Muslim Women: Nothing In The Quran And Therefore Islam Which Mandates Veiling, Islam, Women and Feminism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam, Women and Feminism

Muslim Women: Nothing In The Quran And Therefore Islam Which Mandates Veiling

By Syeda Saiyidain Hameed

IN 1947 my mother and other women of my family decided to remove the burqa. They did it with the full support of male family members. These women were the best embodiments of the spirit of Islam. The five pillars of the Islamic faith were embedded in their lives. They prayed five times a day, fasted during the month of Ramadan, performed the Haj, and never erred in giving certain part of their modest income in charity. The only thing they asked us so far as dress was concerned was to observe modesty. The underlying tenet of their faith was the Quranic injunction La Ikra Fid Din, meaning, there is no compulsion in religion. I remember never being ordered to say my namaz. It was of my own accord a few years after my mother died that I became a namazi and continue to be one for the last 45 years. The women of my family influenced me by invoking the spirit of Islam which allows an individual to practise religion according to her own light.

In the context of my upbringing, when I examine the Supreme Court's observation on the burqa and voter ID cards, I find there is nothing inimical in it to the Quranic injunctions about a dress code for Muslim women. All it suggests is that in order to vote a Muslim woman like any other Indian citizen must be photographed in order to possess a valid voter ID. The matter came up last week when the Supreme Court was hearing a petition challenging the display of photographs of Muslim women on electoral rolls and voter identification cards. The petition was before a bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan. "If you do not want them to have their photographs on electoral rolls, please tell what they should do if they want to contest elections, which is anyway only an extension of the right to vote," the chief justice asked.

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