Niqab in the west...hm...

Society Religion & Philosophy
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First of all, I want to say how much I respect niqabi’s. I think it acquires a lot of courage to do niqab in the west. I admire the niqabi’s.

But I do wonder if it’s really a good idea to do that in the west. It’s already a battle in most places to do hijab. People are still struggling with that.

If that’s teh case with only hijab, then how can we expect people to get used to niqab? Somewhere, I do understand the resistance against niqab here.
In the west, usually while talking, people think it’s unpolite if you don’t have eye contact. They want to be able to see your face while communicating. Like in our culture, it’s actually unpolite to look the elder in the eyes, here it’s unpolite to not look anybody you are talking to in the eye.
And what about school exams? You have identify yourself, how does the teacher know for sure, it’s really you yourself taking the exam instead of someone else?
Not to mention it frightens many people.

Perhaps we want too much too fast. Let’s win the battle for hijabs first.

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Muslim women are not obliged to wear Naqab :)

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I know, that 's not what I meant here. There are women who feel they should, and there are women who feel they shouldn't.
To each her own interpretation.

Some women claim that part of the verse :

'...that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except waht (ordinarily) appear theirof...." (surah Noor: 31)

should be interpreted to cover hte face too, one lady said that one of the main attractions is the face too. When you look at it that way, it's understandable. I think your feet would be less attractive than your face! The more I think about it, themore it makes sense, but strange as it may sound, in a Muslim country...

I seriously wonder if it's a good idea, to do it inthe west. :)
The opposite would happen here, you would actually get more attention instead, while the aim of niqab in the first place would be, nothing to see, so no attraction.

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Book 32, Number 4092:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin:

Asma, daughter of AbuBakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah :saw: wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah :saw:  turned his attention from her. He said: O Asma', **when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to her *face and hands. ***

From Sunan Abu Dawud’s hadith collection ]

I think this hadith does not support today’s scholars’ fatwas…If muslim women aren’t told to cover their face and hands in hadiths and Quran then who are these scholars to force women to cover their faces???

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Back to initial topic, well right where I live, hijab is very normal...I mean, many women in my university wear hijab and people understand that it's not seen as a polite thing in our culture and religion to look at someone in the eyes...

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CA, I didn't say women must do niqab, everyone has a different interpretation. There are fatwa's saying niqab is a must, and fatwa's which don't agree with that.

Someone told me that the hadith you quoted is weak? But I'm not sure about that. From everything I read about that up to now, I'm not convinced that it's wajab. I do think it's better to do it, but in the proper place.

HEre hijabs are normal too, we even have a store which finished the debate hijab yes/hijab no by having it's own head scarves printed to match the stores uniform. But it's not accepted everywhere.
There are still daily complaints, of girls not allowed to do stage, fora d iploma, or who can't get a job some place, or who get nasty remarks somewhere for hijab. Overal, people are used to it, but not everyone has accepted it.

And the eyes, well, here they don't find it normal if you don't look at someone in the eye while talking. They find it strange.

I will see if I find the other hadith later maybe, in_sha_Allah or else tomorrow.

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This is a bit confusing on this matter:

Hadrat Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) has said: "pilgrims passed us while were with the Prophet (pbuh). When they came near we let our veils fall over our faces." Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah

Maybe it only applied to them even during hadj, because they were the wifes of the Prophet (pbuh)? I don't know.

But on the other hand, when I look at this part of the aya:

"...tell the believing men to lower their gaze..."

seems to indicate it's really not wajab, because if there was nothing to see, they wouldn't have to lower their gaze.

So does the following hadith:

Narrated 'Abdullah bin Abbas: Al-Fadl (his brother) was riding behind
Allah's Apostle and a woman from the tribe of Khath'am came and Al-Fadl
started looking at her and she started looking at him. The Prophet turned
Al-Fadl's face to the other side. The woman said, "O Allah's Apostle! The
obligation of Hajj enjoined by Allah on His devotees has become due on my
father and he is old and weak, and he cannot sit firm on the Mount; may I
perform Hajj on his behalf?" The Prophet replied, "Yes, you may." That
happened during the Hajj-al-Wida (of the Prophet). (Narrated by Bukhari #
589, Muslim, and others).

If it would have been wajab to cover your face, the Prophet (pbuh) would have told that woman to do so, but he didn't. Instead he turned al_Fadl's face to the other side.

So then I think it's not wajab.

Anyway, that's not really waht I wanted to talk about, I was thinking more of niqab in the west, good idea or bad. Well, according to my personal opinion it's better to leave it in the west.
Just a few thoughts.

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Now about that hadith you posted, I've read that it's weak because of the following two main points:

  1. There is no connection between Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) and Khalid bin Dareek, who narrated the hadith from her. And in each chain of the narrator Khalid bin Dareek is named.

  2. Sa'eed bin Basheer is in the chain of the narrator, who is knows as a weak narrator amongst most of the Muhaditheen. Imam Ahamd bin Hanbal, An_Nasai ibn Madeeni and Ibn Ma'een (may Allah be merciful towards them) have mentioned that. It's also the argument why imam Bukhari and (muslim) (May Allah be merciful towards them) didn't accept this hadith for their books.
    (By Sheikh Mohammed ibn Saalih al_Uthaymeen (may Allah be merciful towards him) in his book "Hijaab" pages 17 and 18).

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I personally wont feel comfortable wearing niqab over here in the US since I will feel like people are staring at me(hijab gets me stares anyways!). This is pretty ironic as compared to when I was in Pak for a year and had to travel back and forth from university to Phoppo's house by myself: I felt safer wearing a niqab, because waiting at bus stops or for vans, too many guys staring and making me veryyy uncomfortable.
So, just my personal opinion.........

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I think alot of people in west realize that eye contact is not considered polite in every place. For example in asutralia , aboriginals (the natives) had the same perspective about eye contact as we do (in pakistan). I personally think people here donot like seeing niqab on streets because they fear it will change their country. It reminds them of third world countries or islamic barbaric rulers (the way its portrayed on the media), so basically it scares them and they react to it a bit nastily. I don't know how should we respond except that learning a bit about others culture and tradition will help them understand instead of following the stereotypical view.

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i’ve read a much more anti-niqab fatwa somewhere too, where the scholar maintained that niqab was a legacy from pre-islamic arab culture.