Veiling of Women in Historical Judaism:

While the Hebrew Bible may not be clear about the veiling of women and the reasoning behind it, Rabbinic literature presents it as a question of modesty. Modesty became an important rabbinic virtue in the early Roman period, perhaps as a reaction to Greco-Roman life (and later in Babylonian society and may have been a a way to differentiate Jewish women from nonJewish women. In the Babylonian Talmud Berachot 24a, a discussion about what constitutes modesty: “Rav Hisda said: [the sight of] a woman’s leg is ervah, (immodest to be seen and it is related concerning general dress) “your ervah [immodesty] shall be uncovered and your shame shall be exposed.” This selection has been recently invoked in the debate over modern Jewish women and appropriate dress. The Babylonian 3rd century CE scholar, Samuel states: kol b’ishah ervah, a woman’s voice is ervah, [immodest] as it is written (Song of Songs 2:14) “for your voice is sweet and your appearance is comely.” The Babylonian source Rav Sheshet (who was blind) said: [seeing] the hair of a woman is ervah, [immodest] as it is written (ibid. 4:1) “your hair is like a flock of goats.” There are some murals and images that one could invoke to show that the hair of Jewish women was covered or veiled in the Roman period, (the 3rd century CE Dura 3 Europos Synagogue and the coffins paintings of Jewish men and women from Egypt, for example) but as we shall see it may be a cultural marker of the Roman women, rather than Jewish religious standards. The general idea is expressed in the word: Tzniut (Hebrew word for modesty or privacy) in rabbinic Judaism for women and their hair covering. Maimonides, a 13th century Rabbinic scholar states in his book, the Mishneh Torah, (Laws of Women): it is a “direct biblical command for married women to keep their hair from becoming exposed in public, and a custom of Jewish married women to increase that standard in the interest of modesty and maintain an intact covering on their heads at all times.” A few styles of hair covering or veiling are found in historical Judaism. They are scarves, a hat, a net, a wig, and a beret like coveringespecially among European (Ashkenazic) women in the past two centuries. They are common among married Orthodox women today and they are sometimes just called, a net, snood, sheitel, or hat. Jewish law from the Middle Ages onward is very clear about the provision to cover the hair of women. According to the Babylonian Talmud, it is a biblical requirement but that is very difficult to clearly ascertain if the use of a hair covering was normative in Ancient Israel.

A Jewish veiling custom is connected with one of the photos in the exhibition. It was an event in the biblical book of Genesis, chapter 29, which inspired a religious injunction about checking underneath the veil to insure the right bride will be married (“badeken” in Yiddish means “covering”) and is followed to this day at Jewish weddings. According to the interpretation of the Genesis story, Leah the elder (and unmarried) daughter of Laban is replaced for Rachel (the younger daughter) and because the groom (Jacob) did not check, he married Leah instead of her sister Rachel! Although it is not explicit in the text, the veiling of a bride became the norm and the groom checking under the veil of the bride a part of the Jewish wedding ceremony chronicled in Lena’s exhibition

There are allusions to certain coverings of women’s hair in the Bible. In The Song of Songs, 4.1 we see that the poetry alludes to a woman looking out from “behind her veil” and in Genesis 24.65 it is mentioned regarding Rebecca that “…she took her veil and covered herself.” Was she doing this as a custom of welcome, respect, as an appealing allure, it is just not clear. The famous Tamar enticed Judah in a scene in Genesis 38 that suggests that veils for women were for allure and not necessarily connected with modesty: “When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face.” In Deuteronomy we hear that a captive woman’s hair is cut apparently as a sign of servitude and in the book of Numbers the suspected wife has her hair loosened in front of a public group but little is said about a formal head covering for women in the biblical period. In the book of Isaiah, (the latter part is from the sixth century BCE), the reference to a woman removing her veil is a sign of shame. Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter Babylon! –Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter Chaldea! –For you shall no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal, remove your veil, strip 4 off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers, Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen.” It is clear that since there is not many explicitly Israelite renderings of women in the classical biblical period (Iron Age, 1200-586 BCE), nor is there any clear textual information or archaeological artifacts that can confirm the veiling of Israelite and Judean women in the pre-Exilic and pre-Persian period. It is interesting to note that many of the female figurines found in Israelite homes that are perhaps indicators of how the Israelites felt women should/ought to be depicted have a head covering (as do the many pagan figurines from Asherahs, Istartes, Hathor, Isis, etc. ) The idea of Jewish married women wearing a wig (or detached-artificial or natural hair) is debated among Jewish sources and may actually be seen as an import from outside of Jewish practices.

The idea of men and women wearing wigs (documented in the medieval and early modern illuminated manuscripts such as the Passover HaggaSome women in the modern period have multiple head-coverings, including a wig, (sheitel in Yiddish), hair extenders or partial covers, a scarf (tichel in Yiddish) and a hat or beret to insure that the hair is totally covered and only seen by the husband (and or very close family members). The use of the head covering in the modern period among married Jewish women (and sometimes even unmarried women) has changed in the post-WWII perioddah below) affected the debate as well. Some rabbis argued against wigs because nonJews were wearing them (in that period) while other rabbis insisted on a head-covering for women of some kind.

Some religious women have taken to wearing head bands, berets, and other types of head coverings only in ritual settings and synagogues. Some religious women and especially women rabbis cover their hair as indicators of their own piety and the types of coverings are similar to those worn by religious men and head coverings worn by male rabbis. The head coverings include hats, yarmulkes (Kippah in Hebrew) that are knitted (as male yarmulkes), but just as often these yarmulkes worn by women have been specially knitted to distinguish the male head covering from the female head covering to insure that they do not violate a biblical prohibition on cross-dressing. Yemenite, unmarried Jewish women covered their heads in Yemen in the preWorld War II period, similar to Muslim women of that period. When the Yemenite Jews came to Israel this custom stopped among Jewish unmarried women. This Jewish custom of unmarried women covering their hair is not found among Ashkenazic (European) Jewish women (nor is it found among other Jewish women in the rest of the Middle East). The custom of unmarried Yemenite Jewish women covering their hair did not continue in modern Israel but the topic is a very important issue in modern Israel. In modern Israel, even the different types of coverings that women choose to cover their hair with has taken on new and unexpected political, cultural, ethnic and religious implications. While modern orthodox Jewish women had tended in the postWWII era to prefer to wear stylish hats to wigs or scarves, today combinations of scarfs, wigs, and hats (sometimes at the same time) have become parts of some communities both in Israel and the Diaspora. Veiling of Women

Veiling of Women in Historical Christianity: While one might have thought that historical views of the veiling of women in Christianity emerged from Judaism, in fact it appears that Christian views are a reaction to pagan practices of the Greco-Roman period. The most famous citation in early Christianity is from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about what is appropriate for the male and female followers to do in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 11:4-16: “4. Every man who prays or prophesies, having his head covered, dishonors his head. 5. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if she were shaven. 6. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. 7. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, inasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man.”

To this day, men in churches remove their head covering while women often cover their hair. At Christian holy sites, women will veil even if they are not fully modestly dressed as a vestige of the original practice. Men will uncover their heads and women will cover both the head and sometimes the shoulders and head often depending on the denomination of the holy site in Israel. This was part of Lena’s work, to track women of different denominations and show how they reflected this. Lay people (non-clergy) often cover their heads in Roman Catholic settings. Lace head coverings are used in many churches and sometimes different women will not wear the head-covering in the same holy site and even in the most holy settings (for example in The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest site in Christendom). Some of the most famous veiling ceremonies of modern Christianity which were noted by our students are in the “coming of age” ceremony of “Communion” which, in many denominations, happens at puberty and the wedding ceremony where the veiled bride walks down the aisle and is presented to the groom veiled and the groom will help the bride pull the veil back to reveal her face during the ceremony.

The origins of this view in Christianity may have to do more with the influence of Roman (nonChristian) women than from an inherent Jewish practice. The Vestal virgins wore a special headcovering and on the Roman coins in our archaeology section you will be able to see the women of Roman depicted wearing a veil. In our small statuette from Bethsaida you will notice that veil of Livia-Julia (wife of the Augustus Caesar) wearing a veil with what looks like a very stylized hair style. One of the ways of personifying Rome itself was pudicitia, “modesty” and she is presented as a goddess wearing her head covered with a pallium or veil.

