What is the logic behind a Muslim woman wearing Hijab (Covering her Body)?

The message from a Muslim Woman wearing Hijab is simple! “Men do not look at me like a piece of meat and men are not allowed to treat me like an object of sex toy and I do not allow men to market my body to sell their business products”

In the world; especially in the western world, many negative things are being spoken particularly about Muslim Women. Because of western political propaganda against Islam, the world has been made to believe that Islam does not consider men and women as equal. And those Muslim women are suppressed. They do not enjoy the freedom which non-muslims women do, which is completely wrong!

We have to agree that women are different from men and their rights cannot be won by competing men because their rights in society are different from men, Hijab is one of the righteous deeds and it is a sign of honor and equality which stands as a shield of protection against evil man.

Liberation or Sexploitation

Look at the glossy cover of any magazine or advertisements on TV and newspaper, you will find that most of these advertisements have inadequately dressed women in charming poses to attract the attention of men. This proves that the Western society considers woman only as a sex symbol. The western world teaches women in such ways, women are free to do what they want; does this mean women have got their freedom? Women's freedom is not by exposing their body in the way they want or by challenging men.

In the modern society of today, a woman has always been looked upon as just another sexual object for the men. Why should one display one's beauty for unwanted eyes to feast upon? The Hijab protects a woman's honor and doesn't arouse unwanted passion from the opposite sex.

The liberation of women in Islam is far superior to Western liberation as it allows women to live with respect, dignity and equality in society.

Equality does not mean aping and behaving like men or dancing to their carnal tunes; that would be an act of inferiority in the face of one's own femininity.

A truly liberated woman always dresses decently and modestly. A true woman will never degrade her body and sell her dignity to the highest bidder. No woman is truly liberated if she is still the slave of her wayward conscience, bodily lust or infidelity.

However, in Islam, women, whatever their role as mothers, wives, sisters or daughters, command respect and have a constructive role to play in society. The Hijab itself gives an aura of freedom to the womankind, facilitating their movement and protecting them from provocation and wanton greed of the human wolves. Removal of the Hijab makes you vulnerable to the lust of men.

Some often ask, What is wrong with attacting men? we can answer them by throwing the same question back to them.

There is nothing wrong to attract "A MAN(Husband)" but why do you want to attract "MEN"? a wise and honest woman's choice will be a modest Hijab!

What is Hijab? (Hijaab (Muslim Veil), Hejab (An Act of Faith), Islamic dress for women)

There are many sisters who have failed to understand the actual meaning of Hijab. Hijab technically means covering. Islam desires the preservation of social tranquility and familial peace. Hence, it asks women to cover themselves in their inter-actions with men, whom they are not related to.

Hijab is obedience to her Creator!

Who knows better than the creator; what are the weaknesses and the strengths of what he created!

(Quran 24:31)

"And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms"

Why is Hijab necessary?

The dangerous consequences of the Western culture of nakedness and permissiveness are before us. We should think twice before blindly trying to imitate Western life-styles.

How should women observe Hijab correctly?

Basically, the dress of ladies should cover the whole body except the face and hands (i.e. palms and fingers). Hair should not be exposed because Islam considers it as half of the total beauty of women. The Hijab could be of any form and color, a one-piece chader or a three-piece ensemble, as long as it is not tight fitting and does not attract people's attention.

 Image-1             Image-2            Image-3          Image-4

Image1: The stylish coat can be worn in many different patterns; it loosely falls from the shoulders and reaches the knees.

Image2: A loose long coat falling from the shoulders and reaching the ankles can also be worn with a scarf covering all the hair. The scarf can also have a veil attached to cover the total face (Niqab).

Image3: A scarf covering the hair fully can be worn along with a loose shirt falling till the knees as trousers. (Hair should not be seen from below the scarf).

Image4: This Hijab commonly known as the "Chadar" is a single piece of material which falls from head and is draped on the shoulder. A scarf too can be worn inside it, to cover all the hair.

Baseless objections against Hijab

• Hijab seeks to imprison women: Those who feel that Hijab imprisons women should refrain from living in houses because it is nearer to a prison than Hijab.
  
• Hijab subordinates women: In fact, culture, which promotes nakedness, takes people nearer to the culture of animals. Wearing the Hijab, on the contrary, liberates women from the trap of Western fashion and maladies. It gives them greater, rather than less freedom and mobility.
  
