Burqa

A burqa (Urdu: بُرقع) (ˈbʊrqʊʕ, ˈbʊrqɑʕ (also transliterated burkha, bourkha, burka or burqu' from arabic برقع burquʻ or burqaʻ), also known as chadri or paranja in Central Asia) is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover their bodies when in public.

Quotes

• As a consequence of the purdah system, a segregation of the Muslim women is brought about... She cannot go even to the mosque to pray, and must wear burka (veil) whenever she has to go out. These burka women walking in the streets is one of the most hideous sights one can witness in India. Such seclusion cannot but have its deteriorating effects upon the physical constitution of Muslim women.
  • B.R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

• Terrorists are insane people, clothes also can change one's thoughts sometimes. When we were searching for prisoners who had escaped a detention centre, Melis Turganbayev (the former interior minister) came to me and said that they had been eavesdropping on telephone conversations of wives and mistresses of criminals. Their wives and mistresses wore sacks on their heads and they wanted to organise bombings. If you do not like Kyrgyzstan you can leave our country and go wherever you want. We can pay your travel expenses, even to Syria.
  • Almazbek Atambayev, speaking at a press conference — Kyrgyzstan president: 'Women in mini skirts don't become suicide bombers', BBC (13 August 2016)

• I do feel visceral revulsion at the burka because for me it is a symbol of the oppression of women.
  • Richard Dawkins, as quoted in Richard Dawkins causes outcry after likening the burka to a bin liner (10 August 2010), The Telegraph.

• This strip of land where there are no unmarried women, or love matches, and where mathematics are considered an opinion, includes six hundred million people, half of whom, more or less, are women who live behind the darkness of a veil. More than a veil, it is a sheet that covers her from head to toe like a shroud in order to hide her from the eyes of all but her husband, her children, or a feeble servant. This sheet, which is called purah or burka or pushi or kulle or djellaba, has two holes for the eyes, or a fine mesh opening two centimeters high and six centimeters wide. The wearer gazes out at the sky and her fellow man like a prisoner peering through the bars of her prison... These veiled women are the unhappiest women in the world. But the paradox is that they don’t know it because they don’t know what exists beyond this veil that imprisons them.
  • Oriana Fallaci, quoted in De, S. C., & Harss, M. (2017). Oriana Fallaci: The journalist, the agitator, the legend. quoting The Useless Sex: Voyage around the Woman, 1961.

• In my view, a fully covered woman has little chance of integrating in Germany.
  • Angela Merkel, in an interview with the German news organization RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland — Merkel says burqa likely hinders integration in Germany, Deutsche Welle (18 August 2016)

• German law takes precedence over sharia. The full face veil should be banned, wherever legally possible.
  • Angela Merkel, "Angela Merkel calls for burka ban in Germany", The Telegraph (6 December 2016).

• I may not be here to titillate, but I am not sorry if I have that edge. People aren't coming to the theaters to see me in a burqa.
  • Mallika Sherawat, Movie Mag International (September 2004)

• Wearing a burqa is like walking inside a big fabric shuttlecock with only a grille to see through and on hot days it’s like an oven.
  • Malala Y. quoted in Hijab Row: Malala Epitomises Great Liberal Tradition of Standing up for Islamist Fundamentalists

• “Burqa is not a part of Islam. It is a part of culture, the culture that the people of the subcontinent have been following since ages. Nobody can enforce a dress code in the name of Islam. It is categorically un-Islamic,”.
  • renowned Islamic scholar Maulana Wahiduddin Khan told IANS. as quoted in [1]

External links

• Burqa ban: What it means for the West – TCN News
• France's burqa ban – background by Radio France Internationale in English
• The absence of evidence for banning burqas – The Guardian
• The Islamic veil across Europe – BBC
• Beautiful Burqas – slideshow by Life magazine
• "influence of Persian language in Arabic"