Islam for Muslims

• THE FAITH OF MUSLIMS
• 1 Meaning & Importance of Faith (Iman)
• 2 Some Signs of Ideal Faith
• 3 God As The Unique and Supreme being
• 4 God as the All-Powerful
• 5 God’s Power in Shaping Destiny
• 6 God as the Creator
• 7 God as the Merciful
• 8 God as the Protector
• 9 God as the all-knowing
• 10 God as the Guide
• 11 God as the Judge
• 12 The Prophets in the Quran
• 13 Mohammad (pbuh) as the Final Prophet
• 14 Divine Books, Angels & Jinns
• 15 Various Stages of Life after Death
• GOOD DEEDS IN PERSONAL LIFE
• 16 Importance & Types of Good Deeds: Importance & Types of Good Deeds
• 17 Some Ideal Signs of Good Deeds
• 18 God at the Center of Religious Universe
• 19 Sources of Islamic Laws (Sharia)
• 20 Purification & Preparation for Prayer
• 21 The Essentials of Prayer (Salat)
• 22 The Essentials of Charity (Zakat, Fitr and Qurbani)
• 23 The Essentials of Fasting (Siam)
• 24 The Essentials of Pilgrimage (Hajj)
• 25 The Essentials of Knowledge (Ilm)
• 26 The Essentials of Inheritance (Faraiz)
• 27 The Essentials of Halal Income
• 28 The Essentials of Halal Food
• 29 The Essentials of Modest Dress & Behavior
• 30 The Essentials of Marriage & Divorce
• 31 The Essentials of Death & Funeral
• 32 Optional but Valuable Deeds
• 33 Avoiding Personal Sins: Why & How?
• 34 Fighting Satan (Devil) to Avoid Sins
• 35 Five Major Sin Packages
• GOOD DEEDS IN SOCIAL LIFE
• 36 The Importance of Preaching & Good Advice
• 37 The Techniques of Preaching & Good Advice
• 38 The Roles of Family & Parents
• 39 The Roles of Schools & Students
• 40 The Roles of Mosques & Muslims
• 41 The Roles of Print and Social Media
• 42 The Importance of Resisting Social Sins
• 43 The Techniques of Resisting Social Sins
• 44 Observing Islam in a Non-Muslim Environment
• 45 Islamic Governance: Legality, Potentials & Problems
• 46 Criminal Justice System for the Muslims
• 47 The Ideal Qualities of a Muslim: Piety & Proficiency
• 48 The Unity among the Muslims: Why & How?
• 49 The key to progress and prosperity of muslims
• 50 Final Appeal to the Muslims

29: THE ESSENTIALS OF MODEST DRESS & BEHAVIOR

Introduction:  Islam aims to protect the society from the evils of adultery and other forms of sex crimes. It formulated a “modest” (24:60) standard of dress and behavior codes for both men and women in order to make them “pure and spotless” with “abstention from (extramarital) sex” (33:33; 23:5)). These are now detailed below.

(A) Defining Private Parts (satr): Islam defines certain sex-stimulating, shameful organs as private parts (‘satr’) of the body. These cover the entire area from navel to knee for the men. For the women, private area means the entire body excepting face (needed for better vision and identification) and hand (for easier work). Some scholars also advocate for feet as third body part for exemption from ‘satr’.

              Virtually, God made women’s face as the focal point of their beauty and attraction from the males. They have two options with regard to dealing with their face. One is ‘niqab’ or veiling to cover entire face except eyes. The other is ‘hijab’ or covering of head, neck, and ears while keeping only face open with little or no makeup. However, possible problems with niqab may come from women’s insufficient vision hampering their safety as well as difficulty for identifying them for official purposes.  By contrast, hijab can better conform to the necessity for taking pictures needed for (i) their personal uses like passport, school admission, job application etc. and (ii) catering to official needs like combating voting fraud, helping crime investigation etc. Anyway the females have both options (niqab and hijab) open to choose from. Now follows details on the topic.

(B) No-Show Rule: This rule requires the Muslim women not to “show their beauty and ornaments except what (ordinarily) appear thereof” nor can they “make any dazzling display” (24:31; 33:33) of their body through make-ups before any other persons except spouse, non-marriageable nearest kin. Likewise, the women should not “strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments” or use attractive perfumes (24:31). Free mixing between marriageable close relatives like in-laws is red-flagged as ‘death’ and is therefore totally prohibited. There is no same-sex relaxation when it comes to covering of intimate private parts. That means, a man showing his private parts to another man or a woman showing the same to other woman should be treated as shameful as showing private parts to the opposite sex.  This policy helps close the door on homosexuality.

Relaxations: Limited exemptions to no-show rule apply on reasonable grounds as described below. Women, for example, can appear “before their fathers or sons or brothers” etc. and can display their beauty (of course on a limited scale) to such nearest ones or “small children who have no sense of shame of sex (yet)” (33:55; 24:31). In another example, a woman may unveil to a male doctor (if a lady doctor is not available) only the portion of body required for medical treatment.
Other instances of relaxations include an elderly woman of non-marriageable age may “lay aside their (outer) garments”, of course “without excessive display of their beauty” (24:60), a would-be husband may have a limited glance at his would-be wife (without crossing red line through body contact) and a drowning woman must be saved no matter what happens to her or rescuer’s clothing. However, you cannot publicly show your breast while feeding your baby or expose too much during use of public toilet.

