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  • johnpi 7:28 am on November 18, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , clothing, , Oprah, , , ,

    Oprah show deluged with complaints and accusations of misrepresenting Dubai.

    American chat show queen, Oprah Winfrey, was forced to apologize on Monday to an outraged audience for an episode of her show featuring women from around the world in which a guest from Dubai gave false information about life in the dazzling UAE city.

    The episode, which aired in October, hosted women from cities like Copenhagen, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Tokyo and Dubai, where Dr. Lamees Hamdan spoke to the show via Skype and explained about her life and what living in Dubai was like.

    The segment began with a voice-over by Oprah who said: “Thanks to this country’s rich oil supplies, the government provides its citizens with free water, electricity and health care. The best part? No income tax!”

    Hamdan went on to explain to the audience that people in Dubai do not pay utility bills, which is incorrect, and said there were no “poor people” in Dubai, overlooking the city’s tens of thousands of unskilled workers from South East Asia.
    ….

    The mother of five also caused a stir by saying that the traditional black dress and scarf, known as shela and abaya, was “cultural” and not religious.

    Some viewers were also resentful because the interview was conducted via the online phone system Skype, which is blocked in the UAE, but was opened for Hamdan to appear on Oprah’s show.

     

  • johnpi 11:44 pm on November 16, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , big hats for men, , clothing, , , , ,

    More reports about vitamin D deficiency.

    Back in December, a report in the Times said that the ‘burqa is bad for your health.’

    MUSLIM women who wear the burqa in Ireland are at increased risk of pelvic fractures during childbirth because of vitamin D deficiency due to a lack of sunlight, a consultant warns.

    There have actually been a whole slew of these reports that have prompted ire in response from some Muslims, such as this Muslimah Media Watch blog post from February:

    OH NOES! Hijab will make you sick!

    The results of a new study on Arab women in Dearborn, Mich., have been released. The study revealed that women who wear “traditional clothing” (code word for hijab) are prone to lower levels of vitamin D because of less exposure to sunlight. Two articles on the study read like, “Oh noes! Those poor hijabis who get no sunlight will get so sick!” This recent study is just the latest in a line of studies on hijabis in various parts of the world which all have the same result: hijabis don’t get enough sunlight and hence don’t get enough vitamin D. We’re told of all the risks of not getting enough vitamin D: increased risk of cancer, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and infections.

    A new study released today shows that those with low levels of Vitamin D are 78 percent more likely to suffer strokes too.

    It’s a miracle covered Muslim women don’t just fall to pieces walking down the street…

     

  • johnpi 4:18 pm on November 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: clothing,

    A Jewish blogger asks whether Muslims (like Jews) are buffaloed by outward signs of piety.

    Does the presence of a brother with a big bushy beard and no mustache or a niqabi sister in black gloves give you an inferiority complex about religious disagreement?

    Do you think they “look like better Muslims” and direct new converts with ritual and spiritual questions to them?

    Are you predisposed to think that Muslims who don’t interact with the secular world are ‘better Muslims?’

    Things that Jews and Muslims might have in common…

     

  • johnpi 2:06 pm on November 5, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , clothing, , , , , , , , ,

    Cultural disjoint: Saudi TV presenters covered from head to toe.

    A new TV show that discusses issues concerning teenage girls and female university students was recently broadcast with Saudi presenters dressed in black from head to toe, the Saudi English-language Arab News reported on Thursday.

    What’s the point of having a televised talk show where people are completely obscured? The complete covering defeats the purpose and function of a visual medium. Why not just have a black screen instead, or perhaps go to radio…

    I suppose without some visual distraction the strident among us would start regulating voice…

    Sisters – If you have a naturally soft voice, try to make it more ‘rough’ – so as not to encourage the one who may have illness in thier heart. Indeed in the extra effort this involves will come extra reward inshaAllah for wanting to please Allah

    At some point it becomes the absolute responsibility of the one with ‘illness in his heart’ to exercise self-control, rather than exhorting women to distort themselves beyond recognition to accommodate weakness.

     

  • johnpi 9:05 am on November 5, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: clothing, , , , ,

    Hip Pakistan snubs Taliban at fashion week.

