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Modesty and chastity, very important ideologies with
Islam, are achieved by prescribing standards on behavior
and the dress of a Muslim. A woman who adheres to the
tenements of Islam is required to follow the dress code
called Hijab, other synonymes are Veil, Purdah, or just
Covering.
It is an act of faith and establishes a Muslim's life with
honor, respect and dignity. The Hijab is viewed as a
liberation for women, in that the covering brings about
"an aura of respect"
and women are recognized as individuals who are admired
for their mind and personality, "not for their beauty
or lack of it"
and not as sex objects.
Contrary to popular belief, the covering of the Muslim
woman is not oppression but a liberation from the shackles
of male scrutiny and the standards of attractiveness. In
Islam, a woman is free to be who she is inside, and immune
from being portrayed as sex symbol and lusted after.
Islam exalts the status of a woman by commanding that she
"enjoys equal rights to those of man in everything,
she stands on an equal footing with man"
and both share mutual rights and obligations in all
aspects of life.
Men and women though equal are not identical, and each
compliments the other in the different roles and functions
that they are responsible to.
"From an Islamic perspective, to view a woman as a
sex symbol is to denigrate her. Islam believes that a
woman is to be judged by her [virtuous] character and
actions rather than by her looks or physical
features" .
In the article, "My Body Is My Own Business",
Ms. Naheed Mustafa , a young Canadian born and raised,
university-educated Muslim woman writes, "The Quran,
teaches us that men and women are equal, that individuals
should not be judged according to gender, beauty, wealth
or privilege. The only thing that makes one person better
than another is his or her character."
She goes on to say, "In the Western world, the hijab
has come to symbolize either forced silence or radical,
unconscionable militancy. Actually, its neither. It is
simply a woman's assertion that judgment of her physical
person is to play no role whatsoever in social
interaction."
Muslims
believe that God gave beauty to all women, but that her
beauty is not be seen by the world, as if the women are
meat on the shelf to be picked and looked over. When she
covers herself she puts herself on a higher level and men
will look at her with respect and she is noticed for her
intellect, faith, and personality, not for her beauty. In
many societies, especially in the West, women are taught
from early childhood that their worth is proportional to
their attractiveness and are compelled to follow the male
standards of beauty and abstract notions of what is
attractive, half realizing that such pursuit is futile and
often humiliating .
Chastity , modesty, and piety are promoted by the
institution of veiling. "The hijab in no way prevents
a woman from playing her role as an important individual
in a society nor does it make her inferior."
A Muslim woman may wear whatever she pleases in the
presence of her husband and family or among women friends.
But when she goes out or when men other than her husband
or close family are present she is expected to wear a
dress which will cover [her hair and] all parts of her
body, and not reveal her figure. What a contrast with
Western fashions which every year concentrate quite
intentionally on exposing yet another erogenous zone to
the public gaze! The intention of Western dress is to
reveal the figure, while the intention of Muslim dress is
to conceal [and cover] it, at least in public .
The Muslim woman does not feel the pressures to be
beautiful or attractive, which is so apparent in the
Western and Eastern cultures. She does not have to live up
to expectations of what is desirable and what is not.
Superficial beauty is not the Muslim woman's concern, her
main goal is inner spiritual beauty. She does not have to
use her body and charms to get recognition or acceptance
in society. It is very different from the cruel methods
that other societies subject women, in that their worth is
always judged by their physical appearance. The are
numerous examples of discrimination at the workplace where
women are either accepted or rejected, because of their
attractiveness and sex appeal.
Another benefit of adorning the veil is that it is a
protection for women. Muslims believe that when women
display their beauty to everybody, they degrade themselves
by becoming objects of sexual desire and become vulnerable
to men, who look at them as "gratification for the
sexual urge"
The Hijab makes them out as women belonging to the class
of modest chaste women, so that transgressors and sensual
men may recognize them as such and dare not tease them out
of mischief"
Hijab solves the problem of sexual harassment and unwanted
sexual advances, which is so demeaning for women, when men
get mixed signals and believe that women want their
advances by the way they reveal their bodies.
The western ideology of, 'if you have it, you should flash
it!' is quite opposite to the Islamic principle, where the
purpose is not to bring attention to ones self, but to be
modest. Women in so many societies are just treated as sex
symbols and nothing more than just a body who
"display themselves to get attention" .
A good example is in advertising, where a woman's body is
used to sell products. Women are constantly degraded, and
subjected to reveal more and more of themselves.
The Covering sanctifies her and forces society to hold her
in high esteem. Far from humiliating the woman, Hijab
actually grants the woman an aura of respect, and bestows
upon her a separate and unique identity
According to the Qu'ran, the same high standards of moral
conduct are for men as it is for women. Modesty is
essential in a man's life, as well, whether it be in
action, morals or speech. Islam also commands proper
behavior and dress of men, in that they are not allowed to
make a wanton show of their bodies to attract attention
onto themselves, and they too must dress modestly. They
have a special commandment to lower their eyes, and not to
brazenly stare at women.
In Sura Nur of the Holy Qu'ran it says, " Say to the
believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard
their modesty; that will make for greater purity for them,
and God is well acquainted with what they do".
Many of the misconceptions of the Muslim woman in the
west, particularly her veil stems from Arab and Muslim
countries that have deviated from the true doctrines of
Islam, and have "mixed up Islamic principles with
pre-Islamic pagan traditions"
In this present period of decline from Islam, many Muslim
women are alienated, isolated from social life, and are
oppressed by Muslim men and rulers who use the name of
religion for their injustices.
