Re: Swimming Costume…
First, this legal opinion of taking off hijab in front of all non- Muslim women is a matter of difference of opinion amongst scholars. There are those, like in any other religion, who support this viewpoint. Still, there are those who would accept an exception for this ruling that it is permissible to take off the hijab if the non- Muslim woman is responsible enough, not to describe details of your body to men who are strangers to you.
For example, she shouldn’t go home to talk to her husband or her brother or even your shared male colleagues about the detailed description of your body. Also, when you draw her attention to this rule - of not telling - she has to be trustworthy enough to keep her promise.
Thus the problem is trustworthiness, rather than difference in religions. A Muslim woman who is not religious and has the tendency to describe your body to men, will be as avoidable, to take off your *hijab *in front of her. What I recommend is that you just try your best to respect the rule. It is impossible in an open place full of women, whom we don’t know much about their awareness of this rule of not describing, in order to be able to trust them all. Anyway, at any Islamic clothes shop, you can easily find wonderful bathing suits that are nice looking and made of comfortable fabrics, but cover down to the knees and elbows.
Still, even if you uncover in front of reliable and honest Muslim or non-Muslim women, there are limits to the parts that a woman reveals in front of another woman. A Muslim woman should not show what is in between her naval and knee. It is permitted to uncover her breast, due to the need of some women to breast-feed in front of other women.
Be sure Alisha that God does not mean to give us hard time by putting some restrictions that sometimes we don’t understand. Some day we will come to know the wisdom behind those commands. I myself didn’t realize the wisdom behind this need of a woman to cover what is between the naval and the knee, in front of another woman - and the same applies to men in front of one another - till later when I met with, as a part of an Islamic program, what are called the lesbians and the gays! Only then I recognized how huge their number is and how spread they are in all societies, while we are not aware of their presence amongst us! Then I understood that Allah never decrees any ruling - which might seem unreasonable to us, unless it aims at saving the society’s moral values.
This unrestrained nakedness among women or among men either in fitting rooms or swimming pools … etc. is one of the doors to the spread of such awful homosexual affiliations. If this liberty gives them a happier life this does not mean that it is a healthy way of life. It is said: ‘He who is without shame, all the world is his.’ I always like to remind my friends that ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.’
In the Islamic tradition our Prophet (pbuh) said that:
‘Hayaa is a branch of faith’ (Muslim and Bukhari).
The word hayaa means shyness and modesty, along with the scruples preventing doing what is shameful even if it becomes a normal thing to do.(by
Amani Aboul Fadl Farag](http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996220132&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam%2FAAboutIslamCounselorE%2FAAboutIslamCounselorE))