• Why only women? Science has confirmed that visual stimulation plays a predominant role in the physiology of men compared to women. The fact that the sex-industry in the West is targeted towards the male-market confirms it.
  

Victims of Ridicule: Some of our sisters come up with the excuse that the non-believers laugh at them if they observe Hijab and they feel degraded. They may laugh for a little while but after some time they will have no choice but to respect the Muslim women observing Hijab for their discipline, which could not be shaken, by their little laughs.

Let us not forget the famous phrase: The one who laughs last laughs the longest.

Beauty is meant to be appreciated: True! But only by the husband. Hence women who truly love their husbands would never wish to be seen in public without Hijab.

What are the disadvantages of discarding Hijab?

• Becoming an easy target of anti-social elements.
  
• Causing great stresses, insecurity and suspicion in the minds of husbands, ultimatelydisturbing the familial harmony.
  
• Instigating young people to deviate towards the path of lust and immorality.
  
• Giving rise to cases of divorce, adultery, rape and illegitimate children.
  

What are the advantages of observing Hijab?

• Confidence in social participation as human being and not as sexual commodity.
  
• Guarding on her self from the lustful looks of men.
  
• Not diverting people's attention from constructive social work.
  
• Improving the moral character of the society.
  

Those who reject Hijab and wish to attract men are suffering from inferiority complex. They believe men are superior and in order to overcome this feeling, they use their feminine charms. But why should a Muslim woman have such a feeling when she is fully aware of her equality with men?

Hijab, therefore, has such benefits as a guard against any assault, equality with men, air of respect and honor and most important of all, obedience to Allah (SWT) which is equivalent to blood of martyr. Hijab requires women to avoid any sort of attraction to men.

In conclusion, women can achieve true dignity and experience true emancipation by observing Hijab and not by discarding it.

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When victims refuse to become victims, they are called Terrorists!

Few months ago the fourth most powerful military in the world escalated its war against a stateless community that has been exiled and crowded into one of the most densely populated 360 square kilometers in the world. According to the Israeli press, this invasion had been planned for over six months.

 

In 25 days, out of a population of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, Israel massacred 1317, including 419 children & 108 women. It wounded 5340 (6657 were either killed or wounded). This killed the same proportion of Gazan society as would killing 263,400 Americans in the U.S., including 83,800 children and 21,600 women, and injuring more than one million.

 

The invaders used a wide array of high-tech weapons, including white phosphorous and what appears to be the experimental Dense Inert Metal Explosive, or DIME—a new weapon that penetrates the body with a fine metal dust that amputates limbs, cannot be surgically removed, causesorgan failure and cancer.

 

This escalation was supported by most governments of the world—most adamantly the United States—and including neighboring Arab states. However, alongside this gruesome assault we saw one of the largest mobilizations of international solidarity the human community has seen in quite a while.

 

From the beginning of Zionist settlement of Palestine, the settlers have been at war the native inhabitants. Zionist colonization started around the turn of the 20th century. In its first few years Zionists used highly exploited Arab labor to build a Jewish-dominated economy. However, early on Zionists found that Jewish labor could not compete with the local Arab labor and rapidly began excluding Arab labor altogether.

 

Zionist organizations and investors bought land primarily from the elite Arab absentee landlords and pushed all Arab labor off the purchased land. In buying up so much land the Zionists infused the property market with money. This drove prices up and pushed other small farmers into debt and off their land.

 

Meanwhile, the Zionists organized campaigns to push Arabs out of the economy. Jews who employed Arab labor were targeted with demonstrations, boycotts, and physical attacks. Here’s an account by a socialist Zionist, David Hacohen, leader of the Zionist workers’ movement in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s: "When I joined the socialist students’ club (in London) there were English, Irish, Jews, Chinese, Indians and Africans—all under English domination.

 

“Already at that time I had to fight with my close comrades around the issue of Jewish socialism, to justify the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my union, the Histadrut, that we urged Jewish households to not buy anything at Arab stores, that we organized guards around the orchards to keep Arab laborers from working there, that we tossed gasoline on Arab tomatoes and broke Arab eggs in the baskets of women who had bought them.

 

"The Jewish National Fund sent Yehoshua Hankin to Beirut to buy lands from rich absentee landowners and we then kicked out the farmers. It was all right to buy dozens of hectares from an Arab, but to sell, God forbid, one Jewish hectare to an Arab, was forbidden. It really wasn’t easy to explain!"

