25 thoughts on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ burqas”

      1. The burial cloth, supposedly. But presumably he still had it on on the third day when he arose again (and — who knows? — maybe even during his “harrowing of hell” in the interim).

    1. Yes. I also think they should start wearing dark sun glasses along with the burqa since the sight of a women’s eyes can cause an eruption of lust in many men.

      1. I have read reports of Afghanistan under Taliban rule – that in front of the eyes there had to be a mesh barely alloing visibility, and at least one woman was executed because her eyes were exposed.

      2. When I was in India back in 1982 and in Varanasi, I saw Muslim women with eyes covered. There were two styles.

        One was the burqa, many of which were colorful and made of printed material, with mesh over the eyes. The other was a total black covering with an opaque veil over the woman’s face. The woman could see out, more or less, enough to not bump into things, but nobody could see in.

        One day I was in a narrow street. A Muslim woman went by (alone, I saw a number of women alone) and the sun shone on her face. It shone enough that I could see through the veil to her solemn face. She was young and pretty. I felt a little shiver when I saw her eyes looking at me. I felt as if I were invading her somehow.

        (Oh, and don’t be fooled by my screen name. Laurance is a 76 year old woman. I was 41 then. I wasn’t a horny man ogling beautiful Indian Muslim women.)

        So there I was, an ignorant white woman who knew absolutely NOTHING about Islam. I was bemused by a custom I was unaware of. I knew nothing of what lies behind this practice. (9/11 sure forced many people to do some fast learning.)

        1. The burka is a spooky custom.
          Wikipedia: “In the Muslim world, preventing women from being seen by men is closely linked to the concept of Namus. Namus is an ethical category, a virtue, and is a strongly gender-specific category of relations within a family described in terms of honor, attention, respect/respectability, and modesty. The term is often translated as “honor”.” Honor culture, it is said, has it’s origins in nomadic herding culture.

          Yes. 9/11 changed the world. It reminded us, as Sam Harris says, that beliefs matter.

  3. If their interpretation is that they are protected and feel uplifted by the burqa.. I’m not sure if it makes any sense to feel justified with a degrading opinion.

  4. If people feel uplifted and protected by the burqa.. Then the western view that it is degrading is simply an exercise in cultural one upmanship. Not sure if most Muslim’s care. Though, I do imagine, that as time goes by and the culture is held under scrutiny and the spotlight.. the more positive views may begin to wane.

    1. I have visited Kenya 14 times, for a total of over half a year, mostly to the coast where Muslims make up slightly over half of the population. I have never seen a burqa. Occasionally I have seen less extreme visual symbols of Islam, but my overwhelming conclusion is that when women are not coerced they do not conform to religious diktat. My conclusion is the same from visits to Sierra Leone and The Gambia, also strongly islamic.

      1. I’ve never been to Africa and can only speak for American Muslim women who have expressed wearing hijab proudly. Burqa’s are another thing altogether. Burqa’s are like the thing that no one really talks about and is silently rejected but publicly defended. Contrarily, belief and burqa’s are intricately tied. The reality is less some external man/culture forcing you to wear a garment and more subtle force e.g. you decide that it is best to wear the garb to please Allah.. uncriticizingly – Is that a word? If not, it will be today – accepting the interpreted word of Allah by men.

      2. I can’t think of seeing a burka in about 8 months of living and working in Tanzania. A headscarf, or a kanga worn draped over the head, sometimes thrown across a shoulder to obscure the chin was relatively common, but you’d routinely see the women taking it off, adjusting it to suit the sun and/ or wind … I got the feeling it was a pragmatic sun-protection rather than a “thou shalt!” diktat.
        Religious make up fairly evenly split between Christian, Muslim and NotBotheredMuch. Pretty much every village would have a church, a mosque, a combined bar-restaurant-teashop-brothel. Some villages would have two non-denominational “multi-service providers”.

          1. Somehow, I don’t see ISIS getting much traction in Tz. People are pretty well relaxed and tolerant.

      1. It is terribly comfortable for a respectable Arab man trying to get a pretty young man into his hotel room for a night.
        Just because they don’t like to admit to it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

  5. Can someone be sure that Linda S. sees this jesus & Mo? My, she is tightly wrapped -lots of come hither make-up and then the head wrap that says ‘don’t touch’. Weird

  8. Ironically, Jean-Paul Sartre might agree with Mo here.
    Rightly or wrongly, it’s an element of JPS’s philosophy I strongly disagree with.

  9. Objectified is precisely what’s happening.

    Hijab-niqab-burqa are like Mohawks. An enormous variety of very different hair styles will not attract my attention, but a Mohawk stands out.

    In America, if you want to be invisible wear a Polo shirt, yoga paints, and carry a water bottle in a satchel. If you want people to look at you, wear a hijab; it will promote objectification in ways the wearer probably never intended.

    1. Try walking down a street in Cotonou in a white skin and “un costume” of bright-printed light pantaloons and a loose shirt – as worn by thousands of other people on the same street.

      The same clothes also attract comment as you slosh through the slush of an Aberdeen winter. Along with the violent shivering and blue lips.

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