My Last Chappu

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Faiza,

i was not upset at all , only very confused about the entire concept of hijab as being modified to `` suit yourself basis ``.

take it easy .... no hard feelings ....

love,

sa:)

shirinjee:

LOL..i agree..this sounds very typical of a lot of girls i know too..`my arms`ll go all tanned` when u ask them why theyre wearing this huge big chaddar..and in most probability you run into them at a party in the night sporting a hugging sleevless itsy bitsy shirt with nicely tonned arms on display ;) but i DO believe that a lot of people do hijaab in the way it`s supposed to be i.e. with the dignity woman is blessed with....i know a great many of them and its an absolute pleasure :)

Fatimah

Wear your burqa all times.

Every Pakistani woman is US should always wear burqa so she is not confused for any other south asian woman.

It has been an interesting discourse over Hijab. I think it is the intention which is more important than the dress code itself. I was very puzzled on my last visit to pakistan, where i saw the no. of girls wearing hijab more than ever before .I questioned a few ...here is the answer which made me go into peels ....

``Hijab helps from sun protection and some girls wear it to keep their complexions from scorching with the sun.``

What puzzled me more is the velocity with which the girls wear hijab, and the next time you meet them they are dressed in the most obnoxious , revealing dress , that even some girls would feel embarassed looking at .

My one qst. is once a girl / woman opts to wear a hijab should she not stick to it ?

What is very frightening to see is the extremes to which the girls go .... from hijabs to scanty clads !

Make up your minds girls very seriously before you get one ... and then stick to your decision.

One girl i met a few years ago... perfectly normal, happy type ... the next time i met her was at a wedding in pakistan where she came in a hijab , with the most stagy makeup .... the barbie doll look ... the next time i saw her was in a mehndi[in vancouver] ..... she was doing a solo dance on the song `` kabhi kabhi ``, in a full mehfil, [without a hijab].

The last time i saw her was she had come to my house for a Quran Khwani in a skirt with the side slit upto mid thigh. she asked to borrow a dupatta of mine to be able to read .

now tell me everyone .... is this not an abuse of hijab?

love to all the Hijabans , no offence intended ... just very confused in the manner it is so rapidly adopted and the chucked off equally rapidly with a weather change !

It is decency which counts more in my opinion... than hijab..or no hijab....

tahmed sahab...i believe that the hijab is a part of being a woman inspite of having read a billion thesis`s and god knows what all material trying to prove it was a tradition in arabia at the time of the prophet and is not meant for women today...the certain veiled references in the quran are enought for me especially since i consider it to be something that helps a great deal in every day life and makes life so much more easier for woman along with lending a certain dignity...and thus i feel that wearing it anywhere and everywhere in the world is justified...

ofcourse i know what ure talking about ref: the call fpr attention...i have friends that will wear sleeveless clothes with scooped necks and then tie a string of a duppata on the head in attamps at what they call hijaab....attention defficiency at its peak? :=)

Fatimah #213 ``You are trying to second guess Islam without credentials ``

If you knew the ABCs of what is written in the Quran, you would not make this statement. Go lick the boots of those you think have credentials to tell you what Islam is about - I will listen only to the message as conveyed by God via the Quran. If you did the same, you would know that everything I wrote about the hijab is based on the Quran. Even though it is the opposite of what you and millions of other ignorant muslims think.

It is not too late for you to repent your misguided ways. But once you are no more, it will be too late. And those whom you looked towards for guidance on religious matters in life will not be there to help you after you are no more: dont believe me, read the Quran and see for yourself. Then you will thank me, rather than call me names, for freeing to live your life the way God meant you to live it.

anNy #212 ``...are you saying that wearing the hijab in the U.S is a call for attention? ``

That is indeed my theory. In support of this theory, I make the following case:

Case 1: Why would a Pakistani girl in the West put on the Hijab which is not a Pakistani dress? It (a) cannot be the need to protect themselves from men`s eyes - since in the West men (other then Fress off the Boat H1B visa types) generally do not stare at women on the street (much as they would like to, I am sure); (b) cannot be parental pressure (in many cases, the mom dresses as she would in Pakistan or will wear long pants; (c) cannot be peer pressure (for obvious reasons). So, by a process of elimination, one reaches the conclusion that the same pressures that drives other teenagers - the need to get noticed - is what drives these girls.

