By Dr. John Andrew Morrow
Full Professor of Foreign Languages, Ivy Tech Community College
1.1 Introduction
As demonstrated in Hijab: Word of God or Word of Man? (2024), misogynistic Muslim males have transformed the hijab, a pre-Islamic pagan practice, into a religious dogma and doctrine. In their attempt to justify this sexist “sixth pillar of Islam,” Islamist apologists and Muslim fundamentalists have compared it to the veils worn by nuns. They have claimed that the right to wear the hijab is the same as the right to wear the bikini. They have even equated the burkini to the bikini. These arguments, which are deployed by Islamists to a Western audience would be roundly rejected by their brethren in the Muslim world where such views would never be countenanced. Islamists in North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, would never place the bikini on par with the burkini. They would never defend the right of Muslim women to chose between the hijab and the bikini. As much as they exploit the weaknesses of secular liberal democracies and clamor for “freedom of choice,” the only choice that radical Islamists offer women under their influence, control, and rule, is the right to not have a choice. The arguments of Islamist apologists in favor of the hijab and the bathing burka are vacuous, dishonest, disingenuous, and duplicitous. It is therefore imperative to bust the bubble of their inflated lies.
1.2 Islamic Rulings on the Minimum Dress of Muslim Women
Despite indoctrination to the contrary, Islamic jurists throughout the ages have passed a vast array of rulings regarding the minimum required dress for Muslim women. Some held that hijab was wajib or fard, namely, obligatory. This has become the dominant interpretation. Others held that it was mustahab; namely, that it was recommended but not required. Some jurists ruled that hijab was optional and that it depended on time and place. Others argued that it was ja’iz or mubah, namely, allowable. In short, it was neither mandatory nor prohibited. Other jurists ruled that the hijab was neither necessary nor desirable. It was neither wajib nor mustahab. Some jurists ruled that the hijab was haram and bid‘ah; namely, that it was a prohibited innovation. Others have gone as far as to claim that the hijab was shirk or idolatrous, an idol placed on the heads of women. According to some, claiming that hijab is a divine command, when it is not, is an act of kufr and riddah, namely, disbelief and apostasy. And, finally, some have ruled that it was better for women to go around nude than to fabricate dress codes in the name of God (Morrow 2024).
From the dawn of Islam to its dusk, Muslim jurists have issued a vast spectrum of rulings regarding the covering required of women in the public sphere or outside the presence of immediate family members. Some jurists ruled that women had to cover themselves completely, including their faces and eyes, by means of the burqa. Others allowed one eye to show. And yet others allowed two eyes to be perceived behind a niqab (Morrow 2024).
Some jurists decreed that women had to cover completely with the exception of their faces and hands. Others allowed feet to be exposed. Some jurists stipulated that women had to cover everything that was not washed during ritual ablutions. In other words, they could show their faces, hair, necks, arms up to the elbow, and feet up to the ankles. Some jurists ruled that women had to cover their bodies, arms to the wrists, and legs to ankle; leaving the head covering as recommended, as opposed to required. Others argued that women had to cover their bodies from the shoulder to the knees, as well as their arms down to the elbow (Morrow 2024).
Some jurists decreed that women had to cover from the shoulders to the knees; their arms and calves did not need to be covered. Others asserted that women had to cover all cleavage: genitals, buttocks, breasts, and armpits. In other words, a pair of shorts and a t-shirt was the hijab of Islam. Some authorities asserted that women had to cover their genitals, their breasts, and their bodies from the navel to the knee (Morrow 2024).
Some jurists determined that women only had to cover between the navel and the knees. In other words, the short sarong or miniskirt, while topless, was the hijab of Islam. Others insisted that women only had to cover their genitals and their breasts. In other words, the bikini was the hijab of Islam. Finally, some of the earliest legal authorities on Islam, along with others throughout the millennia, ruled that women were only obliged to cover their genitals. In other words, the thong or G-string was the hijab of Islam (Morrow 2024).
Despite the deceitful claims of the Islamists and fundamentalists that the hijab is a choice, why is it that most Muslim women are unfamiliar with these choices? Why have they not been presented with the full spectrum of opinions about hijab in Islam? By and large, they are presented with one of two options: cover everything but the face, hands, and even the feet, or cover everything including the face. Their choices are pre-selected: the hijab or the niqab; the khimar or the burqa. The rulings have been rigged. When the only choice is the veil, women have no choice.
How many Muslim women know that qualified and respected Islamic authorities have provided them with ample leeway to decide how to dress? Who is hiding the truth from them and why? The same men who claim that “hijab is a choice?” The same men who claim to believe in “diversity,” “religious liberty,” “multiculturalism,” and “pluralism?” And what would motivate them to suppress the wide range of opinions, views, and perspectives regarding the attire of women? Could it be patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny? It’s elementary, my dear.
1.2 The Hijab and the Attire of Nuns
Just as they lie about the obligatory hijab, which is devoid of Qur’anic basis, and which cannot be supported by any rigorously authenticated hadith, Islamists and Muslim fundamentalists justify it by means of false equivalencies, including the claim that the “Islamic” veil is the same as the habit worn by nuns. However, the difference cannot be greater. To commence with, for many Muslim scholars, the Islamic hijab is obligatory for all women. The Christian veil, however, was only required of nuns. It symbolizes that they are married to Christ. The nun’s habit did not apply to laywomen. What is more, it is no longer obligatory.
The dominant interpretations of Islam teach that the failure to wear hijab is a major and mortal sin and that women who fail to wear it will be punished in hell where gruesome torture awaits them from a loving and compassionate God. In contrast, the veil is not mandatory for Christian women, and even nuns can leave their orders at any stage without incurring punishment of any kind in this life or the hereafter. They are not shamed, coerced or terrorized into covering their hair. They are not treated like apostates for unveiling.
For Islamic fundamentalists, the Islamic veil represents submission to God, Islam, and men. The Christian veil represents consecration to God. The coif frames the face for modesty. The black tunic stands for poverty and penance. The scapular hangs down the front and back as a sign of being yoked to Christ. The belt serves as a reminder of obedience. Married women who wear the hijab have sex. Nuns who wear the veil do not have sex. They are celibate. The Islamic veil is saturated with negative symbolism. The hijab is associated with patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, discrimination, extremism, radicalism, terrorism, and Islamism. No such negative symbolism is associated with the religious habits of Christian nuns. For Islamists, the Islamic hijab is fixed. Its extent was determined by men. Not so in the case of the religious clothing of nuns. The rules were determined by the religious orders themselves which were governed by women. What is more, Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) strongly recommended that the religious attire of nuns be “suitably adapted to the conditions of time and place.” It is not an immutable dress code.
For Islamic fundamentalists, Muslim women who wear hijab do so to hide from the lustful gaze of men. Nuns wear religious attire as a sign of consecration, poverty, and membership in a particular religious order. The symbolism of the Islamic veil and the Christian veil is as different in meaning as the Nazi swastika and the Hindu and Buddhist swastika, one symbolizing German supremacy, imperialism, fascism, racism, and genocide, while the other meanings “well-being,” in Hinduism, and the auspicious footprints of the Buddha in Buddhism. If the hijab cannot be compared to the veil worn by nuns, the same applies to the claim that it is the same as a two-piece bathing suit.
