Online debate over Zaki Badawi’s proposal. BBC News, 4 August 2005
See also “Muslim women reject hijab calls”, Daily Telegraph, 4 August 2005
And “Women hit back over hijab ruling”, BBC News, 4 August 2005
And “Muslim women have the right to wear the hijab”, GLA press release, 4 August 2005
“You filthy Muslim dogs. You will be torched this Friday. Many Muslim pigs will burn,” the hand-scrawled note reads.
At a recently vandalised mosque in the east of Britain’s capital, a shocked 65-year-old Siddique Ali handles one example of hate mail targeting British Muslims after the deadly bomb attacks on London’s transport system on 7 July.
“We are afraid,” said Ali, a member of the committee which runs the mosque. “These people are giving us warnings. But if they came in front of us we could give a reply or try to understand, but they are not coming.”
The police are to launch an emergency hotline to report “faith hate” attacks after a steep rise in abuse and assaults on Muslims in London in the wake of the suicide bombings.
Police reports seen by The Independent on Sunday show the number of attacks in the capital rose to more than 20 a day after the first bombings on 7 July. The police have recorded 230 religious hatred offences in the past three weeks.
After the first blasts and the attempted bombings two weeks later, racist attacks more than doubled to a peak of nearly 60 a day. The police have logged more than 800 racist crimes since the first bombings, reversing a long downward trend.
Somali Muslim women, who tend to wear long robes and hijab head-coverings, have been singled out after it emerged several of the suspected bombers arrested last week are of East African origin. One woman had her hijab torn off.
The new hotline will be set up tomorrow by the Met’s Assistant Commissioner Tariq Ghaffur. Mr Ghaffur, the most senior Asian and Muslim policeman, said there had been a “very substantial increase” in faith crimes in London.
There had also been an increase in the severity of attacks. “What used to be abuse has now escalated into assault. What was minor damage could escalate into a lot more serious damage. I think that is trend across the country,” he said.
Mr Ghaffur will ask people to report incidents to the hotline because he fears some ethnic and religious minorities could “retreat” and not report incidents to the police. “Quite clearly, we fear there will be an escalation,” he said.
Yusuf Smith posts a useful link to an article that refutes Amir Taheri’s line on the origins of the hijab.
Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, is to back the appeal of a school found guilty of discriminating against a student for wearing strict Islamic dress.
Shabina Begum, 16, claimed a victory for all Muslims in March when she won a landmark Court of Appeal ruling that Denbigh High School in Luton had unlawfully excluded her for flouting its uniform policy by wearing a jilbab, which leaves only the hands and face exposed.
Miss Begum said at the time of the ruling that the schools decision had been caused by an atmosphere in which Islam was a target for vilification in the name of the War on Terror.
The Court of Appeal said that Miss Begums human rights had been infringed because she had been denied the right to education and to manifest her religious beliefs.
While respecting a recent fatwa by a leading British Muslim scholar allowing them to take off hijab to avoid spiraling harassment, a number of young British Muslim women said they would keep their religious dress code and seek police protection against racists.
“As a British citizen I have every right to wear my hijab, which is part of my Muslim identity,” Yusra, a University of London student, told IslamOnline.net by phone. “If harassed because of my religion, I would immediately resort to the Metropolitan Police to protect me from racists.”
She maintained that taking off her hijab would be tantamount to giving in to extremists and racists “who would not stop at that”.
In the wake of the July 7th attacks in London, there has been a sharp rise in attacks against Muslim women in Hijab who are visible and vulnerable targets. This has lead a small minority of Commentators to attack the Hijab and label it a traditional Arabian dress rather than an edict of religious code, thus in their view unnecessary.
There can be no doubt about the obligation of Hijab in Islam. The Islamic scholars world-wide unanimously agree on this. Protect-Hijab is concerned by the manner in which the attacks in London are being unashamedly used as a smokescreen by individuals to attack aspects of the Islamic faith to serve individual agendas.
While we all remain concerned about the well-being of our fellow Muslim women, we reject calls by a tiny fraction of scholars who call for the removal of the Hijab in defence against attacks on Muslim women. Britain is a place of tolerance and Protect-Hijab feels it is necessary now more than ever to educate society on the issue of the Hijab, rather than submitting to the threat emanating from some misguided members of our society who blame all Muslims for terrorism.
Assembly for the Protection of Hijab press release, 29 July 2005
“In the ten years I have lived in London, I often wondered when it would happen. I don’t mean when British-born suicide bombers would blow themselves up, killing dozens of their fellow citizens – I would never have thought that possible – but rather, when British multiculturalism would finally show its inherent weaknesses.
“France and Britain have always had opposite views and policies about foreigners and their integration into society. British people often fail to understand the underlying principles of the French approach, prefering to brand it as intolerance, or even blatant racism – as, for example in the recent headscarf ban.”
Agnes Poirier of the French “leftist” newspaper Libération – who goes on to argue that “The message to Muslims has been, in effect, that it is all right for them to be a separate country-within-a-country” – joins the right-wing campaign to blame the London bombings on multiculturalism.
Evening Standard, 29 July 2005
A leading British Muslim scholar has said that Muslim women living in the European country, where Muslims have been suffering mounting abuse and harassment since the July 7 London attacks, can take off their hijab.
“I have issued a fatwa that Muslim women in Britain have an Islamic right to take off their hijab at this point of time if attacked or fearing to be attacked,” Dr. Zaki Badawi, the Dean of the Muslim College in London, told IslamOnline.net over the phone from the British capital.
Badawi said they have registered more than 1500 assaults against hijab-clad women during the past three days only, in addition to a flood of threat letters.
He asserted that in Islam hijab is originally meant to identify Muslim women, so that they might not be attacked or harassed. The scholar cited the Qur’anic verse which reads: “O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.” (Al-Ahzab: 59)
“If hijab becomes a reason of harm for Muslim women in Britain at this time, then I tell them to take it off so that they would not be recognized and consequently attacked,” said Egyptian-born Badawi. “Muslims (in Britain) are scared and each feels he/she is a suspect. The picture is, indeed, gloomy and we are trying all we can to address it.”
“Muslims could also help by stopping the use of their bodies as advertising space for al-Qaeda. Muslim women should cast aside the so-called hijab, which has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with tribal wear on the Arabian peninsula. The hijab … is now a visual prop of terrorism. If some women have been hoodwinked into believing that they cannot be Muslims without covering their hair, they could at least use headgears other than black (the colour of al-Qaeda) or white (the colour of the Taleban)…. Muslim men should consider doing away with Taleban and al-Qaeda-style beards. Growing a beard has nothing to do with Islam…. The bushy beards you see on Oxford Street are symbols of the Salafi ideology that has produced al-Qaeda and the Taleban.”
Right-wing Iranian exile Amir Taheri – a mainstay of the US neocon consultancy Benador Associates – offers some advice to Muslims.