It’s Not About The Burqa By Mariam Khan

It’s the belief of people in their voices and the realisation of its responsibility which move mountains, one such brave attempt was of Mariam Khan, the editor of this book of essays, who used her craft as an answer to the statement made by David Cameron, calling muslim women ‘traditionally submissive’.

‘It’s Not About The Burqa’ is collection of essays of muslim women by the muslim women for the world to read and know, so that in any intensity, one never belittles the plurality of a community by a symbol of clothing. Very few books which takes on political matter are less talked about, as they aren’t just being personal enough to matter to people, to have them talking about it. This isn’t one of those books, it takes on the important matters concerning muslim women with personal stories, and for the same reason it’s widely talked about in the book community.

I really like to read books which challenge me but when I picked it, I did not consider it to challenge me as much as It did. Turned out I too had some biases about the community which comes from my lack of awareness.

And I can point out this one essay which particularly brought it in focus, the essay on the representation of muslim women in advertising. It talked about how the representation must come with terms and conditions because there is no point of glorifying one facet of muslim women for the sake of aesthetic, it’s actually worse than no representation. It puts emphasis on giving them a representation that matters, the one that takes them as they are with their faith, minds, beliefs, talent, varied professionalisms, their authentic selves. Most ads out there represent muslim women which is jaded and don’t even relate to the muslim women themselves, not all muslim women are beauty bloggers or rich wives of men in Dubai or poor and struggling to go to schools. Why tell the same story, always? Being a person of advertising and culture, it opened my eyes to the ‘for sale sake’ version of comfortable diversity we are packaging.

Another essay which stood out for me was of the story of ‘Khadija’, the first feminist of Islam. She was a women of business who actually had a role in commissioning the Islam revolution. It’s known to few, how pure Islam is, how it talks about strength and power of women, and NOT what actually the ‘men of religion (sic)*, or the interpretor of religious malady, make of it. Did you know it’s not even mentioned in Quran to necessarily cover women’s head? I didn’t know either. But at the same time, if they choose to do so, it’s their choice, respect it don’t force it on them.

This one time I remember, I called a friend of mine ‘bad muslim’ just because she was really sexual. (I was immature I know, but I must be 15 or 16)

The other essays were pretty interesting too, it ranged over various topics like the need of mental health awareness in the muslim community, the relation with their hijab, the jaded coverage in the news platforms and journalism, maritial laws, women of colour, religious practise, women in stem, feminism in the community of muslim women (are you a feminist if you wear hijab? feminism has nothing to do with one’s religious faith, but the white washers of feminism would differ (sic)) , the mansplained definitions of humility, modesty and shame, the importance of stories and narratives and the stories of muslim immigrants; this book wasn’t just a collection of essays for me, it was education ( so it felt).

I want to sign off this review by a brilliant idea the book left me with, the idea of the ‘default man’ of the society and culture. The best average out of the population, the one with the most commonality in the crowd and the country. It said that each society has a default man, the more far you are in terms of differences with that default man the more biased will be your treatment in the society. I don’t know on which side of that brilliant idea I am on, but that really explains discrimination and bias effectively. It’s a big thought, sleep over it, maybe?

I really hope you pick this one, If I could I would put in each library of the schools worldwide so that no gatekeeper of culture or power ever shuts door on diversity, multiplicity of a community in the mainstream, ever again.