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American Muslim Women and U.S. Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Aminah B. McCloud
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Extract

At the center of Muslim life sits The Qur'an — the Recitation — scripture for Muslims. Islamic dress, though understood intimately and expressed culturally by Muslims, seems to pose several dilemmas in the U.S. Yet, the most used translation of The Qur'an states:

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with what they do.

And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof: that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husband's sons, their brother or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex: and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O you believers! Turn all toward Allah that you may attain bliss.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , 1995 , pp. 51 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1995

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References

1. Surat-un-Nur 24:30–31Google Scholar. (M. M. Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran).

2. These are the formal names for the dress of Muslim women in these countries. A chador is a cloak drawn around the body, fully covering the body. The jalaba of Moroccan women are like a coat that either zips up or buttons up with a hood that can be put over the head. Sudanese women traditionally wear a tobe which is between 7-9 yards of material that is wrapped around a blouse and a skirt with some material left to cover the head.

3. In most Muslim countries, there are women who do not wear veils. Periodically in history and most recently, the absence of the veil has provoked attacks on Muslim women, both verbally and physically. In countries where this is happening, it seems as though Islam for women is equated with dress and specifically the veil. Muslims do not typically discuss “cultural Islam.”

4. “Jewish tradition regards bareheadedness as a form of nakedness…” The yar-mulke is the skullcap worn by Jewish males as a distinguishing characteristic. Birnhaum, Philip, A Book of Jewish Concepts 292 (Hebrew Publishing Company, 1964)Google Scholar.

5. Reported in The Washington Post Sunday 117 (Dec 17, 1995). This article also highlights “that Muslim attire in particular is becoming an easy target for workplace discrimination.”

6. Pinkerton has also recognized the potential dangerousness of their position and has since offered a remedy in this situation.

7. Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR Action Alert. JC Penney Store Fires Muslim Woman for Refusing to Remove Head Scarf Alert #111 (Aug 5, 1996).

8. Finn, Peter, Va. Hotel's Policy Angers Muslims, Wash Post D01 (04 13, 1996)Google Scholar; Shear, Michael D., Hotel Owner Apologizes, Wash Post B06 (04 19, 1996)Google Scholar.

9. CAIR News Release (Nov 8, 1995) indicates this incident was reported in the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspapers (Oct, 1995).

10. Pesce, Carolyn, In Minn, a Crime of Cover-Up, USA Today 3A (10 5, 1994)Google Scholar.

11. Id.

12. Id.

13. Court Ousts Muslim, Bay Area & California Section, The Daily Review (04 18, 1996).Google Scholar

14. Across this country we find an abundance of stories written in the news, films, sermons, government speeches, etc., to inflame the citizenry against Islam and Muslims though there are American Muslims. While no one has, as of yet, begun to categorize the type, location and actual numbers, the results of the characterizations are statistically important and potentially lethal to Muslims. In October 1995 vandals spray painted an obscene anti-Islamic message on the Flint Islamic Center/Genesse Academy in Michigan. In another incident, Nike, Inc., was forced to apologize to American Muslims for a billboard, near the University of Southern California that featured a picture of a basketball player with the headline “and they called him Allah.” After the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma bombing, vandals in Patterson, NJ, Clarkson, GA and New York City, to name a few places, attacked masajid (mosques). The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is the nationwide advocate for Muslims in these situations, published A Rush to Judgment in September, 1995 to document over 200 incidents of anti-Muslim prejudice and violence.

15. Some veils, because of how they are worn, are called scarves.

16. I have had this experience with both of my daughters in many of their classes where the teacher flatly refused to address them by name and invented nicknames for them. After my protests, we found that both girls were receiving lower grades on good work. It took a trip to the principal's office and removal, in once case, from the offenders' classes to resolve the problem.

17. Ironically, although Muslims ask for what might arguably be termed a more “conservative” approach in the school's education of their children on moral matters, they have had no better luck in the area of family law, where most Americans believe the law extends itself to the maximum to protect the sanctity of the family. Many mothers have had to explain to social service authorities that a month of sunrise to sunset fasting is not child abuse or that requiring children to pray during the day is not abusive. In a recent widely publicized case, an immigrant Muslim father's natural affection for his daughter was ruled sexual abuse and in the face of no evidence of abuse, the mother's custody was terminated along with the father's, the children placed in a Christian home, and permission given by the judge to change their names.

18. One potential area of litigation is the mandatory study of sex education. While the societal presumption is that children will have sex and girls need to know how to protect themselves against venereal disease, pregnancy and AIDS, the general Muslim community possesses no such assumptions. This is not to say that these health concerns are not present in the Muslim community, but rather that there are not the same set of presumptions about pubescence and pre-marital sex. The Muslim communities hold that sex comes after marriage and that the family unit is the basis for any society. Children should be permitted to be children, not little adults participating in adult sensual and sexual behaviors. As a religious community, American Muslims want to perpetuate their own standard of morality just as other religious groups, for example, the Catholic Church.

19. The discriminations on the job are frequent topics of discussions in Muslim women's circles.

20. This is a major topic of discussion among young Muslim women as they graduate from college and begin to enter the work force. They are often counseled to remove their veils before interviews.

21. Williams, Patricia J., The Rooster's Egg 25 (Harvard U Press, 1995)Google Scholar.