Random reflexions.

1) I hate the hijab. It conveys a bad image of Islam. It derives from only one possible interpretation of the Quran among many. And I find it disturbing: I remember how I was sitting once at a coffee with a friend wearing it. She was covering all her hair, and I couldn't understand how she didn't feel like in a pot in it. My imagination started wandering, and the only thing left in my mind was how much swet she kept inside. I just became obsessed with that idea for the rest of the evening and wasn't able to concentrate back on what we could have discussed that day.

Of course, my disgust for the hijab doesn't mean I don't deeply resent attacks against their religious freedom.

2) What's wrong with the hypersexualization of North American society (or the European one for that matter), since the concerned individuals seem to feel just fine about it?

It conveys a bad image of Islam. It derives from only one possible interpretation of the Quran among many.

I think the first claim is highly subjective. As for the second, it follows that multiple interpretations will result in multiple expressions (hijab, niqab, nothing, etc).

What's wrong...since the concerned individuals seem to feel just fine about it?

Well, I for one don't feel fine about it. Nor do a lot of women who live in North America, for that matter. It's not something that can be blamed on men either. Part of the problem might have to do with the evolution of feminism in N. America (unintended consequences). Europe is a different story.

lets all go live in europe and turn the hijab and related articles of clothing into sex symbols.

e, i hope you haven't forgotten my idea for the lewd sister site to aqoul.

I think the first claim is highly subjective.

Ok, I'll try to be more accurate: my experience which is more extensively (continental) European than North American shows that it does carry a negative image. You are right to point to the subjectivity of the statement in absolute. But when placed in the context of say, Spain or France in which I'm still keeping a foot, it definitely is a fact.

Well, I for one don't feel fine about it. Nor do a lot of women who live in North America, for that matter.

I can understand that. But my point is, there can be more than one valid model. To each individual according to what makes her comfy. And if the majority feels it's okay, why not, as long as others have their own options respected?

All rethorical questions of course. But as an aside, just out of curiosity, why aren't you confortable with it?

It's not something that can be blamed on men either.

Thanks:) In France many feminists tend to blame everything on men. Arab men specifically. Makes it tough to be one.

Part of the problem might have to do with the evolution of feminism in N. America (unintended consequences). Europe is a different story.

I think I can see where you're heading, but I'm curious. Care to elaborate?

Thanks:) In France many feminists tend to blame everything on men. Arab men specifically. Makes it tough to be one.

No worries, I love men. Most of my friends are male.

I think I can see where you're heading, but I'm curious. Care to elaborate?

Maybe this weekend. Still mulling over my (obviously subjective) observations.

What's wrong with the hypersexualization of North American society (or the European one for that matter), since the concerned individuals seem to feel just fine about it?

Who are your "concerned individuals"? Speaking as a North American who is sick to death of being considerd a prude on occasion because she doesn't want to feel like she is dressed as a cheap hooker, I'd be quite happy to see North American society be a tad less hypersexualized. When I see 12-year-old girls walking around half-naked, it makes me want to throw up.

hmmm, I may have been out in the MENA region too long, but I have become quite the connaisseur of hidjabat. They can be quite fashionable, even, well sexy. Have to say personally I don't care for the quasi nun get up type hidjab - rather suspect this is the same sort of one that sets of our man Shaheen. There is something deeply irritating about them.

On the other hand, I can see that dressing like a Leb Pop Tart isn't all that much "freedom" per se for the chicas either.

Alignment of interests, so very difficult.

Eva,

Who are your "concerned individuals"?

The ones who chose to dress "sexy".

We might be talking past each other. I guess we'd agree that it ultimately is about individual freedom of choice. Your choice of not dressing "very naked" should be respected and you should definitely not be bothered with that. But just like forbidding the hijab in France was a stringent attack on their freedom under the pretext that some might be pressured to wear it (I have yet to meet a girl who doesn't wear it by choice), so would be pressuring the other way. If a woman chose to dress with a microskirt and hardly more than a bra, beseder, ma yesh?

