Moroccan schoolteacher Rhimou Bachtioui has been engaged three times. Each time, she called off the marriage because her fiancés wrongly believed she was “subservient, docile and very conservative”. Like a growing number of young women across the Maghreb, she wears a veil. “The hijab is merely a matter of dress that concerns no one other [...]
Industry is estimated to be worth more than $96b by conservative estimates Dubai: Thanks to years of steady acceptance and growing support from top fashion icons, Arabic and Islamic fashion is set to continue its influence on the global fashion industry, according to French Fashion University Esmod Dubai, a fashion institution in the Middle East. [...]
In the past seven years, hair straightening, also called hair rebonding in Southeast Asian countries, has mainly been the preserve of glossy fashion and beauty magazines. Early this year, however, hair rebonding has made headlines in all kinds of media — thanks to a group of East Java clerics who issued an edict forbidding Muslim [...]
A few weeks ago, Iraqi journalist Dalya Hassan created a stir with an essay in The Washington Postexplaining why she had decided to don a veil. Before her marriage, Hassan went about her home country uncovered. She describes her prenuptial wardrobe as “short skirts and shirts with short sleeves,” perfect for the sweltering heat of Baghdad summers. [...]
A new boutique sets out to provide Muslim wear that is classy and fashionable, yet strictly appropriate. SHOPPING for Muslim clothing and prayerwear can sometimes be such a hassle, as one often has to go to predominantly Muslim areas like Shah Alam or Jalan Masjid India in Kuala Lumpur. Now, women who want to shop [...]
The Egyptian Islamist theoretician Sayyid Qutb believed the West — in particular the United States — posed an existential threat to Islam. He feared that globalization, spearheaded by the American colossus, might eventually destroy Islam by tempting pious Muslims with freewheeling capitalism, the separation of religion from government and the unleashing of decadent “animalistic desires.” Qutb, [...]
To straighten or not to straighten? Women’s hairstyles have become a hot topic for Indonesia’s Muslims after calls from some Islamic clerics to have the procedure banned on the grounds that it invites moral danger. On Wednesday, the Fatwa Commission from the Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI) said it had received a request from a [...]
In Pasar Rakyat, a market in Meulaboh in Indonesia’s West Aceh, a young woman busily browses through a rack of skirts. She is wearing a loose, long skirt, a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt and a jilbab that comes up to her chest. She analyzes the material of the skirts, touching them to feel the texture. “I have [...]
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — She wears a helmet and drives her scooter slowly through the capital of Indonesia’s Aceh province, but Yuli is still stopped by the sharia police. Her crime: wearing tight jeans and a blouse deemed “un-Islamic”. The 20-year-old lowers her eyes and doesn’t argue with the khaki-clad male officers who summon her [...]
Modesty is the new sexy. A hijab is a head-covering worn in public by some Muslim women. It is a cultural practice with religious roots that stems back to the days of Muhammad. There are all kinds of hijabs in different styles, colors and designs. Except in Saudi Arabia, women in the Middle East are [...]
