The Concept of Modesty

This has to be one of the most controversial issues and has been the talk of many apologists, opportunists and journalists for some time. What do we do about these coverings? Are these women oppressed and subjugated or pious and holy? On this topic I will give my opinion on the matter based on my own personal experiences. Now I used to be someone that adored the hijab. It made me feel holy, special and closer to God. I thought it took away men’s ‘lustful’ gazes (in reality I was just flattering myself) and spoke something about my character. I even had the idiotic notion that such a covering protected me from rape (I will do an article on this issue as rape has absolutely nothing to do with what you are wearing).

My faith went so far as to encourage me to almost start donning the niqab, in an effort to display my piety. Sadly, it took me four years to realize I had deluded myself into believing that this was ‘modesty’, but it was based on the teachings that sexually repressed men dictated. So where to start? Modesty. What is modesty? The dictionary gives its definition as “something to prevent the over-exposure of a particular part of the body or the condition of being modest”. The definition is pretty straight forward.

In this day and age, the hijab/niqab/burka does NOT represent modesty in any sense of the word. What it is, at least as far as the hijab is concerned, is a religious “tradition” that has been around throughout time. (I will post an article on that notion at the end of the blog.) While there is nothing wrong with wearing a head covering, it does not symbolize modesty, but rather humility before God and God alone. What these hijabi fanatics have done is try to make it mandatory for every Muslim woman and even more in such extreme cases where the Burka and Niqab come along.

Well let’s look at what the Quran says:
24:31 And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty (The arabic wording is actually vagina not modesty) ; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.

The Quran merely commands women to cover their “private parts”, to men who are not part of their family and yes, the verses above have the same orders for men too. Now the people of Bukhari’s sunna, claim that these sort of fanatical clothing should hide the woman’s body to the extent that she can hardly move about, is what Allah ordained. They have taken the concept of hijab and used it to mean only head covering.

If you study the Arabic language of the Quran, you will notice that the wording is very unanimous. The reason for this is that the Quran was obviously meant for all of humanity, until the end times and hence, it has the ability to be assimilated into all cultures. Now, in most translations, the Quran says to “cover your bosoms and hide your charms (vagina)”, nothing more, nothing less. So, if you study the Arabic culture of the pre-Islamic era, before the arrival of Prophet Muhammad, you will see that the pagan women of Mecca walked around half naked.

The commandment came to both men and women to merely cover their private parts or in other words, be civilized and respect their bodies and so the wording of the Quran is universal in order to work with cultures of all clothing styles. What you are seeing today is, for lack of a better word, Arabism. The excuse they use for their clothing, as well as prayer method, is that it shows Muslim unity. However they have taken oppression and “cloaked” it, under the guise of modesty. They have taken unity to remove individuality. The ONLY unity Muslims need to show and believe is the belief in God, doing righteous good deeds and to warn others as well as give glad tidings of the Lord.

That is the only unity. The hijab while being nothing I have much of a problem with,

is nothing more than humility before God and should be worn for God only, not because of man’s sexual weakness.

 For indeed the Quran has commanded men to practice self-restraint many times and does not blame women for the ‘beast that lies within.’ It is when these Muslims take it too far with their pride and arrogance, that the concept of hijab becomes oppression and even disrespected by their users, as in women wearing hijab, but dressing and acting in ways contrary to that of the righteous woman (yet preaching righteousness). There are many cases of families forcing their daughters to wear it and there are many other cases of Muslims harassing and humiliating women into wearing it. They all preach of how the Quran says there is no compulsion in religion, yet look at what they do with the rulings of even moderate contemporary scholars stating that, “women without hijab are in a state of sin”.

Unfortunately, a lot of the people of the sunna do not understand the concept of personal choice or they simply advise but don’t leave it to the individual to act on it or not. They pester and annoy them. I think I have made it clear that the Quran merely commanded women to dress tastefully so they are not insulted (harassed with unwanted attention) as there is a verse on this and the verse is universal so as to be cross-cultural so that women and men could live in civil respect for each other and their bodies. While the hijab is perfectly fine, it is merely an ancient tradition to show a woman’s piety before God and it is only fanatics that turn it into a burden. However, now I will explain with the more extreme coverings on why these things ARE oppression, regardless of the woman choosing to wear it or not.

Now I will talk about the Niqab and Burka as one and how this is a controlling device on how to silence women. Such a covering is not mentioned in the Quran, but stems from hadiths of the ‘sunna’ under the pretence that this is a woman’s ‘honour’ and ‘modesty.’ Now think about it. You don a covering that hides everything on your body so you can’t enjoy the breeze on your skin, have picnics at parks and in the burning heat you are wearing black all over. Especially for a woman living in a western country wearing this, you look out of place, scare people shitless as they either think you are a terrorist or the grim reaper and you are met with hatred and contempt.

Many women or at least the ones who choose to dress like this would say that this is their ‘Jihad’ for God. I say that this is them being snobbish idiots. When I posed these questions to Muslim males they say that these sorts of women have abrogated all worldly needs like having a picnic with their friends, (yet their husbands can go out and do it?) but it doesn’t appear so. I see them sitting in parks, at restaurants or just simply trying to enjoy an ice-cream with their children out in the open and I can tell you…even pigs have better table manners.

I look at them like they are a skit house for pure comedy. Not trying to be mean but that is what I feel and see. Others view them with pity, some with hate and their supporters…well I don’t know what niqab/burka supporters would be thinking at such a display… that perhaps the burka is a Jihad on trying to eat food without getting it all over your clothes and face? I am going to be honest here and I will give you my real opinion on the matter.