L.,

Freedom matters much more to me than my distate for the hijab. If a woman choses to wear it, fine. I might express my opinion if relevent while making sure she understands I'm not judging but I wouldn't do more. That said, keeping in mind that it's just my 2 cents worth opinion, it's not about a specific kind of hijab. The subjective aesthetic aspect is only one of my problems with it. I don't understand from a hygenic pov how one can make her head a boiling pot in warm countries like MENA's even though there's no negative image associated with it there. I don't understand why one needs to introduce more constraining new old traditions in Islamic lands when we already inherited enough of that crap (take a look at our MENA grandmas pics, and you won't see the old european peasant fichu AKA the hijab on their heads). I don't understand why, in continental Europe, you would adopt such a professionally/academically losing strategy as a hijab. And so on and so on.

Who are your "concerned individuals"?

The ones who chose to dress "sexy".

I think you're ignoring the problem of social pressure and conformity. As with the hijab, it's not always a simple matter of "choice".

Women may feel they have to dress sexy to conform without really being comfortable with the idea. This is especially evident with teens and pre-teens, who are obviously quite susceptible to peer pressure. So the same way you take issue with hijab wearers, Eve and I take issue with the pervasive pressure to be crassly sexual in appearance, even at a young age.

Now I am by most accounts quite sexy even though I don't expose tons of skin or participate in one-upmanship games with other young women to see who can attract more attention by being overtly sexual. Much of this overt attention-seeking comes from a lack of self-esteem and the need for a certain kind of validation, not a healthy attitude towards sex or being sexy.

Whether its hijab or microminis, sometimes the underlying reasons for making a choice reflect deeper problems in a community/society. That isn't something law can address.

We might be talking past each other.

I'm not sure that we are, but then I'm not really bothered by it - no biggie; I'm generally a live-and-let-live hippie chick. If grown women want to dress like Leb Pop Tarts, they are free to do so - I just don't understand the desire to do so myself. I'd much rather have guys talking to me than to my chest. Or at least if a guy is talking to my chest, I want him to have been preselected and preapproved by me, not some random stranger on the street.

If a woman chose to dress with a microskirt and hardly more than a bra, beseder, ma yesh?

Sorry, but whatever language that last phrase is in, it's not one I speak - translation, please?

Eerie,

As with Luna, I think that ultimately we agree.

I think you're ignoring the problem of social pressure and conformity.

Not really. But I have no clear opinion about it. Let's say that as a firm believer in individual responsibility and free-will, I'd say that if you bow to pressure, it's your problem. At the same time, as a staunch libertarian, I'd say that if you exert pressure, you're a problem.

That isn't something law can address.

This is probably the core of my point, whether it's law, or "counterbalance pressure". Just learn (and teach) to respect others' choices, even if you might dislike them.

Eva

whatever language that last phrase is in, it's not one I speak - translation, please?

Sorry, I tend to hang out a lot with Palestinians, Israelis and American Jews so I sometimes use some Hebrew idioms as if they were understood by all.

Literally, beseder is OK, ma yesh is "so what" (more litteraly, "what's happening").

Well, I'm a loser Jew who blew off Hebrew school in favor of dance classes, in part upon realizing that the Hebrew in Hebrew school really means "let's make you memorize a Torah portion so you can have a bat mitzvah and gets lots of presents," rather than learning it as a functional language. The former was much less interesting to me, and consequently my Hebrew is basically nonexistent.

Just learn (and teach) to respect others' choices, even if you might dislike them.

This isn't even a point of contention. I don't think anyone here is against respecting individual choices. The issue is how to address societal pressures to conform to standards that can be unhealthy or detrimental to women. That is a more subtle problem, because conformity is often enforced by the very groups that are harmed by it.

I am not disgusted by women (esp. teens/pre-teens) who wear skimpy clothing as much as I am concerned about why they do it. I believe the trend decreases with better socio-economic status, but that doesn't explain the prevalence in universities, etc.

