Canada - no more veils allowed at swearing in ceremonies.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

"Requiring that all candidates show their faces while reciting the oath allows judges and everyone present to share in the ceremony," Kenney said in a speech in Montreal.

'Kenney said some citizenship judges were concerned that some Muslim women wearing face coverings were not actually reciting the oath.'

"Kenney's announcement will affect women wearing the niqab -- a face veil with an eye opening -- as well as the burqa, which has a full face covering with a mesh area to allow vision."

Pretty sure the article is addressing the niqab. I have no problems with head coverings. Face coverings should be a no-no - for everyone, not just Muslims. People should be bale to see who you are! Back when I was in highschool, kids weren't allowed to wear masks because it posed a threat.

The niqaab isn't part of Islam, so I can't defend it as a religious right. Historically, it's a left-over affectation from Byzantine culture meant to represent the wealth of the husband who can afford for his wife not to work.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b

It is sometimes alleged that the face-veil was originally part of women's dress among certain classes in the Byzantine Empire and was adopted into Muslim culture during the Arab conquest of the Middle East.[2] However, although Byzantine art before Islam commonly depicts women with veiled heads or covered hair, it does not depict women with veiled faces. In addition, the Greek geographer Strabo, writing in the first century AD, refers to some Persian women veiling their faces;[3][not in citation given] and the early third-century Christian writer Tertullian clearly refers in his treatise The Veiling of Virgins to some pagan women of "Arabia" wearing a veil that covers not only their head but also the entire face.[4] These primary sources show that some women in Arabia and Persia veiled their faces long before Islam.

The claimed rationale of the niqab comes from the Qur'an and Hadith. It was known that the many wives of Muhammad were made to cover themselves around men they did not know. However the Quran explicitly states that the wives of the Prophet are held to a different standard.[18] It is claimed that under Islam the niqab is a requirement for all women, since womanhood is mentioned along with the wives of Muhammad in the Qur'anic dictat to cover.[19] The following verse from the Qur'an is cited as support for this:[20]

"O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters, and the believing women, to draw their cloaks (veils) over their bodies. That will be better that they should be known (as respectable woman) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."God is forgiving and kind.[Quran 33:59 (Translated by Ahmed Ali)]

[Amby 490]

I checked out this article. It's pretty accurate.

Ok thanks for that, but which countries would it be recommended, unsafe to not wear, or required for a western non-muslim woman to wear a veil?

[Girl from Celebes 588]

The niqaab isn't part of Islam, so I can't defend it as a religious right. Historically, it's a left-over affectation from Byzantine culture meant to represent the wealth of the husband who can afford for his wife not to work.

The ironically in my country, some Muslim women think that wearing niqaab is a part of religion. I do not know, where are they get the idea if all you said was true? Most of them said from Quran which is still debatable since many ulamas or Muslim scholars have pros and cons to the topic. If we TRY to have an argue about these things, they would come up and say," you are apostate because not follow Quran!".. Who they are that decide to calling me that way?

[Girl from Celebes 588]

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Niq%C4%81b

It is sometimes alleged that the face-veil was originally part of women's dress among certain classes in the Byzantine Empire and was adopted into Muslim culture during the Arab conquest of the Middle East.[2] However, although Byzantine art before Islam commonly depicts women with veiled heads or covered hair, it does not depict women with veiled faces. In addition, the Greek geographer Strabo, writing in the first century AD, refers to some Persian women veiling their faces;[3][not in citation given] and the early third-century Christian writer Tertullian clearly refers in his treatise The Veiling of Virgins to some pagan women of "Arabia" wearing a veil that covers not only their head but also the entire face.[4] These primary sources show that some women in Arabia and Persia veiled their faces long before Islam.

The claimed rationale of the niqab comes from the Qur'an and Hadith. It was known that the many wives of Muhammad were made to cover themselves around men they did not know. However the Quran explicitly states that the wives of the Prophet are held to a different standard.[18] It is claimed that under Islam the niqab is a requirement for all women, since womanhood is mentioned along with the wives of Muhammad in the Qur'anic dictat to cover.[19] The following verse from the Qur'an is cited as support for this:[20]

"O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters, and the believing women, to draw their cloaks (veils) over their bodies. That will be better that they should be known (as respectable woman) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."God is forgiving and kind.[Quran 33:59 (Translated by Ahmed Ali)]

I read news about Zoroastrians on CNN before. On the picture, showing these women wearing traditional clothing that many Muslims claim that part of Islam.

