{"id":35759,"date":"2016-09-02T02:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T06:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35759"},"modified":"2017-04-15T23:12:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-16T03:12:13","slug":"the-hijab-the-burka-and-the-burkini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/09\/02\/the-hijab-the-burka-and-the-burkini\/","title":{"rendered":"The hijab, the burka, and the burkini"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Greenfield<\/a> explains the role of the hijab, the burka, and other “traditional” Islamic clothing for women:<\/p>\n

Does it matter what Muslim women wear to the beach? Arguably the government should not be getting involved in swimwear. But the clothing of Muslim women is not a personal fashion choice.<\/p>\n

Muslim women don\u2019t wear hijabs, burkas or any other similar garb as a fashion statement or even an expression of religious piety. Their own religion tells us exactly why they wear them.<\/p>\n

\u201cO Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks (veils) all over their bodies that they may thus be distinguished and not molested.<\/em>\u201d (Koran 33:59)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about modesty. It\u2019s not about religion. It\u2019s about putting a \u201cDo Not Rape\u201d sign on Muslim women. And putting a \u201cFree to Molest\u201d sign on non-Muslim women.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t some paranoid misreading of Islamic scripture. Islamic commentaries use synonyms for \u201cmolested\u201d such as \u201charmed\u201d, \u201cassaulted\u201d and \u201cattacked\u201d because women who aren\u2019t wearing their burkas aren\u2019t \u201cdecent\u201d women and can expect to be assaulted by Muslim men. These clothes designate Muslim women as \u201cbelieving\u201d women or \u201cwomen of the believers\u201d. That is to say Muslims.<\/p>\n

One Koranic commentary is quite explicit. \u201cIt is more likely that this way they may be recognized (as pious, free women), and may not be hurt (considered by mistake as roving slave girls.)\u201d The Yazidi girls captured and raped by ISIS are an example of \u201croving slave girls\u201d who can be assaulted by Muslim men.<\/p>\n

Muslim women who don\u2019t want to be mistaken for non-Muslim slave girls had better cover up. And non-Muslim women had better cover up too or they\u2019ll be treated the way ISIS treated Yazidi women and the way that Mohammed and his gang of rapists and bandits treated any woman they came across.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the burka is. That\u2019s what the hijab is. And that\u2019s what the burkini is.<\/p>\n

And this is not just some relic of the past or a horror practiced by Islamic \u201cextremists\u201d. It\u2019s ubiquitous. A French survey found that 77 percent of girls wore the hijab because of threats of Islamist violence. It\u2019s numbers like these that have led to the French ban of the burka and now of the burkini.<\/p>\n

When clothing becomes a license to encourage harassment, then it\u2019s no longer a private choice. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, Daniel Pipes<\/a> says the burkini poses no threat and should not be banned:<\/p>\n

France has been seized by a silly hysteria over the burkini<\/em>, prompting me to wonder when Europeans will get serious about their Islamist challenge.<\/p>\n

For starters, what is a burkini? The word (sometimes spelled burqini) combines the names of two opposite articles of female clothing: the burqa (an Islamic tent-like, full-body covering) and the bikini. Also known as a halal swimsuit<\/em>, it modestly covers all but the face, hands and feet, consisting of a top and a bottom. It resembles a wetsuit with a head covering.<\/p>\n

Aheda Zanetti<\/a> of Ahiida Pty Ltd in Australia claims to have coined the portmanteau in 2003, calling it “smaller than a burka” while “two piece like a bikini.” The curious and sensational cross of two radically dissimilar articles of clothing along with the need it fit for active, pious Muslim women, the burkini (as Ahiida notes) was “the subject of an immediate rush of interest and demand.” Additionally, some women (like British cooking celebrity Nigella Lawson<\/a>) wear it to avoid a tan, while pious Jews<\/a> have adopted a variant garment.<\/p>\n

[…] the burkini poses no danger to public security. Unlike the burqa or niqab, it leaves the face uncovered; relatively tight-fitting, it leaves no place to hide weapons. Men cannot wear it as a disguise. Further, while there are legitimate arguments about the hygiene of large garments in pools (prompting some hotels in Morocco<\/a> to ban the garment), this is obviously not an issue on the coastal beaches of France.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, beach burkinis should be allowed without restriction. Cultural arguments, such as the one made by Valls, are specious and discriminatory. If a woman wishes to dress modestly on the beach, that is her business, and not the state’s. It’s also her prerogative to choose unflattering swimwear that waterlogs when she swims.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Greenfield explains the role of the hijab, the burka, and other “traditional” Islamic clothing for women: Does it matter what Muslim women wear to the beach? Arguably the government should not be getting involved in swimwear. But the clothing of Muslim women is not a personal fashion choice. Muslim women don\u2019t wear hijabs, burkas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1117,9,10,11],"tags":[618,47,98],"class_list":["post-35759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-law","category-liberty","category-religion","tag-clothing","tag-islam","tag-police"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9iL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35759"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35768,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35759\/revisions\/35768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}