The following article is a response to the comments posted on last week's JumahPulse by Tehmina Kazi who is the Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy.
Tehmina,
Assalamualaikum and welcome to UmmahPulse.
I wish to start off by saying that the conclusions that I have reached in the article "Canary in the Mineshaft" about the British Muslims for Secular Democracy being a bunch of self-promoting windbags who seek to to remove the God-given right to cover from Muslim women and girls are logical given the facts on the ground, namely that despite your organisation's position paper which claims to respect a woman's right to wear what she wants, there is a phenomenally large disconnect between what your organisation publically promotes and what its trustees and Chair say about women who cover.
I find it naive in the extreme that you feel that your organisation is somehow a flagship supporter of Muslim women who cover when the Chair of BMSD is Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who is arguably your most identifiable member and a regular columnist for a number of national newspapers. She is well-known for her semi-hysterical outpourings of hatred against the niqab (examples too numerous to list) and has variously called the hijab "problematic", merely "a symbol of defiance", and a symbol of "oppression".
She has publically agreed with the French banning of the hijab in school,-
"The banning of the headscarf in France was, in fact, supported by many Muslims. The state was too arrogant and confrontational but the policy was right." (London Evening Standard, 6/12/05)
Her prejudice is not limited to devout Muslims as she also bizarrely feels "fury" whenever she sees devout Jewish women obeying the injunction by Allah for all the Abrahamic faiths for women to cover their heads.
"I feel the same fury when I see Orthodox Jewish women in wigs, with their many children, living tightly proscribed lives." (The Independent, 25/1/10)
Whilst one could write a great deal on the inherent stupidity of appointing a woman who cannot seem to hold onto even the most basic tenets of Islam, such as her cringe-worthy brag that she drinks wine and does not "lie about that, unlike so many other 'good' Muslims" (The Independent, 4/5/09), and spends so much of her time writing derogatory statements about devout Muslims in national newspapers, I won't. Instead, I will ask you to please pass on the following messages to Ms Alibhai-Brown from me. I have tried to engage her in an online debate before but it seems that she lacks the courage to speak to her co-religionists directly and is instead content to stay perched in her ivory tower.
Ms Alibhai-Brown,-
1. For someone who is so offended at being judged by others...
"I am offended by the unchallenged presumption that women covering their heads and bodies and now faces are more pious and true than am I." (London Evening Standard, 6/12/05)
...you devote a disproportionately large amount of your time and column inches to judging other Muslims who do not live by your own set of rules. You may want to look at this hypocrisy. It is an obvious character flaw and only debases you as a human being.
2. Please stop spreading this ridiculous myth that Muslim women must cover themselves because Muslim men are sexually incontinent ravening beasts.
It is slanderous, derogatory and completely false. Regardless of whatever quotes you may dredge up to support your asinine views, I can trump them with a quote from Allah (swt) who commanded women to,-
"And tell the believing women to lower their eyes, and guard their modesty, and that they display not their ornaments except what appears of them. And that they draw their headscarves over their bosoms..." (An-Nur: 31)
Just as Allah said to men,-
"Say to the believing men to lower their gazes and guard their chastity..." (An-Nur: 30)
Yasmin, you have obviously chosen to believe the wrong translation of the word khumurihinna as merely a scarf, when it actually means a headscarf. The view that covering is a compulsory part of Islam is supported by numerous sahih hadith as well as the vast majority of male and female scholars over the last 1400 years of Islam.
Muslims are not a nation of rootless vagabonds lying crippled in a perpetual Dark Age until we were civilised by our white western saviours. No, rather we have an extremely rich heritage of knowledge, scholarship and critical thinking that extends back 1400 years to the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that you should perhaps pay more attention to rather than exposing your woeful ignorance to your fawning followers.
3. Please Yasmin, stop insulting us. Muslim women who cover are not oppressed caged birds or brainwashed militants, or smug puritanical religious snobs or stupid ignorant waifs that need an education on women's rights. No, rather we are simply Muslim women who seek to live our lives in the way the best of humanity, our blessed Prophet (may Allah shower His blessings on him), told us to. Have some shame and stop using your newspaper columns to insult your Muslims sisters.
Leaving Ms Alibhai-Brown aside for a moment; Tehmina, how can you possibly claim that you support Muslim women wearing the hijab when your resident "theologian" and another trustee is Taj Hargey? His opposition to the hijab, jilbaab and niqab is well-known and whilst you may personally respect women who wear hijab, it is certainly less than obvious whether he shares this view. Please take the time to view an example of his ignorance in these matters that has previously been highlighted on UmmahPulse.
As for your other trustees, Dr Shaaz Mahboob has demonstrated his own woeful ignorance of Islam by publically perpetuating the same hijab myth (that the only reason to wear hijab is to protect women from predatory men) that Ms Alibhai Brown is so enamoured of (The Guardian, November 2009) and Ghayasuddin Siddiqui appeared in a debate with the French ambassador to the UK and MP Evan Harris in Oxford in February 2004 and publically supported France's ban on the hijab in state schools.
The vast majority of your trustees have all publically stated over and over again how disgusted, repulsed and offended they are by women wearing the niqab; how they don't belong in a civilised society, and how they are subversive and aggressive in their religion. Yes, it is quite nice that your organisation paused for long enough in its tirade against women who cover to organise a conference with a former socialite as well as a woman (Tahmena Bokhari) whose main claim to fame is that she was a beauty pagent winner but it really doesn't make up for the abuse and slurs that the majority of your trustees have made against our Muslim sisters who you must admit (even if you don't agree with them) show a remarkable degree of bravery and gumption to wear such a disproportionately reviled article of clothing.
On a personal level Tehmina, I applaud you for having the courage to post your comments on UmmahPulse and defend your personal record with hijab-wearing women, I also thank you for clarifying your organisation's official position but you must also understand that when so many members of your board are openly hostile to hijab and you choose to avoid wearing it yourself, Muslims in general are likely to conclude that you are only stating these positions for political reasons as we have already seen in some of the comments we have received.
I also wonder if the organisation that you are the director of is becoming a bandwagon for others who wish to use it as a platform for their own prejudices. On reflection you may find that your tolerance of Muslim women's rights to dress as they please is at odds with others in your organisation. This disconnect between the public statements of your trustees and the "position paper" of the BMSD regarding the hijab show an organisation in a state of confusion. If you are indeed sincere in your protestations that you support Muslim women wearing the hijab then your options are clear. Either you release a public statement distancing BMSD from the views of the aforementioned trustees or you tender your resignation feeling secure in the knowledge that your personal integrity is intact. I sincerely hope that you reflect on this just as I hope and pray that Allah (swt) guides and blesses both you and me in our attempts to grow closer to Him. Once again, thank you for taking the trouble to post your comments on UmmahPulse.
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