In this instance, the Hijab is used as a means of keeping
many Muslim women away from society, with the
misconception that it signifies isolation and weakness.
But as many Muslim women come back into the fold of the
untainted and true Islam, they are able to recognize the
injustice of men who have for so long stripped them of
their rights to be an integral part of society and
"deserving the same dignity, honor, progress and
prosperity as the men"
Women regaining their true identity and role in society,
are now wearing Hijab and embracing its concept of
liberation for women, and are taking their rightful places
that Islam had endowed upon them fourteen hundred years
ago.
The Islamic Dress Code
By Khalid Baig
What would you think of a home that
provided no shelter and no privacy? What would you think
of a meal that provided no nourishment and no energy? It
does not take much to realize that if one were in the
business of selling any of these he would go bankrupt
very quickly. Yet, amazingly the rules seem to be
different when it comes to another basic need: clothing,
especially women's clothing. Every year fashion centers
in Europe and America come up with the latest designs.
And what have they designed? Another way of not
covering the body; the dress equivalent of the home that
provides no shelter and no privacy.
One might ask, if a person did not
want to cover themselves why would they buy anything,
least of all expensive fashions, to achieve that? If we
think about it, we may see the tension between two
forces. All human beings (except for the handful of
deviants who call themselves naturalists) have an inborn
sense of shame. People of all religions agree on the
need to cover themselves in public. Yet we also find a
force that promotes nudity. Large segments of humanity
are caught between two impulses: to cover or not to
cover. Our clothing designs reflect different levels of
compromise between these opposing forces.
Why? What is going on?
Science cannot answer the question. It
cannot trace the origins of forces that take place deep
in our mind. In addition, most of the scientific
establishment is still dominated by the followers of Mr.
Darwin and Darwinism is a system of belief not science.
Their beliefs keep them from dealing honestly with a
simple fact: while all other animals have a skin that
provides them protection against the elements, human
beings don't. Monkeys can live without clothing, human
beings cannot.
The Qur'an answers the question. Our
bodies did not develop our skin--- so thin and fur free
that it requires external covering for
protection---because of some unexplained evolutionary
accident. Our Creator designed it this way so we will
always need clothing. He also put in us the sense of
shame that forces us to cover ourselves. On the other
hand, the first act of
Satan was to cause Adam and Eve to expose themselves:
"So by deceit he brought about their fall: when
they tasted of the tree, their shameful parts became
manifest to them, and they began to sew together the
leaves of the Garden over their bodies." [Al-A'raf
7:22]. This is the source of the tension we see. Two
opposing forces. Good and evil.
With that background we can understand
the importance of clothing. "Oh Children of Adam!
We have bestowed raiment upon you to cover your shame as
well as to be an adornment to you. But the raiment of
righteousness---that is the best." [Al-A'raf 7:26].
The address here is to all humanity, emphasizing thereby
the universal human need to cover ourselves properly.
The Qur'an then warns that Satan was not finished after
his first attempt: "Oh Children of Adam! Let not
Satan seduce you in the same manner as he got your
parents out of the Garden, stripping them of their
raiment, to expose their shame." [Al-A'raf 7:27].
Once we realize the nature of the
dress issue, it is natural that we should turn to our
Creator to seek guidance for the proper dress code.
Qur'an and Sunnah have provided ample guidance on the
subject which can be summarized in four essential
principles.
- Our dress must cover our body
adequately. Again we cannot determine what is
adequate coverage on our own, as any witness to
the misery of those who have tried it can readily
ascertain. Shar'iah, as always, takes us out of
this misery by defining it for us. For men, it is
the middle part of the body from navel to knee.
For women, it is the entire body except hands and
face. These parts must never be exposed to any
other person (except in case of genuine need e.g.
medical treatment). In addition, the cloth must be
neither see-through nor tight fitting.
- Our dress should provide
adornment. It should provide for decent
appearance. Our appearance should not be an
eyesore for decent human beings. For men, this
extends the coverage requirements to include most
of the body. For women, the essential requirement
is that their dress should identify them as
respectable ladies who would be honored not
harassed. Additionally, hijab rules aim at
protecting them from the gaze of other men.
- Our dress should establish our
Islamic identity. At the least it should not
identify us as followers of another religion. But,
additionally it should positively identify us as
Muslims.
- The design of our dress must
avoid three deadly sins: show off, arrogance, and
self indulgence. These are very serious diseases
of the heart in their own right that we must avoid
at all times. Our garments provide an easy
opportunity to nurture them. Hence the need to be
extra cautious. One Hadith states "Eat what
you feel like and wear what you feel like. But
avoid two things: extravagance and
arrogance." [Bukhari]. At the risk of stating
the obvious one should be reminded that this
Hadith establishes an overriding concern that
limits our choices within the realm of what is
considered halal. It does not do away with
the distinction between halal and haram.
As one implication of this general requirement,
men are also required not to wear their lower
garments below the ankle. (Many well-meaning
Muslims today have been persuaded that this is a
petty issue. This misgiving can be put to rest in
a hurry if we just refer to the Hadith of Jabir
bin Sulaym, Radi-Allahu anhu, in Abu Dawood. He
asked the Prophet, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam
for some advice when leaving him after his very
first meeting. Of the six pieces of advice
given him one was: "Never let your lower
garment go below the ankles because that is
arrogance. And Allah does not like
arrogance." Another was "Never belittle
a good deed.")
Islam has not prescribed a particular
dress style, giving us ample room to accommodate our
needs, circumstances and tastes. However, these
principles are for everyone and forever. Any garment
that accommodates these principles will be Islamic
dress. This is Islamic formula to dress for success.
Eternal success.
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