Non-Mahram

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

A narration from Ibn Yasser said: the Messenger of Allah said:" for one of you to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle is better for him than he should touch a woman who is not permissible for him."

If this narration or any controversial "Surah" is authentic or forged can never really be proved, nevertheless they represent and reinfluence the misogynous character of Islam.

To the Islamic moral, touching women may lead to uncontrollable or passing temptation and immorality. Also a Muslim woman should not show her beauty, adornment and dress to a "Non-Mahram". Therefore the form of head-to-foot hijab with a black cloth, which is not transparent, is recommended for the Islamic hijab.

The Islamic hijab is a red line around a Muslim woman's body to stop a possible temptation with a "Non-Mahram". For that reason the Islamic hijab is considered as a duty for any Muslim woman, and she must comply with that and show her sincere faith in Allah, "who does not tolerate the circumstances that lead to fornication and adultery".

Under those strict, moral necessary conditions to comply with the Islamic hijab the work conditions are particularly difficult for women. Islamic morals cannot accept that a Muslim woman work in a place where she can be in privacy with "Non-Mahrams". She should work only as long as there is no male person responsible for her maintenance. She must always consider and be ready to go back to her "Mahram" circle for her principle work, namely caring about her children and her husband.

She should abide by the Islamic morals in dress, talk, hilarity, etc. She should not touch or shake hands with a "Non-Mahram" colleague, (e.g.); if a Muslim woman works as a nurse or doctor she should treat the "Mahram" patients. It is therefore recommended that all hospitals have to ensure that male nurses/doctors treat men and female colleagues treat women, except in cases of extreme necessity.

One of the main components of the Islamic hijab's dogma is misogyny which is older than the Islamic hijab itself.

Early Christianity invented the idea that not only Eve herself but also all daughters of Eve were full of sin, therefore man was better off not to marry. Since this would be the end of mankind the same people found apparently a compromise and virtually decided that only the impious men marry.

Woman's hair has been considered a source of vitality, and special magic powers have been attributed to it. Long before, the Abol-Hassan Banisadr's famous confirmation -- "the female hair radiates something which acts on the male brain" -- the idea was inspired from mythological, misogynous old stories older than Islam. King Solomon is said to have 700 wives and 300 concubines. David had 99. No early society put any restrictions on the number of wives or put any conditions about how they were to be treated.

It is not for sake of woman's rights that some people try to compare the status of woman under this or that religious or obsolete constitutional system. This can rather be understood as a religious belief of these people in this or that religion, far away from "the sake of woman's rights" in our new society.

The dominant idea in Islam -- not different from other religions -- considers that women, by nature, desire to be looked at, adored and cherished, while the man is inclined towards "Non-Mahram" women. Allah, therefore, warns us against our own nature, which may lead us astray if we do not exercise caution and take necessary safeguards. However these routine views of misogyny present in religions are particularly dramatised by the dogma of "Non-Mahram" in Islam

All the prejudices of the established religions treating women are also clearly inspired from the mythology of a malicious Eve, guilty of the First Sin, seducing Adam to eat the apple.

The vision of an Islamic society has been so amalgamated with the Islamic hijab to the extent that an Islamic society without the Islamic hijab, as its main symbol identity, cannot be envisioned.

Long-term effects of ignoring or underestimating by most opposition parties or political organisations on hijab prevented Iranian women from any serious support against the increasing imposition of the Islamic hijab in recent years.

To Iranian Islamic dominated mass media the Islamic hijab represents a contemporary rebirth of an invulnerable Islamic womanhood. "And beneath its Islamic hijab all the woman's charm and beauty is upheld".

For the IRI, this contemporary rebirth of the Islamic hijab is the only safe guarantee for the women's protection "against danger of brazen indecency which can stifle the Muslim women in sham decadency allowing the Islamic society to be subjugated to the non-believing decadent foreign cultures..."

For such a philosophy and its followers every analogy of the Islamic hijab with expressions like sexism, misogyny, patriarchal ways of thinking and behaving is only a petty allegation spewed out by the enemies of Islam. For them, the Islamic hijab is a sign of dignity and a Muslim woman's characteristic identity has to be highly respected. As a chaste, modest, pure woman, "She should avoid her sexuality entering into interactions with "Non-MMahrams" in the smallest degree".

A similar position of the late Taliban regime- while reminding us Khomeini's mediocre but dangerous phraseology with the horrible consequences- alleged that "the world goes under if our women do not wear hijab".