1.3 The Hijab Vs. the Bikini
Islamist propagandists in the Western world, who parade around as defenders of civil and human rights, claim that wearing hijab is the same as wearing a bikini. It is not and they know that to be true. The veil covers. The bikini uncovers. The veil conceals. The bikini reveals. The veil hides beauty. The bikini divulges beauty. The veil hides and hates femininity. The bikini showcases, loves, and celebrates it. Women who wear bikinis are proud of their bodies. Women who wear hijab are ashamed of their bodies. They believe that they are private parts. Women who wear bikinis have genitals but do not view themselves as genitalia. They believe that their intimate parts are reserved to their genitals and breasts or merely their vaginas.
The veil has been imposed by law, by force, and by threat of violence in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and elsewhere where Islamists assert control. The bikini has not. Girls and women who fail to wear the Islamic fundamentalist veil have been reprimanded, fined, intimidated, threatened, assaulted, whipped, and imprisoned by judicial authorities in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Girls and women who fail to wear the Islamic fundamentalist hijab have been harassed, insulted, raped, gang-raped, disfigured through acid attacks, shot to death, and have had their throats slit by Islamist vigilantes for wearing failing to wear hijab or for wearing bad hijab. In civilized societies and cultures, females who fail to wear bikinis are not subject to verbal and physical violence. No girl or woman has been murdered for refusing to wear a bikini. In contrast, many Muslim girls and women have been murdered by their fathers, brothers, families, and communities, for failing to wear hijab.
To be decent, Islamist and conservative Muslims believe that females must wear hijab. In contrast, no secularist, liberal or conservative, insists that females must wear bikinis. Muslim females are expected to always wear hijab in public. Women who wear bikinis, however, are not required to always wear them. Radical Islam teaches that a woman who fails to observe hijab will burn in hell. No secularist believes that women who fail to wear bikinis will go to hell. Muslim fundamentalists shame women into wearing the hijab. Females who wear bikinis are not shamed into doing so. Whenever Islamists take power, the first thing they do is to impose so-called Islamic dress on women. As Khadija Khan captures,
Wherever Islam is the state religion, it disempowers women: it imposes a narrow dress code on them; enjoins them not to speak their minds and deprives them of their basic human rights. It turns their lives into an experience of claustrophobic mutism. (2021)
No secular government has imposed the bikini on women. In so-called Islamic states, Muslim-majority nations, and countries with minority Muslim populations, hijab patrols harass Muslim and non-Muslim women who fail to observe hijab. Not only are there religious and morality police in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Chechnya, but Islamist vigilantes are known to harass so-called immodest women in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia, among many other nations. Except for the thong patrol at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, there is no official or unofficial bikini police in the rest of the civilized world, patrolling beaches, and pools to ensure that women only wear two-piece swimwear.
Females who wear hijab do so because they are required according to their (mis)understanding of Islam. In contrast, women who wear bikinis do so out of free choice. That is not the case with the hijab. If no man mandated the hijab, no woman would wear it. The bikini, however, is not mandated, and women choose to wear it. They select it out of a wide variety of swimwear. Muslim women who fail to wear hijab are treated as “whores” by the fundamentalist members of their communities. This is not the case for non-Muslim women who wear bikinis. They are not viewed as sluts simply because they wear two-piece swimsuits. Many little girls, tweens, teens, adult virgins, and chaste, faithful, married women wear bikinis. Women are not de-factor harlots because they wear bikinis. According to the Qur’an, any man who accuses a woman of being a whore — for wearing a bikini, or simply showing her hair, for example — and cannot provide four eyewitnesses to the act of fornication or adultery, merits eighty lashes of the whip. As the Islamic scripture stipulates, “those who accuse chaste women of adultery and fail to produce four witnesses, give them eighty lashes each. And do not ever accept any testimony from them — for they are indeed the rebellious” (24:4).
According to Iranian law, “anyone who explicitly violates any religious taboo in public” should be imprisoned for up to two months or flogged with seventy-four lashes. How could showing a bang of hair, a wrist, an ankle, wearing makeup, or high heels merit such a punishment? It is only two dozen lashes short of the full punishment for fornication or adultery. Mandatory, state-enforced hijab has not basis in the Qur’an, and the rigorously authenticated sunnah. It is devoid of legal precedent. Women cannot be compelled to believe in dogmas and doctrines. They cannot be forced to pray fast and cover themselves from head to toe according to invented and imposed dress codes.
As for the “decadent West,” the object of the bitter hatred of sexually obsessed Islamists, only 18% of American women wear bikinis. Over 53% wear one-piece bathing suits and 29% opt for tankinis (Krupnick). Not only do some women feel self-conscious in two-piece suits, but 80% of men hate high-waisted bikinis; 16% are indifferent; and a paltry four percent love it (Taylor). In fact, according to one study, only 12% of men stated they found bikinis attractive (Ishine). Interestingly, “the majority of men said they preferred women in one-piece swimsuits or sundresses” (Ishine).
In many cases, women who wear burkinis are more sexually attractive than women who were bikinis. Burkinis are form-fitting, skintight, highlight the female form, and hide faults, flaws, and blemishes. Except for those who are toned and fit, most women do no look good in bikinis. They are more attractive in one-piece swimsuits and, in some cases, in burkinis. Paradoxically, although the burkini is presented as modest swimwear, it is also marketed as being sexy. For this reason, the most extreme extremists view it as prohibited. In Iran, for example, the burkini it outlawed on the order of Khamenei. Sistani also prohibits the burkini and going to any gender-mixed beaches, pools, and swimming. Although they are prohibited from wearing burkinis by their religious leaders in Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, they insist upon their right to do so in the Western world. Why not fight gender segregation in Iran? Why not fight for the right to wear the burkini at public pools and beaches in Iran? Women cannot even attend soccer matches in Iran. They are even banned from riding bicycles.
“So why do so many women continue to wear bikinis if they’re not appealing to men?” (Ishine). “The answer,” we learn, “may be found in the psychology behind why women wear bikinis.” The claim that women wear bikinis because they are sluts out to arouse men is false. Many wear bikinis despite men. Why do girls wear bikinis? The psychology behind this popular swimsuit is fascinating. These factors include self-confidence, sexual attraction, status, fun and flirtatiousness, summertime, and fashion trends (Ishine).
Like any attire, bikinis have an impact on self-image. Those who wear them do so because they make them feel good about themselves. They feel confident and beautiful. It improves their self-image and body image (Ishine). Bikinis also have health benefits: improved circulation, better skin, and a boost of vitamin D (Ishine). Other benefits include comfort, freedom of movement, cooling, and style (Ishine). Women wear bikinis because they are durable, flexible, dry quickly, and are salt and chlorine resistant. They also provide a more complete tan and fewer tan lines.
Negative factors of wearing a bikini include skin irritation, sunburn, dehydration, athletic ability, wardrobe malfunction, and allergies (Ishine). Some women feel judged when wearing bikinis; however 89% feel that women are the toughest critics (Cohn). Some men check out women, focusing on their breasts, waists, and hips before their faces, eyes, or hair (Dye). However, statistically speaking, women check out women more than men (Murray). They constantly size them up, judge, and criticize them.