Archaeological Evidence of the Early Christians in Catacombs There is evidence on the murals and drawings in the catacombs of Rome that early Christian women were covering their heads. In the ancient illustrations and sculptures that do show Greek women with covered heads, the head covering is usually just the himation (a scarf) pulled over the top and back of the head. Sometimes it is shown over the head and wrapped around the neck, without covering the face. There is also women who apparently covered the lower part of the face with a scarf in much the same way that Islamic women cover the lower part of the face showing the eyes. We have the traditions of Plutarch who comments that respectable Roman women would appear in public with head covering as evidence that this may be a cultural rather than religious practice. Plutarch writes concerning the Spartans, “When someone inquired why they took their girls into public places unveiled, but their married women veiled, he said, ‘Because the girls have to find husbands, and the married women have to keep to those who have them!'” This may imply that the veiling was after marriage similar to the Jewish veiling practices. In about 200 CE, Tertullian in Carthage (a Roman colony, like Corinth) wrote, “some, with their turbans and woolen bands, do not veil their head, but bind it up; protected, indeed, in front, but, where the head properly lies, bare. Others are to a certain extent covered over the region of the brain with linen coifs of small dimensions …and not reaching quite to the ears” (On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 17). Tertullian’s On the Pallium indicates that there were a number of different customs of dress associated with different cults to which the early Christians had belonged. There are a number of independent sources which pretty clearly indicate that pagan Roman women did not always cover their heads in public. The “veiling of the bride” spoken of in ancient Roman sources pertains only to the wedding ceremony, not to a change of ordinary clothing. For a nun, the “habit” symbolizes a new sanctified lifestyle which is a form of marriage to Christ, with the nun as the “bride of Christ.” When asking women (tourists and locals) in the churches that the students visited in Israel why the women were veiling, most pointed to modesty reasons (even when they were wearing immodest clothing). Some pointed to 8 the fact that the nuns ministering in many of the churches were veiled and knew that the Roman Catholic nuns in the churches we visited were “married to Christ.” The veiling may be reminiscent of the pagan veiling ceremony of Rome or the veiling of Jewish women after marriage. It is hard to know which came first (or what was more influential), although the students came to the conclusion that the Roman custom seems to have been very culturally influential and affected both the Jewish and the early Christian practice.

The Veiling of Women in Historical Islam Most Muslims that were asked about veiling quote the Quran as the source of the tradition in Islam of veiling. Modesty and privacy is the general term used in Arabic or Hijab. There are Arabic words for headscarf (Chimar or Jilbab, Jalbab-or Jalabib), but generally in that Arabic speaking world, one finds that Niqab (is seen as the word for the face covering), and Abaya for the robes. There are other ideas as well. The Quran states: “O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters, and the women of the faithful, to draw their wraps (Jalabib) over them. They will thus be recognized and no harm will come to them. God is all forgiving and most merciful.” (Sura 33, verse 59). But earlier in the chapter, this is related specifically to the wives of Muhammad. Sura 33:53: “If you have to ask his wives (the prophet’s wives) for something, ask them from behind a barrier (Hijab). This is purer for your hearts and their hearts.” Although it is directed to the wives of the Prophet and daughters, it is by inference understood to be directed to all Muslim women. It has been directed to all girls of any age, not just married women. The problem is that the citation and the other citation used to describe the practice does not give a direct prohibition or commandment concerning a head covering but is a general idea about modesty. In the Quran, Sura 24.31 it is said: “And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their Chimar (scarf) over their breasts and not display their beauty except to [their husbands]. “ The other major source for the custom seems to come from early Islamic custom which is mentioned in the Hadith traditions of the Sahih Al Bukhari.

(Note: Hadith: Narrations by Al Bukhari regarding the Quranic verses of the Hijab are usually what is by Shia and Sunni traditions. Al Bukhari was a Persian Muslim Scholar, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari, (9th century) and according to Islam he collected from oral traditions that went all the way back to the time of Muhammad.) One tradition, states: “Prophet of Allah!, you receive all kinds of people at your home – good and bad; it would be better if you ask your wives to observe Hijab.” The second narration that is quoted: “The advantage in observing Hijab is that these women are recognized as pious and respectable. Thus, the evil doers would not be after them and the women would not have to face unpleasantness. Nobody will dare follow and make advances to a woman who has completely concealed herself as opposed to the one who has come out nicely decorated without Hijab; the malicious and evilminded folks will associate great hopes with such women. This is, of course, not in the presence of all men. The category of close family is distinguished from the general population. Examples of close family are: father, brother, uncle, husband etc. The other question is when this veiling should start. While for Jews, the marriage marks a change of status and therefore married women will cover their hair, the “covering” of women’s hair in prayer situations among Jews at “Bat Mitzvah” age or puberty seems to mark a difference. The veiling of little girls (ages five and above) during their early childhood we found was seen as a way to teach the child for future reference. In the exhibition we feature some of the youngest and some of the oldest:

If the average non-Muslim were asked to name one thing about Islam, it could well be that women are required by Islamic Law (Shariah) to wear a veil and cover their faces in public. In fact, that is not easily legislated in most Muslim countries and in a country such as Israel or France, the veiling serves to give ethnic, cultural as well as religious identity. Muslims are usually referring to these sources of the Quran and Hadith when they say that “Islam” enjoins both men and women to dress modestly. Historical Islam has a series of different views concerning appropriate dress for men and women as they are presented in historically important texts such as the Quran and Hadith although many of these citations show little attempt to systematize dress for men and women. Islamic law developed a code where women were expected to cover their bodies from the ankles to the neck and the arms above the elbow and this legislation is usually what is invoked (and not the Quran or Hadith). According to one interpretation given by women in the photographs of the exhibitions, Jalbab is actually the outer sheet or coverlet which a woman wraps around on top of her garments to cover herself from head to toe. It hides her body completely. The root word Jalbab means to completely cover something. Some Islamic sources hold the Jalbab is that sheet of cloth, which is worn on top of the scarf.

There are different ways to wear the Hijab presently seen in Israel, some were in the exhibition and others were observed by students on the streets. Hijab is: the sheet should be wrapped from the top covering the forehead, then bringing one side of the sheet to cover the face below the eyes so that most of the face and the upper body is covered. This will leave both the eyes uncovered and of, course, the top covering without any face covering. But the veil itself, particularly a veil which covers the entire face including the eyes, is controversial both in Muslim countries and in non-Muslim countries, beyond the issues of safety and community identity. There are many words used to describe the veiling. Abaya, Bourka, Niqab, Jalbab, Hijab and Chador.

Chador is a Persian word for a full-body-length semicircle of fabric that is split open down the front, with a head-hole in the top. It is easy to put on and fulfills the hijab (modesty) covering. Among Muslim women, Lena Stein, the photographer found three versions of coverings. Stylish, colorful, long robes are substituted in the cities with long suits and hijab, the more traditional full black bourka without full face covering (niqab) is sometimes found in small cities and villages.

Traditional dress codes in fact vary sharply in different Muslim countries and among different types of Muslims. In Iran, the black chador is traditional among wide sectors of society but among the Bedouin of the Arabian peninsula, women wear scarves that cover their hair but leave their faces open – just like most of the men in the area-the scarf may be different, but the purposes are similar. The same is also true in Muslim areas of south-east Asia. As political Islam in areas formerly influenced primarily by European culture, the veil has become a part of an ideological statement by women, their families and often as a sign of resistance and not always for piety.

But it is important to recognize that Islam’s classical texts may “originally” only prescribe modesty for women rather than actually mandating the wearing of a particular garment. The garment chosen: “ veil” may be a carry-over from the different influences of early period Islam: Judaism, Christianity, early desert groups. Some suggest, for example, that as the “original” concept of modesty can be interpreted in the modern period as not drawing unnecessary attention to oneself, a woman wearing baggy jeans, a jumper and an unobtrusive (often colorful or stylish) scarf in a Western country could be more in accordance with the spirit of Islamic law than another woman who wore the full bourka which drew more attention to her. In 2010, one of our students, Katie Child, a Judaic Studies major and a Music Major at the Hartt did a whole project on the “veiling practices” and came to the conclusion in Israel that the head covering served a number of different purposes. She wrote: “Muslim women who would wear head covering would sometimes wear it all of the time or just some of the time. Some social status issues were clear. Village people in Galilee, for example, in very non-Muslim settings (swimming at the Sea of Galilee) were sometimes more meticulous with their head coverings than in exclusively Muslim settings.”