 

Needless to say, the native communities were not in favor of these developments. And so, Zionists came to rely heavily on the British to protect their project. They procured laws and declarations in support of their colonization—most notably the Balfour declaration in 1917—as well as favored banking status and physical protection.

 

Zionist police forces eventually collaborated with the British in keeping down native uprisings, which were fighting a dual colonization carried out by Britain on the one hand and the Zionists on the other.

 

By 1936 the Palestinian resistance came to a head with a general strike that held out for six months. By the fifth month Britain cracked down hard on the resistance. They arrested strikers and blew up buildings, terrorizing the population. One incident alone made 6000 people in Jaffa homeless.

 

Despite the barbaric force employed, the British were losing to the resistance by 1938 and began to join with Zionist forces, who then aided in crushing the rebellion. By 1939, 14,411 Zionist soldiers had joined this effort.

 

It should be noted that only in Palestine was the Arab rebellion directed at any Jewish institutions, and that even there the rebellion targeted institutions specifically related to Zionist settlement, and avoided the native Jewish inhabitants.  

 

With the Arab uprising of 1936 the Zionists began to rely on a combination of walls and towers in their settlement construction. This design incorporates two features that have proved essential to the Zionist project: The wall to keep the native inhabitants outside the colonial community, and the tower to dominate them.

 

Getting hold of a local force that was already mobilized against the native population was a godsend to the British colonial forces. It was in this co-operation that many future Israeli military leaders—such as Moshe Dayan—learned how to crush resistance. 

 

This pact with Britain allowed the Zionists to acquire enough land and power under the British mandate to conquer a far larger swath of land. This was no mere happy accident. From very early on Zionist leaders intended their new state’s land to reach deep into modern Arab territory.  This is recorded in the works of modern Zionism’s founder, Theodore Herzl, and right up to the founder of the Israeli state, Ben Gurion.

 

When Ben Gurion spoke to the World Council of Poale Zion in 1938, he said, "The boundaries of Zionist aspiration include southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today’s Jordan, all of Cis-Jordan, and the Sinai."

 

In 1947 the United Nations attempted to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs. The partition was unacceptable to everyone. On the one hand, it would have given far more land to Jews than they were living on. At the time, Jewish land owners held only 6 percent of the land. On the other hand, the Zionist movement sought to claim far more land for itself and would not settle for the partition.

 

In 1948, war broke out between the Zionist forces and the Arab countries surrounding Palestine. Before the war there were about 950,000 Palestinians in the land that became Israel. The Zionist forces drove out or killed between 700,000 and 800,000 of the 950,000 Palestinians.

 

In the past, Zionists have hidden the role Zionist forces played in ethnically cleansing the land of its Palestinian inhabitants, but such denial is pretty futile by now. Even right-wing historians like Benny Morris have heavily documented the atrocities committed by Zionist troops and their intent to drive out the native inhabitants. Morris’s only problem with the operations is that they did not do a thorough enough job in expelling the Arabs.

 

We have, for instance, accounts such as that of Zvi Ankori, commander of the Haganah, who said, "I saw cut off genitalia and women’s crushed stomachs. … It was direct murder."

 

Menachem Begin, a former prime minister of Israel, expressed great pride in the terrifying effects of the Zionist operations. On the massacre of 254 men, women, and children in Deir-Yasin, Begin said, "A legend of terror spread amongst Arabs who were seized with panic at the mention of our Irgun soldiers. It was worth half a dozen battalions to the forces of Israel. Arabs throughout the country … were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede.

 

"Of the 800,000 Arabs who lived on the present territory of the State of Israel, only some 165,000 are still there. The political and economic significance of this development can hardly be overstated."

 

The 700,000 Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 have not been able to return since. They and their children now number 4 or 5 million people. Many of them are huddled in the same refugee camps they entered when they first fled. They are one of the largest and longest running refugee populations in the world.

 

After these Palestinians were expelled, the new Israeli government systematically destroyed Palestinian homes and possessions. They destroyed nearly 400 whole villages between 1948 and 1949, and even more in the 1950s.

 

Then the newly formed Israeli state confiscated nearly all of the remaining land. By the time the Jewish state was founded, the Jewish National Fund estimates that it had 90% of the land.

 

Land held by the Jewish National Fund cannot be leased to a non-Jew, not sub-leased to a non-Jew. It cannot be sold, mortgaged, given, or bequeathed to a non-Jew. Non-Jews cannot be employed on the land, cannot be employed in any connection with cultivation of land. In modern Israel, the Jewish National Fund holds 13% of the land. Arabs living within the bounds of Israel were given citizenship, but were placed under martial law until 1966.