A few years ago when I was a girl, there was a documentary on television about these monks who had given up all worldly and carnal desires. They lived separated from society, away from women and in small humble abodes made of mud brick and their daily jobs were either being farmers or saying prayers to God. Don’t take my word for this but I believe they were also eunuchs. Now there was nothing wrong with that. They weren’t hurting anyone; they were living in peace and seemed quite contented with a holy impoverished life.

Similarly a woman who dons a burka or niqab is free to do the same. She is free to give up all worldly wants and live a life of spiritual holiness before God, but that is what it should be for. Only for God not because she is hiding her beauty from men. Who gives a shit what men think? Their problem. Anyway like with the hijab, it is when they take these things too far that it becomes a problem. Of course we have heard of the multitudes of women in Afghanistan forced into burkas as well as in other parts of the world, but I am going to focus on its place in the West.

Now if you are going to wear something like this in a place where such a covering is a foreign concept, you also need to respect the country’s rules. Currently I and many other people have no problem with a burka woman going about her business, but when identification needs to be done she needs to take it off. I have seen these women make such a fuss and kick up a storm when officials need to see their faces for identity purposes in court rooms, police interrogations, banks and airports. They need to realize on a professional level that men don’t spontaneously get erect and if they do in such a civilized society, they either hide it or are removed from the general population.

These women have nothing to fear and they need to stop flattering themselves. They are not a group of Helen of Troy’s nor will they launch a thousand ships or in this case a thousand horny men after themselves no matter how much they dream. Most of them or at least from what I have seen are plainly not that pretty (no one is)  so they don’t need to worry. Now I AM against the banning of the Burka even though I think the item of clothing is ridiculous, but yes it was an abuse on women’s rights and a multitude of other things. What people need to do is diversify out of it.

What I think would have been a better approach would have been making policies on places like a bank, a court room, an airport and for police to have permission to request these women to remove their veils for identification purposes and as law abiding citizens they must oblige or reap the consequences. Basically ban it from public institutions like France did. Other than that, if they decide to walk the streets like dementors from Azkaban shopping I can be game. They are public entertainment and it would be a shame for the western governments to revoke me of my right to laugh and point fingers at these Halloween entities.

Similarly I will make it clear that the niqab and burka have no Islamic basis and for those that think they do, they are encouraging women to wear it for the wrong reasons. These reasons are because men are weak and it is a woman’s fault for making them lustful. To the sunna…in the modern world this sort of reasoning is called misogyny and I will make it clear that women are NOT to blame for men’s carnal desires. As righteous believers men under any circumstances even with his naked wife is told to practice self-restraint, not transgress limits or go in excess of his religion. All clear?

By that same notion women who choose to wear the niqab/burka are deluding themselves in believing that this makes them modest or somehow holy when in reality everyone thinks they are either oppressed or idiots and indeed the women who choose to dress like this to ‘hide their beauty’ are oppressed because they are idiots. Secondly dressing like this makes it harder for the women who are forced into this item of clothing to voice her freedom and get out of such oppression such as in the case of the women of the Taliban. Thirdly these hadiths forbid women from going out, being able to talk in their normal voice (some say no talking at all) and even from walking too loudly all because of man’s lust. Like I said before, men are to control themselves. These people are also very sly and whip out the rights of the woman in the Quran while pretending all these hadith sanctions on women don’t exist and bellow about all the rights women have…until they convert. Just one of the many reasons why Bukhari’s sunna is not to be taken seriously.

A woman is also encouraged to stay in the home and because she has a vagina it means her only duty is to pop out as many babies as she can and cook and clean. None of this is commanded in the Quran. They have taken respectful obedience to the husband and changed it into subservience of the extreme kind. This is another topic that will come up in future blogs about the women of the so called ‘Islamic World.’

I think the last thing to add to this is that when the ‘modesty’ of the burka is challenged they whip out the whorish women of the West argument and I will make a few things clear. Anonymous statistics collected by NGO as well as living in these ‘Muslim’ countries have shown us that they are anything but ‘Modest’ and are worse than the west. I could name it in a hundred ways but in regards to sexual chastity, they are worse if not just as bad. Plenty of men and women have had sex before marriage, are adulterous, have had abortions, engage in extreme sex practices, and indulge in lesbianism and homosexuality among all the other violent things that happen within their societies. They are just ‘hush hush’ about it and pretend that the Sharia prevents all this. In reality they are no better. In my opinion they don’t even compare to the civilized western society.

So whipping out the argument that women of the west are whores is a null and void debate. On the contrary, many western women are good wives, devoted mothers, independent educated women with jobs and much more. The point is that those who do these sexual acts before marriage, both men and women don’t have a religion, are of a different religion or are just not practising religion. Furthermore the West gives these people the CHOICE on how to conduct their lives and what sexual preferences and styles they take. So long as it is nothing illegal and is consensual than it is really no one’s business.

Just in this topic many other issues are brought into light which I will talk about in future updates, but it is clear that the burka and niqab serve no Islamic basis, is an oppressive item of clothing no matter how much women delude themselves and is degrading to women. Many would say that women who wear almost nothing are oppressed, but that’s the thing-they choose to dress like that not caring about idiotic male ding dongs. Most burka women on the other hand are either forced to wear it or out of delusion wear it for the wrong reasons! (Personally even just wearing it for God isn’t a ‘right’ reason because no texts say it is)

What I am trying to say here is that if you do choose to wear such a garment, don’t do it in the west, comply with identification laws where necessary and if not go to a country where it is permissible to wear it if you want that sort of life. But it is not Islamic or freedom in any sense of the word. It is Arabism, it is oppression-a wolf in sheep’s clothing (modesty) and it looks RIDICULOUS. And most important of all it is not something to be proud of or endorse.  ( 

 http://www.submission.org/dress.html