(C) No-See rule: This rule suggests that even if other persons (male or female) show their private parts mistakably or shamelessly, it is your responsibility not to allow your eyes to gaze at them and thereby enjoy sexual pleasure through mental feeling. Needless to say, a willful look at other’s private parts is a severe breach of morality. The Quran enjoins both men and women “to lower gaze” and “guard their modesty” (24:30/31). You are not allowed to enter other person’s house until you “ask for permission (and get it) and greet its residents” (24:27)

Relaxations: The Prophet said that there is no blame for your first glance at the face of an opposite sex as that might be necessary for identification and other practical purposes. However, repeated and prolonged glances that are meant only to satisfy your greedy eyes should be avoided. If any necessity requires you to have repeated or prolonged glances, then there is Islamic way to deal with that. For example, if you are a police or election officer and you need to check a woman’s identity, you may have quick but innocent look at her while at same time restraining your sexual feeling. Likewise, if you have to ask anything from a lady, you can do that from “before a screen” and by lowering gaze (33:53). Such practice is good for “greater purity for your and their hearts” through prevention of any perverted imagination with sexual feeling (33:53).

(D)  Modest Clothing: Female: There is no denial to the fact that off-house environment is less safe for women compared to men. Therefore, their free mixing with men exposes them to the risk of being sexually harassed, if not raped. Islam therefore identifies home as the most secure place where the women should “stay quietly” (33:33). At the same time, it does not close doors to their outing on both essential trips (ex. going to school or job) and also optional ones (like outing for sightseeing).  We remember that the Prophet allowed his wife Ayesha ® to watch outdoor games, in a show of approval for women’s engagement in necessary or desirable outdoor programs. Such practice is, however, subject to the conditions of observing Islamic dress code as well as practicing modesty during outing. Muslim female dress code has 2 aspects that merit attention.

(i) Quantity of Coverage: You must make complete coverage of what is considered your private parts. This means you can lay bare the above cited organs (exempted from ‘satr’) but you cannot expose the eye-catching organs like arms, neck, legs and belly etc.
(ii) Quality of Coverage: The right kind of clothing must be worn for proper coverage. Prohibition applies to glassy clothes that allow eyes to see through. Similarly, tight- fitted clothes that make the body curves obvious and sexual must be avoided. The Quran did not specify any particular type of dress the women will wear for covering their body.  It only tells in generic terms “(when abroad) they should cast their outer garments over their persons: that is most convenient as thereby they would be recognized (by others as chaste and innocent) and may not be teased (by wicked people). They (also) should draw veils over their bosoms” (33:59; 24:31).  This leaves the door open to their wide-ranging choice for clothes fashioned after local cultures, subject to above conditions.

Male: Unlike the women, there is less risk and therefore fewer restrictions apply for the men during their time outside home. They are however not exempted from wearing proper dress. They must wear non-transparent and not-too-tight clothes to cover themselves from navel to knee. In other words, they will neither wear their pants below the navel nor will they wear any pants that are too short to cover knee.

(E) Modest Behavior (Gait): For ridding the society from sexual obscenity, modest clothing is not enough for both the men and women.  Additionally, you must keep from using body posture or doing things in a way that is likely to stimulate others’ sexual feelings, possibly leading to unpredictable sexual encounter. So you should adopt all possible preventions and precautions against the slippery slope to adultery. For example, marriageable adult man and woman should not spend exclusive time in an isolated room, unmarried brothers and sisters should not have nightly sleep in the same room, teen age son should not share bed with mom, a grown-up niece should not join her unmarried adult uncle to the theatre, opposite sexes need to stay away from teasing one another with sexual jokes or purposively making slightest touch on other’s body and so on.

Females: The women in particular should not try to draw attention of the men by means of attractive body postures, walking in catchy fashion, displaying their beauty by using excessive make-ups, wearing luxurious dress or willfully exposing ornaments in excess of what thereof must ordinarily appear and so on. Likewise, they should avoid too soft or too sweet “pleasing speech” with marriageable adult males who might have a “disease” at heart and develop a “desire” of sex in imagination as a lesser version of adultery (33:32). This, however, does not mean the women will talk to others in rude or insulting manner but they should follow the middle course through “speaking a speech (that is) just” (33:32). All these details might seem unnecessary to some but their end product is the prevention of offensive treatment of the women through teasing, groping, adultery and rape etc. Across the globe, complaints about such evil practices abound particularly in workplaces, education centers or wherever inter-gender free mixing becomes an opportunity in the absence of Islamic environment.

Conclusion: The above-mentioned rules of modesty obviously aim to remove all sex related “abominations” from the society (33:33). You should therefore try to be sincere observant of these rules in the better interest of the society.