Thursday, September 24, 2009

BURQA, ISLAM AND WOMAN...

“There are lot of beautiful girls in our college, but they don’t wear ‘burqa’, they don’t do purdah, then why are you wearing this?”
Can anyone guess about the intellect of a person, who uttered these words? One shouldn’t need to be Einstein to end up making any conclusion. This illogical logic has been given by a principal of some college in Karnataka. Through this we can easily put forward the illogical implication of this statement; either he meant to say that only beautiful women can wear a ‘burqa’ or the purpose of this cloth is for hiding the beauty. So if someone is not beautiful, then she should not wear ‘burqa’ according to him, I don’t know what standard he fixed for the measurement of it. Poor fellow!!! Don’t understand the purpose of it; certainly it is far away from his illogical mind.
Purdah system is, many a times, considered as a tool of oppression; ok I agree it is not at all good to confine women in a four walls of a room. It is not justified at any cost, but if they wear ‘purdah’, ‘hijab’ or ‘burqa’ or some veiling thing which covers their privacy to go outside, than what’s wrong in it? Nobody is forcing them to wear; it is their own choice then who are we to force them not to wear it. It is ridiculous to restrict or denying admission to anybody on the basis of this veiling clothe. Why questioning on somebody’s faith? I don’t think a purdah woman is less intelligent than a non-purdah woman; she wants to carry her religious sentiments with her studies. I don’t see any harm in it. She is having a right to education as well as right to practice her religious belief also. I mean, this is a democratic country so everybody is having equal rights, whether it is a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh or a Christians.
We should not act like if somebody is wearing ‘Burqa’ then it is against the belief of other groups, they are just following their sentiments or more appropriately she is maintaining her privacy, she is not causing any harm to anybody by wearing ‘burqa’ or ‘hijab’. Why causing ruckus on these issues and disheartening the beliefs of others?
I asked one lady why you wear ‘Hijab’, she said, “There are many reasons for wearing it and for me I feel my hair is much more special when shared only with my family.” So it is her belief, she wants her hair to be covered, it is for her family only. It is ok. Why we are expelling anybody on this reason?
There are some reasons given by the colleges that this ‘burqa’ is violating the standard of their dress code, it is indifferent to their common dresses. Ok I agree with this statement, it is really violative. On this statement, I want Muslims to be little bit co-operative, please don’t think that these colleges dismantling your belief, but they want uniformity among students.
Islam says, “woman should cover the whole body except the face and the hands (i.e palms and fingers). Hair should also not to be exposed because Islam considers it as half of the total beauty of women. The hijab could be of any form and colors, a piece of clothe i.e. chader or a three piece ensemble as long as it is not tight fitting and does not attract people’s attention.” The main purpose is to wear those clothes which should not reveal the body of a woman because visual stimulation plays a predominant role in the physiology of women.
So it is not necessary to wear only ‘burqa’ or a black gown of thing which covers your body, you can wear salwar-suit as well provided it is not too tight to reveal your body. And the Muslims should not precise only on black gown or a black ‘burqa’ kind of thing if it is not accepted by others, it is better to wear something else. After all there have been many cases in which terrorist have performed their task in wearing ‘burqa’ only in order to hide their identity. So why should we so much emphasizing on wearing a particular type of cloth, the main purpose is to hide your body according to the Islamic principles, so it can even followed by other clothes as well, it is not obligatory to wear that particular black gown.
And please don’t mix modernity with woman’s sanctity; does our modern thought depend on our women’s clothes? I don’t understand the relation between it, we need to be modern in our opinion, in our choice, not necessary to be in clothes. Indeed, woman is a symbol of modernity but in terms of education, thoughts, participation not in terms of clothes. It is not at all about faith; it is about morality, dignity and privacy of a woman, which should have to be maintained.

- MOHAMMED FARHAN KHAN

3 comments:

Creation of God said...

hi farhan u r right here i also agree upto some extent as yup...... that logic given by principal of some college in Karnataka. and being a responsible citizen he is bound not to make such statements ........ they really hurts the dignity of women ..... and in this independent democracy every body has right to wear as per their own wish but ya in case of uniform they can leave burqa also as while oing so the purpose is to mantain uniformity amogn students and not to hurt any particular religioud faith ....... we must not always think every thing in the religious terms as it may cause serious harm to our national unity....and again when if somebody wants s/he should be allowed to wear burqa or turban as its their fundamental right.... but both the parties must keep it in mind that whatever they do or say must be in accordance with the basic principle of our national unity it muct not make difference between two religious faiths....and again cloths can never show the modernity its all about our intellictual things like our thoughs, opinions, logic, reasoning, knowledge etc. should be strong enough and should change with the changing world upto some extent so that misunderstanding cannot prevail there.
at last i would like to illustrate our very oun Swami Vivekananda (symbol of our national n unity)who when went to Chikago was wearing the traditional dress and people in USA were laughing at him and tried to torture him but when the same person started speaking, many became his follower and all were listening so quietly n continuously for 3 hours (those amerians who never listen any body continuously or who need break after every half an hour)without any hasitation of force, why? only becauce of his intelligent thinking. Again the same personality (i always call him modern vivekananda)is present today also in our own India, yes! our very own Kalam uncle (Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, again symbol of national n religious unity)what to say about him you all know that if you have such high thoughts n prosperous intillehgence with simple but hardworking life than you need no formalities and ur traditional looks never effects your 'BODDHIK and TARKIK KSHAMATA' people will follow you as you are. so these small issues must not touch our faith n unity. so ppl sud come out from their nerrow sentimants so that they can see the world nicely with no such issues. n yaa if you think that women are symbol of modernity then u must leave it as its against their dignity. and they are also humans not a showpiece so better dont try to present them like this as bcoz of this attitude of males not only muslim women but also others like hindu women have also started keeping burqa. so their is only need of a change in our mental perspective as with dirty minds only illogical things come out so try to follow our own ideals like Swamiji n Kalam uncle n see the difference that how easily every controvercy will be solved. thank you. :)

MOHAMMED FARHAN KHAN said...

once a person asked a religious guru that what is more important for u? Your Religion or Your Country? so u knw wat he said, he answered that his religion is more important bcause the religion only taught him to give respect for his country. So while talking anything, we should tke both into consideration, the inference cannot be with either only it should be both.
The examply of Swami vivekananda and APJ Abdul Kalam, which u hv give is quite impressive.
Indeed Woman is not a showpiece, that is what I want to precise in my article. Dignity of a woman, please maintain it.

Tayab Hussain said...

Hi Farhan,
I appricaite you for writting this article. This is really ridiculous who inforce someone for dressing in this democratic country.

I would like to add more Hijab is not only for women its the duty of men to keep it also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab.

And yes i agree with you, muslims should not stick to only black, dark colored like cloaks. which give them an odd symbol. The point is to keep hijab.Also There is a need to educate muslims about this.