What makes a religious symbol conspicuous?
Last week, a college in Mangalore in India banned a student wearing a burqa from attending class. The principal told local media the college had a policy of not allowing symbols of religion.
The media did not say if there were students on campus with a ‘bindi’ (dot) on their foreheads or crucifixes around their necks or turbans on their heads, other symbols of religion one commonly sees in India, besides the ubiquitous “Om” scarves and t-shirts.
Mangalore, a cosmopolitan city, is no stranger to controversy; it was recently in the news for attacks on bars and women by a fundamentalist Hindu outfit that declared they were against Indian culture.
Nor is the controversy over headscarves and burqas limited to India. UK’s Jack Straw sparked a heated debate when he asked Muslim women in his constituency to remove their veils to promote better relations between people.
Turkey last year lifted a ban on women wearing headscarves at universities, ruling it violated the country’s secular constitution.
More recently, French president Sarkozy said burqas have no place in the country because they are a symbol of the subjugation of women. The issue has divided France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim minority, over how to reconcile secular values with religious freedom.
A 2004 French law bans students from wearing “conspicuous” signs of their religion in state schools, prompting Sikhs to launch a protest to allow them to keep their turbans on.
from FaithWorld:
Exercised over yoga in Malaysia
Of all the things to get exercised about, yoga would seem to be an unlikely candidate for controversy. But such has been the case in Malaysia this week.
Malaysia's prime minister declared on Wednesday that Muslims can after all practice the Indian exercise regime, so long as they avoid the meditation and chantings that reflect Hindu philosophy. This came after Malaysia's National Fatwa Council told Muslims to roll up their exercise mats and stop contorting their limbs because yoga could destroy the faith of Muslims.
It has been a tough month for the fatwa council chairman, Abdul Shukor Husin, who in late October issued an edict against young women wearing trousers, saying that was a slippery path to lesbianism. Gay sex is outlawed in Malaysia.
The council's rulings, and other religious controversies, might at first blush seem to indicate a growing strain of conservative Islam in mostly Muslim Malaysia. But it could also reflect the growing unease of Islamic authorities in defending the faith in a rapidly modernising Malaysia where non-Muslims constitute 40 percent of the population and are increasingly asserting their rights.
The yoga fatwa stirred up a hornet's next, not only in the blogosphere where that could be expected, but in another deeply conservative Malaysian institution -- the sultans. Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, who presides ceremonially over the central state of Selangor, said Abdul's fatwa council should have consulted the nine hereditary Malay rulers who take turns being Malaysia's king before announcing the ruling. The highly unusual comment from one of the sultans on a policy matter suggests some discord about who speaks for Malaysia's Muslims on matters of faith. Islam is the official religion in multi-religious Malaysia and the constitution designates the nine sultans as guardians of the faith. The (rotating) king is the head of Islam in Malaysia.
The sultans, for their part, have seen what remains of their secular powers eroded over the years, particularly under the two-decade administration of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. They could be defending a last bastion of royal prerogoative in the religious arena.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badaw, who has been preaching a moderate brand of Islam called Islam Hadhari, moved to contain the damage saying Muslims can do exercises like the "sun salutation" so long as they don't start chanting.
I would just like to make it clear that Muslim women are NOT forced to wear a hijab by their religion but by the way a country they live in is ruled. There is no rule in Quaran that tells you to ‘always cover yourself’! It is just if a country is quite strict, like Saudi Arabia, you will need to cover yourself, and if it is not, like Kuwait or Kazakhstan, women can dress in whatever they want! It just annoys me so much, when people say that ‘poor Muslim women need to wear the hijab all the time because of their religion’! It is not the religion, people, it is the way a country is ruled! I am a Muslim woman, from a Muslim country, but living in UK and I do not wear a hijab and do not cover myself up.