 

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

قال تعالى {وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ} (الأنبياء 107) وقوله “للعالمين” تعني للناس كافة، إلى أن تقوم الساعة، والرسول الأعظم وعى ذلك تماماً، ووعى أيضاً أن مهمته كرسول هي البلاغ فقط {فَإِنْ أَعْرَضُوا فَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ عَلَيْهِمْ حَفِيظاً إِنْ عَلَيْكَ إِلَّا الْبَلَاغُ} (الشورى 48)، علماً أن “إلا” هي أداة حصر، أي أن مهمة الرسول محصورة في تبليغ الرسالة.
فإذا بحثنا عن شرح لآيات التنزيل الحكيم قدمه الرسول (ص) لما وجدنا، إلا فيما يتعلق بإقامة الصلاة وأداء الزكاة، ولو أنه شرح سور الأعراف والأنعام والرعد والنحل وغيرها لتحول إلى “الشيخ محمد بن عبد الله”، ولتحولت رسالته من عالمية صالحة لكل زمان ومكان، إلى رسالة محلية لها احتمال وحيد لتطبيقها، يتوافق مع شبه جزيرة العرب في القرن السابع الميلادي فقط، والقول أن الرسول شرح الكتاب فهذا يعني أنه من تأليفه.
وما قام به الرسول هو مهمتان: تبليغ الرسالة {يَا أَيُّهَا الرَّسُولُ بَلِّغْ مَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ وَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلْ فَمَا بَلَّغْتَ رِسَالَتَهُ —}(المائدة 67)، وتأسيس الدولة المدنية وتنظيم الحلال أمراً ونهياً، لا تحريماً، أي بما لا يحتاج إلى وحي، بل بما يختص به المشرعون إلى أن تقوم الساعة، وعليه تنطبق الآية {وَمَا آتَاكُمُ الرَّسُولُ فَخُذُوهُ وَمَا نَهَاكُمْ عَنْهُ فَانتَهُوا} (الحشر 7).
وإذا افترضنا أن الرسول قد توفي أمس فقد ترك لنا التنزيل الحكيم، كتاب من حي لأحياء، علينا قراءته وفق أرضيتنا المعرفية، وعلى من يأتي بعدنا إعادة القراءة وهكذا.
وهذا لا يقلل إطلاقاً من قيمة الرسول، بل على العكس يوضح عظيم رؤيته لمهمته، فلم يدع معرفة تفسير الكتاب، ونهى عن تدوين أقواله وأفعاله، وشكلت نبوته طفرة معرفية وتاريخية في أسس تشكيل الدول وتنظيم المجتمع.

I think that most of the Muslims and non Muslims think hijab is a religious obligation of Islam to Muslim women.

We informally call to all the veils, except the Niqab and the Burqa, Hijab.

The Reasons

Islam says that both men and women should dress with modesty. These are words from God in the Holy Quran:

[24.30] قُلْ لِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِمْ وَيَحْفَظُوا فُرُوجَهُمْ ذَلِكَ أَزْكَى لَهُمْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا يَصْنَعُونَ

[24.30] Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.

[24.31] وَقُلْ لِلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ يَغْضُضْنَ مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِنَّ وَيَحْفَظْنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ وَلا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلا مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَى جُيُوبِهِنَّ وَلا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلا لِبُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ آبَائِهِنَّ أَوْ آبَاءِ بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ أَبْنَائِهِنَّ أَوْ أَبْنَاءِ بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ إِخْوَانِهِنَّ أَوْ بَنِي إِخْوَانِهِنَّ أَوْ بَنِي أَخَوَاتِهِنَّ أَوْ نِسَائِهِنَّ أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُنَّ أَوِ التَّابِعِينَ غَيْرِ أُولِي الإرْبَةِ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ أَوِ الطِّفْلِ الَّذِينَ لَمْ يَظْهَرُوا عَلَى عَوْرَاتِ النِّسَاءِ وَلا يَضْرِبْنَ بِأَرْجُلِهِنَّ لِيُعْلَمَ مَا يُخْفِينَ مِنْ زِينَتِهِنَّ وَتُوبُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ جَمِيعًا أَيُّهَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ

[24.31] And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband’s fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments…

As you see about clothing, Islam doesn’t really say how to dress. Only that you should guard your modesty, cover your breasts and yours sexual attributes.

So everyone specify that Muslims should not display between the belly until the knees (special if you’re a women) and your breasts.

Why cover the hair? Is it a sexual attribute? Since when you feel attracted by someone’s hair? If yes I recommend that you should go to the medic.

However the main Quranic argument is on the Surah Al Ahzaab:

[33.59] يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُلْ لأزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِنْ جَلابِيبِهِنَّ ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى أَنْ يُعْرَفْنَ فَلا يُؤْذَيْنَ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا

[33.59] O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

In order to understand this verse you need some background study.

The IRFI – Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc. has in it’s website this issue explained:

“According to the Quran, the reason why Muslim women should wear an outer garment when going out of their homes is that they may be recognized as “Believing” women and differentiated from streetwalkers for whom sexual harassment is an occupational hazard. The purpose of this verse was not to confine women to their homes, but to make it safe for them to go about their daily business without attracting unsavory attention.”

“The Quran does not suggest that women should be veiled or they should be kept apart from the world of men. On the contrary, the Quran is insistent on the full participation of women in society and in the religious practices.

Morality of the self and cleanliness of conscience are far better than the morality of the purdah. No goodness can come from pretence. Imposing the veil on women is the ultimate proof that men suspect their mothers, daughters, wives and sisters of being potential traitors to them. How can Muslim men meet non-Muslim women who are not veiled and treat them respectfully, but not accord the same respectful treatment to Muslim women?

To wear the Hijaab is certainly NOT an Islamic obligatory on women. It is an innovation (Bid’ah) of men suffering from a piety complex who are so weak spiritually that they just cannot trust themselves!”

Older women as they are no longer a source of sexual attraction they don’t have to take specially attention to their cloth when outside. This is according to the Holy Quran:

[24.60] وَالْقَوَاعِدُ مِنَ النِّسَاءِ اللاتِي لا يَرْجُونَ نِكَاحًا فَلَيْسَ عَلَيْهِنَّ جُنَاحٌ أَنْ يَضَعْنَ ثِيَابَهُنَّ غَيْرَ مُتَبَرِّجَاتٍ بِزِينَةٍ وَأَنْ يَسْتَعْفِفْنَ خَيْرٌ لَهُنَّ وَاللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ

[24.06] Such elderly women as are past the prospect of marriage, – there is no blame on them if they lay aside their (outer) garments, provided they make not a wanton display of their beauty: but it is best for them to be modest: and Allah is One Who sees and knows all things.

IRFI: “It is part of the growing feeling on the part of Muslim men and women that they no longer wish to identify with the West, and that reaffirmation of their identity as Muslims requires the kind of visible sign that adoption of conservative clothing implies.

For these women the issue is not that they have to dress conservatively, but that they choose to.”
I would like to say that I personally like women who wear the Hijab but that doesn’t discourage me to tell Muslims sister that they only have to wear hijab if they want to.

Note that in some countries using the Hijab may draw more eye attention to you but it allow that other people including Muslims know that you are Muslim sister 😉

So remember: Hijab is not obligatory, MODEST dress is.

“Message from Her Majesty Queen Rania to Arab Times:

God, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful, insists on making His religion easy, practical and enjoyable for His true believers. God also told us that those who reject Him or His books are making life miserable for themselves and for their loved ones who follow in their footsteps.

He reminds us in the Quran that He has placed no hardship on us in practicing our religion (see Quran 22:78)

God established also several rules in His book, the Quran, for His TRUE believers. Breaking any of His rules or refusing any of them means loss, misguidance, misery and eternal suffering.

To understand a topic like the DRESS CODE for Muslim Women, we need to review quickly some of these rules established by our Creator, God Almighty, to whom we will be responsible for our deeds. Every rule is important and every rule is meant to be.

(1) The Quran is a complete book, See Quran 6:19,38,114, 115, 12:111 and 50:45.

Remember that when God says that His book is complete, it means 100% complete.

(2) The Quran is perfect; no mistakes, no falsehood, no nonsense. See Quran 41:42,12:40, 30:30, 30:43 and 98:5

(3) The Quran is detailed, and when God says He detailed His book it means FULLY detailed. God does not do half jobs. See Quran 6:114, 7:52, 11:1, 41:3, 10:37 and 12:111

(4) God does not need any addition to His book. God teaches us in the Quran that He does not run out of words and that if He so willed He could have given us hundreds, thousands or millions of books besides the Quran (see Quran 18:109). Since the Quran is complete, perfect and fully detailed, God did not give us any more books.

(5) God calls His book, the Quran, the BEST HADITH. HE called on His true believers to accept no other hadiths as a source of this perfect religion .

See Quran 7:185, 31:6, 39:23, 45:6, and 77:50.

(6) God calls on His true believers to make sure not to fall in the trap of idol-worship by following the words of the scholars instead of the words of God. See Quran 9:31

(7) God calls those who prohibit what He did not prohibit, aggressors, liars and idol-worshipers. Idol-worship is the only unforgivable sin, if maintained till death. See Quran 5:87, 9:37, 7:32, 6:119, 6:140 and 10:59.

(8) Muhammed is represented only by the Quran. The Prophet Muhammed was the last Prophet and a messenger of God (See Quran 33:40). He was not the messenger of God because of who he (Muhammed) was, but because he was given the Quran (the message) to deliver to the world. The religion of Islam is a religion of God, not about Muhammed, who was blessed by God with the delivery of the message of the Quran. He did not have an agenda of his own. His job was to deliver to the world what God was giving him, the Quran. See Quran 42:48, 13:40, 5:99-100

Muhammed cannot prohibit things, or make lawful things on his own. When he tried to do that God admonished him publicly, see Quran 66:1

66:1 reminds us that God is the only ONE to prohibit or make things lawful. NO ONE can attribute to Muhammed a prohibition that God did not give him in the Quran. Anyone who tries to do so is admitting his/her refusal of God’s words and commandments in the Quran.

