Paul Murphy THE NIQAB AND ISLAMIST POLITICS The niqab and burka, and to a lesser extent the hijab, are utterly symbolic items of dress. Despite what people think, even in the Arab world – as well as in Iran – the burka and niqab didnt start being widely worn until the late 1970s. In the UK itself, it is a very recent phenomenon. The burka and niqab only began to be worn in the late 1990s or 2000s. The niqab is a symbol of Islamism/ fundamentalist Islam and of self-conscious difference. It is a symbol of the Muslim womans complete separation from non-Muslim society. It is a political and religious statement. In Islam, politics and religion are already fused. It can even be argued that all believing and practicing Muslims are Islamists in the sense that Islam itself – not Islamism – happily fuses religion and politics. Women who wear the niqab most certainly fuse Islam with politics – with totalitarian politics. A niqab-clad woman flying the Union Flag or Stars and Stripes is ridiculous, and no one buys it. The Muslim woman in the photo doesnt buy it. The photographer doesnt buy it (indeed he concocted it.) The writer of the BBC report doesnt buy it. So why bother? Ill tell you why they bother: to hoodwink non-Muslims. It is, effectively, taqiyya carried out by non-Muslims on behalf of Muslims, or Islamists. Considering the blatantly political nature of the niqab, its interesting to recall that Muslim women began to wear the niqab – mainly under Hamas direction – in the West Bank during the 2001 intifada. In addition, all the female candidates in the elections which brought Hamas to power in 2006 wore niqabs. As one would expect, the longer Hamass harsh rule has continued, the more women have worn the niqab. The strange thing, at least to some Western non-Muslims, is that the niqab is actually banned in some Muslim countries because they too recognise the political implications of allowing people to wear it. They realise that it is a statement of Islamist intent. Consequently, the niqab is banned in Azerbaijan, Tunisia and Turkey, though only when the Muslim woman is working as a public servant. In Syria, 1200 niqab-wearing teachers were transferred to administrative duties in the summer of 2010. However, possibly under Islamist and Sunni pressure, this position was apparently reversed when it was reported in April 2011 that teachers would again be allowed to wear the niqab. Just as non-Islamist Muslim states ban the niqab, so Islamist and Wahhabi states legally enforce its wearing. This again stresses the political nature of the niqab. For example, in Saudi Arabia women are required to wear the niqab, or at least they are in the main cities (e.g., Mecca, Medina and Taif). In the case of Iran, the Shah banned all Islamic dress or at least all head-coverings. The clerics, of course, were very much against this because they deemed it obligatory, in Islam, that women cover their hair and faces. Needless to say, after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the niqab came back into fashion
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 10:13:52 +0000
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