Promoting a toxic modesty culture does a disservice to Muslim women

Promoting a toxic modesty culture does a disservice to Muslim women

By Khadija Khan US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American, recently said in a Vogue magazine interview: “To me, the hijab means power, liberation, beauty, and resistance.” The debate around modesty culture has a great sway on how it is perceived in different cultures. Most commonly it is associated with the oppression of women in conservative societies. It is rooted in religious and cultural mores to control women’s bodily autonomy, restraining a woman’s sexuality in order to rid society of moral depravity that may provoke male arousal. This modest way of…

Unblemished Virginity

Unblemished Virginity

By Serena   Virginity. What this word means to you is subjective: you might consider it no issue at all; you might be eager to lose it; or if you’re religious and traditionalist, you will wait until you’re married. Islam is famous for its promises of 72 virgins in heaven, for its strict religious rulings such as veiling, segregation, FGM and punishments of hellfire and lashes for a person if they have pre-marital sex. Virginity is neither precious or honourable. It is a social and religious construct. Virginity applies to…

Don’t ban the burqa – challenge the modesty doctrines instead

Don’t ban the burqa – challenge the modesty doctrines instead

By Tehmina Kazi Unlike other articles on Muslim women’s sartorial trends, this one will not start with a terrible “thinly-veiled” pun, or a picture of a woman with her face covered in black  cloth. Shazia Hobbs managed to avoid both these traps in her “Ban the burqa” article, which correctly identified religious fundamentalism as a bigger problem in the current generation of British Muslims, than in previous generations.  The proliferation of face-veils is simply one manifestation of this; other manifestations include gender segregation on university campuses, and the ex-communication (or takfir) of…