The burqini ban, overturned by France’s highest administrative court, was an unconscionable infringement on individual freedom. About this there are no two opinions. The fact that it was a French court that overturned the ban has underscored the importance of a fair, fiercely impartial and secular judiciary ready to uphold above all human freedom or liberte. The chances of similar rulings overturning the mandatory head covering in Iran or the mandatory burqa in Saudi Arabia are non-existent. Unlike the French secular state, Saudi Arabia and Iran are medieval theocracies that do not value freedom. This is the key takeaway for me from the whole episode.
While we must uphold the right of individuals to wear anything they want to, should we also not question the notion that a major preoccupation of Islamic jurisprudence is with whether or not women cover themselves? Why has indeed the burqa or even the burqini become emblematic of Islam itself? There is certainly no requirement in the scripture for women to seclude themselves from society in a way that they become completely unidentifiable. Even the head covering is a debatable issue with a number of different opinions. It is ultimately up to the individual believer, in this case individual being believing woman, to decide how to interpret the Islamic prescriptions of piety. The right to interpret the holy book according to one’s own intellectual capacity is an inalienable right granted to every Muslim by God. Every Muslim must be his or her own priest. There is no occasion for intercession of the clergy or any third party in the deeply personal relationship between an individual Muslim and God. By the same token, a Muslim is not responsible for the interpretation of the religious doctrine by any other Muslim.
The scenes that unfolded on French beaches, especially when a woman was forced to strip down, are oddly reminiscent of scenes in the Islamic world, especially in countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, where baton-wielding mullahs have forced women to cover up. Even the excuse was similar. The French policemen cited French cultural values. This business of cultural values has been deployed with much more cruelty in the aforesaid Islamic countries.
In Sudan, brave women activists like Nahid Gabralla have been jailed for speaking out against tyranny, again something that threatens ‘cultural values’. Even in Pakistan, where mercifully there are no such laws regulating women’s wardrobe, we have often seen how women are shamed for the way they dress, with our religious conservatives speaking of cultural values of Islam. Everything and anything is an affront to cultural values. It was this vague notion of cultural values that killed Qandeel Baloch who had dared to live on her own terms and make her own way in the world.
Malala Yousafzai, who has always been dressed conservatively, also threatened these so-called cultural values. She had dared to ask for education in a valley infested with Taliban. The Taliban, in turn, tried to extinguish her flame. Benazir Bhutto, again dressed conservatively with head cover, threatened these cultural values by becoming the first woman prime minister in the Muslim world. Before her, Madar-e-Millat Fatima Jinnah threatened these cultural values by running for president against an autocratic dictator. The regime produced numerous religious fatwas and claimed that a woman running for president violates — yes, you guessed it — the cultural values of Pakistan informed by Islam.
The truth is that cultural values — no matter how deeply ingrained in any given national psyche — cannot trump individual freedoms. There is no clearer injunction in Islam than the commandment that “there is no compulsion in religion.” This commandment precludes any infringement on individual liberty in the name of religion. Islam prescribes to the believer a code of conduct, but Islam does not enforce it. In this sense, it is a truly democratic faith, leaving the individual to decide what path to follow. It is therefore to be adorned like an ornament and not a chain to bind people with. The difference is clear to anyone who can think. Ornaments are worn voluntarily and with great pride. Chains are meant to be broken. Islam means submission, but it is always a voluntary submission, not irrevocable and certainly not forcible.
Those countries where the religion of Islam is the ideological mainstay, including Pakistan, must learn a lesson from Islamic history. Aurangzeb Alamgir, the sixth Mughal Emperor, was an extremely capable general and tactician, but he eventually led the Mughal Empire to ruin because of his attempt to impose his own version of the Islamic faith on the people. Ultimately, it alienated not just the non-Muslim multitudes but even Muslims of his empire. Closer to our time Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq both attempted to follow Aurangzeb’s footsteps, and in the process have made this moderate country of ours a veritable hellhole. Think how fares the alcohol ban? Before 1977, when alcohol was not contraband, there were far fewer Pakistanis who drank. Since 1977, and despite the advent of the so-called Hudood laws, alcohol in Pakistan is far more commonplace today. It was but human nature that this would happen, and Islam does not contradict human nature.
A lesson has to be learnt. The attempt to impose religious and cultural values by force is likely to always backfire. Freedom and individual choice are paramount that cannot be restricted by arguing that certain religious and cultural values are immutable. Ultimately, any attempt to do must always paint a big question mark on that immutability. This is as true of French secularism as it is of any religion.
The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address [email protected]