France’s ever evolving hostility towards Islam has once again been demonstrated through its self-inflicted, ideological frailty, as Minister of National Education and Youth, Gabriel Attal, said this week that the abaya (women’s long dress) is to be banned from all state schools. [1]
Speaking on French television, he said the style of long flowing dresses worn by some Muslim women and girls would no longer be allowed when the new term begins next week. [1]
“I have decided that the abaya can no longer be worn in schools. Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself.” [1]
Attal further described the abaya as,
“…a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must be.” [1]
These absurd comments follow every successive French government in peddling the same insidious narrative about France’s problem with radicalisation and unassimilated Muslim communities.
In reality, it is France that has a longstanding problem with Islam, and its savage colonial legacy throughout Africa and the Middle East has proven this beyond doubt. [2]
France’s anti-Islam sentiment
The extent to which every French government in the last thirty years has compromised its own precious principles — of liberty, equality, and fraternity — just to legislate against Islam is pitiful and frankly embarrassing. [3] [4]
To date, the string of Islamophobic measures includes:
- Niqab and hijab fines
- Difficulties created for Imams [5]
- Ban on niqab in schools, offices, and public places
- Clear inequality in housing for Muslim communities
- Ban on the “burkini” — modest swimwear/ beachwear [6]
- Closing down of scores of community centres and mosques [7] [8]
- Constraints on religious schools and Arabic language centres
- National celebration and support for attacks on the Prophet (ﷺ) and Muslim migrants by the crass Charlie Hebdo magazine
- New stop and search powers given to traffic police, which unsurprisingly resulted in the June killing of a 17-year-old Muslim boy, Nahel Merzouk, after officers allegedly egged each other on to shoot him. [9]
These desperate actions highlight the depth of French insecurity, and leave no room for doubt about France’s hypocritical and redundant claims to ideological supremacy.
The abaya ban not only proves the ideological fragility of French secularity and its cherished principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but it also highlights the relentless determination of the French to disrupt young women and school-age girls from pursuing their education.
The obvious intention is to restrict Muslim women from the prospect of taking up worthy careers and having the financial capability to care for their families, or indeed having any level of independence or financial security; thus ensuring Muslim women become irrelevant within French society — uneducated and easily oppressed.
As such, the carefully orchestrated stream of processes against Muslims has long been designed to impede opportunities in work and education, as well as to affect the social and civic potential of Muslims within French society, whilst generating unabated racism and hatred towards the Muslim minority.
The negative consequences of this trajectory will naturally be compounded within the youth and the family unit, as most likely the French government is well aware.
The global agenda
Possibly even more insidious is the wider Western agenda that France is of course party to: creating a dissonance between Islam and modernity.
The modern nation states’ desire is to extinguish the light of Islam as no more than an outdated Eastern religion, an irrelevant way of life, incapable and unequipped to understand or contribute to modern global challenges. One unsuitable for a progressive individual to practise, just a faith, not an ideology conducive to any kind of social or political progress.
Promoting this narrative is and has been the true aim of the Western and European states, their tactics to achieve this view of Islam were rehearsed and replayed from the mid 18th century until the end of WWII — and are still being orchestrated today. [10]
The Ottoman state and its distant provinces of the pan-Arabian Peninsula, although desperately weak internally, were dealt a final blow by the European colonialists who — through the creation of nation states and dictatorial regimes — directly and indirectly occupied vast regions of Muslim land, stripping swathes of wealth and natural resources, and igniting a sinister new Islamic reformation. One where secularism, liberalism, and economic capitalism would eventually take root while uprooting Islam. [11]
French view of women
Another aspect to the French government’s animosity of Muslim women is clear from its obsession with the objectification and commodification of women in general.
French society sees women as trophies or props to be decorated for the male gaze. Women’s bodies are exploited for profit in every industry and the liberal culture of nudity and promiscuity is upheld as the pinnacle of civilisation.
