The
Niqab is the Flag of Islamism
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An
18-year-old British ISIS member, known by her twitter handle @UmmKhattab_,
posted this image of herself last year.
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In Khaled Hosseini's soul-piercing novel A Thousand Splendid Suns,
the character Nana, a poor, unwed mother, tells her five-year-old
daughter, Mariam: "Learn this now and learn it well, my daughter:
Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always
finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam."
Hosseini's best-selling novel was about life in Afghanistan, but in
the 30 words above he sums up the way men govern the lives of women
across much of the Muslim world. Like Mariam, millions of Muslim girls
are told very early in life by their mothers that their place in society
is one of submission; submission not to God, but to man.
Hosseini's 2007 book remained at number one on the New York Times
bestseller list for four months. In its first week on the market, it sold
over one million copies. But if there is someone who seems not to have
read the novel, it's Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau's recent championing of the niqab [a traditional veil
completely covering the face, but not the eyes] as a basic human right
has aided Islamism in Canada and undermined millions of liberal Muslims
around the world. This includes the women in my own family, not to
mention my late mother, who threw away the niqab in 1946.
The niqab is today not just
a medieval symbol of female servitude.
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The controversy began with the case of Zunera Ishaq, a Pakistani
immigrant who wanted to take her Canadian citizenship oath with her face
covered. On being told she could not do so, she went to court and won the
right not to remove her veil, while taking the oath.
Ottawa has appealed this lower court decision, with Prime Minister
Stephen Harper mounting a vigorous attack on the niqab. He told the House
of Commons: "This is a society that is transparent, open and where
people are equal, and I think we find that (not uncovering one's face
while taking the oath of citizenship) offensive."
A few days later, he told the Commons, "Why would Canadians,
contrary to our own values, embrace a practice at that time that is not
transparent, that is not open and, frankly, is rooted in a culture that
is anti-women?"
Harper emphasized that many moderate Muslims agreed with the
government's position of banning the niqab from citizenship courts.
For his part, Trudeau tried to portray Harper as racist, equating
Muslim women not being permitted to wear face masks in citizenship court
to the plight of Jews who fled Nazi Germany, but were not allowed to
enter Canada.
Trudeau could not have been more wrong. While the Jews on board the
St. Louis were not permitted to land in Canada, and went back to near
certain death, the Muslim immigrant, Zunera Ishaq, was welcomed to Canada
after leaving the Islamic State of Pakistan.
Leaving her specific case aside, what is it about this piece of cloth
that triggers so much self-righteous angst among so many followers of
Islam? How could the covering of a woman's head or face — which is not a
requirement of the Qur'an — end up as the most defining symbol of Islam?
And what is the rationale behind the obsession with the niqab among
the world's Islamists?
The fact is, the niqab and, I would argue, the hijab, are today not
just medieval symbols of female servitude; they also serve as flags of
Islamism, dictated by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world and its
equivalent in South Asia, the Jamat-e-Islami.
Tarek
Fatah is a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a
columnist at the Toronto Sun, and a Robert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow
at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of two award-winning books:
Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic
State and The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that
Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism.
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