According to another study, 80% of women love checking out other women in bathing suits (De Lacey). They spend more time ogling women than men (De Lacey). One third were more impressed with a well-toned woman than a physically fit man (De Lacey). When women look at other women, they claim to focus on their 1) clothing, 2) hair style, 3), tan, 4) size, 5) cleavage, 6) cellulite, 7) hair color; 8) boob size, 9) shoes, and 10) bags (De Lacey). This is what they admit to when surveyed.
However, scans of their eyes demonstrate that their gaze operates the same as men, focusing on “the waist-to-hip ratio, the face, and the legs the most, and the arms the least” (Murray). In fact, eye-trackers demonstrate that “women look at boobs just as much as men” (CBS). If both men and women objectify women, what is the veil’s purpose? In fact, in Muslim societies, women typically go around nude or seminude in public baths. In light of research that demonstrates that women leer at women, should Muslim women be required to wear hijab in front of other women? Actually, some Islamic jurists ruled that Muslim women were required to wear hijab in front of non-Muslim women.
In any event, if women opt for the bikini, they believe that the positives outweigh the negatives (Ishine). And while it is true that some men view women in bikinis as sex objects, they are the same men who sexually objectify all women, even those in burkinis. Ultimately, a bikini cannot make a man do anything. Guns do not commit murder. Men do. Bikinis are not responsible for arousing men. Men are responsible for getting aroused. If a morbidly obese glutton pounces on a cake and devours it, is it the fault of the black forest cake? Did it provoke him? Should it be covered up or locked away? Men, like women, have fetishes. Some are aroused by high heels, even when they are not on the feet of women. If a man succumbs to sin over a shoe, should we blame the shoe?
Yes, brain scans confirm that some men view women in bikinis as sexual objects. However, this was particularly the case among “hostile sexists,” namely, men who view women as manipulators who invade male space (Dell’Amore) When such men looked at women in bikinis, their brain activity did not indicate that they viewed them as human beings with thoughts and intentions (Dell’Amore). These same sorts of subhuman men who lust after girls in bikinis are the same who lust after women in burkinis and full burkas. After all, the study was based on a minute sample and the men were not placed in controlled groups. The research findings cannot be generalized to the entire male population as the study does not account for variables. Women are not seen the same way by all men.
Bikinis, some critics claim, are immodest. However, modesty is contextual. At a nude beach, the topless woman in a thong appears more modest than other beachgoers. At a beach where all the women wear thongs, the one wearing a bikini seems more modest. At a pool where all the women are wearing two-piece bathing suits, the one wearing a one-piece swimsuit is perceived as more modest. And, of course, among women in one-piece bathing suits, the one wearing a full-body swimsuit appears more modest, even prudish. It is not true, however, that the more you wear, the more modest and chaste you are. It depends on demeanor and disposition. There are plenty of promiscuous women who wear hijab.
A woman who wears a bikini to compete in beach volleyball commits no sin nor does a woman who wears one to go swimming or to work on her tan. In contrast, a woman who wears a bikini and performs a pole dance to entertain and sexually arouse men most certainly sins. A woman who beautifies herself to please herself or her husband, but who is chaste, is not a sinner. However, one who beautifies herself to cheat on her husband most certainly sins. “Actions are according to intentions,” observed the Prophet (Bukhari and Muslim).
Nor is it true that the more you show, the more you are sexually provocative. Rather than inflame passion, nude beaches do the exact opposite. They numb lust like an ice-cold shower. Nudity was not associated with eroticism, vulgarity, or sexual immorality among indigenous tribes in Africa and the Americas. If anything, they lived in a state of primordial innocence. This demonstrates that the very operating premise of hijab is false. The more you suppress femininity, the more you exacerbate male lust and desire.
Given the choice between getting an education, or wearing a hijab, some Muslim women would opt for the latter. No bikini-wearing woman would place her bikini above her education and income. Some Muslim women prefer not to get jobs, or to lose their positions, rather than remove their hijab. No bikini-wearing woman would place her bikini above her source of sustenance. In a 2023 article titled “Is Racism Worse than Sexism?” Richard Martineau painted a poignant picture:
Imagine a country that does not exist. Syldavia, like in Tintin and King Ottokar’s Sceptre. Black people there don’t have the same rights as white people. They cannot go to school, cannot work, always have to be accompanied by a white person when they leave their homes. And must wear a veil on their heads, to show their inferior status. If blacks do not wear this veil, or if they wear it badly, they are beaten and imprisoned.
A QUESTION OF CULTURE? Would we accept that such a regime exists? Of course not. All countries in the international community — in fact, all democracies — would gang up on that country and exert political, legal, and economic pressure to bring this apartheid regime down. As we did with South Africa. Well, this country exists. There are even two. Iran and Afghanistan. Except that segregation in these countries is not based on race, but on gender. So we do not get involved. We denounce, but we do not act, we do not intervene. After all, it is their culture. Their lifestyle. Who are we in the West to tell these people how to live, huh? That would be colonialism! And then it is their religion. It is sacred, religion.
Talk to QS [Québec Solidaire], who have been advocating for the “right” to veil for years. Do you think QS members would be so complacent about the veil if it were black people, rather than women, who were forced to wear it? To ask the question, is to answer it. They would rip their plaid shirts and cry racism! And would ask the government to adopt in the most sacred way a law intended to prohibit this kind of ostentatious sign of discrimination, at the very least in school and in the courts of justice.
For Maya Ksouri, a Tunisian jurist, journalist, and television personality, the burkini, like the veil, is not just a choice of clothing.
If one has any doubt, one only has to read the writings of Islamist-Wahhabi leaders, even the so-called “moderate” ones. What is more, one will never see the proponents of the hijab and burkini campaign for the right to the mini-skirt or to nudism.
She is indeed correct. Those who march against hijab and burkini bans in the Western world would never march against the mandatory hijab in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iran. They argue that “those are Islamic countries under Islamic law.” In other words, they have the right to impose the hijab by force. However, when they are in the West, they exploit the notion of “freedom of religion” to permit the imposition of Islamic law. This argument can be turned on its head. If Islamic countries can impose Islamic law than secular countries can implement secular law.
For Ksouri, “the burkini is an insult to the struggle waged every day by Arab women.” When Westerners insist that the burkini is a choice of dress like any other, is to give another weapon to those who soil emancipated women every day in the Arab world. As she argues:
To maintain today that the burkini is a garment like any other in the name of cultural and religious diversity is tantamount to asserting that slavery, if it were practiced in Saudi Arabia, for example, is a form of labor like any other given that the Qur’an contains verses that make it lawful and therefore it is a cultural practice…
As can be imagined, Mimunt Hamido Yahia has much to say about the barbarity of the burkini. She mocks the way it is marketed by Aheda Zanetti (b. 1967), its Lebanese Australian designer: “the burkini is freedom, happiness, and a lifestyle; nobody has the right to deny it to a Muslim woman nor any woman who choose to wear it” (145). In Yahia’s estimation,
This is one of the most hypocritical statements that one can hear on the subject. What it really means, when deciphered, is that Muslim women are not free to bathe the way that Muslim men do, namely, with a bathing suit, so I created an article of clothing that champions a political and religious ideology that does not displease the patriarchy, and which give women the impression that they have won a battle. (145)
1.4 The Burkini vs. the Bikini
Islamist propagandists claim that wearing a burkini is the same as wearing a full body swimsuit, a bikini, a monokini, or swimming topless. It is merely swimwear. The burqini or burkini derives from the word burqa/burka, the most extreme form of Islamic dress imaginable which completely covers a woman. Conceptually, it cannot be disassociated from the most extreme and misogynistic interpretations of Islam. Since it is closer to the burqa than the bikini, the term burkini was coined to make it more palatable and marketable. It should have been called the bathing burqa. In fact, the so-called inventor of the waterproof burqa, an Arab Australian, who neither acculturated nor integrated into Western culture, even ensured that it met the approval of Islamic religious authorities.
