Ahmad as-Sowayyan
I was on a visit to one of the Islamic centers in Germany when I noticed a
woman dressed in full Islamic hijab. I had never seen such proper hijab in the
West and I thanked Allah for what I saw. Later a friend suggested I learn about
how she became a Muslim from husband.
The husband relates: My wife is German. She is an obstetrician and
gynecologist and used to have a clinic for treating sexually transmitted
diseases which could infect women. She conducted vast research in this area and
one of the specialists suggested that she go to another country where the
demographics may show different results in order to make her research more
comprehensive. She went to Norway for three months and found results similar to
the ones in Germany. So she decided to go to work in Saudi Arabia for a year.
And she began to read about its history and culture. At that point, she felt
contempt towards the Muslim woman. She wondered how these women could
submissively accept the hijab. She saw it as quite humiliating.
The husband continued to describe what his wife told him: When I arrived in
Saudi Arabia, I discovered I had to wear a cloak over my body. I hated that. It
made me feel like a prisoner, and I felt extremely humiliated by it, but I
decided it was the price I had to pay to complete my medical research.
I worked for four continuous months at the clinic and I saw hundreds of
women. I did not come across a single case of sexually transmitted disease. I
began to feel bored and somewhat restless. When seven months had gone by without
adding a thing to my research, I became frustrated. I left the clinic one day,
feeling angry and upset. One of the Muslim nurses asked me about what was
bothering me, and I told her. She smiled and said something in Arabic that I
could not understand. When I asked her to explain, she said, “What you are
seeing is the fruit of virtue, it is the reward that we get for following the
advice of Allah in the verse,’... and men and women who guard their
chastity.’ [33:35]”.
I was really touched by the Qur'anic verse that the nurse quoted. I started
to think about it and I continued to read more of the Qur'an and the Hadeeth.
Eventually, Allah guided me to the understanding that the dignity and honor of
women are in virtue and hijab. I realized that most of what was written about
the hijab in the West is from a Western standpoint that has little understanding
of true virtue and dignity.
I started to think about how in the West changed our views on hijab. And to
make a long story short, any way I looked at it, I found that virtue came to
change and become a rarity as a result of the media using women to alter the
norms of the society. What I fear most today is that Muslims end up following
that same road of liberalism and shamelessness. Following the way of life of our
religion is our only hope of being protected from the same fate.
It is truly disturbing that AIDS has begun to be evident in the Arab region.
This disease is the result of the collapse of a value system and the spread of
sexual corruption. We find that the values and ethics of Islam are constantly
under attack in the media. People are flooded with movies and programs that
reflect total lack of shame and virtue. I know this may sound outrageous to
non-Muslims. But it is true that we today live in a world that feeds itself sins
and illicitness disguised in covers freedom and modernism. What would one expect
to happen next? It has to be more of the same fruits we getting now.
We can only escape from such madness and corruption by being committed to our
faith and by observing the laws of Allah at all times. “Indeed, those who
love that obscenity should be spread among the believers, shall have a painful
chastisement in this life and in the Hereafter.” [24:19].