 

The government continues to use a number of methods to limit the power of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, such as refusing building permits or declaring Arab land a closed military zone.

 

Furthermore, Israeli law explicitly states that a political party "may not participate in the elections if there is in its goals or actions a denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, a denial of the democratic nature of the state, or incitement to racism."

 

In December 2002, a Palestinian Knesset member Azmi Bishara and his party Balad, which calls for Israel to become "a state of all its citizens," were banned by the Israeli Central Elections Committee since Israel cannot be both a state "of all its citizens" and "a state of the Jewish people." One out of five Israelis are non-Jewish Arabs.

 

While the Supreme Court overturned the decision in January 2003, the conflict between Israel’s Jewish character and its parliamentary democracy continues to sharpen. During the recent attacks on Gaza the Israeli Elections Committee banned parties representing two-thirds of Israeli Arabs largely in response to the sympathy they showed for Gazans.

 

Israel has no constitution defending basic minority rights. Because it is a Jewish state with a significant non-Jewish population such guarantees are impossible. The wide disparity between Jewish and Arab ownership of land and wealth, and the solid Jewish control and occupancy of the military, places the material bases of state power solidly in the hands of the Jewish population.

 

While the majority status of the Jewish population allows the state to afford some parliamentary decorations, the continued growth of the Arab population will increasingly limit the Israeli ruling class’s ability to defend the Jewish character of the state within the framework of majoritarian democracy.

 

Israel could not have become a Jewish state without forcibly expelling the majority of indigenous population. It cannot remain a Jewish state without forcibly preventing the re-entry of the expelled indigenous population and without forcibly preventing immigration of non-Jews into Israel.

 

It cannot remain a Jewish state without denying the rights—or even existence—of the remaining indigenous population within Israel.

 

Israel has an ever-present interest in acquiring control over the natural resources in its region, and over the economy into which it integrates. For its own immediate interests Israel has always been opposed to the strengthening of Arab countries, especially under independent—much less working class—leadership. Because of its inherent isolation from the world around it, and the violence needed to create and maintain its existence, the Jewish state has always required an imperial sponsor—now the United States.

 

This was never a significant contradiction since, as a colonial project, as a spartan minority in conflict with the majority; the Jewish state has always been formed by the same ideology and has held roughly the same interests as imperial powers in the region. Both imperialists and Zionists need to dominate the Arab majority.

 

If the Palestinian struggle is to succeed, it must overturn the Jewish supremacy imposed by Zionism and the dominance of U.S. imperialism.

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Story behind Abu Ghraib Prison || A woman's tears

This article is dedicated to those who still have blood running in his veins. Photos are not published in this Blog to maintain victim's Privacy!

Nadia is one of the victims of the American mercenaries in Abu Ghraib prison. She was detained for unknown reasons. When she was released from the prison, didn't throw herself into the arms of her family as most of the oppressed prisoners released have done dose, especially when he is being fueled by the fire of the oppression and a yearning for his family.

Simply, Nadia escaped immediately after she left prison, not because of the shame that will follow her because of some crime she has committed but because of what she and the other Iraqi captive women have been subject to; rape, and torture by the hands of the American mercenaries in Abu Gharib prison. The walls of the prison tell many tragic stories but what Nadia tells is the living truth and a living hell.

Nadia begins her story:

"I was visiting one of my relatives, and suddenly the American forces attacked the home and started to inspect it. They found some light weapons. So, they arrested all people in the home including me. I tried to explain to the interpreter, who was accompanying the American patrol, that I am just a visitor. However, my trials failed. I cried, begged them, and I lost consciousness from fear when they took me to Abu Gharib prison.

Nadia continues "they put me alone in a dark and dirty prison cell. I expected that I will be released soon, especially when the investigation proved that I hadn't committed a crime"

Nadia elaborated while tears poured down her cheek, a telling sign of just how much she has suffered.

"The first day was so burdensome. 

The cell was malodorous, humid and dark, and this condition increased the fear inside me more and more. The laughs of the soldier outside the cell made me even more scared. I was afraid of what would happen to me. For the first time I felt that I was in a difficult gridlock and that I had entered an unknown world that I would not get out of.

