penitential chimp Weblog

at a party over the weekend we were having a conversation with an atheist friend about the meaning of the hijab in egypt.

he said something that stuck in my head and has been spinning since. something that i know i have said similar to in the past,but just struck me as wrong hearing from someone elses mouth.

he was talking about the way that some egyptian women wear the hijab with very form-fitting clothing and how it struck him as odd because the Quranic justification for the hijab is an admonition to modesty. and then something about these women no understanding their own religion.

wow, so we as outsiders can decide what the point oof  islamic teachings and practicces is really about? mighty white boy of us. he should have been slapped for saying it, i should have been for listening. non-muslim men having a discussion about what the roots of  vislual expression for muslim women should be.throughout my life my understanding of my own religion has evolved and fit better and worse into various orthodoxies of what christianity is “really” about, and i have been pissed when people have told me that i didn’t have the right to define what faith meant for me even as i wondered if i should continue to claim christianiy. and now, not for the first time , i participate in a discussion about what another’s religion “really” teaches.

have mercy.  apologies to all, and a promise you will define what your faith really teaches and means to you