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A woman wears hair bands in the shape of the Olympic rings before the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing on Aug 8, 2008. Women’s hairstyles have become a hot topic for Indonesia’s Muslims.
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 group of clerics linked to a girls’ boarding school in East Java to issue a fatwa banning chemical hair straightening, a type of perm treatment known as rebonding.
The commission’s deputy secretary Aminudin Yakub said the school had requested a formal edict declaring rebonding a breach of Islamic law “except for women who are married and have the permission of their husbands”, Reuters reported.
The boarding school clerics had also asked for a fatwa banning dreadlocks, punk dos and “funky hairstyles”, he said.
“For now, we have yet to make an institutional decision on this. So far, we have not seen strong evidence to ban it,” he said. “It could be discussed in future, but right now it is not a priority.”
Another commission official, Asrorun Ni’am Sholeh, said any fatwa that forbids Muslims from straightening their hair should be put in the right context or the public would find it misleading.
“If the intention and the outcome are negative, then it should not be allowed. But if the intention and the outcome are positive, then it is recommended,” he was quoted by Antara news agency as saying.
Asrorun emphasised that rebonding is a beautifying technique. It is permitted as long as the materials used do not harm users. From an Islamic law perspective, he said, hygiene and beauty are recommended.
Hair salons in downtown Jakarta are bustling with young Muslim women, bemused by the sudden interest in their hair.
Eryanti, 21, a Jakarta-based accountant who is Muslim and has had her hair straightened four times, told Reuters she had no intention of stopping.
“It looks better and it is easier to brush,” she said.
A spokesman for Islamic women’s rights group Rahima said women’s hairstyle preferences could be the topic of discussion, but were ultimately an individual choice.
Some injustices such as polygamy and female genital mutilation are more important than rebonding, she added.
Indonesia is a majority Muslim but officially secular country. Islamic edicts have no binding legal power, but that has not stopped the MUI, which consists of elected clerics and scholars, from issuing fatwas on practices ranging from yoga to failing to vote in elections. — The Straits Times
It’s wrong that dreadlocks have been put in the same context as hair straightening. Dreadlocks are a natural hairstyle, especially for those with curly hair, and is symbolic of the rejection of the conventional “Bablon” ideal for beauty. It is getting back to nature, and can be easily and thoroughly washed so long as the person has naturally curly hair.
Chemical hair straighteners, also known as “relaxers” however, should be banned across the board. There is not one in existence that does not cause damage to a person’s hair and scalp. They are totally unhealthy and also unnecessary since the invention of the curling iron, hot comb, and flat iron.
Even people with extremely tightly curled African hair can now straighten their hair with the combination blowdry and flat iron or heat setting. The only reason people use the chemical relaxers is because of the belief that the natural hair texture is somehow wrong and should be erradicated rather than just styled if someone wants a different look.
Back when people didn’t know the real level of harm it caused, it was understandable that this was seen as a good option, but now we know it is 100% bad for you. It melts your hair shaft, eats your scalp, and eventually causes baldness and damage to the kidneys.
Dreadlocks don’t cause any harm except that exploitive, Hollywood obsessed boys leave you alone. LOL!