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].
islaam
