Like A Patient Etherised Upon A Table

In her new blog, I Could Scream, Dymphna (of Gates of Vienna) discusses the mind-numbing (she calls it "mind-dumbing") rules on and discussion of women's attire generated by Islamic "scholars":

Her dress prior to becoming "more" Muslim was the traditional shalwar kameez, a long tunic over pants. There were complaints, though, that prior to donning the biljab, Ms. Begum's costume was nipped at the waist and had insufficiently long sleeves. Several Muslim scholars agreed that former mode of attire was "insufficiently Islamic"

‘O Messenger of Allah, what about the one who does not have a Jilbab?’. He said, ‘Let her use the Jilbab of her sister.’” So the Prophet(saw) made the wearing of the jilbab one of the conditions for the woman entering the public life.

The scholarly output generated about women's apparel is as mind-dumbing as the Human Rights Act. They are both part of a larger zeitgeist. On the one hand, protecting 'victims' and on the other hand, creating them. Life lived according to scholarly opinion or bureaucratic dictates on minutiae has this result: the mind becomes deflected to the surface of things and blind to the ebb and flow of deeper reality. Such negotiations through the vicissitudes of what it means to be human become no more than a series of small desperate measures dispensed in coffee spoons. The search for security is not an innocent one.

Don't you wonder what J. Alfred Prufrock might have made of Londonistan?

If you read this site regularly, you know that I strongly oppose the systematic subjugation of women under the Islamic boot. Dymphna is articulate and passionate and her new site is dedicated to examining the plight of women in the Middle East. Check out the new blog (which is hosted by The Belmont Club), and see what you think. It is sure to be an important contribution to exposing the institutionalized religious oppression of women under Islam.