From a veil which covers the face but allows women to show their two eyes, an Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia is now calling for a veil which shows one eye only. Bloggers from the Arab world react.
Writing in Mideast Youth, Bahraini Esra'a notes:
In order to remedy his disturbing temptations, Saudi cleric Muhammad al-Habadan proposes a highly convenient solution for women: one-eyed veil.
She continues:
Great! I’ll start drilling a hole in my bed sheets right away.
But in all seriousness, such disturbing calls only further objectifies women, inviting “religious” clerics to harass and disrespect them in ways that are no longer acceptable.
I have a more fitting proposal for clerics in favor of this bogus call; gouge your eyes out with a tack hammer if you wish to refrain from being seduced. Women should no longer pay the price of your disturbing and sickening mentalities.
From Morocco, Myrtus is fuming, describing the ruling as an ‘Islamically incorrect fatwa.' She also asks:
I wonder how many women would like to poke Sheikh Mohamed's other eye out for his asinine fatwa.
Palestinian Haitham Sabbah describes the one-eye veil as ‘ridiculous.'
He says:
This is just getting out of hand. Ridiculous…
He continues:
Why don’t they enforce full-face cover and kill the issue? What do you call this? Religion and Islam? No Way!
Oh… by the way… anyone knows which eye should be covered? Left of right? (I assumed left because they keep on telling us to do things with our RIGHT thing… Ah… now I’m getting the rule. “Do the Right things with the RIGHT things only.” This is where the Human “Rights” came from and here we see it in action.
Long live “One-Eye Veil.”
Sabbah also posts pictures of how women wearing the one-eyed veil would look like here.
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Wouldn’t that make her look like a pirate?
The wrong people are wearing burkas and veils. The nasty old men (and some young ones) who spend way too much time thinking about how a woman is NAKED UNDER HER CLOTHES! need to get a grip on reality. Perhaps if THEY wore something that covered them from eyeball to toe, they couldn’t see woman and would be less worried about issued of nakedity in the female gender.
Twits.
Ridiculous for another reason, too…having only one eye means no depth perception…so now women will be walking around bumping into things too!
I wear no veil, because I am catholic. But, it seems to me that this man needs spiritual guidance, maybe even a course in methodology which promotes purity of heart. His problem is being projected onto innocent women. This dress code is not the root of the problem. I can’t imagine walking around with one eye closed all day long (my way of experiencing the equivalent, I guess). I would prefer to be blind, I think. I also feel that this would constitute mental cruelty to women in general. My advice to him is to start lowering his gaze. If his eye causes him to sin, then he should take any means necessary to resolve his problem. He takes this stance on behalf of all Arabians?… I am sure many men in Arabia respect women behind closed doors (if they can’t do it openly!). Those who know how to truly love will respect a woman no matter what she is wearing.
[...] From a veil which covers the face but allows women to show their two eyes, an Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia is now calling for a veil which shows one eye only. Bloggers from the Arab world react. [...]
This is absolutely ridiculous!! I have the utmost respect for some traditions and culture. However, this is not right. I’ve always had a problem with the way Islam seems to have the women being responsible for the temptations of men. Seriously, if God only wanted women to use one eye, that’s all that would have. I wonder if this is another method to keep women from driving.
I sure hope for the sake of Saudi women that they don’t have to do this. I’d like to ask…what are Saudi men doing to aid them in their morality (besides praying 5 times a day)?