting a divorce purely for the main reason that her husband saw her face. Is Allah’s face that ugly?

Muslims cannot progress as long as they choose to quibble over frivolous issues rather than getting on with their lives. We should contribute more to understanding of Allah in science and technology, and not endless discourse over pieces of cloths worn by peoples whose IQ is far away form the norm.

I can’t help but notice a lot of Muslim women wearing one too many cloths in a hot sunny day like it is today, and that is just not fair. They are sweating and dizzy to the point where one notices the sudden slow pace they choose to take when one comes under the shade of trees just to prolong comfort.

What is wrong with long cotton skirts and shirts instead of these cheap Chinese nylon pyjamas/jilbabs?

How about “the hardline Wahhabi-Ikwani-Salafi-Deobandi sects”? Hat tip to Mr Hergey for that one today, ranting about “the non-koranic burka” in the Times letters page.

“I’m not the only Muslim who gets annoyed at the tiresome use of the term “burka”, a term almost never used within the community to refer to the garment under discussion here.” MPACUK is one part of the “community” that uses it with that meaning: http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/5777/102/

Louis, I’ve no idea where you got this ‘relive its glory days as an empire’ shtick from. I certainly said no words to that effect, let alone believe that some pointless committee, somewhere in that bureaucratic cesspool that is French Government, was tasked to consider said issue.

Now, to answer your questions.

No, I do not believe that every instance of women wearing a Burqa is motivated by pure, unadulterated personal choice. I would contend that, where a women IS motivated by pure choice, she would be in the minority. I would think that the majority of Hijab wearing women do so because of its cultural import rather than because of any religious reason. Those devout women would also be in the minority.

I do NOT deny there might be areas where removing these garments would lead to shame, the withdrawal of social acceptance, and even the threat of violence. There is nothing illegal about a group of people placing conditions on social acceptance, and using ostracism as a tool of enforcing group uniformity. That is normal human behaviour. Threats of violence, however, should be handled by the proper legal means, with the individual in question taking the appropriate steps to ensure their safety.

For those cases where individuals do not wish to wear the burqa, then they are perfectly free to take it off over there in the UK (I’m in Australia). That is their fundamental right. What is not their right is the continuation of social or familial acceptance to which she was accustomed, of which the burqa was a condition.

Many Muslim women do not feel this choice already, and walk around everyday, getting on with their lives, without so much as a worry. I would suggest those who wish to emulate their example.

If the women living within any Muslim community were free to question religious authority and its accompanying ‘cultural’ imperatives, and they still chose to cover themselves, then that would be a difficult thing to criticize. However, many Muslim countries don’t permit the kind of questioning or free thinking that might lead to the choice not to wear a burqa. In fact, many Muslim girls grow up in complete ignorance, having been denied an education or any access to the outside world. So their choice to wear the burqa is clouded by very real oppression, which carries over into their adult lives. They wear the burqa because they’ve been told all their lives that that’s what they have to do or they risk serious consequences. The decision is not an informed choice at all. Again, after a while, they will become content in their manacles, and some may even fight to keep them on.

As for the French president’s statement, he obviously sees the burqa as a symbol of the repression of women in Islamic societies and that it is a tradition which is designed to prevent young Muslim girls from fully integrating into French society. The burqa is their constant reminder that they’re not part of the country in which they are living, while it suggests at the same time that those who don’t wear a burqa are somehow less pure and corrupt. In a world without Islamic extremism and terrorism, the wearing of such garments probably wouldn’t be an issue at all for Sarkhozy, but that’s not the world that any of us lives in.

The bottom line is that the wearing of niqabs, hijabs and burqas is based upon the notion that the sight of a woman’s hair and flesh is a temptation which promotes impure thoughts and acts by men who cannot be held responsible for their actions. The woman is inherently a vessel of evil who cannot be trusted, so she is covered and sequestered. This is most definitely not a religiously mandated tradition. But it does come straight from the male clerics and mullahs who have ruled Muslim communities for centuries. The first Muslim women to cover themselves certainly didn’t do so out of their own volition.

Eudaemonion, the ‘glory days as an empire’ came from DrM above, who said you ‘summed up’ his thoughts on the issue. Granted, I shouldn’t have lumped you in with him. While I accept these aren’t your views, I might still say that I was not trying to suggest that there had been a committee put together to address the issue of empire (as you seem to think I was saying). I was referring to the committee led by Bernard Stasi (which included muslims) that was set up to investigate the well established concept of laicite in France, and make recommendations to the government, which subsequently led to the 2004 law on religious symbols in schools.

DrM’s comments reflect a worryingly widespread (false) narrative that pits a ‘racist’ white French electorate against an undifferentiated group of ‘Muslims’ who oppose it. Such thinking is not merely untrue (there is a huge number of Muslims in France who support the ban, this is fact), it could not be more unhelpful.

Your arguments I must say are equally dubious. Firstly, “for those cases where individuals do not wish to wear the burqa, then they are perfectly free to take it off over there in the UK”. This is pie in the sky! On what planet do you live? While ‘taking the appropriate steps to ensure their safety’ when faced with violence all sounds very nice, it has no grounding in reality. The fact is that many women are not free to take it off (without the threat of violence or the prospect of complete isolation from her only community). I publicly debated a number of male muslim students over and over again at Leicester University, who openly spoke of their perceived ‘right’ to beat their sisters and relatives who unveiled (please note, I am by no means suggesting this is mandated within Islam or that it is reflective of all muslims, I’m simply trying to point out that there is a very real culture of oppression that exists within many muslim communities in the UK, and it needs desperately to be addressed).

A behaviour’s cultural import says nothing whatsoever of its right to exist. The notion that it lies beyond criticism, or that it is the business of those who practice it and has nothing to do with meddling outsiders, is (fortunately) not one that is given much credence in secular states. The ‘cesspool’ of Western culture aside, the French state has a duty to combat the erosion of its own values. It did not just ban headscarves, it banned ALL religious symbols in public schools.

There is also an important point to be made about the connection of the foulard islamique as they referred to it in France, and the rise of islamic fundamentalism within France. During the violent attempt by the Algerian government in the 1990s to purge armed fundamentalist swathes from the country, many of these radicals sought refuge in France. There is a direct correlation between the rise of organisations such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FSI) and Conseil Europ’een des Fatwas et de la Recherche and the increase in the number of women wearing a headscarf of some kind. The latter would make declarations such as ‘We are determined to convince Muslim women that covering her head is a religious obligation. God has prescribed this modest dress for the Muslim woman so that she can be distinguished from the non-Muslim woman’.

The defense of the veil in schools is but a small part of the overall educational agenda of some of these groups within France, and each appeasement by the French state is a bridge to the next. The state in Western countries has a duty to oppose such moves, and to protect where it can against women who may the victims of oppression within their communities.

Now, while none of this may tie in to your own feelings on the subject, painting a pretty picture of a world in which people are ‘perfectly free’ to act as they wish simply does not wash.

I think its a bit pedantic to call the Burqa a “shuttlecock”, but the niqaab the good cultural practice because its transmitted from a differet culture. Critiquing the word is not exactly a commentary on the practice. A French pancake is a crepe. Different but ultimately the same.