News Right Now: Targeted

This week France’s ever evolving hostility towards Islam has once again been demonstrated through its self-inflicted, ideological frailty, as education minister Gabriel Attal said this week that the Abaya (women’s long dress) is to be banned from all state schools. Speaking on French television he said the style of long, flowing dresses worn by some Muslim women would no longer be allowed when the new term begins next week. “I have decided that the Abaya can no longer be worn in schools. Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself”. He described the Abaya as “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must be’.

It is clear that once again a normative aspect of Islam is being fought and banned by the French government for its inherent political value. This is clear as the Abaya is part of the Islamic dress code and as such represents the obedience of Muslim women to the greater idea of submission to Allah (swt) and adherence to an alternative viewpoint about life which is Islam - rather than than France’s viewpoint about life which is represented by its ideology of liberal secularism.

The French ban of the Abaya only proves the ideological fragility of French secularity and its cherished principles of liberty, equality and fraternity; as well as how desperate France is to continue its long standing war against Islam. One that began with its despotic and murderous colonial history, and which still continues in its vilification of Islam and Muslims today. France’s insistence on its being a secular state has created a permanent state of hypocrisy within its own political establishment, whereby the values it boasts of liberty, equality and fraternity are continually compromised through banning Islamic practices and injustices towards its own Muslim community. Instead, France has become a joke in the way it removes individual liberties, forces inequality and creates hostility!

The string of Islamophobic measures taken by the French government proves its actions of the last two decades have escalated to a ridiculous and desperate extent. The niqab and hijab fines and bans in schools, offices and public places, and even the ban of modest swimwear, the ‘burkini’ on France’s beaches. The constraints placed on religious schools and Arabic language centers, the closing down of scores of community mosque’s, the difficulties created for Imam’s, the obvious inequality in housing for Muslim communities, the national celebration and support for the attack on the Prophet Muhammed (saw) and Muslim migrants by the crass Charlie Hebdo publication, and the new stop and search powers given to traffic police, all highlight the depth of French insecurity, and leave no room for doubt about France’s hypocritical and redundant claims to ideological supremacy.

As Muslims we must remain steadfast upon Islam by understanding and implementing the Ahkam Shariah in our lives - as well as recognising the wider political realities for what they truly are, as they are intended to challenge, confuse and weaken our practice. We Must have awareness of the political maneuvers of the West and the secular states that will equip our Muslim communities to challenge secular ideas and the attempts to reform Islam, which happen either via the constant legislation against Islam and Muslims as in the case of France, as well as through the general ideology of democratic, liberal secularism which is pushed worldwide in every aspect of individual and societal life.

Allah (swt) says in the Quran,

(وَلَا يَزَالُوۡنَ يُقَاتِلُوۡنَكُمۡ حَتّٰى يَرُدُّوۡكُمۡ عَنۡ دِيۡـنِکُمۡ اِنِ اسۡتَطَاعُوۡا ​ؕ وَمَنۡ يَّرۡتَدِدۡ مِنۡكُمۡ عَنۡ دِيۡـنِهٖ فَيَمُتۡ وَهُوَ کَافِرٌ فَاُولٰٓـئِكَ حَبِطَتۡ اَعۡمَالُهُمۡ فِى الدُّنۡيَا وَالۡاٰخِرَةِ ​​ۚ وَاُولٰٓـئِكَ اَصۡحٰبُ النَّارِ​​ۚ هُمۡ فِيۡهَا خٰلِدُوۡنَ)

”And they will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion if they are able. And whoever of you reverts from his religion [to disbelief] and dies while he is a disbeliever - for those, their deeds have become worthless in this world and the Hereafter, and those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein eternally.” [Surah 2: Aya 217]

Ummah Voice Podcast
SoundCloud Link: Click Here