My fashion and my hijab: Greek Muslimahs interviewed
March 5, 2010
Source: Veto newspaper
© Translation Muslim Association of Greece
It is not only one piece of cloth. The veil that envelopes the faces and the bodies of Muslims, is a symbol of Islam, so charged as the military conflicts that have broken out in the name of the hijab in many European countries. Lately, especially after the ban on headscarves in public places in France, there are more women who started wearing it. The global game industry is aware of this and few months ago, Barbie wore a scarf as well. Religious, political, revolutionary, feminist symbol? Muslim women living in Athens reveal what lies behind their hijab, as they call it.
Rabab
The hand of the photographer is on top of the table, with the coffees, tightened by Nashua hand, “I’m wearing gloves. It’s the only way I can touch another man.” Her daughter Rabab is smiling, holding her cup of coffee, smiling and with apologetic. “Sorry I’m not allowed,” as she declines the handshake. On her right shoulder is her baby sleeping. On her left shoulder her hijab falls until her waist. In fact they are to scarves, one pink and one black, both, elaborately braided together-the result is reminiscent braided hair. She was born in Greece, lives in Keratsini and every day, she wears her hijab in different style- which she has copied from a satellite hair channel. She has visited her home country, Egypt, only few times. She has heard though that there are many ‘hijab hair salons.’
Rabab has been wearing the hijab for the past 10 years. She wanted to take it off on her wedding day but her husband didn’t agree. Despite the meaning of her name ‘white cloud’, in her life there are many black clouds. At the age of 26, she must choose between her hijab or her career. “I was working in a telecommunications company. One day, my manager called me into his office and offered me the supervisor’s position. Under one condition: to take off my hijab. I couldn’t take the job wearing hijab. ‘At least wear a wig,’ he told me. So I had to resign.”
In her workplace today – she is an immigration consultant for Athens council- she wears her hijab without having any problems. “I can feel people’s eyes on me when I go to places or use public transportation. Most of them are staring. A few days ago, I was getting off the bus, when an elderly man hit me with his walking stick, so I would hurry. With his walking stick! Is that possible? I was born here. And I am not taking my hijab off. It is a respect to me and my religion.”
Nashua
Nashua never put pressure on her daughter to wear hijab. “She did it on her own, when she became a little lady.” It came to my mind the little girls with hijabs who were playing under their brothers’ eye, just outside the Libyan school on Kifisias boulevard.
“They are ignorant of Islam when they wear hijabs to kids in primary school,” Says Mrs. Anna Stamou, Marketing and Public Relations of the Muslim community. “A Muslim woman is wearing the hijab so she doesn’t attract attention, the paradox here is that this way she does. If we go out with a mini skirt nobody would look at us. Nakedness doesn’t evoke.” says her mother Nasoua, she has been living in Greece for the past 35 years. She assures me that under her impressive red hijab, which is fastened with a golden broch, has her hair groomed.
As she continues, “I go very often to the hairdresser. At home we don’t wear hijab. You never give up on yourself. I put facial creams and dye my hair, so my husband likes me, but above all so I please myself.”
Habiba
Habiba means ‘loved one.’ Habiba was the favourite student of her teachers in Paris. She arrived there from Morocco, to study fashion design. “Paris then was more hijab friendly,” she says, analyses the family tree of Sarkozi, concluding that he has roots in Marolo Jews from his grandparents. Because of her profession- she is a fashion designer in Athens and Paris-“I do not see any particular problem. I have contact with people who have an open mind and get on easily with scarf. Sometimes women say to me, ‘Come now, you are so progressive, you have to be free.’ But I am free. The scarf is my choice. It was never imposed on me. Not even from my husband.” And there is no doubt about that. Anas Habibas husband completes ”I have overcome some crashes. He grew up in Greece, he is from Argentina, but adopted by Greek parents before becoming a Muslim on his own initiative, he was baptised Christian and was called Anastasis. ”When I was little, I was the alter [boy] in church,” he says, laughing.
On his hand is tattooed an alfa capital. “Yes I am an anarchist,” he answers just when he realized that I was looking at it, he listens to rock music, smokes and is a big fan of Jimi Hendrix. ”Jimbo, come here,” he shouts from the living room in the middle of the house and to our surprise, emerging as a tornado, holding a large cat, is his three-year old daughter, wearing a black ribbon on her hair. ”Look my little Rocker,” boasts Anas. “Last year she asked to wear the hijab on her own. She sees her mother and she wanted too,” he says and tells us the story of young Holy, which was adopted from Morocco. Holy, grows up in a home with strong Arab elements, bright colours and smells of Moroccan tea and has her little prayer rug in the mosque built by her dad, in the basement of their house. Answering a question on when their daughter will wear hijab, they started laughing. ”She is such a character that she might never put it on!” says Habiba. ”Everybody does what they like. Many try to hide behind a scarf, to show that they are good people. Like Christians who go to church and start prostrating, looking around to see who is watching them. “I don’t blame hijab. It is just a fabric,” Habiba continues,”a fabric that frightens and unfortunately has baptized terrorism and Al Qaeda. We are Hijab Frappe. It means that the scarf goes everywhere.”