    Bare shoulders, backless gowns and pouting models are wowing Pakistan’s glitterati as Karachi fashion week shows the world a different side of the Taliban-troubled nation.

    While women in much of Muslim, conservative Pakistan opt for headscarves over baggy shalwar khamis or even burkas, on the catwalks of financial capital Karachi, designers are exposing midriffs and flashing cleavage.
    ….

    Nadia Hussain, one of the nation’s top models, said she was not opposed to some censorship of overly raunchy outfits in Pakistan, but said creativity needed to shine through.

    “Censorship is not bad, it keeps our values and culture intact, but a little more space will really help our industry,” said the model, who has a degree in dentistry.

    “Despite all sorts of hurdles and difficulties our country faces, our designers are far more creative and our models are prettier than those of many other nations,” she boasted.

     

  • johnpi 8:48 am on October 31, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , clothing, , , halal collagen, , halal non-alcoholic beer, , halal vinegar, ,

    Malaysia hopes to create world halal standard.

    “Malaysia’s halal certification is recognized worldwide so perhaps we can play an important role in creating a global standard,” Malaysia’s religious affairs minister Jamil Khir Baharom said in an interview on Thursday. “We need a halal certification that everyone can use easily.”

    The halal industry is based on a belief that Muslims should eat food and use goods such as cosmetics that are ‘halalan toyibban’, which means permissible and wholesome.

    But Muslim jurists do not always agree on what is halal. Islam prohibits the consumption of pork and prescribes how animals must be slaughtered, but there has been debate on the acceptability of non-alcoholic beer, collagen and vinegar.

    Rules are interpreted and enforced more strictly in some countries. Sudanese authorities have hauled up women for wearing trousers and a Malaysian woman has been sentenced to a beating for drinking beer, practices which are acceptable in some Muslim countries.

     

  • johnpi 7:42 pm on October 30, 2009 | 24 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: clothing, , ,

    Dallas clinic to Muslim doctor: Its policy bars headscarf.

    A Muslim doctor interviewing for a job at a suburban Dallas medical clinic says officials there told her she couldn’t wear her headscarf in the workplace.

    Dr. Hena Zaki of Plano, Texas, said Friday that she was shocked when CareNow officials told her that a no-hat policy extended to her hijab.

    The 29-year-old doctor wants an apology and a change in CareNow’s policy.

    However, CareNow President Tim Miller says he sees nothing wrong with the policy and feels no need to apologize. In a statement, his company says it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin in employment decisions.

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations calls CareNow’s policy “a blatant violation” of federal law.

     

  • johnpi 5:12 am on October 27, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , clothing

    Aceh bans “tight” trousers for women, shorts for men.

    Muslim women in Indonesia’s West Aceh district will be banned from wearing “tight” trousers or jeans under new regulations, an official said Tuesday.

    From the start of next year any woman wearing trousers or jeans deemed to be too tight will have to immediately change into a government-issue skirt and their offending garment will be chopped into pieces.

    “If a woman flouts (the rule), her trousers will be cut up on the spot and replaced with a skirt that will be provided free of charge by the West Aceh government,” district chief Ramli Mansur told AFP. “This rule applies not only to women but also to men, who are prohibited from wearing shorts,” he added.

     

  • johnpi 6:39 am on October 24, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , clothing, , , , , ,

    Muslim student barred from UK college for refusing to remove burka.

    Miss Bilqes, 18, was forced to abandon plans to study at Burnley College after being told she could not enrol unless she removed the head-to-toe garment.

    Miss Bilqes response:

    Miss Bilqes, of Stoneyholme, Burnley, said: “It is my choice to wear the veil. I live around the corner from the college in an area where there are so many practising Muslims.

    “I tried to compromise but they wouldn’t. The college sent me a latter to say I could continue with my course if I stopped wearing the veil.

    “We are in the 21st Century and we get people from all walks of life. I’m in the police cadets as well and yet it’s not a problem wearing the veil there.”

    The college’s explanation:

    “We are determined to maintain the highest standards of teaching and learning in Burnley College. To do this effectively requires unimpeded communication from the teacher to all students, from the students to the teacher and between student and student.

    “It is not possible to maintain this essential full communication of the face of any student is not fully visible.