No doubt for the "safeguard" of the world, the IRI ,despite all its manifold problems, has to spend huge resources of manpower, propaganda, organised street fighters against "Bad-Hijab", etc, to impose the Islamic hijab as a status symbol of womanhood on the society.

However neither the IRI can manage to impose the Islamic hijab on Iranian women as long as the secular, modern and free norm exist, nor can a Reza Shah pull off the Islamic hijab from the women's heads as long as the dogma of non-Mahram is not to be reviewed.

Islam includes total submission to Allah in realm of laws, politics, conjugal relations, etc. Islam pretends to be the final message from Allah to mankind. As the religion which supersedes all past divine messages,"it is the only way of life which must be respected under all circumstances and out of any geographical and temporal limits".

Islamic doctrine has four sources of guidance and rulings: the first one is Koran, which pretended to be Allah's word by angel Gabriel in 114 "Surahs" to the prophet of Islam and the second is the "Hadith" or the traditions of the prophet: a collection of sayings attributed to the Prophet complied till 9th, AD. The third one is "Ijma" or consensus and the fourth one is the "Ijtihad" or individual thoughts. "These four sources of Islam must be the only role model for mankind".

Hijab comes from an old Arabic word "hajba" meaning to hide from view. The two sources of Islam, namely Koran and the "Hadith" could not fix a style of dress deeming an Islamic standard of clothing for women. However some controversial "Surahs" in Koran referring to the prophet's conflicts in his harem required his wives to cover their faces so that men "Non-Mahrams" would not think of them in sexual terms, since they were the "Mothers of Believers".

[Rasputin]

There are speculations about the origin and motive of hijab. The origin could go back to Iranians themselves, to its main present victims, to the 6th. Century BC under Cyrus the Great and the Achaemenian Empire in Persia. Together with the idea of female seclusion, it persisted under Alexander and the Byzantine Empire, and was adopted by the Arab conquerors of the Byzantines. Its use was revived and adjusted in respect to the Prophet of Islam to apply the "Non-Mahram" dogma.

Hijab in its different forms had begun to disappear with the adoption of Western culture, but the Islamic regime in Iran gave it new life in recent decades. It has also been refreshed by the continued postponement in the resolution of Palestinian conflicts, arrogant hegemonic American foreign policies in its absolute support for the aggressive policies of Israel in its occupation of "Islamic territories", demographic realities, economic problems, corrupt dictators and total lack of democracy in the Islamic world. While the Islamic hijab has become for some women a voluntary rejection of the new world, for the majority it remains still a forced acceptance of the old world.

In terms of its appearance the Islamic hijab has politicised the dogma of non-Mahram in an international level provoking more racism and Islamphobia in the industrialised countries. Its protest character is regarded as, more than any other motive, a rejection of the integration or assimilation with the modern world.

The Islamist protagonists, wherever they are, guided or inspired by the IRI, stage the Islamic hijab, among other violent methods, at the middle of their fight for authenticity and against westernisation.

It has been believed that Muslim women throughout history had to cover them-selves with a variety of Islamic hijabs such as lachak. chador, russari, rubandeh, chaqchur, maghnaeh, buraq, etc. None of them was a sign of liberty or modernity. All of them were of clan, ethnic, or other folkloristic origin. They differ from region to region and from social class to social class with no Islamic standard for a single form but actually different variants, all however drawing the red line between "Mahrams" and "Non-Mahrams" with reference to the interpretations of Koran and the "Hadith".

To conclude I point out several traits of Non-Mahram dogma :

- The "Non-Mahram" dogma is the only starting point of the Islamic hijab in its different appearance.

-The "Non-Mahram"dogma is, like religions, a product of the human mind and circumstances, not of "God" and for eternity.

- The "Non-Mahram" applies to a very large number of people is much more effective than the "Mahram" that only refers to a very small number of people.

- Because of its misogynous background the women are more restricted by the "Non-Mahram" dogma than men.

- The "Non-Mahram" dogma has considerably influenced all branches of social life in the Islamic societies.

-The more a Muslim dogmatic "Khirati", and not more necessarily religious, is, the more this Muslim considers the dogma of "Non-Mahram", because of this point I use the word, "Dogma".

However less important what the origin and variants of hijab are and what principled sources back the hijabt up. The Islamic hijab is today an important blockade to woman's freedom, this outdated self appointed obsessive model cannot be applied to today's modern world. The Islamic hijab is a slap in the free woman's face, a blindfold forcing women to remain indoors, reducing and convicting her half that of man, written as a footnote of history, and condemning her to be alien "Non-Mahram" in her own environment.

[Rasputin]