In the middle of these different feelings, I heard a voice for an American soldier woman who was speaking in an Arabic language. She said to me: "I didn't imagine that the weapons' traders in Iraq are women." When I started to explain to her the circumstances of the situation, she beat me cruelly. I cried and shouted "By Allah! I am oppressed, By Allah! I am oppressed"

The soldier showered me with insults in a way that I have never thought possible or that I would ever be subjected to under any circumstances. Then, she started to deride me saying that she was monitoring me all the day via the satellite, and that they can track their enemies even inside their own bedrooms by American technology.

Then she laughed and said: "I was watching you when you were making love with your husband." I replied in a confused voice "But I am not married".

She beat me for more than one an hour and she forced me to drink a glass of water, and I knew 

later that they put a drug in it. I regained my consciousness after two days to find myself naked. I knew immediately that I have lost something that all the laws in the earth will not be able to return it to me once again. I had been raped. A hysterical fit attacked me and I started to hit my head violently against the walls till more than five American soldiers head by that soldier women entered the cell and started to beat me, and they raped me alternately while they laughing and listening to a loud music.

Day by day the scenario of raping me was repeated. And every day they invent new ways that are crueler than the prior ways."

She went on describing the horrible acts of the American criminals:

"After about one month, a Negro soldier entered my cell and threw me two pieces of American military clothes. He said in weak Arabic language to wear them. After he put a black bag on my head, he led me to a public toilet where there are pipes for cold and hot water and he asked me to bathe. He then closed the door and left.

I was so exhausted and feeling pain, and despite the tremendous number of the bruises in my body, I poured out some water on my body. Before I finish my bath, the Negro soldier came in. I frightened, and I hit him in the face with the water bowl. His reaction was so tough. He raped me cruelly and spit on my face, and then he left and returned with two soldiers who returned me to the cell.

The treatment continued that way, to the extent that sometimes I was raped ten times in a day, the matter which affected my health negatively."

Nadia continued in revealing the American horrible actions made against the Iraqi women, saying:

"After more than 4 months, a woman soldier woman came, and I concluded from her conversation with other soldiers that her name is Mary. She said to me "now you have a golden opportunity, since an officer who has a high position will visit us today, if you deal with him positively, you would be released, especially because we are sure you are innocent."

I replied, "If you are sure of I am innocent, why you don't release me?"

She screamed in nervousness, "The only way that guarantees your releasing is to be positive with them."

She took me to the public toilets, and she supervised my bath while she was holding a thick stick, hitting me by it if I didn't perform her orders. Then, she gave me makeup, and warned me not to cry and ruin my makeup. Then she took me to an empty small room where there was nothing but a cover on the floor, and after one an hour she came accompanied with four soldiers who was holding cameras. She took off her clothes and she harassed me as if she was a man. The soldiers were laughing and listening to a noisy music, and taking photographs to me in all poses, and they were emphasizing on my face. The woman asked me to smile otherwise she is going to kill me, and she took a gun from one of her colleagues and fired four bullets near my head, and swore that the fifth bullet will be fired in my head.

After that, the four soldiers raped me alternately the matter which made me lose my consciousness. When I regained the consciousness I found myself in the cell and the traces of their teeth, nails and cigarettes are in everywhere in my body."

Nadia stopped narrating her tragedy to wipe her tears, and then she continued: "After one day Mary came and told me that I was cooperative, and I will be released but after I watch the film that they have shot. I was in pain when I saw the film, and she (Mary) said: "you have been created for the sole purpose for us to enjoy". At the moment I became very anger and I attacked her although I was afraid of her reaction, and I would kill her except for the interfering of the soldiers. When the soldiers released me she showered me with hitting, then they left me.

After this incident, nobody harassed me for more than one month; I spent that period in the praying and invocation to Allah, the All-Mighty who has all power, to help me.

Mary came with some soldiers who gave me the clothes that I was wearing when they arrested me and took me to an American car. Then they threw me on the highway road after giving me 10,000 Iraqi Dinars.

I went to a home that was near the place where I have been thrown out and since I know the reaction of my family, I preferred to visit one of my relatives to let them know what happened after my absence. I knew that my brother had held a consolation board for me for more than 4 months, and they considered me as a dead person.

I understand the knife of shame is waiting for me. So, I went to Baghdad where I found a good family who lodged me, and I worked with this family as a maid and governess for their children.

Nadia wonders in pain, regret and bitterness:

"Who will quench my thirst? Who will return my virginity? What is the offense of my family and kin? I have inside me a baby, and I don't know who his father is."

And she ends her story here.

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