A reader of Arab News yesterday wrote a letter to the editor claiming that the paper had published some letters that “were not entirely fair to Islam and what it requires from women in regard to the conservative dress code.” He was referring to their writers’ remarks about women’s dress code in Islam and mixing in public.
The schizophrenia of Saudis has been under the spotlight in Arab News for some time now, with many readers, both Saudi and non-Saudi, giving their opinions. For starters, I believe that the gentleman was unfair to those writers. Nowhere in any of the four Islamic schools of thought that have been followed in the Islamic world for centuries, from the borders of China in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, does it state that a woman must wear a black cloak, or what we call an abaya. In fact, all four Islamic schools of thought — the Hanafi school, the Shafe’i school, the Maliki school, and the Hanbali school — state that the conditions for women’s dress are as follows: It should not be tight, it should not be revealing, it should be modest, and it should cover the entire body — except the face and hands. All the four imams of those schools (may Allah bless them) reached these conclusions based on their interpretations of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Nowhere is it mentioned in the Qur’an or the Hadith that a Muslim woman must wear a black abaya.
The reader went on to say that mixing of the sexes in societies comes with consequences. He gave the example of illegitimate births in the UK as a result of pre-marital sex there, which he seems to think is a direct result of mixing.
I completely disagree. Furthermore, I think the example he gave of girls in the UK engaging in sex before the age of 16 was no justification for segregation. I wish the reader had looked at other Muslim countries, where sexes do mix in public, such as Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and others. Muslim men and women in those countries mix in public and in the workplace. But as Muslims, they know where to draw the line. They know that their religion forbids them to go beyond certain limits. Girls in those countries do not have illegitimate children and neither do they practice adultery as they do in the UK. They mingle with men in society in an ethical and civilized manner.
It is not a crime for men to give the Islamic greeting to their female neighbor there, as it sometimes is here in Saudi Arabia. And usually the woman would not doubt the man’s intentions and suspect him of wanting to flirt with her.
Because Saudi society wants to shut off all avenues that could possibly lead to sinful acts between men and women, it completely segregates men and women in all walks of life. But every action has a reaction that is equal in force and opposite in direction. What is now happening is that that same strict custom is backfiring. How else do we explain the behavior of single Saudi men who travel abroad every summer to have “a good time” in European countries? They go from one extreme to another. At one extreme, everything is forbidden, taboo, or unlawful. At the other, everything is allowed and accessible.
A group of women in hijab in Damascus can walk the streets with complete confidence without being harassed by men, but they can’t do the same in Riyadh. As Arab News reported, most Saudi men look at women walking down the street as “walking sex objects” although they are covered in black from head to toe. Saudi males are brought up to look at females either in a sexual way or to look down on them. And on the other hand, Saudi females are brought up to be suspicious of the intentions of Saudi males.
Has the reader ever asked himself why Saudi women prefer to take taxis driven by foreigners? Or why some Saudi women feel relaxed talking to foreign men in tailor shops or grocery stores and even unveil their faces sometimes when they would not do so the same with Saudi men?
I think that most people who have commented on the subject do not see Western customs as a solution. As Muslims, we cannot afford to go to that extreme. However, the solution is not to go to the other extreme. That is just as bad and also has its consequences. A middle ground is all we are looking for.