Case 2: Recent events reinforce my theory - I have heard of a number of cases in the past few days where the ``muslim identity`` girls have taken off the hijab (and boys have shaved off their muslim beards) in order not to stand out (for fear of being attacked). They must have been quite aware that the hijab makes them stand out in the crowd, otherwise why would they be in such a rush to take it off. And they were thus (without meaning too, I am sure, and out of ignorance) therefore ignoring the wise suggestion in the Quran for both men and women to refrain from seeking attention to their physical selves.

I admit that the case behind this theory is not as clear-cut as saying 2 plus 2 equals 4, but I think the rationale behind the theory is pretty compelling, right?

tahmed sahab:

(No. As I said ``I dont care what anyone wears as long as it is not designed to attract attentin to oneself.`` )

I do agree tahmed sahab…theres nothing quite as wonderful as walking into a store in Mashad all wrapped in the typical HUMONGOUS black chaddar that covers completely from head to toe and peek out of it and start talking to the shopkeeper in tootee phootee faarsi..i make sure I take of my nose rings since that’s like pasting a sign to one’s face saying ``please come harass me im a foreigner``…without that and with the chaddar one simply blends in with the people of iran be it tehran or shiraz or qomn

(When one changes ones traditional dress into the traditional dress of another people (the hijab in the west), then one is obviously trying to become a walking talking billboard.)

im not sure about your stand here...are you saying that wearing the hijab in the U.S is a call for attention?

Hijab, tahmed,

If the number of hijab wearing women reduce in the US in the next few weeks, it will in no way indicate a dilution of their faith, or a weakness of the foundations of their religious belief, in contrast to the dissolution of foundations of hundred storey buildings.

regards

jay

tahmed321,

Agreed.

As I said, these issues are tricky. It is good to see you have a clear stand on the matter.

Best.

EK

Eklavya #208 ``if a person who wore hijab regularly in India or in Pakistan, and themselves - of their own free will - had a wish to continue doing the same in the U.S., would you object to that?``

No. As I said ``I dont care what anyone wears as long as it is not designed to attract attention to oneself.`` When one changes ones traditional dress into one that is the same as that of others on the street (e.g. shirt and pants in the US, or shalwar kamiz in Pakistan, or the hijab in the middle east) then one is obviously not trying to simple get attention from strangers, and that is OK. When one changes ones traditional dress into the traditional dress of another people (the hijab in the west), then one is obviously trying to become a walking talking billboard.

tahmed321,

At the same time, if a person who wore hijab regularly in India or in Pakistan, and themselves - of their own free will - had a wish to continue doing the same in the U.S., would you object to that?

I realize that this a tricky area. ``Their own free will`` may have a number of connotations, and multiple layers of meaning arising from various degrees of one`s social conditioning, but I would like to know your opinion.

Regards.

EK

dost-mittar #205 Thanks for the update on the use of the bindi. Personally, I dont care what anyone wears as long as it is not designed to attract attention to oneself. When someone switches to the hijab after moving to the west where that person`s traditional culture never had the hijab (as is true for Pakistani and Afghani women), then they are doing so to attract attention to themselves - which is the opposite of what the Quran calls for.

#204

TAhmed

``How is Fatimah doing nowadays incidentally? Seems like your other personalities are not giving her a chance.``



Adab Arz Hai Bhaijan--ASAK

When sister Semiprescious #201

has provided adequate response to both of you,

THANK YOU,i am alive & well Alhamdulillah so is Aeisha are busy doing more important family chores instead of repeating unnecessarily .

BapuBijliAamirBhardwajShahjiEtc #196

In response to the point concerning the reason some Paki girls in the west pick up the hijab as being the result of ``belonging to a particular group in order to feel less secure about their identity.`` You write ``And your guess about bindi ,tikka on hindu forhead,`sindur in maang`they all must be very very insecure ,i guess``

I grant you (and to all your Multiple Personalities) that this is a good point you make. However, you miss an important difference: bindi, tikka etc. is part of Hindu traditions that was brought over to the west. However, the hijab is not part of Paki tradition - it is Arab headdress that these girls see not in their homes but in Sunday schools and so forth. Even if the hijab had been Paki tradition, just the fact that someone else does something (Hindus wear tikkas) does not mean it is OK for us to do the same thing - we need to think for ourselves what is right and wrong (with help from the Quran), not what other people do regardless of whether those other people are Indian or Arab or Westerners.

How is Fatimah doing nowadays incidentally? Seems like your other personalities are not giving her a chance.

``