Another aspect to the niqab

My previous post, 'Yes, it's time to ban the veil' was largely written by a Muslim cleric but a friend has pointed out that in certain Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, women are not only bound to wear the veil (or be flogged) but to also abide by other aspects of a male dominated culture that flits in and out of Sharia Law.

A woman may not travel alone. If she does leave the home fortress she must be accompanied, by a close senior relative, at all times.

If she wishes to earn a living wage in a situation where she might come face to face with a man (heaven forfend), then she must undertake her duties behind a grille. 

One so dense that you cannot make out if there is a person on the other side or not.

Banks, travel agents and the like have such a female friendly arrangement.

If she goes to school, college or university, it must be within an all female environment just in case any poor male inadvertently glances upon an unveiled face.

In Saudi, women may not drive a car and the electoral vote has been closed to them (a law change means that women may vote from 2015).

Such 'laws' are enforced by a non too user friendly religious police force (mutaween) who punish minor offences with a few slashes of the rather nasty whips they carry.

For something really serious like having a cup of tea in a hotel lobby with a non related male, women are carted off in shackles and chucked into jail.

And if they ever get out and return home then they must enter the family abode via the women's entrance, never, of course, via the men's.

So, to those Muslim women who wish to walk the streets of Britain masked in what is rapidly becoming a symbol of fundamental Islam, the message must be "Do as they do in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" or abide by the culture of the country.

Thanks to a friend for flagging these points up.

Yes, it's time to ban the veil

"Smile please"

It is disingenuous for Muslims to claim that wearing the niqab or burka is Islamic.

The requirement to conceal the face does not feature anywhere in the Koran. It is an archaic, aristocratic custom originating in ancient Persia that spread to Byzantium and was later adopted by misogynistic Muslim society.

Many Muslims have been conditioned to conflate culture with religion and befuddle liberal Britain that this is a principle of religious freedom and human rights when it is neither.

It is against Islamic law for masked women to undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca or to perform their daily prayers.

If women are prevented from hiding their identity at Islam's holiest shrine, why is it necessary for them to do so here?

Britain must join France and Belgium in outlawing all public anonymity.

Anything less would amount to sexist discrimination against British men who are not permitted to conceal their identity in public.

There.

That's rather well phrased don't you think?

Trouble is, those are not my words; they appeared in a letter to the editor of The Daily Telegraph earlier this week.

I wish that I could have phrased the issue so well and so succinctly.

The author?.................now let me see........

.....of course, it was none other than Imam Dr Taj Hargey of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford.


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