I Wear The Veil

I wear the veil. I choose to wear the veil. No one forces me to wear the veil. I consider it a privelege to live in a society that supports my wearing the veil because I was
born and grew up in a society that allowed it, but made it very hard.

I am tired of being told how oppressed I am. I am tired of being told how badly my husband and other husbands treat their wives. Because we are a private people, evidenced by our choice to veil, we tend not to be the ones to speak out. Rather, it is the verbal exhibitionists who are speaking for us and they have it all wrong.

One of the most impressive things I have ever borne witness to was my first Hajj. I was literally surrounded, night and day, by millions upon millions of muslims, men and women.

I was astonished.

For a month, the conditions mimicked the crowding at football stadiums. For a month, there were NO fights in my view. For a month, I saw example after example of people having patience with each other through very trying circumstances and under the constant stress of living as overcrowded travellers.

These people came from all over the world. From every country, from every walk of life. These people were doctors, beggars, financiers, dishwashers. These people were here to worship The Creator by following the rites of Abraham and I can not imagine seeing the same exemplary behavior maintained in a crowd 100th the size for even 2 hours in a western setting.

These were millions. Upon millions. Upon millions. For a month. Wow.

Oh. And there were women. Not in veils because, that is prohibited during Hajj. During prayer and during Hajj, the veil is prohibited. However, many women still pull a curtain of sorts across their faces to protect their modesty. BY CHOICE.

Now what did I see of the women? Each and every one I can remember was escorted by a man. That man was wearing two towels. And nothing else. Two towels. One for his shoulders. One for his waist. And nothing else.

With the challenge of making sure he does not lose that unfamiliar and unwieldly cover for HIS modesty, you would think he would be pretty much totally preoccupied with the task. But no. I saw men who were surrounded by women. Obviously mothers, wives, daughters. Even baby daughters riding on their shoulders. In a crowd so tight it would remind you of the hot dog stand at the superbowl during half-time.

But again, I was amazed.

Each and every man in each and every circumstance, and believe me, in those crowds I saw many many many of them in a month’s time, was being so gentle and patient with each of those women that… I can only say I was amazed.

When the women had a need, he got busy and saw it met. When the children cried, he comforted them. When they moved too slowly, he slowed down. When they became excited, he enjoyed their joy. When they were sick he attended them in the clinics and the hospitals. Not one man. Not two men. Every man I saw who had a female family member with him.

This does not say that I am naïve enough to believe all Muslim men are so pious. Islam holds the hearts of 1/3 of the world’s population and we are a diverse people. From the best of us to the worst of us, our diversity is great and Islam embraces that diversity. Just as the West has its Jeffrey Dahmers and Adolf Hitlers, Islam has those who profess this faith but practice it badly. These are not examples and neither should you take them as yours. Not your examples for how to act nor your examples for how I, an ordinary Muslim woman, or any other ordinary muslim person acts. Neither do I claim to be perfect. Anyone who chooses to do so can probably find many things for which to criticise me. I do not invite this, nor am I writing this to encourage it. I am writing this to be a voice for those who normally do not speak.

We are a private people. Many of our houses are not beautiful on the outside, they are ordinary. From the outside, it is often difficult to differentiate between the rich and the poor. When wearing two towels and among millions of others who are also wearing two towels, to just whom should we feel we must bow?

As women, we are even more private. We love to be beautiful in spirit and in soul and we love to present ourselves beautifully among those whom we love. We do not share ourselves freely nor with just anyone. That is why you do not hear our voices rise against the injustice of being depicted as the most oppressed people on the planet Earth while simultaneously being implicated as terrorists because we prefer to dress modestly or even to cover our faces.

We are depicted as beat down and downtrodden until one would think we do not even have a right to self-esteem. As if we do not have the wherewithal to walk out of the house and go to a restroom and change clothes if that was what we really wanted to do. As if we can not see how we are treated. As if we are so psychologically damaged that we love being abused…

If this is so, why do I see so many couples, young and old, wandering the streets here holding hands? If this is so, why are so many of the political cartoons here dedicated to how difficult it is for arab men to marry due to the expense? I am told a typical (in one Muslim country) dowry is about $25,000 US. The dowry is paid, not to the bride’s family but to the bride herself. Then the groom must also foot the bill for the wedding, which typically runs about $15,000 US, I am told. Finally, I attended one of these weddings. The bride had a series of drop dead gorgeous floor length wedding gowns that she modeled for the guests (all women) on a runway. Each dress had its own color theme and its own jewelry. She also wore a veil for the last dress. I am sure it must have been her choice for the veil she wore was made of Solid 21 carat Gold. Hmmmm, she sounds like she is just toooooo oppressed, doesn’t she?

There are entire streets here dedicated to women’s clothing shops. There are the shops full of black. The black we wear in public because we are modest. They represent about 10% of the shops. The rest are the clothes we wear under the black or after we take the black off at parties and other social functions. The fabrics are fabrics I have never seen in the West. Maybe I visited the wrong shops. The jewlery shops are draped in gold. Not 14 carat gold, which is barely even half gold. No, 21 and 22 and even 24 carat gold. Just as pure as is reasonable for the application so it does not fall apart in the wearing. Then there are the malls where men are not allowed. Oh, yes, there are things men are prohibited from too!

