Why not cover your modesty

[الطامعة في رضا ربها]

 

WHY NOT COVER YOUR MODESTY
ما المانع من الحجاب؟
"Abdul-Hameed al-Balai "
Free English Translation by
Wael F. Tabba

Translator's Introduction

Thanks are only due to Allah, the All-High and Almighty, and Blessings and peace be upon him who no Messenger will be sent after.
Upon reading the book of al-Balali, I was very impressed about the way it tackles the problems of the modern Muslims, and the way it attacks dubiosities, and handle them one by one. Consequently I wanted that the English readers should benefit from this book. That was the reason that compelled me to translate it into the English language.
The translations of the meanings of the Holy Qur'an are based on the work of 'Abdullah Yousuf 'Ali.
The translations of the meanings of the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah are based on the nearest possible meaning that the modern English language can give to that narration.
This translation was done on a free basis hoping to capture the true spirit with which it saw written. For an attempt to do it in other way will cause it to lose a lot of its power.
Finally I hope that this work will benefit our English speaking brothers and sisters in Islam, and I ask them to pray and make Du'a' for the writer, myself, and all those who participated in making it available for the public.
Peace be upon each and everyone of you.

Wael F. Tabba
Al-Khobar

Introduction

Allah, the All-High, says:
(ونفسٍ وما سوّاها ، فألهمها فجورها وتقواها) (سورة الشمس 91 : 8-7 )
(By the Soul, and the proportion and order given to it; and its inspiration as to its wrong and its right;) "Qur'an 91: 7-8"
Allah, the All-High and Almighty, created the human soul, and gave it the ability to choose between treading the Good path or the Evil path. He also told us to exchange with our brethren good advice, and teaching of Truth. Allah, the All-High, considers these acts to be specific characteristics of those whom He excludes from eternal loss.
This is what Allah declared in Soorah al-'Asr. Our Messenger (Blessings and peace be upon him) also taught us that giving advice to each other is part of our duty, so he said:
المؤمن مرآة المؤمن
"The believer is a mirror of other believers"
-for he looks into the flaws of this brother, and reflects it like a mirror. This Mirror does not reflect the physical image, but rather reflects the character image. Islam encourages his followers to love each other. We are advised and encouraged to do so through many hadiths.
Among the basics of such a love is to wish that your brother or sister enters paradise and is spared hell. Things should not stop to wishing alone, but rather a person should do whatever possible to keep his brother or sister away from harm in this life and the Hereafter. Its starting point is the love which we feel for the daughters of our Muslim nation, Arab people, and the Gulf societies, and our care to keep them away from what may harm them in this life and the Hereafter.
This book is aimed to a specific group of our sisters who did not commit themselves to covering their modesty. This lack of commitment is due to either their ignorance of its religious necessity, their wakness in face of the attractions of this life, or their defeat in face of evil in their souls. Their exists other reasons for this lack of commitment like a whispering devil, a bad companion who does not love her peers, and others.
We ask Allah to make the words of this book as keys for the good. We also pray to Him to cause these words to open up closed hearts and stir dormant feelings. We beg Him in our supplications to make this book a reason to urge our sister who are not committed to hide their full modesty and revert back to the pattern which Allah has ordained on mankind.

Dubiosities and Desires

The devil can only penetrate the soul of human being through two major ports of entry: Dubiosities and desired. The motives behind any person's disobedience do not deviate from one of these two, which seriously hinder the Muslim from performing acts which please Allah. These two reasons alone are among the major causes that prevent a Muslim from being accepted into Paradise. We will try our best to cover the most important dubiosities and desired in this book.

First dubiosity:
Repression of the sexual energy
This Dubiosity states that it is dangerous to repress sexual energy, since it is a major and powerful drive in Man.
This concept is based on the principle that increasing pressure leads to explosion. The theory states that by covering the modesty of a woman you will be covering her beauty, and that will subject young men to critical sexual repression. This repression explodes in the form of rape and other sex crimes. The proposed solution for this problem is to liberate women from this cover so that young men could relieve their repression, and the end result (according to this theory) is that by satisfying the "repressed" needs of young men society minimized the danger of such explosions!

