Being tolerant Tuesday, Dec 26 2006

I don’t know how many of you out there read The Big Pharaoh, but I think he is a fantastic writer and am an avid reader of his blog. I think most of his topics are very insightful- and I love how he feels about the Hijab, since it’s nice to see that there are other Arabs out there who feel the same way about it. 

One thing I love about his blog is the comments! His topics usually generate a lot of controversy and people comment very freely on his blog. The one thing I noticed though is that some people tend to be very mean to each other. I suppose they feel that since they are online, and no one knows who they are, that makes it ok to be rude.

This is basically what my blog entry is going to be about. I think that people should be nice to each other regardless of whether it is face to face or online. The whole point of blogs is that people can share information and ideas together. Thus people should learn to be more tolerant with each other. There is nothing wrong with saying exactly how you feel and what you think about a certain topic. However it becomes counterproductive when people start insulting and making fun of each other.

So in the spirit of Christmas, I am urging everyone out there to be more tolerant of one another. God knows this is one thing that is missing in the world today. Merry Christmas everyone!

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Article on Hijab Thursday, Dec 7 2006

     I recently came across a very interesting article on Hijab. Now I am not sure on how much I agree with the facts stated by the author about the origins of Hijab and when it started, but it certainly caught my attention.  One thing I would like to comment on however, is that girls in Iran are forced to cover their hair at the age of six. This was in accordance with a law that came out in 1982 forcing all girls over the age of six to cover their hair.

     Why did this law come out? Because in ’81 the president of the republic stated that “scientific research had shown that women’s hair emitted rays that drove men insane” . Now I am quoting this directly from the article, so again I do not know how accurate these facts are, but I can tell you one thing. This quote curled my hair (which I do not cover when I go out. I am staunchly anti Hijab). I was so shocked that anyone can actually say something like this. Does the president truly believe that? I mean can he seriously believe that?

     And to force little girls over the age of six to wear the Hijab is just sick! Even the advocates of Hijab state that girls should wear the Hijab when they hit puberty. To steal away little six year olds childhoods’ like that is enough to make me cry. How can a little girl go out to play when she is constantly afraid that her Hijab will slip off and someone will come to yell at her? How can she jump and run and skip rope and be carefree when she is afraid that someone might see her legs or arms? This is all I am going to say about this topic because if I don’t stop now, I don’t know how long I will rant about it. But in the end all I want to say is this. It is so wrong on so many levels. 

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Fed up of being branded as Satanic Wednesday, Nov 8 2006

   This entry will be somewhat of a rant. I am sick and tired of people branding me and my religion as satanic. I understand that right now it is very hard to view the good aspects of Islam and Muslims. However it just is not fair to blame the millions of Muslims who live around the world for the actions of a few horrible fundamentalists.
   I recently posted a comment under the name Hazel on Big Pharoah’s site. I was saying that Saudi’s do not take the good values of Islam at heart. This prompted comments from 2 people. One is Abu Kufr and the other called Tantor. Now these two gentlemen (and I use this term very loosely) have branded Islam as a satanic religion and all Muslims as terrorists. How ignorant. They know nothing about what really goes on in the Muslim/Arab communities. They are using information which is false and which have no basis at all in Islam.
   Tantor had the guts to say that there are hatred inciting comments written on the pillars of Mina. I wonder if he has ever been to Mina to see these comments. Ignorant claims, generalization and racism is only going to cause more problems in relations between the Western and Muslim world. I do feel that to hate all Muslims based on the actions of a small group is racism, even if Islam is a religion not a race. Call it whatever you want, but basically hating people who have never done anything to you and are not even interested in you is wrong. Hate those awful people who did these terrible acts, not everyone else who happens to share the same religion they do. These horrible terrorists do not understand Islam and are just hiding behind it and using it. They are giving Islam a bad name. Should we hate all Christians in the world because of Timothy McVeigh? Most Muslims are disgusted and horrified with the horrible terrorist acts that are being done in the name of Islam. People need to see Muslims as normal human beings who are just trying to live in this world like anyone else.