We don’t drive. Neither do most wealthy men. It’s called a chauffeur. Didn’t you ever wish you had one? Many of us own our own cars but never have to drive them. Additionally, the streets here are full of dangerous drivers so when you do drive, you take your life in your hands. The accident rate is extraordinarily high; I would rather not take the chance of being the one behind the wheel.

Conformity is cited as a reason to remove the veil. “Adopt the customs of the society in which you live.” Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that Diversity was the watch word of the day? Or should we all be Orwellian and run out and buy identical clothing, live in identical accomodations and say identical things in response to identical prompts?

And be honest, just how many things that are a part of that culture would those who live there prefer not to have to conform to? For example, high crime rates. A need to lock yourselves securely behind walls and bars to keep the “bad” people out. Or how about the public school system and how many of its children are afraid in school or not receiving an adequate education?

Then there is the rat race. Wake up at 6 am to get dressed (must be cute, it’s a part of my personal sales pitch – what am I selling again?), get the kids to school and be at work by 7:30. Then work all day, eat lunch at your desk, work all afternoon and well into the evening because if you don’t, you’ll never get that promotion. Then, end up being late picking up the kids from the sitter who knows them better than you do, run them home, feed them and all go to bed. So you will have the energy to get up and do it all over again tomorrow. But there’s the weekend. It’s time off so you can do laundry, wash the car, clean the house, mow the lawn and get ready for Monday. Oh yeah, and spend time with the kids.

Boy, do I wish I had a husband… for it is also part of the culture to be a divorced, single parent.

I’ll be okay after I have my evening cocktail and a nightcap. I’ll be okay after I pop those nice pills the doctor prescribed to help me keep my nerves in check.

And then there are the homeless and the drug addicts and the prostitutes and all those society forgot.

Must we adopt all these customs too? And, after we do, must we also find out that those kids we worked so hard to raise but hardly know are building guns in the garage to kill their classmates with? Are you reading the same newspapers I am? In America, we used to call this way of life “Working from can’t see to can’t see”… in other words slavery. Now who IS the master?

Progress is cited as a reason to remove the veil. Allah says in the Qur’an, “Today have I perfected for you your religion.” Well, if Allah sees it as perfect, its hard to imagine there is anything better. When you progress to something else from perfect, the only way to go is to worse, unless you would like to go through bad first.

One more thing. The lecturer that refused to enter the room with women present never called them polluted or even less than him… It once again takes the helpful presence of verbal exhibitionists to arrive at this conclusion. Is it not possible that he feared polluting the women present? Is it not possible that he had too high a regard for them to want to enter their presence?

Or, as is probably more likely, is it not possible that he feared his own behaviors, however private and wanted to meet his Lord one day without having to account for what those behaviors might have been?

Please, if you want to have a go at men who are “polluted by women”, focus on strip bars and pornographic websites and thongs on the beach. Then ask yourselves, just who is polluting whom?

We enjoy the privileges of being treated well by our men. They take responsibility for us in ways the women of the west pray for. We also take responsibility for them, in ways men of the west pray for. We love each other, respect each other and work together for the strength and benefit of our families, whom we hold high.

Yes, I wear the veil. I guess I have covered every aspect of this decision of mine except the why. The question is being asked whether or not the religion dictates the wearing of the veil. This is not the question that is important. It does not matter whether it is dicated by the religion or not. What is important here is whether or not wearing the veil is something that Allah accepts as an act of worship. This is a universally agreed point. It is known that Allah ordered the wives of the Prophet, may the Peace and Blessings of Allah forever be upon him, to wear the veil. If they were ordered to wear it then it is clearly an act of worship. This is why I wear it and, in most cases, when anyone decides to interfere with someone wearing it for that reason, they should take into account what kind of Board meeting they are interrupting. Would you interrupt the president or the prime minister or the king in a meeting? Would you interrupt The Creator in His meeting with the one who is worshipping Him?

Life here is wonderful for one reason and one reason alone. Life does not revolve around work; life revolves around worship. I have left the rat race and am racing against my own shortcomings to please my Lord.

Personally, my husband was there for me while I finished my Master’s Degree in Engineering. He cooked and cleaned and cared for our kids in addition to working so I could finish. He then respected my decision to work and, when I decided I would rather come home – both to my family and to the place I love most on Earth, he supported that as well. I am not unusual in this blessing. We trust our husbands and fathers and brothers for the most part. Our faith builds in protections for us that, when they are respected, are sufficient to make up the difference. This is why we don’t need many of the things the west is constantly trying to push upon us, like the right to exhibit our beauty in public. This is also why we don’t need the West to dictate how we live or to save us from ourselves. Just as the ecology maintains a strong but delicate balance, so does our way of life. Just as the ecology is being threatened by the prevalent western approach to “caring” for it, so are the millions of innocent people who have been affected and died at the hands of the same “caring” people.

I could go on. And on. And on. But I will stop here because I believe I have made my point. Thank you for your attention. If I have said anything to offend anyone, I apologise, this was not my intention. Anything I have said wrong, is my own fault. Anything I have said that is right, it is only through the mercy of Allah.

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammed is His servant and messenger.
Ash hado al laa ilaaha illallah, ash hado anna muhammaden abduhu wa rasuluhu.

-- Umm Abdullah