Iran covers up the
First Bosom: News agency digitally alters Michelle Obama's Oscars gown to make
it look more modest
I
visited a book store in downtown Abu Dhabi during my brief stay in the United
Arab Emirates, and saw magazines with black ink covering most parts of a
woman’s anatomy, except for the head and fingers.
Yes,
even arms vanished beneath the black ink.
*
When I lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, I became accustomed to seeing only eyes peer out of a woman's chadri (The full Afghan chadri covers the wearer's entire face except for a small region about the eyes, which is covered by a concealing net or grille.)
We Peace Corps
volunteers were trained to not look
directly at Afghan women, and definitely not
speak to any of the women.
The women in the city were well-covered, and always walked with a brisk pace.
I knew this head covering as a chadri, but I also heard the word Burqa being used (an Arabized Persian word of purda (parda) meaning curtain and veil) which have the same meaning in Persian.
[See Burqa-chadari below]
*
In
my English classes at Kabul University, female students usually wore scarves as
head coverings, and I could clearly see their eyes and faces.
I
guess there is no Biblical prohibition for covering the female anatomy in
Christian nations, otherwise how would Playboy,
Penthouse, Hustler and, then later, many other sundry skin magazines ever have
been sold?
Are
we a Christian nation?
Some
say that God created us the way we are, and the way we look, and we shouldn’t
be ashamed of God’s Handiwork.
Is
God ashamed of His Body?
Also,
wearing clothes wasn’t a commandment on any of the tablets of Moses.
But…
“Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto
God uncovered?”
1 Corinthians 11
*
This doesn’t say which part of the female body should be
covered during prayer.
Maybe to be on God’s good side, it was a wise thing for
women to put a blanket over the whole body when praying, then when not praying,
a bikini, nightgown, or nothing was o.k.
Actually, the following verse does say which part:
“…but any woman who prays or prophesies with
her head uncovered disgraces her head--it is one and the same thing as having
her head shaved.”
5 Corinthians 11
*
I guess it is “different
strokes for different folks.”
Iranians are different from Westerners.
I just don’t like to see all of that black ink going to
waste---or in this technological age, photo shopping images to make them fit a
cultural and religious dogma.
IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES!
*
“Burqa-chadari,
is a full body and head covering for outside the home for many women in
Afghanistan. The Burqa is constructed of about ten yards fabric with an
embroidered mesh face piece which conceals the entire women's dress ensemble of
pants, overdress, and head scarf.”
“The burqa is not only worn in
Afghanistan but it's more common in other countries including India and
Pakistan. The original chadari has Persian origins but over the time period it
became associated with the urban dress of middle and upper class Afghan women.
The chadaree has been incorrectly attributed as Afghan women's traditional
dress but it only became mandated women's wear after dress sanctions were
imposed by the Taliban in 1996”.
“During
the Taliban women had to wear this piece of heavy cloth on top of their normal
clothing to cover them from the head to lower calf or to ankle. In the first
days when the Taliban captured Kabul and announced that all women have to wear
'Chadaree' outside of home, many women were shocked, especially in the capital
Kabul. They wondered how they were going to wear 3 pounds of extra weight of
clothes on top of their formal and informal clothing. It was really difficult
for the women who had never worn it before.”
"And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes,
and to guard their private parts, and not to display their beauty except what
is apparent of it, and to extend their headcoverings (khimars) to cover their
bosoms (jaybs), and not to display their beauty except to their husbands, or
their fathers, or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's
sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or
their womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from
the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the
nakedness of women is not apparent, and not to strike their feet (on the
ground) so as to make known what they hide of their adornments. And turn in
repentance to Allah together, O you the faithful, in order that you are
successful"
— Qur'an Sura Nur Chapter: The Light. Verse 31
*
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia:
The term was
originally used by Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini in his speech on November 5,
1979 to describe the United States whom he accused of imperialism and the sponsoring of corruption
throughout the world.
Iranians have considered the United States and the United Kingdom as Imperialist states, who have a long history of
interfering in Iran's internal affairs. In 1907, the Anglo-Russian Agreement
between Russia and Britain divided Iran into spheres of influence, questioning
although not terminating Iranian sovereignty. At the height of the Cold War, the administration of the U.S.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
approved a joint Anglo-American operation to overthrow elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, in the pretext that his
nationalist aspirations would lead to an eventual communist takeover. The
operation was code-named Operation Ajax. At
first, the military coup seemed to fail, and the Shah fled
the country. After widespread rioting —and with help from the CIA
and British intelligence services— Mossadeq was defeated and the Shah returned
to power, ensuring support for Western oil interests and snuffing the perceived
threat of communist expansion. General Fazlollah Zahedi, who led the military coup,
became prime minister.
Ayatollah
Khomeini was exiled to Turkey for his outspoken
denunciation of the Shah's Status of Forces bill, which granted U.S. military
personnel diplomatic immunity
for crimes committed on Iranian soil. From Turkey, Khomeini moved to Iraq
in 1965 and remained there until 1978 before moving to Paris
for four months. He then returned to Iran and led the 1979 Iranian
revolution.
The United
States supported the Shah starting from the 1950s, but this waned toward the
end of the 1970s, particularly under the Carter administration. Many Iranians hated the
Shah, and felt that the U.S was against them. When Saddam Hussein came into power, the U.S also at
first supported him.[1] Demonstrators commonly chanted slogans
such as "Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic".
