Now that a French Parliamentary Commission has recommended the banning of face veiling (burqah and niqab) in public, any similar official restriction in the UK will be counterproductive and contrary to Britain’s liberal heritage. What will be more effective is nationwideMuslim-led opposition to this foreign fad and non-Islamic tendency. MECO has taken the lead in this pioneering anti-Burqa and Niqab Initiative (ABNI). It will challenge the proponents of face screening by exposing the theological falsehoods of imported Wahhabi-Salafi ideology that has unfortunately conditioned many British Muslims to blindly accept that face masking is an Islamic obligation, when it is at best an archaic social practice of particularly primitive places.
While the Sublime Qur’an requires men and women to be modestly dressed, there is nothing in Islam’s transcendent text mandating total female face concealment. That ancient Byzantine and Persian custom was absorbed by subsequent Muslim society not on the basis of original divine directives but through later human interpretations. Although these opinions were based on ensuing prophetic reports (hadith) and exclusively masculine edicts, they cannot override the sacred Qur’anic scripture, which emphatically does not necessitate women to tuck away their faces in public.
British Muslims must distinguish between religion and culture by recognizing that face covering is a tribal cultural habit that is in fact explicitly prohibited during the annual pilgrimage to Makkah. If it forbidden at Islam’s holiest mosque, then why is it fine elsewhere? Muslim women in Britain who assert their freedom of choice to hide their faces must honestly admit they are following antiquated traditional norms instead of immutable Qur’anic principles. If these burqah-clad women defend their self-segregating costumes and isolationist mentality because of cultural loyalty they are perfectly entitled to do so, but they cannot produce authentic Islamic legitimacy or any valid textual authority for their gross distortions of the faith.
Since there is no Qur’anic justification for face masking, it is both hypocritical and inconsistent for Britain to permit women to veil themselves but not men. If the burqah is tolerated why isn’t the balaclava? For this and other compelling reasons that sees face masking as a legitimate security concerns thereby exacerbating Muslim ghettoisation and anti-Muslim sentiments), MECO is openly resisting these Saudi-inspired burqah-niqab fashions by launching the innovative ABNI (Anti-Burqa and Niqab Initiative). We call upon thinking Muslims as well as right-minded non-Muslims to join us in ridding the UK of this unwelcome import and toxic trend within British Islam.
For further information about the ABNI campaign and membership details, please Contact MECO.
