Hungry. Why Wait? Waiting for Change!

The Forgotten Hijab Ban

By Guest Blogger Muslema Purmul

I had the opportunity to meet some French sisters who are now here with me in Cairo, and we got to talking about the issue of Islam in Europe.

It was actually really sad, hard to hold the tears as one sister (from Holland, convert to Islam) told her own story of how she would remove her scarf everyday when she entered work, so she would be left to wear only an allowed small headband just covering the front of her hair, until one day she broke down crying, and kept it on. A few days later, her boss asked her to sign some papers. She asked why, and he said "Your fired." She replied, "Allahu Akbar" and signed the
papers. "Some scholars said it's ok, I can take it off if it's a neccessity, but I just couldn't take it off another time! I just couldn't!" she said. Another sister studied and finished law school before the ban happened. She wanted to be a lawyer and defend Muslim Liberties in France, but now after the hardship getting that degree she doesn't know if she will ever be able to practice law in France, she is now studying Islamic Law at Al-Azhar. I heard stories of sisters who would break down crying outside the gates of their schools. How a sister in a private Christian school was allowed to wear hijab until parents complained and forced her to remove it. Listening to their stories, I felt like they are experiencing a daily sexual harrassment in order to go to school, go to work, and pay bills. "I feel like someone is telling me to take off my clothes, my underwear, my head is also my private part. But if the girl wants to wear a mini-skirt to school and show everything, no one punishes her. I cannot return to France, I cannot support it." She told me about a housewife, who just went to the bank to withdraw money and she was asked to leave and remove her scarf. Now, since a month ago, the hijab ban has spread to some public schools in
Holland. As we know it is still a struggle in Tunisia, and Turkey. Are other countries in the world waiting to see how the world reacts so they too can implement hijab bans? As Martin Luther King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I remember there was such an uproar BEFORE the hijab ban became law, and now afterwards, where are those same crowds, those same rallies, and talks? Essentially Muslim women are being deprived of one of their human rights. When does it become OK in the 21st century to require a woman to remove some of her clothes and reveal her body in order to participate in
public life? Where are the Muslim men who have gheera (chivalry) towards their women, and want to defend them from such physical harrassment, and psychological humiliation?! One sister compared the non-action with regards to the hijab-ban to the reaction people had toward the cartoons (which understandably upset a lot of people) and some countries excercised boycotts.
What about our sisters in France? How did we forget about this crime that occurs on a daily basis? Where is the body of the ummah that feels pain, when one part of it is hurt?

I'll be honest, all this time in America, I felt this hijab-ban was a crime, but I never truly felt the pain of these sisters until I heard them tell their stories. The voice that said, "I just couldn't take it off another time, I just couldn't." As a woman who wears hijab, I suddenly felt it- the depth of the crime that has been overlooked. I can't imagine being in the same situation, my impulses say, "I would rather die first than remove my hijab." So I wonder, do any of my French sisters walk around school and work feeling like they've been spiritually killed? Are they thinking about ways of "escaping France?" From my conversations with the French sisters, they are struggling to retain their sense of identity and Islamic practice. They had always faced discrimination with hijab before, but this Law has really broken the spirits of many. Some sisters just completely removed the hijab even outside of school because they couldn't cope with the feelings of living a double-life.

Again where is the heart that aches? Where is the body that rushes to reveal the pain of one of its limbs?

I bear witness as an American Muslim, we have an AMANA because of the freedom and resources that Allah has blessed us with in America, to do something for our sisters in France and elsewhere, where the hijab has been banned. May we not be of those who passed by a
people being oppressed, and we could have done something, but instead we just passed by in silence.

Can we do anything for them? Can it be taken to the United Nations? Can we hold a campaign for them? Can we access our media and political leaders? Can we do rallies or lectures? Can we engage this phenomena from an academic level? A civic level? Let's at least make a duaa, and make the intention to try and help if and when there is an organized effort to help our
forgotten sisters.

What are your ideas?

How I Feel...

The Road Not Taken~Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Day is Done~Henry Longfellow

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet.
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Bad Dreams~Rumi

One day you will look back and laugh at yourself.

You’ll say, “ I can’t believe I was so asleep!

How did I ever forget the truth?

How ridiculous to believe that sadness and sickness

Are anything other than bad dreams.

Parable of Death

A wise and saintly rich man, sensing his approaching death, called his
son to his side and gave him these instructions: "My son, I shall be
leaving you very shortly. On the day when I die, and they have washed
my body and come to wrap it in the shroud, I want you to put one of my
socks on my foot. This is my final request of you."

Soon after this, the old man did indeed die, leaving behind his goods
and property, his children and his dependents. Family, friends,
acquaintances and neighbours attended his funeral. The body had been
washed and was almost completely wrapped in the shroud, when the son
remembered his father's wish. Finding one of his old socks, he handed
it to the washer of the dead, saying, "In accordance with my father's
last request, please put this sock on his foot."

"That is quite impossible:' Said the man. "Such a thing is utterly
impermissible in Islam. I cannot act against the Shariah." Despite
this valid objection, the son insisted, "That was my father's final
request; it must certainly be carried out."

The washer of the dead was unmoved. "If you won't take my word for
it," he said, "go and ask the mufti. He will confirm what I tell you,
that it is not permissible." Holding up the funeral, they consulted
the mufti, preachers and scholars, all of whom declared that this was
not permissible in Islam. Just then, an aged friend of the deceased
interrupted the debate with these words to the son: "My boy, your late
father entrusted me with a letter which I was to hand over to you
after his departure. Here, this letter belongs to you." So saying, he
gave him an envelope. Taken by surprise, the boy opened the envelope
and read out the contents of his father's letter.

"My son, all this wealth and property I have left to you. Now you see:
at the last moment, they won't even let you give me an old sock to
wear. When you yourself come one day to be in my condition they will
also refuse to let you keep anything but your shroud. Eight yards of
shroud are all you will be able to carry over from this fleeting world
into the Hereafter. So pull yourself together and be prepared. Spend
the fortune I have left you, not for the satisfaction of vain desires,
but in ways pleasing to Allah, that you may achieve honour in both
worlds."

ABC Primetime: How Muslims are Treated in the US