Reply to Muslim women speak out against the hijab as an element of political Islam

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

The Quran's mandate to lower one's gaze applied to both men and women. Since there is also a mandate to cover adornments, ornaments, and beauty, the hijab helps women to meet this requirement. Hair may indeed be worn to impress bosses or colleagues or peers, or it may be used to seduce. The point is that it not be used to make any impression or point because it distracts us and others from God and encourages a focus on egotistical interests. It needn't be used to seduce, but in many cases it has been. It suffices that it is often used in ways that take us farther away from God. This is often true with many physical aspects of our body. A very athletic woman who desires to wear shorts to show off her athletic legs, only to be admired by her workout group is still placing importance on egotistical interests based on appearance or beauty. This is still not modesty.

Islam never purported to advance linear equality between men and women. Islam advances justice between men and women to promote a moral society. Men ARE different from women. As such, their rights and responsibilities will differ. Western society deems this shameful because it can only see justice as based on linear equality. One can not evaluate Islamic guidelines and law on western ideology; they are based on entirely different principles.

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I don't understand why a woman's hair is "distracting" but a man's hair is not. What if she cuts it short like a man?

Men often cut their hair in "distracting" fashions. You will tell me that many men get a standard cut. And I will answer that many men don't get the standard cut (my son even cares about where he gets his standard cut). Going further, isn't any type of men's cut about vanity, and the least "egotistical" route would be for men to grow their hair out and forswear combs? Where do you draw the line? You can't. So what's good for the goose is good for the gander: if all women have to cover because some women style their hair, then all men should have to cover too, following the same principles of prevention.

One could argue that, back in Arabia in 700AD, men wore turbans, thereby preventing men's hair from "distracting" anybody. But following those lines of argument, things got easier for men and harder for women.

What about the rest of that verse in the Quran, which says not to show adornments "except that which normally show"? Doesn't hair normally show? Whose standards of hair are the reference point here? Back in 700AD, many women didn't veil, particularly women doing manual labor.[/quote]

She already told you Islam doesn't shoot for pound-for-pound equality between the sexes. Why are you getting hung up on goose and gander? The rules and expectations for women and men in Islam are different. That's how it is. Btw, your line about men growing hair out is ridiculous.[/quote]

Why is the idea of men doing nothing to their hair--no cuts, no combs--any more ridiculous than the idea that all women should cover their hair because (equally ridiculous) all women--or maybe just one woman somewhere--are "using" their hair for the sole purpose of "attracting men" and as an outlet for their "egotism?" PP argued that the issue is egotism/promiscuity. It seems ridiculous that men are exempt from the twin evils of promiscuity and egotism. So it seems equally ridiculous that men should not face purity requirements similar to those faced by women. You may think the veil is not ridiculous because the goose and gander have different rules--but to outsiders it does, in fact, seem ridiculous. And that's the whole point of this thread, I guess.[/quote]
Well OK.  Does it seem ridiculous to you that at any beach, men are expected to cover from the waist down, and women are expected to cover chest AND from the waist down? No? Then you ARE capable of understanding that women and men might have different dress codes. The requirement to cover applies to both sexes but is operationalized differently.

Men are not exempt from anything.  Men, like women, are expected to be modest. Men, like women, are not supposed to stare. Men, like women, are expected to stay pure.  Men, like women, are supposed to not have sex with people they aren't married to.[/quote]

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