And hijab issues in Iran

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Greetings from Dissent Dispatch

Welcome back! This week:

The Unbelief Brief: hijab issues abound in Iran

EXMNA Updates: our very own Aysha Khan was recently featured in an interview with The Good Men Project!

Persecution Tracker Updates: Pakistan strikes again

On the Horizon: You asked, we’re giving it to you — another EXMNA Contest! This time for International Apostasy Day.

The Unbelief Brief

Over the last week, the government of Iran has been hard at work making its dystopian, anti-woman posture even more severe. Two separate incidents, both ridiculous and draconian, have made this evident. The first involves a woman who made the scandalous and immoral decision to sing a song in public without wearing her hijab. Zara Esmaeili, who “is known for her performances on the streets of Tehran, in which she defies the Islamic Republic’s laws,” was arrested [[link removed]], leaving her family “unable to locate her.” The mission to make the streets of Iran as joyless as possible continues apace.

The second incident involves a video [[link removed]] of another hijab enforcement action that went viral. In the video, two teenage girls without hijab are seen being violently pulled off the street and into a police van.

EXMNA Insights

With the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris in full swing, the BBC World Service [[link removed]] recently reported a surge of interest in the sport of fencing amongst Muslim women in the UK. The sport was initially popularized among Muslim youth by Ibtihaj Muhammad [[link removed]], best known for competing in the 2016 Olympics for the United States whilst wearing the hijab. The Muslim Girls Fence [[link removed]-] project, run by the nonprofit Maslaha [[link removed]], promotes the sport specifically to the Muslim community on the basis that it allows Muslim women to remain “modest” while engaging in an athletic sport. Aside from encouraging and creating much needed space for Muslim women to engage in any athletic sport, one can not ignore the self-limiting nature of this philosophy.

Exercising in a hijab [[link removed]] is, no doubt, a challenging endeavor, requiring that women be covered up to their wrists and ankles in loose-fitting clothing. In fact, this is the very reason Ibtihaj Muhammad’s parents enrolled her in fencing [[link removed]]; the uniform for fencing was one of the few sports that met their modesty standards.

The recent image of a women’s volleyball match between Spain and Egypt illustrates the senselessness of women’s Islamic modesty requirements in sports. The all-black, head-to-toe outfit resembles a sporty burqa. While some online praised the coming together of players from different faith backgrounds, one can not help but notice the absurdity of competing in a summer sport while completely covered in black spandex, all in an attempt to appease a misogynistic god obsessed with what women put on their bodies.

Muslim women in sports are regularly chastised by religious critics for wearing “revealing” athletic uniforms. Indian-Muslim tennis star Sania Mirza was criticized [[link removed]] by a religious organization that issued a fatwa ordering her to cover up for competing in a tennis skirt. Iranian boxer, Sadaf Khadem [[link removed]] defected to France after Iran issued an arrest warrant for her just because she competed in a sleeveless shirt and shorts. Sports such as gymnastics, swimming, and wrestling continue to remain off-limits for many observant Muslim women due to the “un-Islamic” uniform standards.

One must ask, is it enough that a ‘modest’ space simply exists for Muslim women in sports? Don’t Muslim women deserve to compete in any sport they’re able to without the strictures of 7th-century doctrine limiting their potential? While accommodating religious misogyny in the sports world may be laudable, shouldn’t we be challenging it at its source as well?

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

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