As an aside, I find your remark about hijabs and hygeine rather strange. Why wouldn't men in suits have exactly the same problem in warm climates?

Eva,

The prospect of lots of presents should have motivated you to learn Hebrew...

Eerie,

I find your remark about hijabs and hygeine rather strange. Why wouldn't men in suits have exactly the same problem in warm climates?

They definitely do Eerie. Funny that you bring this up because it's somehow the masculine flip of your issue. First, I hate suits for the sheer stupidity of their nonsensical conformism (I only have one suit and it's a present). Second, one of the things I REFUSE is precisely to wear one when it's warm. In fact, I tend to resent it when people insist that I do so in professional or social events. Unlike the sheepish hordes of sweating idiots, I have Indian and Arab traditional suits, much more adapted to warm days when a formal dress is needed (okay, that can look a bit excentric, but it's formal enough and I won't change my mind until I come a cross a 7 digits contract whose issue depends on my dress code).

The prospect of lots of presents should have motivated you to learn Hebrew...

What can I say? Economics has never been my primary motivator, which I'm sure totally mystifies certain people around here.

I have Indian and Arab traditional suits, much more adapted to warm days when a formal dress is needed (okay, that can look a bit excentric, but it's formal enough...)

Having spent far too much time recently trying to find a dress for an upcoming formal wedding which doesn't make me look either the Mother of the Bride or a cheap hooker (I'm a curvy person, dammit - is it so evil to want a formal dress to have, oh, straps and other necessary infrastructure?), the thought of wearing a nice sari has crossed my mind more than once. There's a big Indo-Pak neighborhood a couple of miles from here, with more saris than you can shake a stick at. No worries about excessive cleavage, and the formal ones are actually colors other than black!

My sister-in-law (who is in no way etnic Indian) wore a sari as her wedding dress. As did the maid of honor or whatever that role is called.

(My brother and I just wore suits.)

So, what happens when a female university student dresses in a (non form fitting) t-shirt and (non form fitting) jeans? What do others do or say? How does the pervasive social pressure materialise, what's the social pressure enforcement?

Couldn't the burka, abaya, niqab or chador also be a statement against the hypersexualization of North American society in recent years, and the increasing social pressure to wear less and expose more in order to be "sexy"? They too could be made to look good.

Looking forward to the explanation concerning the differing evolutions of feminism in N. America and Europe.

First, as to suits, well, I rather like them, but agree the Euro style suit for much of the MENA area is pure punishement.

Pity I personally can't get away with a good formal seroual, djellaba, selham combo with a cocky tarbouche to go with it.

Among family, perhaps, but not at work.

Rather more seriously, it strikes me there is quite a lot of room for discussion about the meaning and impact of the various hidjab and like combos - versus the assumptions that comes with Western clothing.

Personally I always recall the wise advice I received some years back, put in linguistic terms but really general: "Don't be fooled just because he speaks good English."

The inverse of course is also true.

As to our Editor in Chief: "Now I am by most accounts quite sexy even though I don't expose tons of skin or participate in one-upmanship games with other young women to see who can attract more attention by being overtly sexual."

Subtile, subtile. And yes.

BSR: Looking forward to the explanation concerning the differing evolutions of feminism in N. America and Europe.

Ah well, guess there is no wiggling out of a longer post, even though my attention has now drifted to other topics.

L: Subtile, subtile. And yes.

Indeed, not coy. However, it pre-empts the claim that only unattractive women are annoyed about hypersexualized N. American society (or that feminists are just angry due to lack of male attention, etc).

dear e,

you wrote:

Now I am by most accounts quite sexy even though I don't expose tons of skin or participate in one-upmanship games with other young women to see who can attract more attention by being overtly sexual.

yeah ... and i'm the king of jordan.

unsubstantiated claim.

--raf*

Nice try, raf. You'll just have to rely on the word of informed sources.