Habiba doesn’t drink frappe, “because it bothers me but I go to the movies, theatre, and I enjoy art as a hobby. I like little taverns.” She is also an amateur actress. After Easter, she will star for a second year on the show “Hijab Frappe”, based on true stories of women. She opens the script book and starts reading: “The hijab is a symbol, no it’s not a symbol, it is responsibility. It is my faith, what I am, what I am not. It is mandatory, it’s optional, it is the law but not here. I wear the hijab for me, for God, for my husband. It is freedom, protection, mystery.”
Marina
Her parents reaction when they heard she will become Muslim “brought trouble at first, but [they] realized that the path was purely my choice and was not influenced and accustomed. What they cannot get used to is the hijab. They are all hesitant with the scarf. The fundamentals of Islam lie beneath. There are Muslim women who do not wear hijab. The substance is not the picture,” says Marina, a Greek who embraced Islam three years ago. Her husband, who she met later, is Palestinian and they have a little boy. ”I became a Muslim from pure curiosity. Reading, I began to realize that Islam covered gaps that could not be covered by my previous religion. Half a year later, I wore the scarf, as required by the Quran. Nobody pushed me; nobody forced me,” says 26 year old girl who studied economics in Aristotle University. ”Since I wore the scarf my friends remain the same because they know me. On the street, they think I am a foreigner. Nobody imagines that I am Greek and only if they hear my accent they suspect it and start asking questions.”
Despina Papadopoulou, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Policy Panteion University
“The headscarf issue is complicated and complex, so we must be careful. As the government attempts to limit religious freedom, the more resistance will be present. If we can express an opinion towards the prohibition of the headscarf or not, a safe criterion is the separation of public and private life. It must not affect the public order of society. And the state should not interfere with private life. Any form of religion must exist, in case of course, it doesn’t affected the person. On the other hand there is a military conflict: Who governs the existence of the hijab? The State or the family? This conflict leads nowhere. Especially if the government draws its legitimacy from religion. If actions are taken for the ban of the headscarf, it will hardly be implemented. The restriction is a simple solution to an issue as so critical.”
The trend is derived from feminist movements, in which any symbol of discrimination and equality in society is racist in nature. In Europe and America, it appears as Islamophobia.
—
Translated by Elena Nikolova-Pouliasi
Criminal in Greece: Muslim with the Quran
February 24, 2010
Source: Proto Thema
A member of a gang of burglars and stolen goods receiver was finally proven to be a young Syrian that had accused a police officer to rip his Quran an step on it last May. There were serious incidents as a result of this accusation in the center of Athens by Muslims and a serious turbulence from the police.
The 27year old Hasan Ramsy was convicted a few days ago to 10 months imprisonment because he was selling stolen goods. The Quran that he was holding however orders clearly, “Do not steal”…
After serious information, there was a police swoop in the underground apartment that Hamzy was living with another Syrian and they bumped into a …treasure. Jewels, watches, mobile phones, electronic devices and other valuable objects were found, that were stolen by a gang of burglars from houses and apartments in the north suburbs of Athens.
During the examination, the 27 Syrian denied that he was in the gang but he claimed that he bought the goods by an unknown man without knowing they were stolen.
His allegation did not convince the court that gave him 10 months imprisonment with a three year parole period, for “accepting and supplying products of crime” while the investigations of the police are continuing to track the gang of burglars.
He left at night…
After the end of the trial, Hamzy was left free and he returned to his country as they stated at “Thema” his co-patriots from the Aghios Panteleimonas area, but also the president of the Muslim Association of Greece, Mr. Naim Elghandour, has no better opinion for the 27year old man. “I know that he wanted to leave from Greece. He contacted me and said that he wants to return back to Syria. Generally he was weird. He was hanging around in strange neighborhoods and he was arrested for forged papers. I told him to be careful. He asked me for money to leave Greece but I found out later that he wanted to take advantage of me,” Mr. Elghandour stated.
He attempted to legalize himself with forged documents
Hasan Hamzy abandoned Greece just as he came. Illegally. He had stated on a TV show that he came illegally to Samos from Turkey in 2002 and after that he came to Athens. In 2003 he applied for his documents to become legal, when government Simitis had those measures, but stating that he was Iraqi by the name Mohammed Attiq and not Syrian. Last May, a policeman that was participating at an operation-broom at Aghios Panteleimonas at the center of Athens stopped Hamzy to check his papers. According to what the young man stated, the policeman ripped pages from the Quran that he had on him and then he stepped on it swearing.
