It’s one of the most contentious and controversial subjects in the Western world: head coverings for Muslim women. Are they a badge of pride to signify one’s heritage and religious identity? Are attempts to ban them nothing more than anti-Muslim bigotry? Or are they the product of a patriarchal religious tradition whose first priority is to control and subordinate women?
In this video, EXMNA’s co-founder and Executive Director Sarah Haider dives deep into these questions from the unique perspective of an ex-Muslim woman. She lays out what the hijab really signifies — and why well-intentioned Western activists are mistaken to glorify it as a symbol of women’s empowerment.
Nigeria is a closely-divided country along religious lines: a majority-Christian south and a majority-Muslim north. The religious culture is deeply conservative, repressive, and antagonistic — a dysfunctional and sometimes violent situation that northern ex-Muslim Mubarak Bala wanted to change. An Islamist-turned-humanist, his activism attracted the attention — and the ire — of the political and religious authorities of the state of Kano.
In Saudi Arabia, one of the most unforgivable and cruelly-punished “crimes” is that of apostasy — of leaving the Islamic faith. It carries a maximum penalty of death according to the religious law on which the country’s existence is premised. That it is considered a criminal act at all is unacceptable — and in one case, that of artist and poet Ashraf Fayadh, it was used as a scapegoat to silence free expression deemed unsavory by the country’s authorities.
The stabbing of renowned author Salman Rushdie in August 2022 shocked the world — not because there was no one who could conceivably wish him harm, but because the threats to his life seemed at that point a distant memory. But grudges born of religious fervor die hard. More than 30 years after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini ordered his death for the “blasphemy” of his novel, The Satanic Verses, Rushdie was attacked and nearly killed in broad daylight — by an assailant younger than the book which produced the outrage.
Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian theocracy is one of the worst human rights abusers on the planet, and some of their severest cruelty is reserved for those who speak against the theocratic system or the Islamic faith. Nowhere is this more egregiously apparent than in the case of Raif Badawi, a liberal advocate of reform who sought freedom for Saudis to choose their own religion and speak freely.
It’s one of the most contentious and controversial subjects in the Western world: head coverings for Muslim women. Are they a badge of pride to signify one’s heritage and religious identity? Are attempts to ban them nothing more than anti-Muslim bigotry? Or are they the product of a patriarchal religious tradition whose first priority is to control and subordinate women?
Many scholars and Islamic apologists point to the so-called “Islamic Golden Age” — a period in the Middle Ages of great scientific and mathematical advancement, concentrated in the Middle East. According to its proponents, this period of history proves Islam’s pivotal role in contributing to the technological progress of humanity, contrary to the claims of skeptics that the religion’s relationship with science is rocky at best. But in fact, the real nature of this golden age was anything but Islamic: it happened despite, not because of, the influence of the religion.
