Is the Muslim head scarf a threat to democracy?

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/living/8454845.htm

With images of a provocatively dressed Britney Spears
and an unclad Janet Jackson, along with the barrage of
midriffs and miniskirts nearly impossible to avoid in
our daily lives, the concept of "modesty" is often
seen as a strange relic of another age.

Even the word modesty is not well-known today. Yet it
was not so long ago that perhaps our grandmothers came
to this country wearing long dresses and covering
their hair, and men would not go shirtless in public.

According to Random House, modesty is "freedom from
vanity and boastfulness; regard for decency of
behavior, speech and dress; simplicity and
moderation."

The Prophet Muhammad once said, "Every religion has
its character and the character of Islam is modesty,"
which has become a well-known saying among the world's
1.3 billion Muslims.

The word for modesty in Arabic is "haya" and it
references the area of dress for men and women, but it
also refers to qualities of behavior and temperament
just like in English.

In dress, the parts of the body that must be covered,
both in prayer and in public, differ for Muslim men
and women. It is a common misconception in the West
that this gendered difference of attire in Islam is a
symbol of female oppression. On the contrary, it is a
mark of womanly distinction and singularity.

Men must be covered from the navel to the knee. It was
the Prophet Muhammad's tradition to wear a turban or
head covering, and Muslim men throughout the world
often emulate this practice in an array of cultural
styles and materials.

Women must be covered from the ankles to the neck and
down to both wrists. In addition, a head covering
called a "hijab" or "khimar" or simply "scarf" is
worn. The face does not need to be covered.

Clothes for both men and women should be loose and
opaque. Any color and style are fine as long as the
basic requirements of coverage are met.

Modest dress is not unique to Islam. Other faith
traditions practice it or contain references to it in
their sacred texts. In most pictures, Mary, the mother
of Jesus, is depicted as a veiled woman. A modern-day
Christian woman and Nobel Prize winner, Mother
Theresa, also wore the veil. Hats and wigs are
standard attire for Orthodox Jewish women, and many
Jewish men still cover their heads with yarmulkes or
skullcaps.

Unfortunately and incomprehensively, the head scarf
has been stolen away from the Muslim woman as the
vehicle of her modesty in today's society.
Inappropriately and unabashedly, the West has assigned
the head scarf meanings that it simply does not have
for the Muslim: extremism, oppression and inequality.
In reality, this lack of appreciation for the meanings
and purposes of objects from other traditions indexes
the West's own ignorance of Islam and the Western
desire to marginalize it and exclude it from its
rightful place in a pluralistic society.

This lack of appreciation of the diversity that Islam
represents is exemplified by the recent law passed in
France, that bans the wearing of the head scarf along
with Jewish skullcaps and large crosses in public
schools and government offices. Because the scarf
serves the purpose of protecting the Muslim woman's
modesty, it cannot be equated with the wearing of the
cross for a Christian woman. Asking a Muslim woman to
take off her scarf is similar to asking a Christian
woman to take off her blouse, not her cross. The
French move to require a Muslim woman to choose
between her modesty and her education is the real
oppression in this scenario, not the wearing of the
scarf.

Although the French scarf ban is a very disturbing and
worrisome reality for those individuals committed to
the ideal of "liberty and justice for all," it points
to a duty for Muslims and those who value freedom to
participate in the highest levels of political
discourse. If something as simple as a piece of cloth
is a threat to modern democracy, as alleged by the
French government, then perhaps this idea of democracy
requires re-examination and deconstruction of the ways
in which it discriminates against people of faith with
respect to the free practice of their religions.

In the words of the American-Muslim scholar Hamza
Yusef, the question of whether or not Islam can accept
democracy must be followed by the question, "Can
democracy accept Islam?"

Mumina Kowalski is the Muslim Chaplain at the State
Correctional Institution at Muncy. She can be
contacted at mumina79@....






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