As a result, there was a reaction by a large Muslim immigrant population that lives in Athens and for two days of serious incidents that were provoked from fanatics who damaged vehicles and stores, and there were also injuries. The Muslim Association of Greece and their president Naim Elghandour condemned those incidents then while they applied a law suit against the policeman who offended the holy book of millions of people worldwide.
Mr. Elghandour underlines that some people deliberately attempted to make Hamzy a hero. “Then at the incidents they attempted to make him a hero but the Muslim Association did not allow that to happen. The incidents were incited and we did not allow Athens to burn once again. What we did and proved that we care for this country, is take a law suit against any responsible person, to put responsibility –if there are to the policeman who ripped the Quran. We are waiting the case to go to trial,” he states.
Group urges Muslims to avoid body scans
February 23, 2010
Source: CBC.ca
An Islamic group is urging Muslim travellers to choose to be patted down by airport security rather than go through airport body scanners, a practice that it says violate religious and privacy rights.
The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) said the scanners, which produce a three-dimensional outline of a person’s naked body, are “against the teachings of Islam, natural law and all religions and cultures that stand for decency and modesty.”
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” the group said in a statement last week.
“The Qur’an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts. Human beings are urged to be modest in their dress,” the group said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations also issued a statement of support of the FCNA’s recommendation.
The United States began using the scanners capable of detecting items hidden underneath clothing at airports as part of new security protocols put in place in the wake of the failed bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.
Canada installing scanners
Halifax imam Dr. Jamal Badawi, one of 10 Muslim scholars on the council who made the religious ruling, said the only exception to the rules of modesty are medical necessity or another emergency.
“It has to be a clear and compelling case and only to the extent that it is absolutely needed,” said Badawi. “And that doesn’t seem to apply to these scanning machines.”
Canada is also in the process of installing 44 scanners to be used on U.S.-bound passengers selected for secondary screening at Canadian airports.
The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority has said the scanners would protect the privacy of the passenger, and that the officer viewing the image would do so in a separate room and never see the actual traveller.
Only people singled out for extra screening would be scanned, and they would have the option of getting a physical search instead, according to authorities on both sides of the border.
The Fiqh council, which in 2005 issued an Islamic legal ruling, or fatwa, against terrorism and religious extremism, said it appreciated the pat-down search option and recommended Muslims choose this option.
U.S. puts countries on watch list
Canada has not adopted the U.S. approach of requiring additional screening for anyone flying into the U.S. who is a citizen of or is travelling from any of the 14 countries deemed to be state supporters of terrorism or “of interest” to the U.S.
Most of the countries listed are predominantly Muslim, and civil liberties groups say the policy of targeting travellers from specific countries opens the door to discriminatory racial profiling.
Transport Minister John Baird has said that “100 per cent” of Canadian travellers bound for the United States could be subjected to secondary screening.
The focus on security measures stems from the failed attempt by a Nigerian man to set off a bomb on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to ignite the bomb on the Northwest Airlines flight. Officials said he has told U.S. investigators he received training and instructions from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.
Elena, the Muslim, the mosque and cemetery
February 19, 2010
Source: Protagon.gr
© Translation: Muslim Association of Greece
I have never met Elena in person. We have been talking on the phone for the past two months. She has a bright smile, nice voice and is very polite. She is 23 years old studying Business in England. The only thing I knew about her is that she was wearing hijab. She started learning about Islam from stubbornness. She wanted to prove to her colleagues at university that they were wrong. She studied the Quran quickly to gain more arguments against it, but that made her change her own beliefs and religion.
The last emails we exchanged were regarding the French ban of religion symbols. Elena wanted to point out two things regarding that, the cemeteries and the worship places. I am copying what she wrote to me.
“Greece is the only European country that does not have a cemetery and a mosque. I am a Greek citizen and I pay tax as every other citizen in the country, I obey its laws, I defend its rights when they are correct. What hurts me is the behaviour of the reliable people regarding that matter. What we are asking for is to praise God in its place, to marry and die next to our families as every other human being on that planet.”
”The Muslims in Greece are a minority but not only in Thrace, the northern part of Greece, but also in Athens where they are almost 700.000 Muslims working and living. But except the everyday problems they have to deal with, they also have to consider what will happen with their bodies when they will die. And this is because in the European Athens today there is no cemetery, a basic need for a human being and especially a Muslim. And this is because in the Islamic tradition the body must be buried no more than 24 hours after death and under some conditions. Something that Muslims in Athens today cannot even think or dream of. Nowadays the bodies are sent to Thrace or to the country of origin, if that is possible. What happens though with the many Greek Muslims or with the second generation children that do not know any other country except Greece? Don’t they have that ‘luxury’ or they are excluded from the life circle.”
