Hijab: Another Viewpoint
By Dr. Basheer A. Khan
CA
In his article “Should France Ban the Burqa?” appearing in your issue of February 12, Dr. Nayyer Ali contends: “There is no Qur’anic verse that details what should and should not be shown in public.... For that matter there is no Qur’anic argument that Muslim women are required to cover their hair in public”. In light of verse 31 of chapter 24 and verse 33 and 59 of chapter 33, it is difficult to accept these contentions without attributing them to the growing desire of some individuals to liberalize Islam through their liberal interpretations.
Words like “Zeenah, Jahiliyah,” etc. used in these verses mean a lot of things, and people interpret these verses in accordance with their viewpoint using different meanings. Allah swt has kept the possibility of different interpretations in such verses to give us the freedom to interpret them in accordance with the situation and our unique requirement. Through this freedom He also judges our intentions in making these interpretations.
We see that some people have used this freedom and interpreted these verses in one extreme to design and enforce Burqa, while the others who are on the other extreme interpret it to make these verses meaningless and give full freedom to interpret them in accordance with their desire. Islam which is a religion of moderation and middle path has nothing to do with either the conservative interpretation of Burqa, or the liberal interpretation that permits everything as OK, but takes the middle path which is accepted by a great majority of Muslim scholars, the Ijmaa, which considers Hijaab (covering of hair) and dressing with modesty as the interpretation of the above verses.
Those people who don’t want to go by this consensus are still free to abandon Hijab, but to say that it is not commanded by Qur’an is a travesty of truth. If somebody has special circumstances where Hijab is a hindrance in pursuit of their studies or job, which is essential for them, they have a different course to follow. Allah the merciful has the following advice for them in verse 106 of chapter 26: Those who deny (commands of) Allah under duress keeping their heart content with faith (are safe from His wrath). But whosoever finds ease in disbelief (in His laws) on them is wrath from Allah and an awful doom. Therefore abandoning Hijab due to necessity with a sense of guilt is not bad, but to say there is no command of Hijab to justify its abandonment is outright travesty of faith.
As we are expected to obey the laws of the country where we live, we should also obey the command of Allah to be Muslims. Just because Allah does not have His courts and police force visible to us does not mean we are free to do what we want with His laws. As many of us have adopted this attitude we are seeing the consequence of this disobedience in our lives where both Burqa and Bey Hijabi are haunting our societies in different ways.
The most pathetic aspect of this whole debate on Hijab is the attempts to accuse those performing this religious duty of making a political statement. This is deliberately done to enlist the support of other religious denominations to enforce abandonment of Hijab and sour inter religious harmony. Hijab and modesty is not special to Muslim women but also a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and it should stay as long as men are not reformed enough to treat women with respect and do not cast their evil eyes upon them as objects of pleasure. For this it is essential that women also should cooperate by being modestly dressed. To think otherwise is like giving freedom to business and banks on the Wall Street and leaving market forces to take care of the consequences of this freedom which resulted in the dangerous meltdown of world economy in 2008.
Religion is a means of guidance. If we distort this through our wrong interpretation to suit our whims this guidance becomes waywardness, which is not a small matter. That is why Allah swt has forbidden us from attributing to Him things about which we have no knowledge (Verse 33 Chapter 7). May Allah swt save us from it. Amen.
