What a veiled woman can do
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...
Category: Niqab (face-covering)
Enough of the silly veil-dabbling articles
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...
An insider’s view on niqab
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.
Garton-Ash, Bennett and Berkoff on niqab
Three articles today's papers on the ongoing niqab controversy. First off, here's the actor Steven Berkoff in today's Independent letters: For Jack Straw it concerns his ability to read the mind on the human...
More on the niqab situation
First up, here's Abu Eesa: "this is an excellent opportunity for qualified Muslims to debunk the mysteries behind such a visually obvious, mysterious and perhaps even shocking statement of a Muslim woman’s identity". As...
Woolas: “appease the far right!”
A junior minister, David Woolas, has offered his two-pennyworth on the niqab controversy in today's Sunday Mirror, not online, by suggesting that it could play into the hands of the far right: "It can...
Open season on Muslims
It seems to have been open season on Muslims in the media the last few days, with three inflammatory anti-Muslim stories becoming front page news in either the morning or the evening papers in as many days. First it was the Pc Bashar story, which turns out to have been exaggerated anyway, but nonetheless made the front pages of the tabloids and was the lead story on Vanessa Feltz’s phone-in, with the host branding it “pick-and-mix policing”. Then there was the “Jack Straw on veiling” controversy, and then the petty incident of the Muslim cab driver who refused to carry a blind woman with a guide dog.
Busybodies on niqab (2)
It's still open season on niqabis, as the Independent prints four letters in response to Deborah Borr's attack on them in Saturday's edition. The letters can be read here in the left-hand column (not...
Another busybody article about hijab
A woman called Deborah Orr (or should that be Deborah Borr) wrote an article for today's (Saturday's) Independent attacking Muslim women who cover their faces ([1], [2]), alleging that face coverings are "are physical...
Does this lady look angry to you?
Clipping of picture of a Muslima in niqab from today's Observer This picture appeared in the Observer today, on page 19 of the Review section next to this article by Miranda Sawyer. The article...
Shaikh Nuh Keller on niqab (updated)
Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller has issued a new lecture on the subject of niqab via the website Suhba.org. It is available to the public in the "lessons" section of the website. In the...
Niqabs and hoodies
The London Evening Standard today printed a letter from one Papya Qureshi of west London, a Bengali Muslima "who has been taught to dress modestly": I have lost track of the names of clothes...
Observer on niqab
The Observer had a story on the front page of its review section last Sunday on niqab, the face veil worn by some Muslim women. The Big Cover-Up fails to ask the obvious question...
Student wears ‘burka’ for a semester
I found a report on website of the Eastern Echo, the student magazine for Eastern Michigan University, about a female student who wore a “burka” for a semester as a kind of academic project....