Long Live the King

when did the practice of covering begin?
most of the Qasida i've read feature dusky curls hanging down the back of the beloved.

Raf Bey:
"unsubstantiated claim."

Afraid for you my dear Faqih.

when did the practice of covering begin?
most of the Qasida i've read feature dusky curls hanging down the back of the beloved.

Sometime before the practice of proper capitalisation, but leaving that aside, it is unclear. However, poetry is not likely a good guide to women's fashion in the ordinary sense, given the poet generally wants to highlight attractive features.

Sometime before the practice of proper capitalisation

most likely that is true, since arabic is an oral tradition languange. ;)

but i thought bedouin culture was revered as the embodiment of traditional values, and that even Muhammed was sent to live with the bedouin to soak up their cultural values.
if bedouin maidens wore their hair unbound and uncovered, shouldn't that have carried thru to islamic culture?
btw, i think there is too much consistancy for the representation to be a poetic conceit.

that aside, i have seen very attractive, comfortable looking hijab. more than a contract perhaps, it is way of signalling membership, and of being proud of it.
like a school tie.

Well, regarding capitalisation, we're not writing in Arabic. Indulge me, it helps me not think of you as a 16 yr old twit if you give me the odd capitalisation as required by the style books.

As to the question:
but i thought bedouin culture was revered as the embodiment of traditional values, and that even Muhammed was sent to live with the bedouin to soak up their cultural values.

Well, at one point in history this was true.

However, history and culture, as you know, are not static. By the 18th century, it was an insult to be called an "Arab" - meaning bedu - if you were a civilised dweller of more urbane places.

But that hardly is the point, the Qasaa'id are hardly a guide to what people actually did. Or a guide to what was thought appropriate in a daily life basis.

if bedouin maidens wore their hair unbound and uncovered, shouldn't that have carried thru to islamic culture?

Should?

First, there is the open question, did bedouiyat go about with their hair unbound/covered?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

If yes, under what circumstances? Only around relatives, perhaps?

If no, then the beit in the Qasida is merely romantic imaginings.

Further, there is the question of whose Islam and whose standards.

I like Bernard Lewis, to cite an author (who Raf Bey detests, I think unfairly), but he captures a problem in looking at Islam historically. Lewis tends to rely on the Faqih generated texts, the city dwelling, stick up the ass types and their views of what people should do.

As it happens, the city dwelling stick up the ass types tend to leave far better records than the more relaxed sorts.....

I believe you get the picture?

Regardless, there was clearly some competition between city mores and rural mores (and beyond that between settled and bedu).

It would appear by what became "Orthodox" in the late Islamic period that the stick-up-the-ass city dwellers won out in terms of what got codified as "proper." Regardless of what the early Brothers and Sisters did (ironically probably more liberal than the bloody minded neo-Salafi murderers would like).

So, there you go. Standards get reinvented, changed.

Queerly, there is good evidence the full up covering type stuff - Chador, Burqa etc. is a pagan Iranian Imperial elite thing that Muslims copied.

btw, i think there is too much consistancy for the representation to be a poetic conceit.

Perhaps.

that aside, i have seen very attractive, comfortable looking hijab. more than a contract perhaps, it is way of signalling membership, and of being proud of it.
like a school tie.

Yes, indeed, like a school tie.

I've long found the hidjab to be an overdone point of controversy. I rather despise, personally, the Nun like ones, but have seen plenty of hidjab that looked no more uncomfortable than the hats I like to wear, and often quite fashionable (even sexy if worn right).

The essential point, of course, being the same as eerie's.

I was instructed to watch Syriana, as part of the price of admission to this exclusive club of commenters. In the movie, there were several tributes to bedouin culture--the arabian horses in the Emir's video camera'd stalls, the right-of-way for the goats over the convoy, flying falcons to the lure in the desert (which I myself, low status that I may be, have done and understand).
The annual poetry competitions at the trade fairs became the haaj. Forgive me, but I think the Qasaa'id are important, and undervalued. Little mention of them is made in literature courses in colleges in this country, but they are absolutely unique! The Arabian Ode uses verbal imagery in description. No other poetry that I am familiar with does that.

