Much as I suspected that the snake Tantawi’s words would be thrown in the faces of Muslims in the West, this has now happened, as an MP from Silvio Berlusconi’s political machine “People of Freedom” has cited him as justification … Continue reading
Yesterday it was reported that Muhammad Tantawi, the dean of al-Azhar University in Egypt, announced that he was going to issue an “edict” banning the niqab or female facial veil. This happened after he visited a girls’ school, and found … Continue reading
The sister known as Digital Nomad has posted two interesting entries recently, the most recent on this nonsense of condemning mobile phones as a cause of fitna and fornication. This is not just within the Muslim community — Haredi Jews … Continue reading
I’ve been getting a lot of tweets lately about talk of a ban on the so-called burqa in France, the latest chapter in the long saga of the French obsession with what Muslim women wear on their heads (Muslim responses: … Continue reading
Sister Ardo from Ottawa (whom you may remember contributed to my coverage of the Jack Straw niqaab affair of 2006) has responded to sister Aaminah’s article on observing niqaab while interacting with others over the internet, as a reminder of … Continue reading
Last week the Royal United Services Institute, “the leading forum in the UK for national and international Defence and Security” founded by the Duke of Wellington, published a report from a panel which included, according to this report in the … Continue reading
The Conservative Party leader David Cameron wrote in today’s Observer about the “British values” issues which were under much discussion this past week. Of merit is his debunking of stupid suggestions like having a Veterans’ Day (when we already have … Continue reading
YouTube - Channel 4’s alternative Christmas message This is the Alternative Christmas Message that Channel 4 broadcast after the earlier candidate, Khadija Ravat, pulled out after discovering that the community was opposed and that she would be broadcast at the … Continue reading
Sunday Telegraph: Ban veils in public, says Asian bishop The Anglican Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali (son of a convert to Catholicism from Islam) jumps in on the latest bogus veil controversy by calling on the Government “to introduce legislation … Continue reading
Comment is free: Lifting the veil Rajnaara Akhtar (chair of Protect Hijab) on the recent fake scandal involving the Somali who was involved in murdering the policewomen Sharon Beshenivsky and supposedly might have escaped disguised as a Muslim woman in … Continue reading
The contrived controversy over the Channel 4 “Alternative Christmas Message” dragged on today, with the Daily Mirror featuring an interview with the lady in which she told the interviewer that she, being a patriotic British citizen, will be watching the Queen rather than her own message. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, however, comes out with the usual attack on the niqab, alleging that Channel 4 “has decided to glamorise and validate the veil, showing cool indifference to the meanings of one of the most violently contested symbols in the world today”. The article appeared in the Evening Standard, which does not generally publish its opinion pieces online.
Continue readingVia Deenport and Pickled Politics, we hear that Channel 4 is planning to have a woman in niqab to read their “alternative Christmas message” this year: A veiled Muslim woman will deliver this year’s alternative Christmas speech on Channel 4, … Continue reading
Naima Bouteldja, in today’s Guardian, discusses the impending Dutch niqab ban and the pattern of governments stoking anti-Muslim hostility for political ends: Naima Azough, a Dutch Green MP, points out that the ban would apply to fewer than 100 women. … Continue reading
Mere Islam: The Face Veil…Let’s Be Honest Abu Iman Squires (of Mere Islam and Muslim Answers) delivers a refutation of the recent article published by the so-called Muslim Canadian Congress (the “Islamic organisation” which tells powerful non-Muslims what they want … Continue reading
BBC NEWS: How veil remarks reinforced its support How Jack Straw’s comments on his dislike of the niqab (and the idiotic tabloid press campaign which followed it) increased the popularity of the veil among young British Muslim women, with the … Continue reading
The latest edition of the British anti-fascist magazine [Searchlight](http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php] has a front-page feature on last month’s incident where chemical precursors to explosives were found at a house belonging to a member of the British National Party, which was under-reported in … Continue reading
First up: there is a programme on tomorrow (Monday) evening on Channel 4 entitled Women Only JIhad, about the struggle for Muslim women to gain admittance to a number of mosques in northern England. It’s part of the Dispatches slot … Continue reading
Nzingha has an excellent article, ma sha Allah, regarding some of the popular perceptions about what women can and can’t do in a veil, in response to a particularly stupid article in the Arab News which claims that the veil … Continue reading
The Guardian today printed an article by the journalist Zaiba Malik about her experiences wearing the niqab for a day around London. This follows last night’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald slot in which Saira Khan - yep, her again ([1], … Continue reading
What follows is an account of the experiences of a young sister in Canada who has been wearing the niqab since she was 17 and at school. Her name is Ardo; she is of Somali origin and lives in Ottawa, and is presently in her fourth year at university. I wanted to present a real sister’s experience and perhaps defence of the niqab, because although I strongly defend the right of Muslim women to wear it (and, insha Allah, I may post a more comprehensive defence either here or at the Sharpener either today or tomorrow), I am not best-placed to do so as a man, so I sought Ardo’s experiences. What she told me was both enlightening and sometimes depressing.
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