17 June 2011 Volume: 21 Issue: 11 Australia's ... - Eureka Street

Volume 21 Issue: 1117 June 2011Islam in denial over burqasRELIGIONMuhammad Izhar ul HaqThey were furious. They were chanting slogans. They were swearing to crush theconspiracy being hatched against Islam. They were cursing the Western ‘flawed’ way of life.The rally was organised to condemn the banning of the burqa (full face veil) in France.Paradoxically, hardly any of the protesters had actually read the text of the Frenchenactment banning, from April, the full face veil. In countries like Pakistan, the nucleus ofpresent Muslim extremism, where literacy is not more than 15 to 20 per cent and centuries oldfeudalism has been successfully forestalling education, who’d bother to find out and gothrough the text of the legislation?The intellectual decline which has engulfed the Muslim world has thrown it into adangerous state of denial. Everything that other, especially advanced countries, do isperceived and analysed in the light of ‘conspiracy theories’. The majority of Muslims aresuffering from a devastating persecution complex, which, in turn, is begetting and aggravatingmilitant extremism. Such has been the reaction to the French burqa ban.Every Muslim knows that wearing the burqa has never been irremissible in Islam. Aconsiderable number of Islamic jurists do not support it. Millions of Muslim women, whilereaping crops in agricultural fields, picking cotton in plantations of central Pakistan, handlingherds in Central Asian pasturelands, teaching in universities, working in banks and elsewheredo not wear the burqa.Billions of Muslim women have never, and will never, cover their faces while performingthe pilgrimage to holy Mecca. They are not allowed by Islam to do so during pilgrimage.In France, as elsewhere, only a handful of Muslim women cover their faces. Yet fanatics aremaking the French enactment an issue and presenting it as anti Islamic sentiment. The full faceveil is being jumbled up with the hijab (head-covering). France has not prohibited covering ofhead. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia has made wearing of abaya (robes) mandatory for all womenwho visit that country or live there, irrespective of their religion.This brings us to another issue being thrown into oblivion by protesting Muslims. Millionsof Muslims have migrated to the developed world where ‘flawed secular’ values are atvariance with Islamic, or so called Islamic, requirements. There are more than 50 Muslimcountries, some of which (such as Saudi Arabia, Libya, Qatar) are fabulously wealthy. Why itis that not one of all these countries can accommodate Muslim immigrants?Statistics are mind-blowing. According to 2009 figures, 365,000 Muslims have madeAustralia their home, 281,000 live in Belgium, 657,000 in Canada, 3,554,000 in France, 4,026,000©2011 EurekaStreet.com.au 32