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Egypt and Islam Thursday, Nov 2 2006

I would like to comment on the wave of religiousness that has captured Egypt lately. If anyone has gone to Egypt recently they will have seen that more and more women are donning the Hijab and the Niqab, and more men are growing beards and going to pray at the mosque. While I have no objections to how anyone lives their life, I do have an objection to the way these people are acting. These people think that appearance is everything, and that by covering their face, or growing their beards they are going to heaven. However, the moral and ethical system in Egypt has completely broken down. People only appear religious, but all day long they fight with one another, harrass each other and generally just step all over each other. Women who are not covered are either told to cover up by strange men in the street, or they are harrassed sexually by the same men who were just in the mosque praying.  No one is taking the real values of Islam to heart. No one is kind to anyone else. No one smiles at anyone. No one forgives anyone for the slightest mistake. Everyone lies and cheats. Is this what Islam has come to? Is this what the Prophet has preached? I would like to see people getting along rather than people being covered from head to toe gossiping about each other (which is what most of those covered women do all day interestingly).The hijab, niqab, and the beard growing are all values foreign to Egypt. After 1919 and the emancipation of women in Egypt (think Huda Shaarawi) women in Egypt dressed as freely as they wanted to, and they never ever feared of walking down the street in a mini skirt and being harrassed. Now a women cannot walk down the street in a half sleeve shirt without being called all sorts of names. All this ideology came after the wave of migrant workers who went to the Gulf states and came home to Egypt with these values. Most of these workers are/were of the lower class, and they are/were taught that even if they are/were poor now, they will have everything they want in the after life if they cover up, grow beards, go to the mosque to pray etc.
However, after saying all of this, I still want to say I love Egypt. It is truly the greatest Arab country in my opinion and I am living for the day when it turns around to what it was in the 50′s and 60′s. Women should be free to wear the Hijab/Niqab or not wear it. They should not fear walking in downtown Cairo and being harrassed by crowds of rowdy youths.

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Very good comment on Big Pharaoh’s site Wednesday, Nov 1 2006

I read a very good comment by a lady named Northern shewolf on Big Pharoah’s post regarding the harrassment that happened in Cairo recently. I agree with her 100% and I thought I would copy and paste what she said
 ”As I see it in this instance, the whole salafist/wahhabi agenda to push women back into invisibility bears a definite responsibility for this, what happened is simply the result of decades of furious sermonizing and ‘fatwa-ing’ by retrograde clerics, which combined with dire social conditions and non existant basic human rights, will always lead in spurts to sudden ‘mass-madness’ or crowd hysteria. There is no rime or reason for these invariably sudden explosions of mayhem, in this case Eid Al Fitr being the pretext, sadly a displacement of a grab-bag of emotions: fervour, anger, desire, excitement, frustration etc… That women were automatically targeted should be no big surprise either to anyone. ME men feel so devalued without respect and honour and for so long now, that in accordance with their cultural imperative, it is easier to fall back on old conceits as the mosque, which they view as the only institution that cares about them, constantly urges them to do. So they pressure their women to cover themselves as a sign that they still have some dignity. But even the most uneducated amongst them know that this is just a device, so whenever tension rises women are a convenient scapegoat. rape is the ultimate show of oppression being the most dehumanizing act a man can commit. Since the Sharia courts are infamous for their idiotic rulings and overall disregard of women’s rights, such horrid scenes will keep on repeating themselves.”

She is right in everything she says. Until the sharia courts start treating women and men as equals, the Middle East and the Islamic world in general will never advance. We need to allow serious Ijithad (which is allowing rules and laws to be changed based on the current time’s needs) before we can even think of improving women’s situation in the Arab world. However the wahabi ideology (which unfortunately has been introduced to Egyptian culture) has closed the door of Ijithad and is insisting on the laws that applied to women 1400 years ago to continue to apply today.