So if we wear the hijab "right" - according to The Lounsbury - it's "sexy"? In other words, if we make it something that's sexually attractive to you, it's "right" , but otherwise, it's "deeply irritating"? So women's dress should be according to how you like to see women? That defeats the whole purpose of hijab!

You might know more about MENA culture than the average person, but you won't really understand much until you understand the religious perspective, and you're a long way from that. Even a long way from recognizing that one needs to understand the religious perspective...

Shaheen: "This is probably the core of my point... Just learn (and teach) to respect others' choices, even if you might dislike them."

But it doesn't sound like you respect the choice to wear hijab.

if only we were all in Tunis and it were the 1970's... how i long for foxy hijabs!

So women's dress should be according to how you like to see women? That defeats the whole purpose of hijab!

The purpose to you. He was merely expressing a personal predilection, not saying women should or should not wear X to please him.

Not sure why you're getting on L's case, unless men aren't allowed to find women in hijabs attractive? I don't think his statement implies a lack of "religious" understanding, but he is clearly not operating from a religious perspective, the way you are.

Either way, neither Shaheen nor Lounsbury care to dictate what women should wear. However, people will draw all sorts of conclusions when observing a woman wearing hijab, that's the ultimate point.

Well.

What to make of this.

So if we wear the hijab "right" - according to The Lounsbury - it's "sexy"?

Oddly above I don't see myself using the term "right"

I wrote: They can be quite fashionable, even, well sexy. Have to say personally I don't care for the quasi nun get up type hidjab - rather suspect this is the same sort of one that sets of our man Shaheen. There is something deeply irritating about them.

So, I said the Hidjab can be fasionable, and that I find the Nun style hidjab irritating, personally speaking.

And certain hidjab are indeed sexy.

To the male eye.

What can I say, attraction is attraction.

In other words, if we make it something that's sexually attractive to you, it's "right" , but otherwise, it's "deeply irritating"?

No, actually that is a gross distortion of what I said.

Fashionable is not the same as sexy. Fashionable means having style, it can be asexual.

Like many Maghrebine qaftans of the traditional (non-hip hugging) mode.

Fashionable without being sexy. Showing a sense of art, elegence, style.

The rather crude, Nun style hidjab shows little of this.

None really.

I find it personally irritating, for reasons of taste, as well as disdain for the neo-Salafi point of view that usually comes with it.

So women's dress should be according to how you like to see women?

Well, ideally the entire world should do exactely as I say, it being better for them and myself being a genuis.

However, in the inexplicable absence of world dictatorial powers, I am forced to merely express personal preference as to my taste in style and dress, like any other human being.

Being a very odd sort, I rather like to see my women and women generally dressed in a stylish manner. It plays to my sense of refined living, aesthetics and generally preference for a world that is not a bland, dead sack-cloth vision of life.

I get the sense, however, you're one of the incredibly shallow and tedious converts to some neo-Salafi or Wahhabite cliques and think that Islam means the bland, dead, sack-cloth vision of life.

Happily I have little to do with that sort of people.

I should note, by the way, that preference for being stylish and not a sack-cloth is shared by most Muslim women I know, and even those that I have been married to.

That defeats the whole purpose of hijab!

Perhaps.

Such is life.

The male eye roams, whatever one covers, new points of interest emerges.

However, again, your reading of my comments is rather badly off, and stylish hardly requires sexy. Nice to have both, but not a requirement.

You might know more about MENA culture than the average person, but you won't really understand much until you understand the religious perspective, and you're a long way from that.

First, let me say that you know fuck all about what I understand.

As to "the" religious perspective, I know well the Neo Salafi rot that is pimped in certain quarters, I simply have no respect for it; but then I got me Islam from a radically different perspective.

