Aqsa Pervais

For few years now, people are constantly attacking the issue of Aqsa Pervais being killed by her father and hijab or islam is to blame. I saw the following online on youtube, it was made for Aqsa Pervais by one of her friends. This is what was said:

“a few days ago, a Muslim girl was killed from her father for not wearing her hijab, after this turned into a big story, Muslims are jumping at the defense of Islam. Women are saying hijab gives us freedom. Really does it? Tell that to Aqsa, oh wait, you cant because she was killed for not wearing it. If your one of those Muslims who believes that hijab gives you freedom, I don’t blame you because you’ve been brought up to believe this. But let’s be honest for a moment, maybe the hijab means freedom for you but for many people it doesn’t. For aqsa the hijab was oppression, so the hijab is a symbol of oppression. Maybe there are two Islam’s, one is about oppression and other is about peace. If you say Islam is about freedom, why don’t you prove it, just take off your hijab, because action speak louder then words and words without action are shallow, you can tell me it’s about freedom but if you can’t take it off that proves to me that your wrong. Make a ten second video, tell me I believe that hijab is freedom and take it off. You probably won’t do it because you are afraid and that is not freedom. All you have to do is, take off your hijab for 10 seconds to prove that hijab is freedom for you. If you do this, I will respect you and other people will respect you”

My first reaction when I heard was condescending. People who have something as strong as “take your hijab off” have some sort of point, some type of research, something that I didn’t see. Infact, she has pretty much made an assumption that any women that wear hijab are obviously ignorant, quote “I don’t blame you, and you’ve been brought up to believe this”. So Muslim woman have been brought up to believe this, therefore we are ignorant? Yeah that is definitely condescending. Another thing I strongly disagree with “if you say Islam is really about freedom, why don’t you prove it? Actions speak louder then words and words without action are shallow” first of all, your issue is not about Islam, it is about the practice of covering, which is an aspect of hijab, which not even all muslim woman practice. If you are trying to attack islam, then do so directly, don’t screw around the issue by attacking hijab. Also, this quote again shows your ignorance, shows your lack of research “take off your hijab to prove it”. Even if there are woman who agree with you and understand you, they are still not going to take off their hijab for ten seconds and say whatever it is that you’ve asked them to say. For our beliefs we don’t want to be seen by strange men, because we as Muslim woman consider our own body to be precious. Now if you disagree with someone loving their body in this way, then I’d be more concern with your state of mind, rather then anyone else’s. You also said “if you take your hijab off, I will support you and I will respect you” this is very nice of you to do to a certain extent but technically this is what you’re saying “I will support you, and I will respect you if you take off your scarf and agree with my interpretation of Islam”. That’s hypercritical because you talk about freedom but you don’t respect their freedom to choose. You don’t outright say it, but you basically saying that Islam in its entirety is an oppressive force where woman choose to wear the scarf. I’m not saying that there aren’t woman who aren’t forced to wear it because there are but your attacking all woman who wear it by basically saying “you can’t think for yourself”. In my opinion they don’t have to take off their scarf to show support for Aqsa, them saying so is enough, them talking about trying to prevent such situation from reoccurring is enough. Wearing the hijab is a personal choice; it has to do with our choices, our beliefs and religion. Our feeling of connection with our religion.
Before anyone thinks that I’m siding with what Aqsa’s father did, I’m not obviously. But I do not think that Islam is to blame, I believe that anyone is violent and has any grain of intelligence will find anything to use as an excuse. In this case, her father could have been an abusive man who used Islam as an excuse to be violent and abusive. Islam is not inherently violent. Islam is trying to maintain peace, not give people an excuse to abuse others. With that in mind, you should consider that there are other religions and other cultures that people use as an excuse to abuse others. In the olden days, people tried to use science instead of religion as an excuse to oppress blacks. So I don’t think it has anything to do with religion, it’s an excuse for people to use to be mean to others. So here is a suggestion, look into woman’s rights in Islam and in addition to that, read the Quran, not just the copy online but get an actual copy of it and read it, make notes and try to understand it, I’m not trying to say “convert” but try to understand it and read at least one autobiography of prophet Mohammed (s.a.w). Other then that, speak to Muslim woman, ask them how they feel about it instead of asking and reading what hijab is about online.

Other then that, hijab is supposed to modesty. Hijab doesn’t just mean a fabric on your head, so when someone is to say “I observe hijab” that doesn’t mean they cover their head which is what makes them a hijabi. You simply cover because of your certain beliefs but we wear the hijab to save ourselves from the wrong. Wearing a hijab and having friends of the opposite sex and having a boyfriend in your arm does not define hijab. Hijab is just a way of helping to stay modest and to help it prevent from sin.