As-salaamu alaikum,
wow… i see the topics havent changed a bit
http://www3.pak.org/gupshup/smilies/tongue.gif
so how’s everyone?
well.. i just very recently did an article on hijab titled : Hijab: Culture or Religion? i learned a quite bit while doing it. actually it was done due to the fact that a person i knew thought that the word “hijab” does not include “head covering”. and he proved it in a way by using inadequate sources and misinterpretations of the Holy Qur’an to do so.
here’s an exerpt from my article:
There is no god worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is His
messenger. The Shahada, a declaration of faith that unites all
Muslims. It is the core of Islam upon which everything else is based. In
the Arabic language,
the first part is la ilaha illa Llah - ‘there is no god except
God’; ilaha (god) can refer to anything which we may be
tempted to put in place of God - wealth, power, and the like. Then comes
illa Llah: ‘except God’, the source of all Creation. The second
part of the Shahada is Muhammadun rasulu’Llah: ‘Muhammad is the
messenger of God.’ A message of guidance has come through a man like
ourselves.
(IslamiCity - The Global Muslim eCommunity)
It is this basic declaration of faith steers the life of a Muslim and
towards his or her submission towards Allah. Even in the Quran, the Holy
Book for Muslims, Allah reminds us that …and know that Laa ilaaha ill
Allah (that there is no deity worthy of worship but Allah)…" (49:19,
20:8, 3:18, 59:22-3). The Holy Quran is a Book that surpasses the test of
time; it is applicable to all people of all regions of the world. It is
the pinnacle of linguistic perfection where expression was worded in the
shortest of forms without loss of clear meaning [bayan].
…
There are other issues within Islam that seem a bit more complex,
or they are made to seem complex. An example of this is the issue of
Hijab. Hijab comes from the verb hadjaba which means to hide from view,
conceal and it is used of any veil placed in front of a person or in an
object in order to conceal it from view or to isolate it. (Lewis,
359) The word hijab occurs in the Quran seven times and as Lewis puts it
the Kuran, though it is found there only seven times, provides as valuable
information on the basic and metaphorical meaning of the term as it does,
to a certain extent, to its evolution. (Lewis, 359) One verse that
includes a word related to
the concept of hijab, that is jilbab or outer garments, is in Surah
Al-Azhab (33) verse 59:
[33:59] O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing
women, that they should cast their outer garments
over their person (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should
be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-
Forgiving, Most Merciful.
(The Holy Qur’an, trans. Yusuf Ali)
As it was stated earlier, the Holy Quran is the pinnacle of
linguistic perfection where expression was worded in the shortest of forms
without loss of clear meaning [bayan]. This is evident within this verse
as well. One translator who has broken this verse down to the core of
each letter is Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdud’i. As Kidwai states in an article
written in The Muslim World Book Review, Mawdudis work helps one develop
an understanding of the Qur’an as a source of guidance. He further goes
on to state that his logical line of argument, generous sensibility,
judicious use of classical Muslim scholarship and practical solutions to
the problems of the day combine to show Islam as a complete way of life
and as the Right Path for the whole of mankind. (Kidwai)
And so, as
Mawdudi comments on this verse:
Jilbab is a large sheet and idna is to draw close and wrap
up, but when this word is used with the
associating particle ala, it gives the meaning of letting something down
from above. Some modern translators, under the influence
of the West, have translated this word to wrap up so as to avoid
somehow the Command about covering of the face. But if Allah had meant
what these gentlemen want to construe, He would have
said : yudnina ilai-hinna and not yudnina alai-hinna. Anyone
who knows Arabic knows that yudnina alai-hinna cannot merely mean
wrapping up. Moreover, the words min
jalabib-i hinna also do not permit of this meaning.
It is obvious
that the preposition min here signifies a part of the sheet, and this
also that wrapping up is done by means of a whole
sheet and not merely by a part of it. The verse, therefore, clearly means this: The women should wrap themselves up well in their sheets, and
should draw and let down a part of the sheet in front
of the face. (Mawdudi, 149-150)
Mawdudi further goes on to state that the same meaning was understood by
the major commentators who lived close to the time of the Holy
Prophet. (Mawdudi, 150). Mawdudi also comments on another verse in the
Holy Quran which uses another related term, khimar, or veil. This verse
in Surah An-Nur follows:
[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 (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw
their
veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty
except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband’s fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers or their
brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom
their right hands possess, or male servants free of
physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the
shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw
attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye
Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.
(The Holy Quran, trans. Yusuf Ali)
Mawdudi correlates the verse where:
Before this in Surah An-Nur:31, the women have been
forbidden to display their adornments before others
except such and such men and women, and also that they should not stamp
their feet on the ground lest their hidden decoration
(ornaments) be known. If that command is read with
this verse of Al-Ahzab it becomes obvious that the intention of the
Command for the woman to cover herself well with the sheet here is to conceal her adornments from others.
Keeping the origins of the concept of hijab in mind as mentioned
up to now, let us now look into the other side of the argument. Many
individuals feel that the concept of hijab extends only to the outer
garments i.e. that they should draw their veils over their bosoms
(24:31), and that the veiling of women stems only from culture. What is
culture? According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, when things and events
are considered in the context of their relation to the human organism,
they constitute behaviour; when they are considered not in terms of their
relation to the human organism but in their relationship to one another,
they become culture by definition. Also, Britannica states other
individuals with definitions of culture such as Kroeber and Kluckhohn and
also by a great many other anthropologists is that culture is an
abstraction or, more specifically, an abstraction from behaviour. Keeping
this in mind, Britannica also quotes a German Roman Catholic priest and
anthropologist, Father Wilhelm Schmidt, who argued not only that some
primitive peoples believe in a Supreme Being but that monotheism was
characteristic of the earliest and simplest cultures. If culture stems
from a religious source, is the behavior of an individual within that culture a product of that culture or of that religion?
We will all return to Allah one day. If we use our faith in
Allah, our submission towards Allah, the Quran as a lens to view the world
with, and the Hadith as a fine tuner of that lens, we will be able to see
the big picture and overcome the misunderstandings that exist within our
Ummah. Allah (swa) gives us all that we have now, all that we are
presenting acquiring, and all that we will get in the future. He places
the veil in places where you would never expect it. But then again, who
are we to expect? All glory is to Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most
Merciful.
-mehndi