This is France’s so- called enlightened and unchallenged belief. So Muslim women of modesty and self-respect, who carry themselves with dignity and honour, are the antipathy of French values, which no doubt is justification for the anti-Muslim-women measures that are constantly being rushed in.
Islamic view of women
In contrast, the beautiful Dīn of Islam upholds that Muslim women’s bodies are not for exploitation or for cheap titillation.
Sharī’ah principles describe how a Muslim woman is to be valued for her character, kindness, decency, reticence, and her mind. She is not elevated by male attention or commodification.
Rather, Islamic law legislates the detailed co-operation of men and women, both within society and the home; so unlike a French woman, a Muslim woman has the right and can expect to be treated with honour and grace by all men. [12]
This level of state-administered empowerment is something French women must only dream of, and a truth that the Macron- and Attal-led government wish to hide from their own women at any cost!
Abu Hurayrah (radiy Allāhu ‘anhu) reported that the Prophet Muhammed (ﷺ) said,
“The most complete of the believers in faith are those with the best character, and the best of you are the best in behaviour to their women.” [13]
Allah (subḥānahu wa ta’āla) says in the Qur’ān,
“And one of His signs is that He created for you spouses from among yourselves so that you may find comfort in them. And He has placed between you compassion and mercy. Surely, in this are signs for people who reflect.” [14]
And He (subḥānahu wa ta’āla) also says in the Qur’ān,
“Women have the same rights (in relation to their husbands) as are expected in all decency from them, while men stand a step above them (in responsibility/ accountability).” [15]
Action points
Speaking about and responding to such anti-Muslim actions at the government level is essential in our Islamic duty towards brothers and sisters in France.
Here are some key points that we should look at implementing in order to take the fight to the next level:
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Stay updated on developments in France, Britain, and beyond.
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Promote respectful dialogue with non-Muslims to counter the abaya ban.
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Raise awareness of attacks on Muslims in France and support those affected.
Also read
- From the Croissant to the Cartoons
- Khutbah: Islam is not in crisis, France is!
- How Allah Dealt With Those Who Insulted His Prophet
- Seeing Through France’s Double Standards & Hypocrisy
- Macron: ‘Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today’
Source: Islam21c
Notes
[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sykes-picot-agreement-180957217/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/14/headscarves-and-muslim-veil-ban-debate-timeline
[4] https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/france-islam-crisis-macron-secular
[5] https://www.politico.eu/article/france-political-islam-charter-imams-fight/
[7] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/france-shuts-down-2-islamic-schools/2741445
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/04/first-edition-france-unrest-police-nahel-merzouk
[10] https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0058.xml
[11] https://graphics.wsj.com/100-legacies-from-world-war-1/ottoman-empire
[12] https://islamqa.info/en/answers/70042/what-are-the-rights-of-women-in-islam
[13] https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1162
[14] al-Qur’ān, 30:21
[15] al-Qur’ān, 2:228
I think your point of view is definitely interesting, yet very biased: “This is France’s so- called enlightened and unchallenged belief.” as opposed to “In contrast, the beautiful Dīn of Islam upholds that […].” These adjectives took me out of the compassion I might have had at the beginning of my reading. It actually led me to believe that your article may not be for me to read, a French agnostic, yet open-minded person (at least I see myself as such, might you respond).
Also, and for the record, not just abayas were banned, but qamis as well… Yet, no mention whatsoever of this part of the law in your article.
I am not saying the French government’s decision is the best, and I probably cannot feel what you feel because I am not in your stance. However, I had come on your website to get a sense of your feelings, and hoped to find a very objective point of view on the matter (you do have a thing for writing, that is agreeable). I only found myself disappointed and felt even uneasy towards the end of your article, above all from “Abu Hurayrah (radiy Allāhu ‘anhu) reported that the Prophet Muhammed (ﷺ) said […] until the end of the article.
I could also argue about your views as to how women are seen by the French, but I meant to focus on what really, really ended up disturbing me reading you…