Activist Shabnam Kulsoom says those Muslim women who disrespect the hijab are demonstrating their ignorance of Islam.
Mahsa Amini, a 22 year old Kurdish woman, recently died in police custody after her arrest by Iran’s “Morality Police.” It is alleged that she died after being beaten for failing to observe correct hijab according to the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Iranian government has denied any mistreatment of Miss Amini but has been accused of covering up the facts surrounding her death, leading to droves of Iranian women across the country taking to the streets in protest.
These protests have garnered massive support and indeed the salivating and palm-rubbing of the “free world.” But why? Because they involve scenes of visibly Muslim women publicly ripping off their headscarves, cutting their hair and defiantly screaming “No” to hijab.
The law on hijab was made compulsory by the Islamic Republic upon its female citizens in 1981, two years after the Islamic Revolution. Since then, Iranian women have been observing the full black cloak or loosely worn headscarves.
These acts of defiance in response to Mahsa’s death are being viewed as revolutionary, as brave and courageous, as Iranian Muslim women taking ownership of their female autonomy and standing up to the bullying of the “All-Male Ayatollahs.”
But what this depressing episode is clearly demonstrating is the lack of Islamic knowledge some Iranian women possess concerning the obligation and virtues of the hijab, presumably because they do not know the wisdom behind the hijab in the first instance.
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The honour of the hijab
Islam honours and obligates upon both its believing men and women, and for females this means girls above the age of puberty observing hijab. The only choice available to the female is whether to accept the obligation from Allah SWT or reject it.
The evidence regarding the obligation is mentioned in the Quran in Surah Al-Nur 24:31, Surah Al-Ahzeb 33:59 and hadith whereby it was narrated from Saffiyah bint Shaybah that Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her) used to say: “When these words were revealed – ‘and to draw their veils all over Juyubihinna ( ie their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms)’ – they took their izars (a kind of garment) and tore them from the edges and covered their faces with them.” (Bukhari 4481)
So with the propaganda machines working overtime, what does the hijab mean to those of us who have understood and accepted the obligation?
Hijab for me as a practising Muslim woman is exactly what Allah SWT has told us it is. It organically cultivates modesty in dress and character. It is protection. It is confidence and bravery. It is a magnet for attracting respect and repelling disrespect.
To the feminists, I don’t need saving from it, thank you. It has saved me. It led me to take my former employers to court, doing so to serve as an example to other sisters to never allow themselves to be placed in such compromising positions.
Once again, we are being exposed to the hypocrisy of the “free world” whose list of crimes will only stop once the trumpet is blown.
And once again, we are being exposed to the hypocrisy of the feminists who applaud the Iranian women but who stay deaf and mute on the French Muslim women being denied their right to observe hijab.
Or the Indian Muslim women having their hijabs forcibly ripped off by Modi’s mobs while their gang-rapists walk free.
Or the Afghan women who were killed by the U.S. occupation.
Or the Palestinian Muslim women being pushed and shoved to the ground by Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers.
Or the Uyghur Muslim women forced to marry and sleep with Han Chinese men.
And on and on.
