Comments on: Nessie allows bigoted ‘debate’ about niqaab

By: Whatever

Whatever — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:58:40 +0000

Is that has-been caricature of a woman still around….and talking about the Niqab too….next step would be a reality show to really get realy “famous”.

By: Yusef H

Yusef H — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:53:48 +0000

As a Briton who grew up in the seventies I tend to feel that if someone wants to wear a wheelie bin they are making an interesting statement. As a Muslim I tend to feel that the tendency toward the niqaab at the moment in unnecessary and possibly unwise, given the current atmosphere of mistrust and hostility. My understanding of this, and I’m sure many will say this is wrong, is that hijab is fard. And that niqaab is a cultural device for concealing identity, which may or not be desirable depending on the circumstances. It covers hijab, certainly. Prominent women in society, and female relative of prominent men, may have good reasons for concealing their identity. Similarly in this society. Having been married to Arab women and having spent some considerable time in an Arab country, I can see the reasons for it - and yet even in the Arab world there are issues - creeps getting into places where only women should go, for example. In this circumstance it most certainly does serve the function of hijab. I have also seen it used to avoid gossip - along the lines of “That’s the fifth time she went into town today”. However, sometimes it seems to be yet another case of what I call “Islam by vector”. Far too many of us somehow imagine that if they head away from (what they perceive as) Western norms in the direction of (what they perceive as) Islamic ones, the further they go the better. Very often they miss their target completely and go right out the other side. A bit like going twice as far for Umrah and ending up doing Tawaf in the middle of the Australian desert.

Why am I writing this ? Because I’m a a tad annoyed after seeing misleading information from a particular mosque, aimed at Muslim girls, that confuses hijab and niqab in a manner that appears to be entirely deliberate. Some people just want a very visible result. Are they not afraid that this might be show, and and that the baby may end up being thrown out with the bathwater?

By: Umm Abdullah

Umm Abdullah — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:09:46 +0000

Actually the majority of those I know both here and in France who wear the niqab are reverts; often of noticeably white European background. However no-one is comfortable with this fact as many in the west do view those of a different background; particularly those with darker skin as being intellectually inferior to the white European, and thus its easier to excuse women wearing the niqab as being forced to do so or at the very least brainwashed into it. It seems certain ‘progressive’ figures such as Taj Hargey have a self-hate complex in this vein, he was on after me on the sole occasion I phoned John Gaunt’s show a few years back and his line of thought was very much that ‘we brown folk’ should toe the line with white Britons and their culture because ‘they have been kind enough to “allow” us to live in their country’. Almost like we owe a favour to our ‘colonial masters’ not to rock the boat because they have given us ‘uncivilised’ people the right to live in their wonderfully civilised, developed society. He then started to make personal comments about me; despite clearly having not listened to my call and made the assumptions that I was a born Muslim who had been forced to wear the niqab by culture; when John Gaunt pointed out I was a convert who had chosen to wear niqab even before marriage, Hargey became flustered and started mumbling something about these converts being more catholic than the pope….

By: Suleiman b. Salim

Suleiman b. Salim — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:45:48 +0000

The “shaykh of azhar” Ahmed Tayyib says the niqab is not fard or sunnah and just permissible, and leaves it at that! However Mufti Ali al-Jumuah contradicts him by saying that it is Fard according to the hanafis, shafi`is and hanbalis and fard in certain conditions according to the malikis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBcxm5Tas1I&feature=related Suleiman b. Salim´s last [type] ..Dawrah Rawhah Translation – 16th July 2010

By: africana

africana — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:35:57 +0000

i also wanted to add that i’m of the view that niqab is most likely obligatory. of late, the idea that it’ merelya cultural practise hs surfaced but i really don’t see how any of the great imams, most of whom held it to be obligatory, could have missed something so important.

By: africana

africana — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:32:05 +0000

assalamu alaikum,

i try to avoid niqab related stories as much as possible..just too frustating.

almost as annoying as the steve of twickenham of this world, though, are those muslims who speak out in support of the ban because they either see niqab as either culturally irrelevant, an innovated practise or just not madatory. they feel that the govenment of france, for example,by banning it is helping in some way to achieve what in their mind is some islamic ideal, rather than seeing it for the oppression that it is.

it’s an absurd attitude that smacks of chauvinism as the very same people would have no issue with people holding differences of opinion on any other matter whether in islam or in any other faith/moral code.