The burkini is marketed as “the bathing suit of the Muslim woman.” By implication, any other style of swimwear is not the bathing suit of the Muslim woman. Can a one-piece bathing suit, a bikini, or a thong be marketed as “Islamic swimwear?” Why not? Numerous qualified, competent, and God-fearing Muslim jurists throughout the ages have ruled that women were only required to cover their private parts in public: their vaginas and their breasts. Others ruled they could also expose their breasts.
Is a woman who wears a one-piece or two-piece bathing suit less of a Muslim than one whose burqini attire evokes the Taliban? If the burkini is “modest swimwear,” that implies that all other swimwear is immodest and the women who wear such attire are shameless. And why is wearing so-called Islamic swimwear only expected of women while Muslim men are free to wear Bermudas, shorts, and speedos, while exposing their legs, thighs, and torsos? If Muslim women should be required to cover themselves, then so should Muslim men. This sexist double standard screams of hypocrisy. For Islamists and conservative Muslims, women are not full human beings endowed with freedom and inalienable rights. They reduce them to hair and thighs. Could Muslim men be spoken about in such terms?
Full body swimsuits were invented to make it possible for women to swim freely at a time when they were expected to swim fully clothed. They evolved into the one-piece and two-piece bathing suits we see today. While their popularity waned, they continued to be worn by divers to protect themselves from corral and jellyfish. They are worn by surfers and divers to protect themselves from the cold. They are worn by women to protect their skin from the sun. Non-Muslim women are free to wear a full body suit one day and a bikini the other. The same cannot be said for strict Muslim women. There is therefore no equivalence between the burkini and full body swimsuits.
The reason that Muslim women wear burkinis are entirely different both symbolically and practically. Although the temperature can range between 86 and 104 degrees, point out the activists from Révolution Féministe, “women are encouraged to dress at the beach as if they were going to winter sports with several layers of clothing and it does not bother anyone” (Samint). The burkini gives women the illusion they free when they are boxed in by rigid, patriarchal rules, that control them completely and which are enforced by a self-appointed “morality police” (Samint). So what’s the problem with the burkini? For Phyllis Chesler,
This is a false issue. Far more important is finding Islamic terrorists before they attack in Paris, Nice, Brussels, and elsewhere in Europe and North America. Far more important is naming, fighting, and winning the War of Ideas, the Islamic religious war against Western freedoms which has let to terrorist attacks. Far more important, is either finding ways of integrating non-hostile immigrants or of stopping “the hostiles” at the border.
However, my concern with the burkini is as follows: It does not seem all that comfortable to be swimming in so much yardage; it is not safe to have one’s ears blocked while swimming either. Not to be able to feel the water directly against one’s skin is equivalent to wearing a monk’s hair shirt. Women are not being permitted the simple God-given pleasures of our sensory beings. Why? What crime have women committed to be so punished? (2017: 461)
In matters of perception, those who oppose the burkini view those who wear it as crazy and oppressed. Those who support the burkini view those who wear it as good, submissive, chaste, and modest Muslims. As for the proponents of the burkini, they view Muslim women who wear regular swimwear, shorts, or t-shirts, as being bad Muslims, at best, and sluts and whores, at worse. Forget about the men. All one has to do is ask the women. North African women who wear burkinis claim they do so because they are pudiques, namely, modest and chaste. The antonym of pudique is impudique, namely, immodest, shameless, brazen, indecent, and unchaste. The women who wear burkinis denounce “nudity,” namely, any attire that does not meet strict so-called Islamic rules. For them, nudity refers to every part of a woman save her face, hands, or feet. Or even less. Women who show their arms and legs are nude. Women who show their backs and bellies are nude. Women who show their hair are nude. They demand “freedom of dress;” however, they wish to deprive others of it. They accuse those who do not adhere to their so-called Islamic dress code of being obscene. For swimming to be halal, a woman has to wear a burkini. Any woman who fails to do so is engaged in something haram.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the one and two-piece bathing suits dominated the beaches of North Africa. In the 1980s, bikini contests were held in Casablanca (Faiz). A bikini show was even held on the esplanade of the Hassan Mosque in Rabat (Bladi). By the 1990s, a mixture of liberal and conservative attire was observed. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the burkini had conquered the bikini, a radical pseudo-religious attire brought to the region by North Africans from Europe (Mateso). The failed policies of France, and other European nations, have a direct impact on the Muslim world. Attempting to be tolerant, and asserting they promote “moderate Islam,” North African governments, like Morocco, have insisted that both the bikini and burkini can co-exist. The fact on the sand shows otherwise. “I can’t stand to see them at the beach,” confessed a young bikini-clad Moroccan woman from Casablanca, “they frighten me.” “They are multiplying like mushrooms,” she noted. “Soon, they are going to chase us off the beach” (Mateso). And she is correct. Muslim women who would normally wear regular swimwear have stopped doing so because, in the words of one young woman, “if I wear a bathing suit, people look at me like I am a Martian” (Mateso). The situation goes beyond dirty looks.
In the 1990s, the Islamist Adl Wal Ihsane movement in Morocco used to descend upon Moroccan beaches dressed in “Islamic” dress, namely, the foreign attire of Middle Eastern Islamists, and would pray in congregation to ostensibly intimidate beachgoers (Saïd). They viewed their raids as an act of reclaiming territory for Islam. The same militant, social, Islamism surfaced in Algeria and Tunisia. In the former, entire neighborhoods have declared certain beaches “consistent with Islamic morality” (Saïd). They are “shari‘ah compliant.” Hence, they ban all forms of “nudity,” which, as we have seen, has an entirely different sense to them. They use key words like “respect,” “freedom,” and “tolerance;” however, their Islamist definitions are not those that are found in the dictionary, as can be seen by the fact that gangs of faithful Islamists patrol beaches in search of “immodest” women in bikinis to harass and intimidate (Saïd). They encircle them, or conduct congregational prayers on the sand, right in front of them, to intimidate them. Perhaps they were inspired by the non-violent sit-ins of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. These people, however, are no Martin Luther Kings. They are far from non-violent.
Although there are cases where the burkini is banned, and some women who wear it defiantly have been harassed, this pales in comparison to the harassment that Muslim and non-Muslim women face when they wear conventional swimwear to beaches in much of the Muslim world. In fact, they are subjected to harassment and intimidation by Islamist men and women. Some have even been machine-gunned to death at resorts.
In a fascinating sociological study, Stéphane Héas notes that beaches, like pools, for that matter, are not neutral spaces. They are places where people look at others and are looked upon. Historically, they tend to be barometers of the current standards of beauty. What is more, they showcase socio-economic inequalities. As his ethnological study suggests, some women view the burkini as prestigious, while others are proud to flaunt their submission to religious and/or traditional precepts. There are also generational differences to be observed. The co-existence of bikinis and burkinis reflects the struggle between liberation and submission, freedom, and restriction. The division between both groups is clear, with the veiled burkini-wearing women tending to congregate together. They tend to self-segregate. Not only do they arrive later at the beach, but they also leave earlier. They are almost always in family groups. They rarely, if ever, go to the beach alone. While it happens occasionally, women in burkinis rarely mix with women in bikinis.