(9) The TRUE believers KNOW that when God says something, He means it, and when He does not, he means it as well. Everything given to us in the Quran was done deliberately and everything left out was also left out deliberately.

God does not forget. See Quran 19:64. We are not to add to this religion what God deliberately left out and claim it to be from Him or His messenger. His messenger has only ONE message, the Quran. God already told us He does not run out of words. See Quran 18:109

(10) God does not need us to improve on His book, the Quran, but we very much need Him for every aspect of our lives. Those who think they have some improvement on the Quran are but asking for recognition of their idols as gods besides the ONE and ONLY GOD.

(11) God calls on His TRUE believers to verify every piece of information they see, hear or read, see Quran 17:36.

So, Please VERIFY for yourself.

THREE RULES FOR WOMEN DRESS CODE IN ISLAM

FIRST RULE: THE BEST GARMENT

See Quran[7:26]

This is the BASIC rule of DRESS CODE in the Quran. This is the first rule in WOMEN DRESS CODE in Islam.

SECOND RULE: COVER YOUR BOSOMS

The second rule can be found in Quran 24:31. Here God orders the women to cover their bosoms whenever they dress up. But before quoting 24:31 let us review some crucial words that are always mentioned with this topic, namely “Hijab” and “Khimar”

THE WORD “HIJAB” in the QURAN “Hijab” is the term used by many Muslims women to describe their head cover that may or may not include covering their face except their eyes, and sometimes covering also one eye. The Arabic word “Hijab” can be translated into veil or yashmak. Other meanings for the word “Hijab” include, screen, cover (ing), mantle, curtain, drapes, partition, division, divider.

Can we find the word “Hijab” in the Quran??

The word “Hijab” appeared in the Quran 7 times, five of them as “Hijab” and two times as “Hijaban,”. See Quran 7:46, 33:53, 38:32, 41:5, 42:51, 17:45 and 19:17.

None of these “Hijab” words are used in the Quran in reference to what the traditional Muslims call today (Hijab) as a dress code for the Muslim woman.

God knows that generations after Muhammed’s death the Muslims will use the word “Hijab” to invent a dress code that He never authorized. God used the word “Hijab” ahead of them just as He used the word “Hadith” ahead of them. Hijab in the Quran has nothing to do with the Muslim Women dress code.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

While many Muslims call “Hijab”, an Islamic dress code, they completely ignore the fact that, Hijab as a dress code has nothing to do with Islam and nothing to do with QURAN.

“Hijab” or veil can be traced back to early civilizations. It can be found in early and late Roman and Greek art. The evidence can be seen in archeological discoveries whether in pottery fragments, paintings or recorded civil laws.

In Greco-Roman culture, both women and men wore head covering in religious contexts. The tradition of wearing the veil (by women) and the headcover (by men) was then adopted by the Jews who wrote it in the Talmud then the Christians adopted the same. A well respected Rabbi once explained to a group of Jewish young women, “We do not find a direct command in the Torah mandating that women cover their heads, but we do know that this has been the continuing custom for thousands of years.” After the prophet Muhammad’s death , the writers of the hadith books adopted and encouraged the ancient tradition of head covering. Hadith book’ writers took after the Jews as they did with many other traditions , and alleged them to the prophet since the Quran did not command it.

Any student of the Jewish traditions or religious books will see that head cover for the Jewish woman (and men) has been encouraged by the Rabbis and religious leaders. Observant Jewish women still cover their heads most of the time and specially in the synagogues, weddings, and religious festivities.

Christian women cover their heads in many religious occasions while the nuns cover their heads all the time. As we can expect the traditional Arabs, of all religions, Jews, Christians and Muslims used to wear head cover, or “Hijab,” not because of Islam, but because of tradition. In Saudi Arabia, up to this day most of the men cover their heads , not because of Islam but because of tradition. North Africa is known for its Tribe (Tuareg) that have the Muslim men wearing “Hijab” instead of women. Here the tradition has the hijab in reverse. If wearing Hijab is the sign of the pious and righteous Muslim woman, Mother Teresa would have been the first woman to be counted.

In brief, hijab is a traditional dress and has nothing to do with Islam or religion. In certain areas of the world, men are the ones who wear the hijab while in others the women do. Mixing religion with tradition is a form of idolworship, since the followers of traditions are following laws from sources other than God’s scriptures and claim it to be from God. Idolworship is the only unforgivable sin if maintained till death.

Ignoring what God asks you to do in His book, or following innovated laws not stated in the the Quran, is a clear sign of disregarding God and His message.

When tradition supersedes God’s commandment, the true religion takes a second place. God never accepts to be second, God has to be always the FIRST and to HIM there is no second.

THE WORD “KHIMAR” in the QURAN:

“Khimar” is an Arabic word that can be found in the Quran in 24:31 While the first basic rule of Dress Code for the Muslim Women can be found in Quran 7:26, the second rule of the DRESS CODE FOR WOMEN can be found in Quran 24:31.

Some Muslims quote verse 31 of sura 24 as containing the Hijab, or head cover, by pointing to the word, khomoorehenna, (from Khimar), forgetting that God already used the word Hijab, several times in the Quran. Those blessed by God can see that the use of the word “Khimar” in this verse is not for “Hijab” or for head cover. Those who quote this verse usually add (Head cover) after the word Khomoorehenna, and usually between ( ), because it is their addition to the verse not God’s. See Quran 24:31

“Khimar” is an Arabic word that means, cover, any cover, a curtain is a Khimar, a dress is a Khimar, a table cloth that covers the top of a table is a Khimar, a blanket can be used as a Khimar..etc. The word KHAMRA used for intoxicant in Arabic has the same root with Khimar, because both covers, the Khimar covers (a window, a body, a table . . . etc.) while KHAMRA covers the state of mind.

In Quran 24:31 God is asking the women to use their cover (khimar)( being a dress, a coat, a shawl, a shirt, a blouse, a tie, a scarf . . . etc.) to cover their bosoms, not their heads or their hairs. If God so willed to order the women to cover their heads or their hair, nothing would have prevented Him from doing so. GOD does not run out of words. GOD does not forget. God did not order the women to cover their heads or their hair.

God does not wait for a Scholar to put the correct words for Him!

The Arabic word for CHEST, GAYB is in the verse (24:31), but the Arabic words for HEAD, (RAAS) or HAIR, (SHAAR) are NOT in the verse. The commandment in the verse is clear – COVER YOUR CHEST OR BOSOMS.

The last part of the verse (24:31) show us that the details of the body can be revealed or not revealed by the dress you wear, not by your head cover.

Notice also the expression in 24:31,

This expression may sound vague to many because they have not understood the mercy of God. Again God here used this very general term to give us the freedom to decide according to our own circumstances the definition of “What is necessary”.

It is not up to a scholar or to any particular person to define this term. God wants to leave it personal for every woman and no one can take it away from her. Women who follow the basic rule number one i.e. righteousness, will have no problem making the right decision to reveal only which is necessary.

THIRD RULE : LENGTHEN YOUR GARMENTS

The first regulation of DRESS CODE for Muslim women is in Quran 7:26, the second is in Quran 24:31 and the third is in Quran 33:59

In Quran 33:59, God sets the other regulation for the dress code for the Muslim women during the prophet’s life.

Although the verse is talking to the prophet which means this regulation applies to the time of the prophet, just like the order in Quran 49:2, the description fits the spirit of Islam, and can teach us a great deal.

If you reflect on this verse and how God ordered the prophet to tell his wives, his daughters and the wives of the believers to lengthen their garments, you would understand the great wisdom of the MOST WISE, the MOST MERCIFUL. In this verse, God, DELIBERATELY, (and all the TRUE believers know that everything GOD says, does, or did is DELIBERATE) said, tell them, to lengthen their garments, and never said how long is long. God could have said tell them to lengthen their garments to their ankles or to their mid-calf or to their knees, but HE DID NOT. He did not, OUT OF HIS MERCY, not because HE FORGOT as God does not forget. God knows that we will be living in different communities and have different cultures and insists that the minor details of this dress code will be left for the people of every community to hammer for themselves.

It is clear from the above verses that the DRESS CODE for the Muslim women according to the Quran is righteousness and modesty. God knows that this modesty will be understood differently in different communities and that is why He left it open to us to decide for ourselves. Decide, after righteousness what is modesty. Modesty for a woman who lives in New York may not be accepted by a woman who lives in Cairo Egypt. Modesty of a woman who lives in Cairo, Egypt may not be accepted by a woman who lives in Saudi Arabia.

Modesty of a woman who lives in Jidda in Saudi Arabia may not be accepted by a woman who lives in a desert oasis in the same country. This difference in the way we perceive modesty is well known to God, He created us, and He put NO hardship on us in this great religion. He left it to us to decide what modesty would be. For any person, knowledgeable or not to draw a line and make conclusion for God about the definition of modesty is to admit that he/she knows better than God.

