Vexed guy (white, middle-aged, casual dress, looks like a scally) walks past me from opposite direction then back to me: "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?"
Me: "Yeah sure."
Coming right up to me: "Can I see your face?"
Me: "What? No."
Idiot, more vexed: "Why not?"
Me: "What's your problem?"
Idiot, shouting now, wild gestures, people looking our way: "You can see my face, why can't I see your f***ing face?!"
Me, getting worried that he's close enough and angry enough to snatch my niqab off walk away.
Idiot carries on ranting but I can only make out "...dress properly!"
I come home and tell my brother about it and he loses it with me demanding why I didn't call him straight away. Although I was annoyed by this incident and admittedly quite shaken because I thought he could snatch my niqab off, I didn't think it's anything to start riots over but my brother thought *&^%$#* like that need to be taught a lesson otherwise Muslim women won't be safe to walk around without being harrassed. My thinking is: women in niqab obviously provoke certain people, maybe a lot of people. For this idiot, for some reason, the mere sight of me was enough to make him rave. But I think as Muslims who are obviously Muslim just by appearance have to expect these kind of reactions from people. To expect otherwise is unrealistic. It's not nice but I'm sure it's normal. I'm interested to hear what kind of comments/reactions you guys get from the public to prove/disprove my theory that my brother overreacted and what happened yesterday was irritating but kind of normal.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
"You can see my face, why can't I see your f***ing face?!"
that argument makes no sense, it's a free country and noone is stopping him form not showing his face if he chooses not to!
in an ideal world you wouldn't have to put up with behaviour like this, but i think i would agree that it's better to ignore it as he is obviosuly looking for a reaction.
of course if he had actually removed your niqaab/did anything to hurt you then it would be a different story.
this guy ws obviously looking for a white, but i think sometimes when people react badly to the niqaab they just need a bit of an education to see the beauty and reasining behind it. because if you think about it, it does contrast so much to their world voew and way of thinking.
how to give them that education though is a different matter..
once while i was shopping in asda a lady with her little son passd by me. As soon she saw me, she said to her son "come on jedi ninja". so i replied saying "thats very original" (I never heard that one before!!!)
she seemed quite surprised, maybe because she assumed that people wearing niqaab cannot speak english or maybe at the fact that i responded. Allahu alam...anyway after hearing my respone she couldn't seem to get away fron me fast enough!!
Don't get me started......
As for your brother's reaction, it is understandable.
I wouldn't go as far as hunt the guy down though. But if I saw a sister being harassed like that, I would most definitely intervene, and ask the sister to go about her way, while I try and talk some sense into the brainless, barbarian, and if push come to shove, then push come to shove.
Anyways, look after yourselves and don't let anyone scare you off your nikab.
And, to the men that just stand there, or walk by and do nothing... you're a bunch of wimps.
I actually agree with your understanding that to some extent we sadly live in an environment where by dressing as muslims we ARE going to be open targets. Perhaps the best thing would be not to go out in such areas without a mahram.
As for educating them....yes it is the key..however it could be that it is hard to connect with some non muslims when they cant even see your face...they find it quite intimidating as the face is usually what people focus on. The facial expressions speak volumes when conducting a conversation ...hence why people say "let's talk face to face"
Perhaps if muslims made efforts in their local communities not just with the fellow muslim but with non muslims and were less "ghettoised" there may be some who would change their perceptions. Engage in voluntary work etc.People will soon look past the exterior and see what a "good person" this muslim is.
Personally it is awful what is going on but ultimately it could be that WE are doing something wrong that has caused this situation to happen.
I pray you do not have to encouter such hostility again.
Khalid - personally I wouldn't engage a fool into conversation. If some genuinely has a problem and wants to understand then I don't think they'd make stupid comments nor would they resort to harrassment. Similarly I wouldn't throw snide comments back, as some people advise me.
If it's comments like ninja and "peek-a-boo!" I usually laugh with them. As anonymous alluded to, you can't blame people for reacting (as long as it isn't hostile) to something they don't understand, something they find bizarre. May Allah give us all tawfeeq to educate ourselves and others about our deen, ameen.
Salams.
I really like this blog, mashAllah, you should write more here.
Don't you blog anymore, I keep checking once in a while!
I don't think she will blog.
A while ago she said she's not going to bother anymore.
Probably ran out of things to talk about.
So don't hold your breath.
Hehe. I get the feeling anonymous is the same person posting.
Post a Comment