THERE HAS been an ongoing debate in the British press over a Muslim legal representative who recently refused to take off her niqab in court after being asked to do so by the judge. The story in the Times newspaper goes as follows, “Shabnam Mughal was appearing at an immigration tribunal in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, when Judge George Glossop asked her to remove her veil. It is understood that he could not hear her properly. She declined twice to remove it and eventually the judge adjourned the hearing until Monday to seek advice from Sir Henry Hodge, a High Court judge and president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT).” According to The Times report, this is believed to be the first case of a legal representative refusing to remove her niqab in a British court.
The incident brings to memory another case that stirred a lot of debate in Britain a couple of months ago when a Muslim teacher was suspended for refusing to remove her niqab while teaching in class. In that case, it was the pupils who found it difficult to understand her as they could not see her lips move.
The teacher sued the school and the case is still a hot topic in Britain and the rest of Europe, and is stirring up negative comments among Saudis on the alleged Western mistreatment of Muslims.
To be fair, the United Kingdom is one of the most relaxed countries as far as Islamic dress code is concerned. Walking the streets of London, you’ll see all kinds of Islamic dress, starting from veils, niqab, long thobes for men and the variations on that dress either Pakistani, Arab or Indonesian. Some cases of harassment have been reported but you can still walk into major department stores in London and find veiled girls working there, even the British Police has veiled officers.
But there are restrictions that British society is now asking for. For example in the case of the teacher, some say that covering the face prevents communication, and that it is also a clear expression of religious preference. In the first instance, I think that covering the face when working in public and in a job that depends on direct communication is not practical and prevents trust and communication. We had the same debate in Saudi Arabia about female doctors who cover their faces, and for a lot of people it was seen as barrier between the doctor and patients. But since it is normal in Saudi Arabia to deal with veiled and completely covered women, covering one’s face never became such a serious issue like it has in Britain, except when it comes to passports and ID cards. A considerable number of Saudi women did not obtain ID cards just because they didn’t want to have pictures of their faces uncovered on them.
And in some cases, the department of civil affairs issued two cards for women who objected to showing their unveiled faces to strange men: One with a veiled picture and another without.
I understand that covering one’s face is a matter of personal choice, but there are differences between religious clerics and scholars on whether covering is a religious duty or not. That debate is still raging, but in our countries we can accommodate both cases. It is the practice of face-covering in foreign countries that I think has to be defined and people should learn what to do. We have to remember that even in Muslim countries there are people who are debating niqab and whether women should wear it while performing public jobs.
Of course, banning niqab in public jobs in England has started a feeling of discrimination among Muslims, but maybe if they stopped to think and look around them, they would realize the many freedoms that they enjoy in the West are not available in many Muslim countries. If they have a problem living in a non-Muslim country, they should realize that conversely there are non-Muslims who have problems living in Islamic countries. They are not allowed to practice their religion in public and not allowed to wear religious emblems. And maybe if those who are enraged at European countries look at matters from another angle, they’ll find that others feel discriminated against too.
In another UK case, a British Airways employee was banned from wearing a cross. The woman complained that people of other religions could wear their religious costumes and emblems whereas she as a Christian was not allowed to. This case was preceded by another of a BBC presenter who was also banned from wearing a cross. So the question becomes this: If people can show their religious preferences in public to what extent is it acceptable?
The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote in The Times that politicians should not interfere with the right to wear the veil, while Jack Straw said he opposed niqab, and was supported by the Bishop of London and some Muslim leaders in England. I think the whole issue should be explored more and the sensitivities addressed. In that discussion people should try to understand the other side and remember that in our part of the world we do not actually respect other people’s personal freedom and that this whole tolerance issue is actually a two-way street.