God left it open for us and no-one has the authority to restrict it, it has to stay open.

The word “zeenatahunna” in this verse refers to the woman’s body parts (beauty) that can be exaggerated by the movement of the body while walking and not to the artificial ornaments and decorations as some people interpret it or translate it. At the end of the verse, God told the women not to strike with their feet to show their “zeenatahunna.” Striking the feet while walking can emphasize , exaggerate or shake certain parts of the body that do not need to be emphasized. It is important to remember that striking the feet while walking does not have this effect on the head, hair or face, they are not part of what God calls in this verse the hidden zeena.

Accepting orders from anybody but God, means idol-worship. That is how serious the matter of Hijab/khimar is. Women who wear Hijab because of tradition or because they like it for personal reasons commit no sin, as long as they know that it is not part of this perfect religion. Those who are wearing it because they think God ordered it are committing Idol-worship, as God did not order it, the scholars did. These women have found for themselves another god than the One who revealed the Quran, complete, perfect and FULLY detailed to tell them they have to cover their heads to be Muslims.

Idol-worship is the only unforgivable sin, if maintained till death, See Quran 4:48.

RELAXING THE DRESS CODE:

In the family setting, God put no hardship on the women, and permitted them to relax their dress code. If you reflect on the verses, Quran 33:35 and Quran 24:60, you will see that God did not give details of what this relaxation is, because every situation is different.

A woman may relax her dress code in front of the four-year-old son of her brother but not as much in front of the 16 year old son. I think i have the right to relax in front of my own family.

DRESS CODE FOR THE MOSQUES (MASJIDS):

See Quran 7:31

HARDSHIP IN THIS RELIGION:

God, the MOST GRACIOUS, MOST MERCIFUL decided that those who will reject His complete book and go look for other sources for guidance will suffer in this life and in the HEREAFTER by their choice. God never put any hardship on the believers, but the scholars did, they invented their own laws in defiance of God, to regulate everything from the side of bed you sleep on, to which foot should step in the house, to what to do with a fly in your soup, to what to say when having intercourse with your spouse.

Those who believe God and believe that His book is COMPLETE, PERFECT AND FULLY DETAILED, will have everything easy for them as God promised, See Quran 10:62- 64, 16:97 while those who could not believe God and have been seeking other sources than the Quran will have all the hardship of this life and the life to come. In the Hereafter they will complain to God, “we were not idol- worshipers,” but God knows best, He knows they were See Quran 6:22-24″

Women in Islam: Hijab

“In many Muslim societies, for example in traditional South East Asia, or in Bedouin lands a face veil for women is either rare or non-existent; paradoxically, modern fundamentalism is introducing it”, writes Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.D.