The answer
This dubiosity hides behind a façade of logic. The person who promotes this dubiosity appears, on the face value, to be looking after the better interest of his society; he seems to want to prevent it from decadence. But in fact the person who is promoting the Dubiosity is threatening his society with a greater danger which might lead to its disintegration. The danger is so great that it might break up the very fabric of society.
If this fallacy were true, then America, Europe, and all other countries with similar moral fabric would have been the least countries to suffer from rape, sexual harassment and other sex related crimes. America and Europe have given sexual freedom great importance under the pretence of "personal freedom". This concept is taken to such an extreme that one cloud find obscene magazines sold everywhere. In those countries TV programmes after midnight are full of dissolute show that are sexually explicit. Moreover, during the summer, women take off their clothes and wear a "bathing suites' in coastal towns, and they are allowed to go topless on some beaches.

Throughout America video tape shops for adults only are widely spread. In these shops you find all kinds of perversion and items that substantially rigger sexual excitement! Any adult can watch these films inside the shop or rent them to watch at home. Whorehouses are spread to such an extent that some countries exhibits prostitutes in a display window for the clients!

So what was the result of such wantonness and obscenity? Did rape incidents decline? Did those societies achieve the "satisfaction" that they are talking about? Where women saved from the dangers of this obscenity?

American statistics
The Federal Government of U.S.A conducted research and published their statistics in a book entitled Crime in U.S.A on page 6 it states that during 1988, one rape crime was committed every 6 minutes in that country. In the same book the following statistics are listed:

Rape crimes in the U. S. A.

A verse of the Holy Qur'an that
Explains the above statistics

These statistics and other confirmed reports, indicate that the above rate of increase in sex crime in those countries, are only a practical explanation of the commands of Allah, the Almighty, All-High:

(يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُل لِّأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاء الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِن جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى أَن يُعْرَفْنَ فَلَا يُؤْذَيْنَ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُوراً رَّحِيماً) "سورة الأحزاب 59:33"

( O' Prophet! Tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons [when out of doors]: That is most convenient, that they should be known [as such] and not molested.) "Qur'an 33:59"

The reason behind the revelation of this verse, as explained by Imam al-Qurtubi, was:
"Before the widespread use of indoor toilets, women used to relieve themselves in the desert. This would cancel the distinction between free women, and women slaves. So Muslim women used to be harassed by the wicked infidels, who thought that they were slaves. When approached by such a man, the Muslim woman used to shout to make him keep his distance. When the women complained to the Prophet (bpuh), the above verse was revealed, (that was when Muslim women started to cover their modesty). From then onward, the free Muslim women were clearly distinguished from the women slaves." Tafseer al-Qurtubi, vol. 8, p. 5325

The woman who makes herself a dazzling display, by uncovering her beauty and make-up for every body to enjoy, excites dormant desires. This exposure causes her to be harmed by the hands of human wolves. On the other hand, the covered woman hides her beauty and make-up, so that only her face and hands are exposed according to one ruling, or only her eyes are exposed according to the other ruling. What desires that covered woman excited, and what instincts does she incite?

Allah, the All-High and Almighty, ordered "the cover Hijab" to protect women from harm. He, the Exalted knows that displaying make-up and beauty is in fact an invitation to increase sex crimes and stir dormant instincts.

As for those who believe in this dubiosity and insist on promoting it, we present the following four facts for them to contemplate:

Fact#1
Statistics reveal their lies.

Fact#2
Sex is an instinct which both sexes posses and which Allah, the All-High, in His infinite wisdom, created to ensure our survival. Try to imagine procreation without it! If a person is sane, and accepts the existence of this instinct, then he should not make the absurd request of men to act completely normal in front of scenes of nudity.

Fact#3
It is a known fact that one of the sources of sexual excitement for men is staring at a women's beauty, whether this beauty is in the face, hair, or body. Men's sexual excitement will not abate by watching exciting scenes, for it is impossible to contradict the creation of Allah.

Fact#4
He who claims that the solution to sexual repression lies in spreading scenes o attractive women and nudity until sexual saturation is reached, knows that only two types of men will not be affected by such scenes:
The first type are the eunuchs who are incapable of sexual excitement by watching displayed nudity.
The second type are the sexually impotent men who are not roused by the sight of displayed nudity.

to be continued ensha'Allah