     

  • johnpi 4:22 pm on October 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , clothing, , , , , ,

    Veiled Iranian women caught smuggling over $12 million worth of methamphetamines at Indonesian airport.

    A group of 10 alleged Iranian drug smugglers, including eight veiled women, were caught with $12.5 million worth of methamphetamines at Indonesia’s main airport, the customs chief said Wednesday.
    ….

    Indonesian authorities have never seen veiled women used as drug runners, he said. The drugs, wrapped in plastic food containers and cleaning fluid bottles, were packed into hand luggage. But the oddly-shaped packages were picked out by officers operating scanners.

    “We believe they are part of an international syndicate,” he said. By wearing conservative Islamic clothing the women tried to “fool officers in a country like Indonesia, where women in black veils are generally considered to be good women.”

     

  • johnpi 6:01 am on October 21, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , clothing, ,

    UK couple used photos to blackmail Muslim woman. Threatened to “expose” her for wearing jeans and a tee-shirt.

    A Black Country couple blackmailed a Muslim woman by threatening to expose photographs of her wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a court heard.

    The court heard that the potential shame was “the powerful weapon being used against her”.

    Asylum seeker Emal Ismaeli, aged 34, and his former wife Joanne Richards, 22, said that they would show the snaps of the victim wearing the Western clothing to her devout family and husband-to-be unless she paid them more than £7,000, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

     

  • johnpi 6:46 pm on October 17, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , clothing, ,

    Sharia law meets “Girls Gone Wild” – Salon on latest Shabaab outrage.

    Clearly, al Shabaab’s outrage over women’s underthings tracks with its general modesty initiative. What of the bra removal and jiggling of breasts, though? It might seem counter-intuitive to any modesty campaign, but such shaming is an essential part of keeping women’s bodies under wraps. Forcing a woman to put on such a show in public is humiliating and reputation damaging. These are just the things al Shabaab would like to associate with women’s sexuality.

     

  • johnpi 7:09 am on October 16, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , clothing, , , ,

    Somali hardliners whip women for wearing bras.

    Somalia’s hardline Islamist group al-Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a deception, north Mogadishu residents said on Friday.
    ….

    Residents said gunmen had been rounding up any woman seen with a firm bust and then had them publicly whipped by masked men. The women were then told to remove their bras and shake their breasts.

    “Al-Shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,” a resident, Halima, told Reuters, adding that her daughters had been whipped on Thursday.

    “They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women’s chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.”

     

  • johnpi 5:24 pm on September 29, 2009 | 18 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , clothing, , , ,

    Muslim woman lifts veil to testify in Spanish court.

    A Muslim woman testified in court in Madrid Monday with her veil raised and her head turned away from the public, in a deal reached with the judge last week after she had refused to show her face.

    Arriving in court covered from head to foot in a black burka, Fatima Hssisni said she was surprised by the controversy surrounding the case.

    “The enemy of human beings is ignorance,” she told journalists, adding that in other European countries wearing a burka is seen as normal.
    ….

    On Monday she testified minus the part of her burka which normally covers the face “between the chin and the eyebrows” and with her back turned to the public, an AFP journalist present in the courtroom said.

    Spain’s conservative opposition leader Mariano Rajoy last week criticised the woman’s attitude.

    “The freedom to observe customs in private seems fine to me, but in public you have to respect the law,” he said.

     

  • johnpi 6:25 pm on September 7, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: clothing, , , ,

    The Sudanese woman who was facing flogging for wearing trousers had her case dismissed with a fine. She says she will refuse to pay the fine and could be put in jail for a month.

    She has also said she wants to get rid of Article 152 of the Sudanese penal code, which decrees up to 40 lashes for anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing”.

    She says the article “is both against the constitution and sharia [Islamic law]” and that nothing in the Quran says that women should be flogged over what they wear.

     

  • johnpi 6:06 am on August 21, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: clothing, ,

    Whether you get raped may be determined by what clothes you wear: Dr. Halimah Akbar, campus director for a Muslim women’s college in Uganda.

    There’s a hidden message to men in that: Women who aren’t wearing proper clothing are permitted to be raped…

     

  • johnpi 10:38 am on July 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: clothing, , , ,

    Sudanese women ‘lashed for wearing trousers.’

     

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