Literally, Hijab means “a veil”, “curtain”, “partition” or “separation.” In a meta- physical sense, Hijab means illusion or refers to the illusory aspect of creation. Another, and most popular and common meaning of Hijab today, is the veil in dressing for women. It refers to a certain standard of modest dress for women. “The usual definition of modest dress according to the legal systems does not actually require covering everything except the face and hands in public; this, at least, is the practice which originated in theMiddle East.” 1
While Hijab means “cover”, “drape”, or “partition”; the word KHIMAR means veil covering the head and the word LITHAM or NIQAB means veil covering lower face up to the eyes. The general term hijab in the present day world refers to the covering of the face by women. In the Indian sub-continent it is called purdah and inIranit called chador for the tent like black cloak and veil worn by many women inIranand other Middle Eastern countries. By socioeconomic necessity, the obligation to observe the hijab now often applies more to female “garments” (worn outside the house) than it does to the ancient paradigmatic feature of women’s domestic “seclusion.” In the contemporary normative Islamic language ofEgyptand elsewhere, the hijab now denotes more a “way of dressing” than a “way of life,” a (portable) “veil” rather than a fixed “domestic screen/seclusion.” InEgyptandAmericahijab presently denotes the basic head covering (“veil”) worn by fundamentalist/Islamist women as part of Islamic dress (zayy islami, or zayy shar’i); this hijab-head covering conceals hair and neck of the wearer.
The Qur’an advises the wives of the Prophet (SAS) to go veiled (33: 59).
In Surah 24: 31(Ayah), the Qur’an advises women to cover their “adornments” from strangers outside the family. In the traditional and modern Arab societies women at home dress quite differently compared to what they wear in the streets. In this verse of the Qur’an, it refers to the institution of a new public modesty rather than veiling the face.
…When the pre-Islamic Arabs went to battle, Arab women seeing the men off to war would bare their breasts to encourage them to fight; or they would do so at the battle itself, as in the case of the Meccan women led by Hind at the Battle of Uhud. This changed with Islam, but the general use of the veil to cover the face did not appear until ‘Abbasid times. Nor was it entirely unknown inEurope, for the veil permitted women the freedom of anonymity. None of the legal systems actually prescribe that women must wear a veil, although they do prescribe covering the body in public, up to the neck, the ankles, and below the elbow. In many Muslim societies, for example in traditionalSouth East Asia, or in Bedouin lands a face veil for women is either rare or non-existent; paradoxically, modern fundamentalism is introducing it. In others, the veil may be used at one time and European dress another. While modesty is a religious prescription, the wearing of a veil is not a religious requirement of Islam, but a matter of cultural milieu.2
“The Middle Eastern norm for relationships between the sexes is by no means the only one possible for Islamic societies everywhere, nor is it appropriate for all cultures. It does not exhaust the possibilities allowed within the framework of the Qur’an and Sunnah, and is neither feasible nor desirable as a model for Europe orNorth America. European societies possess perfectly adequate models for marriage, the family, and relations between the sexes which are by no means out of harmony with the Qur’an and the Sunnah. This is borne out by the fact that within certain broad limits Islamic societies themselves differ enormously in this respect.” 3
The Qur’an lays down the principle of the law of modesty. In Surah 24: An-Nur: 30 and 31, modesty is enjoined both upon Muslim men and Muslim women 4:
Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for Greater purity for them: And God is Well-acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women That they should lower their gaze And guard their modesty: and they should not display beauty and ornaments expect what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that They must draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband’s fathers, their sons, their husband’s sons, or their women, or their slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their ornaments.
The following conclusions may be made on the basis of the above-cited verses5:
1. The Qur’anic injunctions enjoining the believers to lower their gaze and behave modestly applies to both Muslim men and women and not Muslim women alone.
2. Muslim women are enjoined to “draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty” except in the presence of their husbands, other women, children, eunuchs and those men who are so closely related to them that they are not allowed to marry them. Although a self-conscious exhibition of one’s “zeenat” (which means “that which appears to be beautiful” or “that which is used for embellishment or adornment”) is forbidden, the Qur’an makes it clear that what a woman wears ordinarily is permissible. Another interpretation of this part of the passage is that if the display of “zeenat” is unintentional or accidental, it does not violate the law of modesty.
3. Although Muslim women may wear ornaments they should not walk in a manner intended to cause their ornaments to jingle and thus attract the attention of others.
The respected scholar, Muhammad Asad6, commenting on Qur’an 24:31 says ” The noun khimar (of which khumur is plural) denotes the head-covering customarily used by Arabian women before and after the advent of Islam. According to most of the classical commentators, it was worn in pre-Islamic times more or less as an ornament and was let down loosely over the wearer’s back; and since, in accordance with the fashion prevalent at the time, the upper part of a woman’s tunic had a wide opening in the front, her breasts were left bare. Hence, the injunction to cover the bosom by means of a khimar (a term so familiar to the contemporaries of the Prophet) does not necessarily relate to the use of a khimar as such but is, rather, meant to make it clear that a woman’s breasts are not included in the concept of “what may decently be apparent” of her body and should not, therefore, be displayed.
The Qur’anic view of the ideal society is that the social and moral values have to be upheld by both Muslim men and women and there is justice for all, i.e. between man and man and between man and woman. The Qur’anic legislation regarding women is to protect them from inequities and vicious practices (such as female infanticide, unlimited polygamy or concubinage, etc.) which prevailed in the pre-IslamicArabia. However the main purpose is to establish to equality of man and woman in the sight of God who created them both in like manner, from like substance, and gave to both the equal right to develop their own potentialities. To become a free, rational person is then the goal set for all human beings. Thus the Qur’an liberated the women from the indignity of being sex-objects into persons. In turn the Qur’an asks the women that they should behave with dignity and decorum befitting a secure, Self-respecting and self-aware human being rather than an insecure female who felt that her survival depends on her ability to attract or cajole those men who were interested not in her personality but only in her sexuality.
One of the verses in the Qur’an protects a woman’s fundamental rights. Aya 59 from Sura al-Ahzab reads:
O Prophet! Tell Thy wives And daughters, and the Believing women, that They should cast their Outer garments over Their Persons (when outside): That they should be known (As such) and not Molested.
Although this verse is directed in the first place to the Prophet’s “wives and daughters”, there is a reference also to “the believing women” hence it is generally understood by Muslim societies as applying to all Muslim women. According to the Qur’an the reason why Muslim women should wear an outer garment when going out of their houses is so that they may be recognized as “believing” Muslim women and differentiated from street-walkers for whom sexual harassment is an occupational hazard. The purpose of this verse was not to confine women to their houses but to make it safe for them to go about their daily business without attracting unwholesome attention. By wearing the outer garment a “believing” Muslim woman could be distinguished from the others. In societies where there is no danger of “believing” Muslim being confused with the others or in which “the outer garment” is unable to function as a mark of identification for “believing” Muslim women, the mere wearing of “the outer garment” would not fulfill the true objective of the Qur’anic decree. For example that older Muslim women who are “past the prospect of marriage” are not required to wear “the outer garment”. Surah 24: An-Nur, Aya 60 reads:
Such elderly women are past the prospect of marriage,– There is no blame on them, if they lay aside their (outer) garments, provided they make not wanton display of their beauty; but it is best for them to be modest: and Allah is One who sees and knows all things.
Women who on account of their advanced age are not likely to be regarded as sex-objects are allowed to discard “the outer garment” but there is no relaxation as far as the essential Qur’anic principle of modest behavior is concerned. Reflection on the above-cited verse shows that “the outer garment” is not required by the Qur’an as a necessary statement of modesty since it recognizes the possibility women may continue to be modest even when they have discarded “the outer garment.”
The Quran itself does not suggest either that women should be veiled or they should be kept apart from the world of men. On the contrary, the Qur’an is insistent on the full participation of women in society and in the religious practices prescribed for men.
Nazira Zin al-Din stipulates that the morality of the self and the cleanness of the conscience are far better than the morality of the chador. No goodness is to be hoped from pretence, all goodness is in the essence of the self. Zin al-Din also argues that imposing the veil on women is the ultimate proof that men suspect their mothers, daughters, wives and sisters of being potential traitors to them. This means that men suspect ‘the women closest and dearest to them.’ How can society trust women with the most consequential job of bringing up children when it does not trust them with their faces and bodies? How can Muslim men meet rural and European women who are not veiled and treat them respectfully but not treat urban Muslim women in the same way? 7 She concludes this part of the book, al-Sufur Wa’l-hijab 8 by stating that it is not an Islamic duty on Muslim women to wear hijab. If Muslim legislators have decided that it is, their opinions are wrong. If hijab is based on women’s lack of intellect or piety, can it be said that all men are more perfect in piety and intellect than all women? 9 The spirit of a nation and its civilization is a reflection of the spirit of the mother. How can any mother bring up distinguished children if she herself is deprived of her personal freedom? She concludes that in enforcing hijab, society becomes a prisoner of its customs and traditions rather than Islam.
There are two ayahs which are specifically addressed to the wives of the Prophet Muhammad (S) and not to other Muslim women.
These are ayahs 32 and 53 of Sura al-Ahzab. “.. And stay quietly in your houses,” did not mean confinement of the wives of the Prophet (S) or other Muslim women and make them inactive. Muslim women remained in mixed company with men until the late sixth century (A.H.) or eleventh century (CE). They received guests, held meetings and went to wars helping their brothers and husbands, defend their castles and bastions.10
Zin al-Din reviewed the interpretations of Aya 30 from Sura al-Nur and Aya 59 from sura al-Ahzab which were cited above by al-Khazin, al-Nafasi, Ibn Masud, Ibn Abbas and al-Tabari and found them full of contradictions. Yet, almost all interpreters agreed that women should not veil their faces and their hands and anyone who advocated that women should cover all their bodies including their faces could not face his argument on any religious text. If women were to be totally covered, there would have been no need for the ayahs addressed to Muslim men: ‘Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty.’ (Sura al-Nur, Aya 30). She supports her views by referring to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (S), always taking into account what the Prophet himself said ‘I did not say a thing that is not in harmony with God’s book.’11 God says: ‘O consorts of the Prophet! ye are not like any of the (other) women’ (Ahzab, 53). Thus it is very clear that God did not want women to measure themselves against the wives of the Prophet and wear hijab like them and there is no ambiguity whatsoever regarding this aya. Therefore, those who imitate the wives of the Prophet and wear hijab are disobeying God’s will.12
In Islam ruh al-madaniyya (Islam: The Spirit of Civilization) Shaykh Mustafa Ghalayini reminds his readers that veiling pre-dated Islam and that Muslims learned from other peoples with whom they mixed. He adds that hijab as it is known today is prohibited by the Islamic shari’a. Any one who looks at hijab as it is worn by some women would find that it makes them more desirable than if they went out without hijab13. Zin al-Din points out that veiling was a custom of rich families as a symbol of status. She quotes Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Maghribi who also saw in hijab an aristocratic habit to distinguish the women of rich and prestigious families from other women. She concludes that hijab as it is known today is prohibited by the Islamic shari’a.14
Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali in his book Sunna Between Fiqh and Hadith 15 declares that those who claim that women’s reform is conditioned by wearing the veil are lying to God and his Prophet. He expresses the opinion that the contemptuous view of women has been passed on from the first jahiliya (the Pre-Islamic period) to the Islamic society. Al-Ghazali’s argument is that Islam has made it compulsory on women not to cover their faces during haj and salat (prayer) the two important pillars of Islam. How then could Islam ask women to cover their faces at ordinary times?16 Al-Ghazali is a believer and is confident that all traditions that function to keep women ignorant and prevent them from functioning in public are the remnants of jahiliya and that following them is contrary to the spirit of Islam.
Al-Ghazali says that during the time of the Prophet women were equals at home, in the mosques and on the battlefield. Today true Islam is being destroyed in the name of Islam.
Another Muslim scholar, Abd al-Halim Abu Shiqa wrote a scholarly study of women in Islam entitled Tahrir al-mara’a fi ‘asr al-risalah: (The Emancipation of Women during the Time of the Prophet)17 agrees with Zin al-Din and al-Ghazali about the discrepancy between the status of women during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the status of women today. He says that Islamists have made up sayings which they attributed to the Prophet such as ‘women are lacking both intellect and religion’ and in many cases they brought sayings which are not reliable at all and promoted them among Muslims until they became part of the Islamic culture.
Like Zin al-Din and al-Ghazali, Abu Shiqa finds that in many countries very weak and unreliable sayings of the Prophet are invented to support customs and traditions which are then considered to be part of the shari’a. He argues that it is the Islamic duty of women to participate in public life and in spreading good (Sura Tauba, Aya 71). He also agrees with Zin al-Din and Ghazali that hijab was for the wives of the Prophet and that it was against Islam for women to imitate the wives of the Prophet. If women were to be totally covered, why did God ask both men and women to lower their gaze? (Sura al-Nur, Ayath 30-31).
The actual practice of veiling most likely came from areas captured in the initial spread of Islam such asSyria,Iraq, andPersiaand was adopted by upper-class urban women. Village and rural women traditionally have not worn the veil, partly because it would be an encumbrance in their work. It is certainly true that segregation of women in the domestic sphere took place increasingly as the Islamic centuries unfolded, with some very unfortunate consequences. Some women are again putting on clothing that identifies them as Muslim women. This phenomenon, which began only a few years ago, has manifested itself in a number of countries.
It is part of the growing feeling on the part of Muslim men and women that they no longer wish to identify with the West, and that reaffirmation of their identity as Muslims requires the kind of visible sign that adoption of conservative clothing implies. For these women the issue is not that they have to dress conservatively but that they choose to. InIranImam Khomeini first insisted that women must wear the veil and chador and in response to large demonstrations by women, he modified his position and agreed that while the chador is not obligatory, modest dress is, including loose clothing and non-transparent stockings and scarves.18
With Islam’s expansion into areas formerly part of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, the scripture-legislated social paradigm that had evolved in the early Medinan community came face to face with alien social structures and traditions deeply rooted in the conquered populations. Among the many cultural traditions assimilated and continued by Islam were the veiling and seclusion of women, at least among the urban upper and upper-middle classes. With these traditions’ assumption into “the Islamic way of life,” they of need helped to shape the normative interpretations of Qur’anic gender laws as formulated by the medireview (urbanized and acculturated) lawyer-theologians. In the latter’s consensus-based prescriptive systems, the Prophet’s wives were recognized as models for emulation (sources of Sunna). Thus, while the scholars provided information on the Prophet’s wives in terms of, as well as for, an ideal of Muslim female morality, the Qur’anic directives addressed to the Prophet’s consorts were naturally seen as applicable to all Muslim women.19
Semantically and legally, that is, regarding both the terms and also the parameters of its application, Islamic interpretation extended the concept of hijab. In scripturalist method, this was achieved in several ways.
Firstly, the hijab was associated with two of the Qur’an’s “clothing laws” imposed upon all Muslim females: the “mantle” verse of 33:59 and the “modesty” verse of 24:31. On the one hand, the semantic association of domestic segregation (hijab) with garments to be worn in public (jilbab, khimar) resulted in the use of the term hijab for concealing garments that women wore outside of their houses. This language use is fully documented in the medireview Hadith. However, unlike female garments such as jilbab, lihaf, milhafa, izar, dir’ (traditional garments for the body), khimar, niqab, burqu’, qina’, miqna’a (traditional garments for the head and neck) and also a large number of other articles of clothing, the medireview meaning of hijab remained conceptual and generic. In their debates on which parts of the woman’s body, if any, are not “awra” (literally, “genital,” “pudendum”) and many therefore be legally exposed to nonrelatives, the medireview scholars often contrastively paired woman’s’ awra with this generic hijab. This permitted the debate to remain conceptual rather than get bogged down in the specifics of articles of clothing whose meaning, in any case, was prone to changes both geographic/regional and also chronological. At present we know very little about the precise stages of the process by which the hijab in its multiple meanings was made obligatory for Muslim women at large, except to say that these occurred during the first centuries after the expansion of Islam beyond the borders of Arabia, and then mainly in the Islamicized societies still ruled by preexisting (Sasanian and Byzantine) social traditions.
With the rise of the Iraq-based Abbasid state in the mid-eighth century of the Western calendar, the lawyer-theologians of Islam grew into a religious establishment entrusted with the formulation of Islamic law and morality, and it was they who interpreted the Qur’anic rules on women’s dress and space in increasingly absolute and categorical fashion, reflecting the real practices and cultural assumptions of their place and age. Classical legal compendia, medireview Hadith collections and Qur’anic exegesis are here mainly formulations of the system “as established” and not of its developmental stages, even though differences of opinion on the legal limits of the hijab garments survived, including among the doctrinal teachings of the four orthodox schools of law (madhahib). 20
Attacked by foreigners and indigenous secularists alike and defended by the many voices of conservatism, hijab has come to signify the sum total of traditional institutions governing women’s role in Islamic society. Thus, in the ideological struggles surrounding the definition of Islam’s nature and role in the modern world, the hijab has acquired the status of “cultural symbol.”
Qasim Amin, the French-educated, pro-Western Egyptian journalist, lawyer, and politician in the last century wanted to bring Egyptian society from a state of “backwardness” into a state of “civilization” and modernity. To do so, he lashed out against the hijab, in its expanded sense, as the true reason for the ignorance, superstition, obesity, anemia, and premature aging of the Muslim woman of his time. He wanted the Muslim women to raise from the “backward” hijab into the desirable modernist ideal of women’s right to an elementary education, supplemented by their ongoing contact with life outside of the home to provide experience of the “real world” and combat superstition. He understood the hijab as an amalgam of institutionalized restrictions on women that consisted of sexual segregation, domestic seclusion, and the face veil. He insisted as much on the woman’s right to mobility outside the home as he did on the adaptation of shar’i Islamic garb, which would leave a woman’s face and hands uncovered. Women’s domestic seclusion and the face veil, then, were primary points in Amin’s attack on what was wrong with the Egyptian social system of his time.21 Muhammad Abdu tried to restore the dignity to Muslim woman by way of educational and some legal reforms, the modernist blueprint of women’s Islamic rights eventually also included the right to work, vote, and stand for election-that is, full participation in public life. He separated the forever-valid-as-stipulated laws of ‘ibadat (religious observances) from the more time-specific mu’amalat (social transactions) in Qur’an and shari’a, which latter included the Hadith as one of its sources. Because modern Islamic societies differ from the seventh-century umma, time-specific laws are thus no longer literally applicable but need a fresh legal interpretation (ijtihad). What matters is to safeguard “the public good” (al-maslah al’-amma) in terms of Muslim communal morality and spirituality. 22
In The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam, the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi attacks the age-old conservative focus on women’s segregation as mere institutionalization of authoritarianism, achieved by way of manipulation of sacred texts, “a structural characteristic of the practice of power in Muslim societies.” In describing the feminist model of the Prophet’s wives’ rights and roles both domestic and also communal, Mernissi uses the methodology of “literal” interpretation of Qur’an and Hadith. In the selection and interpretations of traditions, she discredits some of textual items as unauthentic by the criteria of classical Hadith criticism. In Mernissi’s reading of Qur’an and Hadith, Muhammad’s wives were dynamic, influential, and enterprising members of the community, and fully involved in Muslim public affairs. He listened to their advice. In the city, they were leaders of women’s protest movements, first for equal status as believers and thereafter regarding economic and sociopolitical rights, mainly in the areas of inheritance, participation in warfare and booty, and personal (marital) relations. Muhammad’s vision of Islamic society was egalitarian, and he lived this ideal in his own household. Later the Prophet had to sacrifice his egalitarian vision for the sake of communal cohesiveness and the survival of the Islamic cause. To Mernissi, the seclusion of Muhammad’s wives from public life (the hijab, Qur’an 33.53) is a symbol of Islam’s retreat from the early principle of gender equality, as is the “mantel” (jilbab) verse of 33:59 which relinquished the principle of social responsibility, the individual sovereign will that internalizes control rather than place it within external barriers. Concerning A’isha’s involvement in political affairs (the Battle of the Camel), Mernissi engages in classical Hadith criticism to prove the inauthenticity of the (presumably Prophetic) traditions “a people who entrust their command [or, affair, amr] to a woman will not thrive” because of historical problems relating to the date of its first transmission and also self-serving motives and a number of moral deficiencies recorded about its first transmitter, the Prophet’s freedman Abu Bakra. Modernists in general disregard hadith items rather than question their authenticity by scrutinizing the transmitters’ reliability.23 After describing the active participation of Muslim women in the battlefields as warriors and nurses to the wounded, Maulana Maudoodi24 says ” This shows that the Islamic purdah is not a custom of ignorance which cannot be relaxed under any circumstances, on the other hand, it is a custom which can be relaxed as and when required in a moment of urgency. Not only is a woman allowed to uncover a part of her satr (coveredness) under necessity, there is no harm.”
In the matter of hijab, the conscience of an honest, sincere Believer alone can be the true judge, as has been said by the Noble Prophet: “Ask for the verdict of your conscience and discard what pricks it.”
Islam cannot be properly followed without knowledge. It is a rational law and to follow it rightly one needs to exercise reason and understanding at every step.25
Copyright © 2001 irfiweb.org All Rights Reserved.
REFERENCES
1. Cyril Glasse. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. Harper and Row Publishers,New York,N.Y., 1989, p. 156
2. Ibid, p. 413
3. Ibid, p. 421
4. Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. The Holy Quran (Amana Corp.,Brentwood,Maryland), 1989. Pp 873-874
5. Riffat Hassan. Women’s Rights and Islam: From the I.C.P.D. toBeijing.Louisville,Kentucky, 1995. pp. 65-76
6. Translated and explained by Muhammad Asad. The Message of the Qur’an. Dar al-Andalus,Gibraltar. 1984. p.538
7. Bouthaina Shaaban.The Muted Voices of Women Interpreters. In
FAITH AND FREEDOM: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World, Mahnaz Afkhami (Editor). I. B. Tauris Publishers,New York, 1995. p.68.
8. Nazira Zin al-Din, al-Sufur Wa’l-hijab (Beirut: Quzma Publications, 1928), p 37
9. Bouthaina Shaaban, op.cit. P.69
10. Nazira Zin al-Din, op.cit.pp. 191-2
11. Ibid, p.226
12. Bouthaina Shaaban, op. cit. p.72
13. Shaykh Mustafa al-Ghalayini, Islam ruh al-madaniyya (Islam:
The Spirit of Civilization)(Beirut: al-Maktabah al-Asriyya,
1960) P.253
14. Ibid, pp.255-56
15. Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali.: Sunna Between Fiqh and Hadith
(Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1989, 7th edition, 1990)
16. Ibid, p.44
17. Abd al-Halim Abu Shiqa.: Tahrir al-mara’ fi ‘asr al-risalah
(Kuwait: Dar al-Qalam, 1990)
18. Jane I. Smith.:The Experience of Muslim Women:Considerations
of Power and Authority. In The Islamic Impact. Haddad, Y.Y. (Editor),SyracuseUniversityPress. 1984. Pp. 89-112
19. Barbara Freyer Stowasser.: Women in the Qur’an, Traditions, andInterpretation.OxfordUniversityPress. 1994. P. 92
20. Ibid, p.93
21. Ibid, p.127
22. Ibid, p.132
23. Ibid, p.133
24. Syed AbuAlaMaudoodi. Purdah and the Status of Woman in Islam. Islamic Publications.Lahore,Pakistan. 1972. P.215

