The Hijab and Political Islam

Wearing a cloth over your head is a political act not a spiritual one. Spirituality exists on the inside, not the outside. Wearing a pillow case and naming yourself superior, modest, or religious is about as intelligent as covering your body with large tattooed crosses and declaring yourself a Christian saint. Muslim women wearing peculiar hair coverings are making a social and political statement, not one of faith. The absurdity of using a 5.000 year old Near Eastern tradition in a modern scientific world is only further reinforced when one realises that there is nothing in the gibberish called the Quran, which makes wearing a bed sheet necessary.

The only Sura which comes close to mandating some sort of extra sheet apparel is #24 which states that Arab women must cover their breasts with a 'khimar'. For millenia Arab women had the rather strange fetish of going shirtless, exposing their breasts, covered only by some jewelry. Given the obvious fact that most women's breasts look much better hidden, Mohammed made the rather sensible suggestion that they should be covered. It is probably one of the few logical and legitimate ideas in the Quran.

In any event somehow the breast covering became a political tool and an excuse by the Arab male leadership of Islam, to denigrate and control women. Not only and thankfully, would women's breasts not be gratuitously displayed but an entire head and even body covering would become necessary in order to show submission; modesty; and male domination. Women would now be classified by the Arab male Islamic leadership as political expressions of piety and subservience to masculine needs and desires. Not having a head covering would denote a prostitute, unbeliever or apostate. Thus was born the myth that the hijab, and various bed sheets are not only acts of self abnegation, but a necessary part of 'God's' legal code for Muslims.

The whole concept of the hijab is absurd.

It is insane to watch Muslim women sauntering about in Western cities, half clothed, in tight jeans, with a pillow case firmly wrapped around their misinformed heads. The hypocrisy is revolting. Why is a hijab a modest expression of faith and spirituality when below the neckline we see anything but modesty and shyness ? The wearing of the hijab is clearly a social and political testimony about being different; better; 'saved'; a chosen one; a Muslim male slave and of course by extension non-Western. Every country in the West needs to ban the hijab covering. It goes against the liberation of females which has been a 2000 year struggle in the Judeo-Christian world.

In short the hijab is a marking denoting a Muslim woman as nothing more than a submissive slave for a Muslim male.

The lack of knowledge by Muslims about their ideology is frightening and this is clear if you ask a hijabi why she wears a hair net. She will twaddle on about obligations, religion, Mohammed's injunction, the Quran etc. She has no idea what she is talking about. Not even the mad Mohammed wanted women covered up and marked as a male pet or tool. Some parts of the Quran discuss female equality, the ability of women to divorce, make income, own property and even marry non-Muslims. Forcing a Muslim woman to wear the pillow case and only marry a Muslim and to be dominated by that man, and to be identified as a submissive second class citizen, is not supported by the Quran. There are many problems with Islam and the Quran but the original doctrines did not suggest that women had to be covered and submit themselves in an irrational and non-thinking way to male oppression.

Female submission in Islamic society came after Mohammed, and was a political tool not a religious obligation.

Islam very early became dominated by the males of the Qurayesh tribe - or the clan of Mohammed. Within this clan the Shia-Sunni split and the endless civil war - on going since 656 A.D. - was born. Women were viewed by the early Islamists and Arab conquerors as booty, gifts, or spoils of war. Female slave trading was common. An anti-female attitude was enshrined very early within Islam. Mohammed's own daughter Fatima, had her and her family's possessions stripped, various members killed, and was herself forced into committing suicide. Women very early in the Islamic era were viewed not as equals but as male property and to be excluded from political and economic success. The khimer or breast covering rapidly changed into the hijab or head covering - an act of humility to not only Islamic law, but also its male overseers.

In the modern world the hijab is a ridiculous abomination. The Western world should not allow it in our general society. It is not a part of our Western tradition. Wearing a head covering in a church as most Orthodox churches command is one thing. But to demand that those same women within that church wear the hijab all day in any and all events is obnoxious. From playing soccer, to school, to work, to using the sauna in the gym, the Muslim female is told to wear her derogatory marking of inferiority. Remarkably many Muslims wearing the hijab, feel superior, different, not Western and special. It is idiotic.

Banning the hijab would be an important step in stopping political Islam's advance in the West. It is not a question of faith, or choice. There is no Islamic law demanding the use of the bed sheet. There certainly is no reason why women should be marked out as inferior, a piece of meat, or an individual who is clueless about their own ideology. Being clueless and irrational should be done in private not in public.