Will Self Quotes
I write as someone who has no more time for repressive Islam than he does for repressive Christianity or Judaism, but at least look at the face in the hijab - and try to imagine the one beneath the niqab - before you depersonalise its wearer.
Self, Will. "The burqa is a feminist issue." The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2013.
He is often referred to as The Reformer as he was a modernist. In particular, the told his people that there was no religious obligation is Islam for wearing a veil or a burka. These are just customs. Yet most Muslims still believe that veils and burkas were required by God. The only Koranic statement on the subject simply says that women should dress modestly. Despite his efforts, veils and burkas are still required by most Afghani families and most people think the requirement is religious.
Sharie is the Islamic code of law based on the Koran which is so brutal that they would stone a woman to death who had illicit sex or kill someone who wanted to change his religion.
At the time Turkey and Indonesia were the only Muslim nations that was not dictatorships or a theocracies.
In a country like Saudi Arabia, such a statement would be very radical. However, before the Arab Spring in Tunisia, that country was much more modern than most Arab nations and headscarfs were not required nor was there much social pressure for them except in the rural areas. So this was a status quo statement opposing the Islamic Parties which advocated mandatory traditional dress for women.
In one of the historical ironies of the 12th century, a Christian sect preferred the rule of the Muslims than their Christian brethren—on the grounds of religious tolerance. It illustrates the changes that take place over time. By the 21st century, it was the Christians who were thought of as tolerant and the Muslims as the opposite.
This was another historical reality that shocked traditionalists. There was nothing in the Koran or Islamic scripture requiring women to wear veils and burkas. Many Muslims and non-Muslims, to this day, do not realize that.
Many, if not most, non-Muslim scholars and thinkers very much disagree with Hamid on this point. The great exceptions of Islam are almost 1,000 years in the past. Current Islam, they argue, is not more exceptional than the beliefs of modern Mongolia which dominated most of the known world centuries ago, but has little that deserves special respect in the 21st country beyond the general respect which is owed to all religions and nationalities. With the exception of Turkey, Islamic nations are for the most part, backward, and virtually no other non-Muslim nations try to emulate them in any way.
William Woodard Self is an English author, journalist, political commentator and television personality. He has written eleven novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas, and five collections of non-fiction writing.