Revealing the real purpose of fasting
February 17, 2010
I used to find it odd – if not heretic – to starve yourself from sunrise to sunset. Anything that went against fasting in the Greek Orthodox way was indeed heretic, or so I thought.
The first time I heard Muslims fast in a different way, my stomach churned and I thought, man you guys are completely off the mark. You need to be saved!
At that point, I’d never researched the proofs for fasting in the Bible or the Quran, but it was my pride that would never let a thought into my brain that said that they might have proof for what they were saying while I have absolutely none – or at least knew of none.
And frankly, I didn’t care. Fasting was one of the zillion rituals of the Greek Orthodox faith that you ‘just believed in’ and didn’t question.
The weirdest thing to me was that Muslims would not only fast from food but actually from ‘bad’ things like drinking, going to bars or dating. Now, that for me was completely illogical ! What does food have to do with having fun?
It was normal for all of us Greek Orthodox to fast before Easter and go out and have fun at the exact same time – without feeling an inch of guilt.
Once you find out why you are supposed to fast in the first place (which, as a Christian I never really did), then you’ll understand that it’s not about the food.
Muslims believe that God revealed to mankind to fast because through self-restraint, you can become pious.
“O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become Al-Muttaqun (the pious). (Quran 2:183)
You might be asking, What does piety have anything to do with it? I was confused at the beginning too but when I started fasting – starving myself from dawn to dusk actually – I realized that it was a true sacrifice.
It’s like having a close friend that you love more than you love yourself. You give up something that you love the most to make her happy. It’s not like you are forced to do this. You choose this because you love her. That’s when your relationship has gone to a new level – because she’s seen the proof that you put her before yourself.
That’s in a way, the purpose of fasting. When you choose to give up something that is permissible, like food, you realize that you want to because you love God more than yourself. And you want to show Him that love. That’s the journey of piety.
So, really, for anyone who is fasting, whether Muslim, Christian or other, fasting was prescribed for all of us as the verse says. Only when you know what the purpose of fasting is can you really taste the journey of love for God.
—–
Skit video #2 from the eternal journey
February 9, 2010
Here’s another skit from the seminar. Subhan Allah, it’s really moving. It made me scared and almost sick to my stomach in worry.
Prayer with an innovated water-saving device
February 7, 2010
Source: Enet.gr
A Malaysian company has invented a device that, as they claim, will help Muslims to make their cleansing before their prayers without spending too much water.
The “green” device is accompanied by automatic sensors and sinks that interrupt the water flow during “wudu” – a word with Arabic origin that indicates the procedure that the face, hands and feet of the faithful are cleansed before the prayer.
The ritual of ablution is preceded by the five prayers that a Muslim is obliged to perform.
Today in the world there are 1.7 billion Muslims who mainly live in Africa and Middle East, which are areas with weak water resources.
The device has height of 1.65cm and it recites also Quranic verses. It uses only 1.3 liters of water and it is better than the old traditional methods where tabs are left to run during the entire ablution of the faithful that can last a few minutes.
“During Hajj (Mecca pilgrimage) two million people were spending 50 million liters of water for wudu. If they use this device they will save 40 million liters per day,” states the chairman of AACE Technologies Antony Gomez.
The investors of the company are very optimistic that the rich Muslim countries will obtain this machine that will be available in six months and costs 3-4000 dollars.
Dubai already has expressed interest to obtain this device for the airport, Gomez stated, adding that this machine needed two years to be completed and costs 2.5 million dollars.
Funny video: what NOT to do when giving dawah, especially to converts
February 1, 2010
Now, I regret missing this seminar! Check out this skit they did in class. The sad part is that people actually do this for real!
The hidden belief that can destroy your success
January 26, 2010
I noticed a trend amongst converts. Before converting, many of them are climbing the corporate ladder. After converting, it’s almost as if they think that if they continue to do that, they are not “as pious”. In other words, get rid of wordly success so you can get afterlife success.
X Be pious = afterlife success only
I don’t blame them. Much of the reason why they adopt this concept is because many Muslims have this hidden limited belief and it carries over to the converts.
I was conducting a seminar this weekend where (on a side note) we discussed the same thing. The sheikh in the room described that in Islam, the formula is actually this:
√ Be pious = afterlife + wordly success
The best believer is the one who is strong in their belief and puts it into action. The best believer is not the one who sits at home and prays all day (although they would be rewarded for this) but the better one is the one who goes out and benefits society.
And that is what I have done. Take a look how.
Rethink’s art picks
January 5, 2010
Source: Zain’s Pics & Text
“This picture was taken at the First Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon Fiesta which was held from 19 to 22 March 2009 in Putrajaya.”