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Why it sucks to be an Arab woman part 2 Wednesday, Nov 1 2006

Yesterday I had blogged about Al Hilaly’s remarks and I said that they incite violence against women. Well today I would like to talk about the horrific acts that have taken place in downtown Cairo. First of all I would like to say I love Egypt and I do not like to criticize it. That is why anything I say in this entry is targeted only towards those horrible young men that acted in such a terrible manner. These men harrassed and assaulted young women (whether veiled or not) in downtown Cairo during Eid. Eid is supposed to be a time of celebration immediately following a holy month. People are supposed to rejoice! Those poor young women were just out to enjoy an evening of harmless fun with their friends when these men assaulted them. Of course the police was no where to be seen. The police are always the first on the scene of a strike or a demonstration, but when masses of men start to harrass women, no one is there to rescue them. It was upto the normal citizens and shopkeepers to help these young women escape. Now a lot of analysis is going on around why this happened. I do not care why it happened! What I do care about is that these young men must be found and punished! The ministry of interior is saying that since no one came forward with a complaint, they cannot do anything. They know that no one will come forward with a complaint as 1) No father will want to take his daughter to a police station and complain that she was groped or harrassed as this will tarnish her reputation (yes I know it is crazy but if a girl gets harrassed/assaulted/raped it is her reputation that gets tarnished and her chances of getting married plummet) and 2) No girl/woman will go alone to a police station to complain as she will be afraid and the policemen there will probably end up harrassing her. So the ministry of interior should launch an aggressive investigation by themselves and find those men and throw them in jail until they are too old to see.

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Why being an Arab woman sucks Tuesday, Oct 31 2006

Who has heard/read about Al Hilaly’s (Australia’s senior Islamic leader) remarks concerning women who are uncovered? So basically this guy is just giving men all over the world free rein to attack and assault women who are not covered. Isn’t this just wonderful? Thus he is saying if you leave your house with an inch of skin or hair showing, it is your fault if you get attacked. How are we ever going to advance if our religious leaders continue to think and preach in such a manner? Every person is responsible for his/her actions. If a man attacks a woman he should damn well face the consequences of such a cowardly act. If he attacks a woman, regardless of whether she is covered or not, it is his fault, and he should pay for it. But by saying such a stupid remark, this will only increase violence against women! Did this sheikh think that this way he is convincing women to cover up? First of all if you want to convince women to wear the hijab (and I do not want to since I am against it) you should bring it to them from a religious point of view, not instill fear in their hearts of not being covered. Women should want to wear the hijab out of love for Islam and Allah, not out of fear of walking down the street with their hair showing. It sucks to be an Arab woman!

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Hijab-is it really necessary? Saturday, Oct 14 2006

Alright, I know that Hijab is a very controversial issue in the Arab/Muslim world. Most people – specifically men, no skin off their nose- feel that hijab is (fard) a religious obligation on every woman who has hit puberty. Ask almost any sheikh, and he will say the same thing. There are a small proportion of very enlightened ones that do not feel it is fard. They do however advocate modesty for women. Now lets take a step back for a minute and examine what exactly the hijab is. The hijab is basically a way of dressing for Muslim women, which mandates that a woman has to cover all her body, and her hair. The only things that are permitted to show are her hands and face. The hijab did not start with the revelation of Islam. Free women (as opposed to slaves) in the Arabian peninsula and in the Middle East used to cover their hair. It was a symbol of status and freedom. Thus it started before the advent of Islam so it was not an invention of Islam. Once Islam arrived, it cancelled all slavery and so all women who converted to Islam became free. Thus all these women started to cover their hair as a symbol of their new found freedom and conversion to Islam. That was the historical explanation of it.

