From a veil which covers the face but allows women to show their two eyes, an Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia is now calling for a veil which shows one eye only [1]. Bloggers from the Arab world react.
Writing in Mideast Youth [2], Bahraini Esra'a notes:
In order to remedy his disturbing temptations, Saudi cleric Muhammad al-Habadan proposes a highly convenient solution for women: one-eyed veil.
She continues:
Great! I’ll start drilling a hole in my bed sheets right away.
But in all seriousness, such disturbing calls only further objectifies women, inviting “religious” clerics to harass and disrespect them in ways that are no longer acceptable.
I have a more fitting proposal for clerics in favor of this bogus call; gouge your eyes out with a tack hammer if you wish to refrain from being seduced. Women should no longer pay the price of your disturbing and sickening mentalities.
From Morocco, Myrtus [3] is fuming, describing the ruling as an ‘Islamically incorrect fatwa.’ She also asks:
I wonder how many women would like to poke Sheikh Mohamed's other eye out for his asinine fatwa.
Palestinian Haitham Sabbah [4] describes the one-eye veil as ‘ridiculous.’
He says:
This is just getting out of hand. Ridiculous…
He continues:
Why don’t they enforce full-face cover and kill the issue? What do you call this? Religion and Islam? No Way!
Oh… by the way… anyone knows which eye should be covered? Left of right? (I assumed left because they keep on telling us to do things with our RIGHT thing… Ah… now I’m getting the rule. “Do the Right things with the RIGHT things only.” This is where the Human “Rights” came from and here we see it in action.
Long live “One-Eye Veil.”
Sabbah also posts pictures of how women wearing the one-eyed veil would look like here [4].