Women in burkinis are less active. They walk up and down the beach less, swim less, and engage in fewer physical activities and sports. This has been observed in both North Africa and France. The claim that the burkini frees women to engage in activities they could not otherwise participate in is generally false. It remains a restriction. Those who engage in physical activities tend to do so far from crowds. What is more, women in North Africa and France have always had the right to enjoy pools and beaches. Muslim women benefited from them for generations before the appearance of the waterproof burka.
While Western women confidently adjust their bikini tops, and pull their bottoms out of their cracks, burkini-wearing Muslim women face greater physical and social constraints. The inadvertent exposure of centimeters of skin causes them anguish. Their skin may be covered from the sun, sand, and eyes of men while they are dry; however, the moment they get wet, their suits cling to their bodies, showing their shapes, some looking like they are participating in the sexiest of wet t-shirt contests. These women struggle to keep their hair covered while in the water. At times, they wear several layers to prevent a strand of hair from showing. In some cases, the pulling, tugging, and fixing of their swimwear reaches obsessive-compulsive proportions. Veiled women are always watching one another, and ready to help to cover each other up. Even their menfolk participate in this ritual.
If veiled women enter the water too quickly, or dive in, they risk surfacing with their hair fully exposed, causing them great shame and consternation. Since the swimming attire of veiled women clings, particularly to their pubic area and thighs, they find themselves pulling on the material, on average, three to four times. The wind often complicates matter further. So self-conscious are they of their bodies, and well-aware that their swimwear clings to their bodies, showing all their shapes, as much as if they were wearing secular swimwear, veiled women often cross their arms in front of their chest since their breasts and nipples are particularly showcased when they leave the water. Many women invariably expose the contours of their buttocks. The swimwear worn by veiled women to the beach varies from black outfits that cover everything but the face and part of the feet. Some opt for colorful burkinis. Younger women favor solid colors while older women opt for flowery patterns. However, young, unmarried women, are rare on some beaches in North Africa.
Although sexual segregation is not absolute on beaches in North Africa, gender mixing is rare as they are directly prohibited. The rare tourists who dare to show public displays of affection, as simple as a hug, are shunned. Some are even asked to leave the beach. Women who dare to wear two-piece swimsuits, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslim tourists, are the subject of mockery and taunts. The rare tourist who dares to bare her breasts is soon forced to cover up, thanks to the intimidating stares and dirty looks of the locals.
The claim that the beach is a tolerant place does not apply in such places. The fear of judgement is omnipresent on beaches in the Maghreb. While men are free to do as they please, namely, to expose their legs and torsos and even show off their fit and sculpted bodies, such is not the case for women. Women are not free to go as they please and to do as they please. Constraints are placed on them by clothing and by men. The closer a girl reaches the age of puberty, the more the beach becomes taboo to her. As soon as she is married, and has children, she can eventually return to the beach, under the watchful eye of her husband and the matriarchs of the family.
As Héas observed, the beach is a place to see and to be seen. Although bikini clad women show more skin than burkini clad ones, the shapes of their bodies are equally obvious, particularly when the latter get wet, and both attract the male gaze. Not only do men look at women, regardless of whether they are wearing bikinis or burkinis, but women also look at men. In fact, if veiled women are attracted to the beach because it allows them the opportunity to look at bodies of men while respecting clothing regulations that prohibit them from showing their own. Moreover, women look at women more than men do, sizing them up, checking them out, and judging them.
The male gaze, Héas demonstrated, is drawn to women, regardless of whether they wear bikinis or burkinis. He notes that in the absence of young, pubescent, women, the male gaze is redirected toward married women, and, this is quite disturbing, toward pre-pubescent girls who stimulate the interest of the men who are present. In other words, rather than direct their gaze on young, single, women, who are potentially available for courtship or marriage, in what is entirely natural behavior, their absence leads men to focus their attention on married women and mothers, who should be off limits, as such attraction can lead to adultery, as well as pre-pubescent girls, which encourages pedophilia. This is another example of how Islamic rules and regulations regarding dress and women create a societal imbalance. The beach reflects society. As Arezki has observed, “beaches are adopting the Islamist norms that are conquering societies.” A transformation, or better yet, a mutation is taking place throughout the Muslim world, and it is far from auspicious. The metamorphosis that has taken place over the past fifty years is startling and foreboding. The contrast cannot be starker. As Hélé Béji describes:
I have always worn the bikini. In Tunisia in the 1960s, we all wore Brigitte Bardot-style vichy mini bikinis, our chests squeezed into tight bandeaus. We went down the street in shorts. Until the emergence of active political Islam, the question of nudity was not raised. If we had been told that one day it would be a struggle to go swimming in a bikini, we would have laughed. Today, on the beaches, bikinis have not disappeared, but we have to put up with the presence of this new sea monster called the “burkini.” What a disaster! (Le Figaro)
Give the Islamists an inch; they will take a mile, grab your ruler, and break it in half. While tolerance is a virtue, tolerating intolerance is intolerable. Lahcen Haddad (b. 1960), the Moroccan Minister of Tourism, may claim that “we respect the values of tolerant Islam” and as such, “the bikini and the burkini co-exist on our beaches” (Mateso) This seemingly secular liberal tolerance is the Achille’s Heel that the Islamists aim to hamstring. They will never be satisfied with the right of women to wear burkinis. They will only be satisfied when women are deprived of the right to wear anything else to the beach and the pool. So much is clear from the anti-bikini campaign launched by Islamists in 2015, which provoked strong remarks from the Minister of Tourism:
Those who do not want to see bikinis, just have to avoid Moroccan beaches. Until further notice, we are neither in Afghanistan nor in Saudi Arabia… We will never accept these unacceptable behaviors of people who set themselves up as vigilantes of morality and virtue. (Horchani)
The Islamists in Morocco, like those in Algeria, Tunisia, and elsewhere, have continued their campaigns of harassment and intimidation. In Morocco, they encourage people to take photographs of women in bathing suits and post them on social media to shame them (Samint). A dozen young men swarmed and assaulted a women at the beach in Salé on grounds that her attire was “provocative” (Samint). Two women were also assaulted on a beach in Inzegane (Samint). At the Sablettes beach in Mohammedia, over two-dozen Islamists attacked several dozen women with sabers, in a cowardly attempt to impose their retrograde worldview (Samint). According to a fatwa issued by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, any woman who swims in the sea is an adulteress who deserves to be punished (Grumberg). Paleoconservative clerics, both Sunni and Shiite, commonly blame poorly veiled or unveiled women for earthquakes and other natural disasters (Samint, Associated Press, Ridgeon 212). Time and again, Muslim clerics preach that women who do not veil themselves should not be surprised if they get raped. If that is the case, the burkini reinforces a theology, jurisprudence, and ideology of rape.
For Richard Martineau, it is preposterous to claim that the burkini liberates women instead of imprisoning them since without it they would not be able to go to the beach or the pool. This is like congratulating the white American racists of the 1960s for creating “places for blacks” at the back of buses:
Wow, it is so cool to allow blacks to travel at the back of the bus. Like that, they can travel, and go to work, rather than stay home… Finally, segregation on buses does not imprison blacks. On the contrary, it liberates them!
