In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
Many Westerners ask: ‘If women are valued and respected in Islam, why are there rules such as the hijab that seem to restrict the freedom of women?’ This is a very important question. In answer to that, I will have to clarify a few points:
Firstly: Modest dress and separation between the sexes are not exclusively Islamic practices. These are ancient institutions that have existed in most traditional societies. Since Islam is the last religion – which was especially ordained for the time in which we are living -, there is more emphasis in Islam on modest dress than in any other religion; and its rulings regarding this issue are much more strict. However, modest dress itself is not a modern invention: immodesty is. It is the extreme indecency and obscenity of the modern world which is a departure from the norm and has to be explained.
Secondly: The hijab and the niqab are not only restrictions for women; they restrict what a woman can show and they also restrict what a man can see. By her choosing to wear the hijab or the niqab, a woman is using her own freedom to restrict men’s freedom!
Thirdly, Is restriction always reprehensible? One does not need to be a believer to realise that restriction can have positive effects. Even atheists may restrict themselves to a certain diet in order to lose weight. Nevertheless, ‘restriction’ has a more profound meaning in Islam.
Prohibition and Sanctity
In Arabic, the word ‘harâm’ has two meanings: It means ‘unlawful, forbidden’ and it also means ‘sacred’. The two meanings may appear unrelated or even contradictory. In reality, they are closely related to one another. When something is sacred, there are rules and regulations that protect it from desecration. The Qur’an is sacred; therefore, we are not allowed to touch it with unclean hands. Human life is sacred; therefore, we are not allowed to kill people. Ramadan is a holy month; thus, eating at daytime is forbidden in this month. There are countless examples that show how there is a profound relationship between ‘prohibition’ and ‘sacredness’. If nothing is forbidden, nothing is sacred.
Restriction can be good and beneficial. As long as a plant grows horizontally, it cannot grow vertically. But once the plant’s freedom is limited on the horizontal plane, it can grow vertically. Sometimes outward restrictions prepare us for an inward journey and give a spiritual dimension to our lives. Let me give you a tangible example:
During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. At the time of sunset, – after so many hours of hunger and thirst -, drinking a glass of water and a few dates is one of the most joyful experiences one can ever have in life. What would happen if we did not fast? We would take eating and drinking for granted. We would not feel this overwhelming joy by drinking a simple glass of water.
The same is true about the relation between men and women in the society. In traditional Islamic societies, – where there is a separation between the sexes in many aspects of public life – the greatest wish of every young man or woman is to get married. They wait for marriage in the same manner that a fasting person waits for the time of iftâr. For Muslims, marriage is the end of deprivation and the beginning of a joyful new life.
In the West, the opposite is the case: Marriage has lost its meaning – just as iftâr does not have any significance for people who do not fast. The modern West is probably the first civilisation in the history of mankind that is moving towards creating ‘a society of bastards’: a society that always talks about human rights but practically neglects the rights of children who need two parents rather than one and who need to be brought up in a proper and stable family.
Clearly, it is only when the satisfaction of sexual desires is forbidden outside marriage – when men close their eyes to other women, and women conceal their beauty from other men – that marriage becomes the centre of happiness and the union between man and woman will last for a long time.
Another tragedy is the demystification and desacralisation of women. We are so much proud of what we think we have achieved that we forget what we have lost. We have gained the world but we have lost ourselves. We are taught that if we want to be successful, we have to go against our nature and become ‘like men’; as if there was nothing good and beautiful about being a woman. In the West, women do not veil themselves. Men and women mix freely in the society. This may have certain advantages. But at what cost? When something becomes commonplace, it becomes cheaper and cheaper. Once women become easily available and accessible, they lose their sacral dimension, their value, their mystery and their enchantment.
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun…
Heaven is there, where Juliet is
Why is that in the West, we do not have Romeos and Juliets anymore; who were ready to die for their beloved? What happened to all of the selfless love and devotion that men in the past had for women? What happened to all that infinite and unbound love that women had for their husbands? Why is genuine, unselfish and everlasting love rarer today than red sulphur? I am not trying to make a generalisation, but based on what I have observed: romantic love is dying in Western societies. There are more people who believe in sex than in love. It is by lust and not by love that the Western society is governed.
Bertrand Russel writes in his ‘Marriage and Morals’:
Romantic love does not flourish in sexually permissive societies…The essential of romantic love is that it regards the beloved object as very difficult to possess and as very precious. It is certainly regrettable when women are too accessible. When people no longer feel any moral barrier against sexual intercourse, they get into the habit of dissociating sex from serious emotion. They may even come to associate it with feelings of hatred.
Islam is not the enemy of love. Islam is the religion of love. In fact, there is more solidarity between young husbands and wives in the Islamic world than in the West; because Islam has always emphasized – above all else – the principle of love and mercy. As Allah says in the Qur’an:
And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.(30:21).
And Allah knows best.
Beauty of Modesty 