Britain Is Full of Inspirational Muslim Women, They’re More Crucial than Ever
Friday 19 August 2016
When I think of Muslim women, I think of Khadija, the prophet Muhammad’s wife and first convert to Islam, who was a successful merchant in her own right; of Fatima al-Fihri, who founded the oldest university in the world in Fez, Morocco; of historical women who make clear to me again and again that to be an educated, creative, interesting Muslim woman is nothing new.
This tradition continues in modern Britain, with Muslim women changing the world around them and contradicting the stereotypes that push down upon them, despite the multiple barriers they face for being women, for being Muslim and, for the majority, being BME; what a recent parliamentary report called a “triple penalty”. They are women such as Malia Bouattia, the first Muslim to be elected the national president of the National Union of Students; Fatima Manji, a journalist who has defied Islamophobes and racists who have questioned the integrity of her work because she is a Muslim woman in a headscarf; Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman to have a seat in the cabinet.
Many Muslim women have sacrificed much in order to provide a life of better opportunity for their children
These women have achieved great things in the public eye in the teeth of stereotyping and disadvantage; stereotyping that led the former prime minister David Cameron to claim that Muslim women needed to learn English, despite the fact that so many are such active members of the societies in which they live, whether their English is a first or third language, broken or fluent. Many Muslim women are the backbones of their communities. They are the ones who encourage their children to reach for greater heights and provide comfort and company in a society that is constantly making it more difficult to be a Muslim. Indeed, many Muslim women are people who have sacrificed much themselves in order to provide a life of better opportunity for their children. They are diverse, intelligent, strong, funny and so much more. I see these women in my own life and they inspire me.
When I think of Muslim women I think of my friends, many of whom are in the first generation of their family to graduate from university. I think of Hareem Ghani, the first Muslim to become the national women’s officer at the NUS. I think of the women who helped raise me – of my own mother, who attended college and returned to work after taking time out to raise her children, and instilled in me and my younger sister and brother the importance of education, and the duty we have to be a force for good in whatever way we can.
When I search for “Muslim women”, a suggestion for another search pops up. It says “Muslim women without hijab”. People want to “see” Muslim women, but they want to see them on their own terms. Muslim women, particularly those who are visibly Muslim, as a result face the brunt of Islamophobia, with every Muslim woman I know having a story of at least one incident of being abused or insulted in public, and often more. The situation is getting worse, with reports of the ban on the burkini in France providing encouragement to those who believe that there is only one way to be a “free” woman. Mass media constantly try to force an identity on to Muslim women through images, headlines and films.
This climate of heightened prejudice and Islamophobia has at times made me fear for my safety, consider my ability to succeed, and even question if I am welcome in the country of my birth. But still, through the example of those women who came before me, the support of those who are with me, and the thought of those who will come after me, I and so many others will continue to live our lives as Muslim women in our own way.
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French Police Have Already Punished Ten Muslim Women for Islamic Swimwear
19 Aug 2016
Ten Muslim women have been warned or fined for wearing Burkinis – or full body swimsuits – on a French beach after three seaside towns banned the Islamic garments since the end of July following a series of Islamist terror attacks.
All of the women flouting the new laws were caught by police officers in the Riviera resort of Cannes and forced to leave the beach. Four were fined the equivalent of £32, while all received “warnings” that will now technically form part of their criminal records.
“They are young mothers or grandmothers, and they do not believe they are criminals,” a local council source told the Mail Online. “All were very upset at the way they were treated.”
Cannes banned the garments at the end of July, nearby Villeneuve-Loubet flowed a few days later and Sisco on the island of Corsica joined them after five people were injured in riots after “bathers of North African origin” attacked a tourist taking a photo of a Muslim woman in a Burkini on a public beach.
The bans have come among a wave of Islamist terror attacks that have rocked France, leaving the country under a state of emergency. An Islamic State ram-raid killed 85 people in July in Nice, just meters from the beach.
The mainly conservative mayors who have imposed the bans say that the swimsuits defy French laws on secularism and Cannes won court backing when their new law was challenged.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls attacked the Burkini for “not being compatible with the values of France and the Republic”. The socialist government’s minister for women’s rights, Laurence Rossignol, also defended the ban.
“The burkini is not some new line of swimwear, it is the beach version of the burqa and it has the same logic: hide women’s bodies in order to better control them,” she told French daily Le Parisien.
Italy, meanwhile, has ruled out following France in banning the garments.
Interior minister Angelino Alfano told the Corriere della Sera daily that he regarded the French bans as counter-productive because of the potential backlash it could provoke.
“The interior ministry’s responsibility is to guarantee security and to decide the severity of responses which however must never become provocations that could potentially attract attacks,” Mr. Alfano said.
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Categories: The Muslim Times, UK