من أُستراليا إلى أستوديو للنشر الشيخ مصطفى راشد في أخطرِ فتاويه (الشيخ يقول إن الرسول توضأ بالكحول)

Casablanca – Last month at Al Azhar University, Sheikh Mustapha Mohamed Rashed defended a thesis that sparked a heated debate among religious scholars. The candidate concluded that Hijab, or the veil, is not an Islamic duty.

The claim is not the first of its kind, but the mere fact that it is adopted in Al Azhar University – the Sunni Islam’s foremost seat of learning –makes it controversial.

Sheikh Mustapha Mohamed Rashed argued that Hijab is not an Islamic duty. He stated that Hijab refers to the cover of the head, which is not mentioned in the Holy Quran at all. “Nonetheless, a bunch of scholars insisted vehemently that the veil is both an Islamic duty and one of the most important pillars of Islam,” he added.

In doing so, the PhD candidate points out, “they deviated from the purposes of the Islamic law and “Sahih Atafsir” or the true interpretation. They rejected reasoning and relied only on literal text.”

According to Mohamed Rashed, these scholars de-contextualized the verses of the Quran and interpreted them in their very own liking, following some ancient scholars, as if what they said is sacred and is no subject to Ijtihad.

Ijtihad is a technical term, which literally means “exertion” in a jurisprudential sense; it is the exertion of mental energy by a Muslim jurist to deduce legal rulings from Islam’s sacred texts.

The researcher continued that the scholars, who claim that Hijab is an important pillar of Islam, departed from “Al Minhaj Assahih,” or the true path, of interpretation and reasoning, which interprets the verses according to their historical context and the causes of revelation. These scholars  “interpreted the verses in their general sense, overlooking the causes of their revelation, intentionally or due to their limited intellectual capacity resulted in psychological scourge.” Worse yet, they approached hundreds of important issues in the same way.”

“The supporters of Hijab as an Islamic duty base their arguments on inconsistent and wrong evidence. They would ascribe various meanings to the veil, from Hijab to Khimar to Jalabib, a fact which shows that they digressed from the true meaning they intended to address, the cover of the head,” he added. The researcher attempted to deconstruct the three claims that are derived from interpretations of the sacred texts.

Literally, Hijab means “a veil,” “curtain,” “partition” or “separation.”¹ The verse in which it is mentioned is specifically addressed to the wives of the prophet; there is no dispute among scholars about that at all. The verse states as follow,

And when you ask [his wives] for something, ask them from behind a partition ( hijab). That is purer for your hearts and their hearts. And it is not [conceivable or lawful] for you to harm the Messenger of Allah or to marry his wives after him, ever. Indeed, that would be in the sight of Allah an enormity. ( Quran 33: 53)

The term hijab then is meant to have a partition between the wives of the prophet and his companions. It is not addressed to the Muslim women, otherwise it would have been stated, says Mohamed Rashed.

Bouthaina Shaaban seems to have held the same belief.³She said that those who imitate the wives of the prophet and wear the Hijab are disobeying God’s will, for He said,

O wives of the Prophet, you are not like anyone among women. (Quran 33: 32)

As for the term Khimar, it is found in a verse of the Quran stating,

And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests. (Quran 24: 31)

The researcher pointed out that the evidence is invalid. The intent of the text is to refer to the cover of the breast whose exposure is un-Islamic, but not to what is perceived nowadays as Hijab for the head.

In this regard, it is believed that when the pre-Islamic Arabs went to battle, Arab women seeing the men off to war would bare their breasts to encourage them to fight; or they would do so at the battle itself, as in the case of the Meccan women led by Hind at the Battle of Uhud.²

Nikkie Keddie, a prominent historian and an expert on women’s issues in Islam, said that this verse does not refer to covering the hair. It was only “later interpreted as meaning covering the whole body, including the hair, and most of the face.” She continued that; “This interpretation is illogical. If the whole body and face were meant, there would be no reason to tell women to veil their bosoms specifically, while the later interpretation of ‘adornment’ to mean everything but the hands, feet, and (possibly) the face is a forced one.

However, Al Qaradawi, a famous Egyptian scholar, quoted the same verse to conclude that the Hijab is  compulsory and is an injunction  based on a literal reading of the Koran. He asserted that the Hijab is, “not the result of an opinion by jurists or even by Muslims; it is a Koranic order.”³

As regards the verse in which Jalabib is mentioned, the researcher considered it to be misplaced evidence.

O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. (Quran 33:59)

The supporters of Hijab as an Islamic duty overlooked the historical background and the cause of revelation, for the verse was meant to distinguish between the pure and promiscuous women and slaves. At that time, all women tended not to cover their faces. Hence, the verse was revealed so as to protect the pure from some men, who would gaze at them while they were excreting or urinating.

Mustapha Mohamed Rashed rejected the Hadith, reported by Abu Dawud, in which Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, was ordered by the prophet to expose only her face and palms. He says it should not be taken into any sort of consideration because it is “Ahaad” or its narration does not fulfill one of the most important required conditions, connectivity.

It is not clear whether the dissertation was preserved on the shelves of Al Azhar University and could not be discussed. This possibility made the Moroccan newspaper, Almassaa, wonder if the Arab Spring was conducive in bringing this issue to the surface.

Update to the article: 

Al Azhar University published a statement in June 2012, denying the claims that one of its scholars had defended a thesis that concluded that Hijab, or the veil, is not an Islamic duty.

References:

1.Cyril Glasse. The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1989.

2. Bouthaina Shaaban. The Muted Voices of Women Interpreters. In FAITH AND FREEDOM: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World, Mahnaz Afkhami (Editor). I. B. Tauris Publishers, New York, 1995. p.72.

3. “Live Sermon from Umar Bin-al-Khattab Mosque in Doha,” Qatar TV, December 19, 2003.

 

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُل لِّأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِن جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ أَدْنَىٰ أَن يُعْرَفْنَ فَلَا يُؤْذَيْنَ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا (59)
لَّئِن لَّمْ يَنتَهِ الْمُنَافِقُونَ وَالَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِم مَّرَضٌ وَالْمُرْجِفُونَ فِي الْمَدِينَةِ لَنُغْرِيَنَّكَ بِهِمْ ثُمَّ لَا يُجَاوِرُونَكَ فِيهَا إِلَّا قَلِيلًا (60) سورة الأحزاب

أنا هكتب قصة الآيات دى للناس بالعامية علشان توصل بسهولة، وخدوها مثال علي تدليس كتيرمن رجال الدين وتعمدهم اخفاء الحقائق عن عامة المسلمين…

1- كان “العرب / البدو” في “المدينة / يثرب” عايشين في بيوت أقرب للخيام، ما فيش فيها “دورة مياه / تواليت”، كانوا لما يحبوا يتبولوا، كان التبول في إناء من الفخار، بيترمي البول كل يوم علشان ما يعملش ريحة في البيت الصغير، لما كانوا “يتغوطوا / يتبرزوا” كانوا بيروحوا “الصحراء / الخلاء”، كان الرجالة بيروحوا بالنهار الخلاء يتغوطوا، لما حد يشوفه مش هتفرق معاه، المرأة لازم تستني لـ “بالليل”، ليه بالليل؟! تخيلوا معايا، مجتمع بلا أي لمحة من لمحات المدنية، بعد المغرب ما فيش إنارة، الشوارع بتكون ضلمة كُحل، فكانت المرأة تستني لبعد العشاء، علشان تروح تتغوط في الخلاء، علشان ما حدش يشوفها.
2- بدأ ناس وشباب من أهل المدينة يتحرشوا بالستات وهما خارجين بالليل علشان يتغوطوا في الخلاء.
3- فنزلت الآية 59 من سورة الأحزاب بتقول للمسلمات “الحرائر”، يعني مش الإماء والجواري، إنهم يغطوا وجههم بالليل وهما راحين الخلاء، ليه؟! “ذلك أدني أن يُعرفن”، يعني ده هيخليهم أقرب إنهم يتعرفوا، فالمتحرشين يميزوا بينهم وبين الإماء والجواري، فما يتحرشوش بيهم، علشان كده في واقعة شهيرة أيام عمر بن الخطاب، إنه نزع الحجاب عن “عبدة / جارية” كانت لابساه حتي لا تتشبه بالحرائر، لأنه العبدة، الجارية دى مُباحة للجميع.
4- الآية 60، تحذير شديد اللهجة للمتحرشين دول، اللي سماهم القرآن المنافقين واللي في قلوبهم مرض، إنه لو فضلوا يتحرشوا بالمسلمات “الحرائر”، هيتم فضحهم وطردهم من المدينة.

تقدروا ترجعوا لتفسير “القرطبي” لأنه أفضل تفسير في أسباب النزول، علشان تقروا القصة دي باللغة العربية الفصحي، وتتأكدوا.

تلاعب المشايخ ورجال الدين الإسلامي والإسلاميين بالآيات دى، نموذج فاضح صارخ علي تلاعبهم تقريبًا بـ 99% من تفسير القرآن، التفسير الأصولي، بعموم اللفظ لا بخصوص السبب، اللي خلي داعش فعلت آيات القتال وآيات الرقيق والجواري والإماء!