The burkini, liberating garment… But by what twisted logic can one arrive at such an absurd conclusion? Ultramisogynistic religious forces women to cover themselves from head to toe because their bodies are dirty, and we find that liberating? The West has really fallen on its head!
Soon, if this continues, we will congratulate the Islamists who whip their victims because it is less serious than cutting off their heads. “Wow, the whip, what progress! No matter how much we say, it is still more humane than beheading, right? …
Instead of slaying a backward ideology that stifles women, the left and the feminist movement extol the virtues of the veil and the burkini! … Today, we say that the burkini liberates. What will we say tomorrow? That the driving ban for Saudi women protects them from accidents?
For secular and feminist intellectuals and activists, the solution is simple and straightforward:
It is NOT possible to cohabit peacefully with the Salafists because the more space they take up in public space in one way or another, the more VIOLENT they become. Thus, the Islamists are testing the State’s ability to react, and if the response is not firm enough, they gain self-confidence and set in motion an escalation of violence. The only solution is ZERO TOLERANCE against all attacks on freedom of conscience and all attempts to seize power by Islamists. (Samint)
People who oppose democracy cannot participate in democracy. People who oppose freedom should not be given free rein to deny the freedom of others. Partisans of totalitarian ideologies, like communism, fascism, and Islamism, have no place in free democratic societies. According to Islamic law, a human being cannot sell him/herself into slavery as he was born free. Freedom cannot be given to people who wish to deprive others of freedom. “Modernized” Islamism is Islamism, nonetheless. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it remains a pig. As secular, feminist, Muslim women realize, “behind the legalization of the ‘burkini,’ there lies, in the long term, the pure and simple prohibition of the bikini and monokini” (Samint). For the activists from Révolution Féministe,
It is an illusion to think that the Islamists would be likely to “tolerate” others on the beaches and that the “non-burkini wearers” will be able to quietly continue basking in the sun when the burkini has become a banality: the Islamists want a CIVIL WAR. The work of proselytizing and trivializing such highly charged clothing from an ideological, social, societal, and political point of view is a danger for the population. Wearing the veil is an alienation for women and the display of complicity with the Wahhabism of the retrograde monarchies of the Gulf countries wanting to create an empire which will be Islamic, a caliphate on a planetary scale by force and with great reinforcements of petrodollars. This enterprise must be eradicated and apprehended as a form of fascism. (Samint)
As history has shown, the only rights that Muslim fundamentalists and Islamists recognize are their rights. The only law they accept is God’s so-called law. They want the right to not see women unless they are covered from head to toe and under the guardianship of men. Though she is opposed to burkini bans, Nervana Mahmoud, a British Egyptian commentator, insists on the right not to wear a burkini. In her words,
First, it symbolizes a perception that women who cover up within the Muslim world are superior to those who do not: When concealing flesh is considered to be the morally correct interpretation of God’s order, it automatically places the covered woman in a higher moral league. Less covered women have no option but to put up with a lower-league status or cover their bodies. Even non-hijabi women are expected to refrain from showing more flesh by wearing a swimming costume that conforms with commonly accepted customs. God forbid if a Muslim woman opted to wear a bikini. That alone would label her simply as a whore.
Second, many Islamists advocate total segregation and are not content with the burkini. One might presume that once Muslim women agree to cover up fully, the pro-regressionists will finally leave them alone. But the opposite is true. The more women give in and cover up, the more the advocates of regression will raise the stakes higher. Many scholars advocate a dress code that does not stick to the body or reveal a silhouette of its shape. For them, the burkini is problematic, as they prefer total segregation between men and women on beaches. Completely segregated Islamist beach resorts are common in Iran and have started to appear in Turkey and other Muslim countries.
It may surprise many, but the harassment of women on public beaches, which is prevalent in Muslim countries, is almost negligible in Western countries, despite the revealing swimming costumes many women wear. Even in Egypt, the harassment of non-burkini wearing women is much less in upmarket beach resorts. This phenomenon destroys the main pillar of the Islamist argument that covering up protects women. In fact, the obsession with covering the flesh only triggers more misogyny and paranoia. In a strict, regressive environment, when the flesh is covered, desperate men will focus on a women’s looks, the way she moves, and her body language.
Not only are Muslim nations being “Islamized” by the Islamists, but immigrants, along with converts to radical Islam are doing the same in the West, turning the land of the mini-skirt and the bikini into the land of the the hijab and the burka. Western women fought for the right to go to the beach and the pool. They fought for the right to go to fitness centers. They struggled against gender segregation and discrimination. Now, so-called feminists support the efforts of Muslims to have women-only rooms in the YMCA, women-only hours in the pool, and women-only days at water parks where any boy over the age of ten is banned (Samint). If the burkini is really shari‘ah compliant, why ban the presence of males? The ultimate objective, however, is to have gender segregated spaces. What is more, at many of these women-only water activities, only burkinis are permitted, and one and two-piece bathing suits are prohibited. Islamically, however, women are only required to wear hijab before non-marriable men. They are not obliged to do so in the front of other women. So why tell women they cannot wear bikinis to a woman-only day at a pool or waterpark? Because men might work there? And even so, can’t a Muslim woman choose to not wear a burkini?
The claim that burkini women believe in choice is deliberately deceptive. Their ultimate goal is to impose the burkini and ban the bikini. Throughout the Maghreb, Salafist women in black burkas have organized demonstrations demanding the creation of women-only beaches that are comply with their extremist conception of Islamic law. Such beaches would surely not be friendly to women who wear regular swimwear. As the activists from Révolution Féministe argue:
A woman who wears a veil or a “burkini” will try to make you feel guilty or accuse you of “racism” and of “obstructing her freedom” or not respecting her “choice” if you criticize her. We could compare this attitude to that of a person suffering from Stockholm syndrome, who will continue to defend tooth and nail their attacker: here, these women, although subject to a patriarchal dress code that constrains and hinders them, are ardent defenders of the system that oppresses them. It is our duty as citizens to help them free themselves from this grip and not to LOOK AWAY or push them into a life of more servitude by handing them over to their despots. Subsequently, the obligation to wear the “burkini” will be orchestrated behind the scenes for other women and for little girls by an effect of mimicry and by means of a social conditioning flouting their FREEDOM OF CONSCIOUSNESS since the latter will be exposed to religious fundamentalism on a daily basis.
