You know, the provision of every felicity is knowledge and certainty, while the root of every wretchedness is doubt and ignorance. In the present scenario, we are in the midst of storm, factors cultivating the seeds of war and the factors creating the real borders between the hijabies and non-hijabies, powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated have systematically turned everything profound into profane and it seems, we have lost touch with our humanity and lost sight of things that matter the most. Fact is that my home is dying invisibly in ones and twos. According to the Pew Research Centre and the Statista, France is home to roughly 5.7 million Muslims and 31% of French Muslim women are wearing Hijab and it is misogynistic and hateful to force women to remove Hijab. In 2010, France became the first country in Europe to impose a ban on full face veils and the women caught wearing a niqab in public space face a 150 euro fine and being arrested by the police and when the entire world including the France was hauled up in the net of covid-19 pandemic, the face masks were mandatory but unfortunately, the French Muslim women continued to face the prospect of being fined and arrested by the police. In a similar fashion as executed by the France, some of the colleges in Karnataka, India have barred students to enter the campus for wearing the hijab and the identification of anti-muslim and anti-islamic sentiments provoked the Muslim girl students to protest against the college administration and then the Karnataka Government put a stop to Hijab and expressed that the clothes which disturb equality, integrity and public law and order should not be worn and the treatment of hijabiesas untouchables and to place them in separate classrooms clearly creates the real borders between hijabiesand non-hijabies and strongly violates the rights of Muslim girl students.
Today it is a Muslim girl student and tomorrow it will be a male Sikh student who is keeping uncut hair in a turban. The struggle between good and evil has been the saga of human race since eternity and one of the pivotal factor to understand the genesis of good and evil is to enable the mind to find out the ultimate truth and when we talk about the historical approach of hijab and its meaning then we must be well versed with the word “hijab”which is the modest covering of the Muslim women and is obligatory to all the Muslim women not only to cover their head but all their private parts and cleavages with the Khimar or Hijab or Veil. Hijab, at first, got obligatory for Prophet’s family (verses of Al-Ahzab 32-53) and then to all the Muslim ladies (verses of Al-Ahzab 59 and Noor 30-31). In addition to the holy Quranic verses, there are many Ahadith which expresses the importance of Hijab-the modest covering of Muslim women.Muslim women is having a good intention behind wearing it and that is they are pleasing the almighty Allah, guarding their modesty and are respecting themselves and their communities by not showing off their body parts and If we explain this in terms of science, then we must be well-versed with the fact that genes don’t act themselves, it is actually the environment which is responsible for the expression of genes. Moreover, why do animals or humans behave the way they do and what makes them tick? The girl who paint her face and hair to grab the attention of public and put ontight cum transparent clothes is inviting the opposite sex for harassment because the harassment is a two-way journey and the opposite one is cork-less wine in a blind alley. In drawing things to a close, it is imperative to mention here that the ban on Hijab has unveiled the legitimacy behind cock and bull stories and will not only negatively impact the Muslim girls educationbut also break the bonds of communal harmony. We are hopeful; our policy makers will extract the context out of this text for the benefit of mankind.
(The author is Assistant professor of Zoology at Islamia College Of Science & commerce Srinagar J&K. Views are exclusively his own)
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