EUROPE: MOSLEMS, THE VEIL, MOHAMMAD, ETC.

No Problem With the Veil
Muslims are already dealing with the radicals in their midst.


Oct. 30, 2006 issue - "Must one be more Muslim than Mohammed?" It's astonishing how often I am asked this question. Europeans are finally waking up to the fact that it is Islamism, not Islam, that is hostile to everything Europe holds dear. Women's rights. Secular law and education. Tolerance of gays and different faiths.

The very principle of reason as superior to superstition, the science of Galileo and the free speech of Voltaire—all is under threat from a totalitarian politics disguised as religion.

Europe is not about to descend into a new war on belief. But there's no mistaking the change in climate. In Britain, Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, touched off a storm by suggesting that Muslim women should not wear a full-length veil. It was socially divisive, he explained, "a mark of separation" rather than community. When Prime Minister Tony Blair subsequently agreed, he only reinforced the impression that the country is heading toward even deeper tension between Muslims and non-Muslims. The trend lines are similar elsewhere, whether in France (with its riots) or the Netherlands (with new laws banning the head-to-toe burqa in public) or Belgium (where in recent municipal elections the anti-immigrant Flemish Bloc nearly won control of Antwerp.)

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You can hunt high and low in the Koran, they tell me, and find no dress code. The devil may wear Prada, but the founder of Islam did not require Muslims to don the burqa or its cousin, the nose and mouth covering veil known as the niquab.

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Denis MacShane is not overly familiar with Islam, now is he?!?


Qur’an 33:59
“Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters and all Muslim women to draw cloaks and veils all over their bodies (screening themselves completely except for one or two eyes to see the way). That will be better.”

033.059
YUSUFALI: O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

PICKTHAL: O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them (when they go abroad). That will be better, so that they may be recognised and not annoyed. Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful.

SHAKIR: O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

KHALIFA: O prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and the wives of the believers that they shall lengthen their garments. Thus, they will be recognized (as righteous women) and avoid being insulted. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.


Pertinent Links:

1) No Problem With the Veilo

2) Prophet of Doom

3) Qur'an.org

4) USC-MSA Compendium of Moslem Texsts