While there are Islamists in all Muslim nations, the young men who swarm the beaches of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, harassing, insulting, and spitting at women who wear bikinis, belong, in large part, to immigrant families who live in Europe. They were “imported” into Europe and now they have exported their radical, sexist, Islam back to the Maghreb. As Mimunt Hamido Yahia notes, “not being able to wear a bikini is something new: it happens mostly on the beaches of large Moroccan cities, those that are filled with young men from immigrant families” (63). If a Moroccan woman wishes to wear a bikini, or a one-piece swimming suit, she is forced to find an isolated beach in the countryside to exercise a right that she once took for granted (63). So-called feminists defend the right of women to wear burkinis. However, they do not stand up for the rights of Muslim women who go to beaches in bikinis (63). No. The very people they defend are those that refuse to serve women and those who call Muslim women sluts, and spit on them, because they go to beaches wearing bikinis (63). As for those so-called feminists who celebrate “World Hijab Day” and defend the right of women to wear burkinis, Mimunt Hamido Yahia asks:
It is a noble cause to support women who claim to have freely chosen a patriarchal symbol? … It does not matter that thousands of women die every year because of that piece of cloth; they must stand firm because it is demanded by the Muslim patriarchy. To admit that millions of women are forced to wear hijab would shake that “fortress” and its patriarchy… From the time it was created in 2013, that day ignores all those who have been mistreated and murdered in the name of the hijab… For all of us who remember, every day, those who are obliged to wear it, because we know them personally, because they write to us relating the struggles they face, and because we read the news that relates how they are imprisoned, murdered, and lashed, it is a sad day. If we are to put an end to this violence, we must also fight against the symbols that perpetuate it. (105)
Yes, there are so-called “Islamic feminists” who insist that the veil is not obligatory, yet wear it, because they are free to do so (109). In other words, “they are free to do what their religious representatives consider obligatory. They are free to obey” (110). For Wassyla Tamzali, “Islamic feminism” is a contradiction in terms. As she explains,
This Western movement born in Barcelona has little interest and place in our country where Islamists advance with their faces revealed. In our countries we do not speak of “Islamic feminism,” and feminist Muslim women especially don’t. The aims of its followers… go beyond women’s liberation concerns. They want to convince people of their religion’s virtues and to do so, they want to spread the idea that Koranic laws are the way to freedom and equality. If it were so, we would know it, we who have been fighting for decades for this. We have opted at long last for the separation of civil laws from religious laws. We cannot reform, so let us split up!
The main political objective of the so-called “Islamic feminism” offensive is to delegitimize our struggles, to delegitimize feminism, which is declined without adjectives, and especially not Islamic. It is as absurd as saying Islamic human rights! Let us not import these false debates. The Egyptian and Tunisian Muslim Brotherhoods and Salafists of all latitudes have responded to these scabrous positions. Their aims jeopardize women’s rights when they exist, as in Tunisia, and are radically opposed to the conquest of rights where they are not recognized, i.e. the rest of the Arab world. They removed any doubts we might have about the merits of the Islamic way for women. It is a dead end if you commit to it.
As a result of the efforts of Islamist women, and their pseudo-feminist allies from the West, women’s rights are being trampled upon and the progress they achieved after centuries of struggles is being squandered. There was a time when the Western world turned Casablanca, Tunis, Cairo, Baghdad, and Tehran into Paris. As the West has become weaker, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto are being turned into Qum and Kabul. Not only do Muslim men of foreign origin harass women, but French women who wear shorts or swimwear are swarmed, harassed, and insulted by Muslim females of foreign ancestry, who accuse them of being filthy whores. Thanks to mass immigration from the Muslim world, and the radicalization of the children of immigrants and refugees, the Taliban, al-Qaedah, Hamas, the Hezbollah, and ISIS have come to town. Despite the disproportionate attention they receive from the liberal and fake news media, many Muslims in the Western world are moderates, modernists, and even staunch supporters of secularism. The hijab and burkini wearers, however, are treated as the spokespersons for Islam, thereby amplifying their voice and spreading their message.
Razika Adnani, a French Algerian professor, philosopher, and Islamogist, has done outstanding work articulating the arguments of secular, reformist, and progressive Muslims. She notes that women who wear the burkini are convinced that it is a religious requirement when, in reality, it is not (2019). She explains that the women who wear burkinis are practicing Muslims who wish to participate in the modern world (2019). They want to work and go to the pool while submitting to what they consider Islamic rules (2019). Simply because it was not known in the past, the burkini, in her view, is not modern (2019). Modernity, however, it not an article of clothing (2019). It is an attitude that is found in mature societies (2019).
Far from liberating women, the burkini, like the veil, is fundamentally discriminatory, as can be seen from the fact that men can dress as they please and feel the sun on their skin (2019). Hence, to defend the veil and the burkini based on equality is nonsensical (2019). Another reason the burkini cannot be considered modern is that modernity values the person while the veil reduces women to being bodies (2019). The Islamic philosophy of the veil dehumanizes human beings (2019). It views men as incapable of controlling their lust (2019). It places the burden on women to protect themselves from sexual harassment and assault (2019). It is disastrous for human relations and the quality of life in Muslim societies (2019).
As a result of the philosophy of hijab, Muslim women have been cloistered for centuries, “a barbaric custom and a crime against humanity which must never be forgotten” (2019). As Adnani notes, it is preposterous to claim that the burkini frees Muslim women since, in France, they always had the freedom to go to the beach before the resurgence of the veil and the advent of the burkini (2019). Rather than protecting women, the burkini threatens the rights and freedoms they fought long and hard to acquire (2019). Like women who wear the veil, women who choose to wear the burkini choose to be discriminated against (2022). In her estimation, it threatens “our secularism, our values, and our humanity” (2022).
For Noujad Fathi, a Moroccan journalist, and many likeminded women, there is no question that the burkini should be banned. The women from Révolution Féministe argue that prohibiting the burkini is similar to previous bans on Catholic clerical attire in places like France and Mexico. They argue that the burkini, like the cassock, is neither a religious requirement, nor a cultural custom. They view the burkini as profoundly anti-social and an affront to secular values. Far from a fashion accessory, it is a form of anti-fashion. Rather than represent freedom, it stands for an ideology that opposes freedom. While the liberals and the woke mob focus on the feelings of the Islamists, they show no consideration for the concerns of Muslims who oppose them. They act as if all Muslims supported the burkini and the hijab. Many do not. They have opposed the spread of Sunni and Shiite Islamism for over half a century. In fact, many fled to the West to escape the Islamists, only to find them in control of most mosques and, to their horror, to see that they have secured the support of so-called secular and liberal states. Regarding the burkini, Fathi does not mince her words:
It is a symbol of oppression and an abject provocation … As for its defenders who compare it to a surf outfit, who are you kidding? Do you compare a jumpsuit to a suit that was specially designed for women who have fully internalized the idea that their entire bodies are a sexual organ and that the desire it provokes in sexually frustrated people is their own responsibility? These women are not even supposed to be in a place where the nearly nude bodies of both sexes mix, that’s why they want private swimming pools for women. What? The burkini is a way to get them out of their homes? So, you admit that they are, in fact, oppressed and that their veil is not a symbol of freedom, but a constraint that is rationalized as a choice. Be careful, they don’t tolerate you like you tolerate them, tomorrow it is bikinis that will be in the minority on French beaches.
And this is the truth. Some spas in Europe are now banning bikinis, but permitting burkinis, out of “cultural and religious sensitivity.” In some parts, including Germany, parents can no longer safely take their wives and children to public pools and waterparks where Muslim migrants are bound to harass them. While imposing halal food on all children in a public school, regardless of their religion, might seem offensive, but relatively benign, it goes hand in hand with requiring all girls, Muslim or not, to wear burkinis, lest they offend Islamic sensitivity. In parts of Europe, authorities have advised women to dye their hair black, to not go out at night, and, if they do so, to be accompanied by a male escort (Chesler 2017: 549). This is not immigration and integration. It is conquest accompanied by religious and cultural imposition.