So, what it really boils down to is that mates like me and Shaheen "understand" your faux-pious pretensions to "the religious perspective" and we reject it, my dear little new convert.

Even a long way from recognizing that one needs to understand the religious perspective...

Well, you stupid little neo Salafi tart, your "religious perspective" isn't the only one and I frankly don't have the slightest respect (although I do believe in tolerating) for it.

Bloody Wahhabite gits.

The problem is that you make no distinction between the most basic practice of Islam and being "Wahhabite" or "neo-Salafi". Which does indicate a basic lack of understanding.

(Just for the record, I'm not a "Wahhabite" or a new convert.)

I don't really care if you call me those names, or a "gullible f**k" for using an Islamic bank, or your other rude and obscene labels; to use a cliche, it says more about you than it does about me. What does bother me is that you represent yourself as some sort of an expert on the region, and that people who don't know any better will accept that.

The problem is that you make no distinction between the most basic practice of Islam and being "Wahhabite" or "neo-Salafi".

The most basic practice of Islam?

The reason he called you Wahhabite is because you seem intolerant (or ignorant) of the fact that there is no single "religious perspective". Your view of the hijab is not held by every Muslim (that would be why some of them wear stylish, colourful headscarves, or nothing at all, etc), so you must qualify your statement by saying it's a personal religious perspective or specific to X school/community. Perhaps he doesn't understand where you're coming from, so feel free to explain your view. However, avoid generalization unless you can back it up.

Well, it's Anne, the Wahhabite twit.

The problem is that you make no distinction between the most basic practice of Islam and being "Wahhabite" or "neo-Salafi".

Sure I do.

Obviously my and my circle have different ideas as to what are the "most basic" practices, and what are Wahhabite or neo-Salafi pretensions about the same.

You can continue with your pretence that your understanding represents "The one truth" in a typical neo-Salafi manner if you wish, you're not going to convince very many of us who know better.

Which does indicate a basic lack of understanding.

Or in the alternative, to get rid of your typically Wahhabite pretension to the one truth, a different understanding than your contemptibly impoverished pseudo pieties.

Rather like your idiotic statement about a Sufi tariqa can't be following Sharia if it bridges Shia and Sunni.

Certainly can't be following the neo-Salafi narrow-minded prig version, but there are lots of Muslims who don't find neo-Salafi priggishness convincing.

(Just for the record, I'm not a "Wahhabite" or a new convert.)

Shoe fits, fucking wear it. As to the later, more is the pity.

I don't really care if you call me those names, or a "gullible f**k" for using an Islamic bank, or your other rude and obscene labels; to use a cliche, it says more about you than it does about me.

Boo hoo. Want a hanky?

And if you use an Islamic bank, well, what the hell, if there weren't pseudo-pious prig suckers out there, people like me would make less money.

What does bother me is that you represent yourself as some sort of an expert on the region, and that people who don't know any better will accept that.

Oh, really?

Whinging on now because your little neo-Salafi belief-ox was gored?

Shocked that some of the Brothers like Shahine might find certain hidjabs interesting? Poor baby.

Tough, fuck off if you want, I don't give a flying fuck as I rather doubt you're capable of understanding that your narrow vision isn't The One True vision on earth (well if it is we're all damned, but that's for the Big Guy to decide).

i would like to point out that I also find hijabs interesting.

Ann,

Well, I'll join Eerie and The Lounsbury in what they said and add to it that most of the debate about the hijab, the religious perspectiveS, the arguments, etc., are essentially contemporary. I have no idea how any recent understanding of Islam can be a most basic practice of it. None of the (Muslim) ladies in my family wears the hijab. Neither did my grandmas or their grandmas (they dressed according to the codes of their time and it didn't include it). Do you think you're a better Muslim, or that you understand Islam's "most basic practices" better?

The Lounsbury (tm),

Shocked that some of the Brothers like Shahine might find certain hidjabs interesting?

The ones around the waist when the lady is wearing a bikini are cool.