Now the religious evidence used to support it comes next. After sometime an aya (verse) was sent down in the Quran which stipulates that the women of the Prophet (his wives, daughters etc) are required to cover their hair and bodies. Thus this aya does not specifically speak to all Muslim women, just the Prophet’s women. Another aya was also revealed. Now this is the aya that most advocates of hijab use to support hijab. Roughly translated, it says that women should use their cover/headcover to cover their bosoms. Now the basic controversy here is that the word for cover/headcover in Arabic is the same thing. So it is not very definite what the word is referring to. Arabic is a very complex language with many nuances and meanings to each particular word.  Notice the aya does not say that there has to be a cover/headcover, only that something should be used to cover their bosoms. I feel- as do a small enlightened fraction of Muslims- that basically this aya is asking women to be modest. Now please keep in mind that this is a very rough/simplified explanation. There are many more things to say about this topic, and I have researched this issue thoroughly so I know much more about it than what is written here. If anyone would like to ask me any questions, please feel free to ask or let me know your opinion. So this is how I feel about the whole issue. People usually flip out when I discuss this with them, so I decided I would stop discussing religion with people face to face. Thus this is where all my discussion is going to go into. If you would like to know generally more about women and Islam from an open minded view, I suggest you look up the Moroccan author Fatima Mernissi.

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In the Eye of the Sun- book review Friday, Oct 13 2006

I don’t know if you have read any books written in English by Arab authors. Some of them are really fantastic, specifically if you feel more comfortable with the English language than you do with the Arabic one. My favorite Arab author who writes in English is the Egyptian Ahdaf Souief. I think she is absolutely fantastic. She is very well educated and her writing style makes it feel as if you can actually hear the Arabic being spoken. Of course this can only happen if you actually speak Arabic, but I do recommend that non-Arabs read “In the Eye of the Sun” if they would like some insight into the life of a liberated Arab woman. Her main character is called Asya Al-Ulama, and while I am not claiming that Asya is perfect, this book really delves into many of the problems and issues that Arab women from open minded families face. Asya does make mistakes which is why I feel this character is so alive! Souief really developed her character wonderfully. I have read the book no less than 5 times and every time feels different. The only criticism I do have is that the ending left a lot of things unwrapped, or unfinished. I guess I would have just liked to see everything end happily ever after, but maybe this is also part of how grown up and realistic the book is. The book explores complex relationships between Asya and her husband. It also is nicely integrated with the time that the book was set in, with Souief smoothly putting in enough history for the reader to get context, but not so much so that the reader gets bored. I certainly give this book 5 stars, and if anyone has read it or will read it in the future, please let me know how you felt about it.

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Marriage and Work Thursday, Oct 12 2006

I wanted to discuss marriage in the Arab world. Women are becoming more and more educated. They are going out into the workforce and getting jobs like never before. So they work just as hard as men do during the day. However, the difference is that, once both the wife and the husband come home, the husband puts his feet up and relaxes, while the woman continues working. Is this fair? Basically the woman’s responsibilities double, while the man’s stays the same. And if that isn’t enough, the man feels that the woman should contribute to the house budget- even though this money should be hers alone if we’re going with the Arab custom, and we are since the woman doing housework alone is the Arab custom- just as much as the man does. To add insult to injury, the woman’s mother in law will always feel that her son’s wife is not taking enough care of her house and her husband since she has a job, so she will always be complaining to her son. I was formerly engaged when I was still in university, and my ex-fiancee was 6 years older than I am. He had graduated and he had a job. Now even though men never listen to their wives/ fiancees, their mother’s words are absolute truth and they can never ever go against what their mothers say. So my ex fiancees mother told me that she doesn’t care about my fancy degree in science. All she cares about is that I mop the floors in her son’s house. Needless to say that was the end of the relationship
And even though both the man and the woman are both working and contributing to the house budget, the man always feels that major decisions should always be his alone and that his wife should obey him in all matters. Women-regardless of whether they work or not, must have equal say in anything that goes in the house. Decisions should be made when both spouses agree to them.

Now I know that not all men are like this, and that some men do help in the house and are very proud of their wives’ accomplishments in the workplace. But they are definately few and far in between. Ideas in the society must change, and women must get their rights! if both spouses work, then they should both share in the housework equally. Only then is it fair that the woman shares the budget.  I would really like to hear everyone’s comments regarding this. If you agree with me, tell me why, and if you disagree, that is fine too but again do explain exactly why.

later

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