For Zineb El Rhazoui, the French Moroccan human rights activist, recipient of the 2019 Simone Veil Prize, and the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize nominee,
The Western media, in an unbearable complacency, has defended the burkini as a “freedom” and a legitimate cultural expression. I am 35 years old, and I have never seen a burkini in Morocco during my entire youth. But they appear now that Islamists have knifed women in bikinis. There were whole pages of “slut shaming” on Facebook by Islamists throwing pictures of women in bathing suits saying: “Look at these infidels, these bitches.” Moroccan beaches are not filling up with burkinis, they are emptying themselves of women. Feminists who are not bothered by the burkini do not deserve to carry the noble feminist struggle. Because they are accomplices of those who want to make women’s bodies disappear.
1.5 Conclusions
Despite claims to the contrary, which are the product of ill-will or ignorance, there is no consensus that hijab is obligatory in Islam. Although it is agreed upon that Muslim women are required to cover their private parts in the public sphere, its definition has ranged from as much as the entirety of the female form, including the hands, faces, and feet, to as little as their external genitalia. Far from rigid, restrictive, and confining, Islamic jurisprudence was fluid, and Muslim jurists issued a diverse body of rulings that reflected the lived realities of women around the world. There is therefore no basis to turn hijab into a doctrine and treat it as the sixth pillar of Islam. In their effort to impose the Islamist banner that is the hijab, Muslim fundamentalists, extremists, and apologists, have compared it to the veils worn by nuns. They have equated the right to wear the hijab with the right to wear the bikini. They have alleged that the burkini is no different than the bikini. As this study has shown, the arguments of Islamist apologists in favor of the hijab and the bathing burka are vacuous, dishonest, disingenuous, and duplicitous. The bubble of their inflated lies has popped.
Works Cited
Adnani, Razika. “Le voile et le burkini ne protègent pas la femme. Ils menacent sa liberté et ses droits.” Razika Adnani (August 20, 2019). Internet: https://www.razika-adnani.com
—. “Le voile, c’est la discrimination qui s’installe dans l’espace public.”Razika Adnani (June 16, 2022). Internet: https://www.razika-adnani.com
Associated Press. “Women to Blame for Earthquakes, says Iran Cleric.” The Guardian (April 19, 2010). Internet: https://www.theguardian.com
Bladi. “Vidéo: un défilé en bikini sur l’esplanade de la mosquée Hassan, à Rabat.” Bladi (April 13, 2015). Internet: https://www.bladi.net
CBS News. “Scientists Say Women Stare at Other Women’s Chests as Much as Men.” CBS News (October 29, 2013). Internet: https://www.cbsnews.com
Chesler, Phyllis. Islamic Gender Apartheid: Exposing a Veiled War against Women. Nashville: New English Review Press, 2017.
Cohn, Meredith. “Poll: Women Feel Judged, Lack Confidence in a Bikini.” The Oklahoman (June 3, 2011). Internet: https://www.oklahoman.com
De Lacey, Martha. “Women Spend More Time Checking Out Other Women than They do Men.” Daily Mail (November 14, 2012). Internet: https://www.dailymail.co.uk
Dell’Amore, Christine. “Bikinis Make Men See Women as Objects, Scans Confirm.” National Geographic (February 16, 2009). Internet: https:// http://www.nationalgeographic.com
Dye, Lee. “Scientists Prove It: Men Ogle Women, But So Do Women.” ABC News (November 3, 2013). Internet: https://abcnews.go.com
Fathi, Noujad. “Best Off, ‘Les filles en jeans sont regardée de travers.’” Mondafrique (August 17, 2017). Internet: https://mondafrique.com
Faiz, Sabrina El-. “Miss Plage: Quand les marocaines défilaient en bikini à Casablanca.” Ya Biladi (January 28, 2015). Internet: https://www. yabiladi.com
Figaro, Le. “Hélé Béji: Le voile détruit l’universel féminin.” Middle East Transparent (August 23, 2017). Internet: https://middleeasttransparent.com
Grumberg, Jean-Patrick. “Nouvelle fatwa: une femme qui se baigne dans la mer commet l’adultère et doit être punie.” Dreuz (December 5, 2013). Internet: https://www.dreuz.info
Héas, Stephane. “Voiles et tenues de bain sur les plages de Bialik.” Stéphane Héas (January 26, 2017). Internet: http://www.stephaneheassociologue.fr
Horchani, Salah. “À propos du droit/de l’obligation de port du foulard, du voile, du burkini, du niqab.” Le Club de Mediapart (September 7, 2016). Internet : https://blogs.mediapart.fr
Ishine. “Why Girls Wear Bikinis? The Psychology Behind a Popular Swimsuits.” Ishine (May 2, 2022). Internet: https://www.ishine365.com
Khan, Khadija. “Hijab is Not a Symbol of Freedom.” Areo Magazine (November 29, 2021). Internet: https://areomagazine.com
Khan, Khadija. “Islamic Feminism is a Myth.” Areo Magazine (February 5, 2018). Internet: https://areomagazine.com
Ksouri, Maya. “Vu de Tunisie: le burkini, insulte au combat mené chaque jour par les femmes arabes.” Marianne (September 9, 2016). Internet: https:// http://www.marianne.net
Krupnick, Ellie. “Bikinis vs. One-Piece Swimsuits: Which Do American Women Wear More?” Huff Post (April 25, 2013). Internet: https://www.huffpost.com
Mahmoud, Nervana. “The Right Not to Wear a Burkini.” Nervana (August 21, 2016). Internet: https://nervana1.org
Martineau, Richard. “Le racisme est-il plus grave que le sexisme?” Le Journal de Montréal (March 13, 2023). Internet: https://www.journaldemontreal.com
—. “Burkini: le monde à l’envers.” Le Journal de Montréal (August 22, 2016). Internet: https://www.journaldemontreal.com
Mateso, Martin. “Le burkini ou le bikini: de Rabat à Alger, le débat est loin d’être tranché.” France TV (August 28, 2016). Internet: https://www.francetvinfo.fr
Morrow, John Andrew. Hijab: Word of God or Word of Man? Washington D.C. and London: Academica Press, 2024.
Murray, Daisy. “We Knew You Checked Out Other Women. But Now We Know Exactly Where You Look.” Elle (February 17, 2017). Internet: https:// http://www.elle.com
Rhazoui, Zineb El. “The Veil is a Visual Marking Technique, Not of Those Who Wear it, But of Those Who do Not.” Feminist Resources (2020). Internet: https://ressourcesfeministes.fr
Ridgeon, Lloyd. Hijab: Three Modern Iranian Seminarian Perspectives. London: Gingko, 2021.
Said, Arezki. “Algérie: fini le bikini, place au burkini.” Jeune Afrique (August 26, 2015). Internet: https://www.jeuneafrique.com
SAMINT. “Voilement islamique par ‘burkini’ interposé : Sea, Salafism and Sun. ” Révolution Féministe (September 3, 2016). Internet: https://revolutionfeministe.wordpress.com
Tamzali, Wassyla. “Feminist Translations.” Resources Féministes (2020). Internet: https://ressourcesfeministes.fr
Taylor, Jordyn. “Men Have No right to Hate the High-Waisted Bikini.” Observer (May 18, 2015). Internet: https://observer.com
Yahia, Mimunt Hamido. No nos taparán: Islam, velo, patriarcado. Madrid: Akal, 2021.
—. “Sin bikini no hay democracia.” No Nos Taparán (2021). Internet: http://www.nonostaparan.org
Dr. John Andrew Morrow 