How Iran persecutes its oldest religion

By Jamsheed K. Choksy, Special to CNNNovember 14, 2011 -- Updated 1346 GMT (2146 HKT)

Zoroastrian worshipers pray near the central Iranian city of Yazd in 2004.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Zoroastrians are not insulated from Iran's tribulations, Jamsheed K. Choksy says
• Followers of this ancient faith are disparaged as "sinful animals," he says
• Choksy: Many Muslim Iranians are rejecting the Shiite theocracy's intolerant ways
• President Ahmadinejad now uses Zoroastrianism's past for political ends, Choksy says

Editor's note: Jamsheed K. Choksy is professor of Iranian studies, senior fellow of the Center on American and Global Security, and former director of the Middle Eastern studies program at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Bloomington, Indiana (CNN) -- As Zoroastrian funerary processions enter the graveyard overlooking the Tehran suburb of Ray, their sobriety is often shattered by the sound of explosions and gunfire. Frequently, the way forward is blocked by Islamic Revolutionary Guards conducting a combat exercise among the tombs. According to Zoroastrian custom, burial needs to take place within 24 hours, and the Revolutionary Guards will not halt their training activities there for the funerals.

This is just another sign of <a href="http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/press-releases/3653-92811-iran-uscirf-concerned-about-fate-of-iranian-pastor-and-deteriorating-conditions-for-all-religious-minorities-.html" target="_blank">religious freedom fading in the Islamic Republic.

Much that is written about the Zoroastrians of Iran portrays them as a venerable and quaint religious community. But these followers of an ancient faith are not insulated from the tribulations of their country.

Jamsheed K. ChoksyZoroastrianism is named after its founder, the prophet Zarathustra -- or Zoroaster, as he came to be known in the West -- who preached sometime between 1800 and 1000 B.C. Zoroaster spoke of humans siding with God (called Ahura Mazda, or the Wise Lord) against the devil (called Angra Mainyu, or the Angry Spirit) and fighting for all that is right. In time, those concepts became central to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So did Zoroastrian beliefs that each soul faces judgment after death before entering heaven, limbo or hell, and that all of humanity will experience resurrection, final judgment and heaven on Earth.

Ancient Persian kings like Cyrus and Darius followed their faith's basic tenet of doing good by freeing Israelites from the Babylonian Exile and supporting construction of the Second Temple at Jerusalem. Zoroastrianism's clergymen, or magi, are known around the world as the wise men in attendance at the nativity of Jesus. Until Arabs conquered Iran during the seventh century, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians there could practice their own devotions unhindered. Thereafter, they became minorities who werepersecuted and largely converted to Islam.

When the Islamic revolution occurred in 1979, fundamentalist Shiites stormed the fire temple at Tehran. There, Zoroastrians worship in front of a blazing fire, as a symbol of God's grace, just like Christians face a cross and Muslims turn to a qibla pointing toward Mecca. The portrait of Zoroaster was tossed down, a photograph of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was put up in its place, and the congregation was warned not to remove the image of Iran's new leader. Only months later could the prophet's picture be mounted upon an adjacent wall.

Their schools and classrooms began to be covered with images of Supreme Leaders Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and with verses of the Quran that denounce non-Muslims. Those who do well academically nonetheless find no openings within state-controlled universities.

When the bloody war with Iraq raged from 1980 to 1988, young Zoroastrians were involuntarily drafted for suicide missions in the Iranian army. Rejecting the Shiite mullahs' claim that military martyrdom would lead them to a heaven full of virgins was futile. Failing to offer their lives on the battlefield could result in execution for treason.

Then in November 2005, Ayatollah Ahmed Jannati, chairman of the Council of Guardians of the Constitution, disparaged Zoroastrians and other religious minorities as "sinful animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption." When the Zoroastrians' solitary parliamentary representative protested, he was hauled before a revolutionary tribunal. There, mullahs threatened execution before sparing his life with a warning never to challenge their declarations again. A frightened community subsequently declined to re-elect him.

Over the past two years, many Muslim Iranians have begun publicly rejecting the Shiite theocracy's intolerant ways by adopting symbols and festivals from Zoroastrianism. Those actions are denounced as causing "harm and corruption" by ayatollahs like Khamenei and Jannati.

Sensing that popular sentiment among Iran's Muslim majority is shifting away from the mullahs, even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has begun utilizing Zoroastrianism's past for his own political ends. In September 2010, he arranged for the Cyrus Cylinder, a sixth-century B.C. document that speaks of religious tolerance and Iranian greatness, to be loaned from the British Museum. During a public ceremony in Tehran, Ahmadinejad lauded indigenous traditions as superior to Arab-imposed Islam. Privately, his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, even referred to King Cyrus as "a messenger of God."

Their tottering political base has sharpened the Shiite clerics' ire. Like members of the Christian, Jewish and Baha'i minorities, Zoroastrian activists who protest the theocracy's excesses are sent to Tehran's notorious Evin prison on charges of sedition. At the ayatollahs' instigation, Iranian media characterizes the followers of Iran's ancient faith as polytheists and devil worshipers. Lesser mullahs rant against Zoroastrians not only in Iran, but even at mosques in Toronto.

The Zoroastrian cemetery outside Tehran now faces another challenge: The municipality seeks to lay a highway through it. Some schools and devotional centers in other Zoroastrian strongholds like Yazd and Kerman have also been notified of pending annexation. Communal gatherings are routinely monitored by fundamentalist Muslim authorities who allege that Zoroastrianism "threatens national security and subverts the Islamic revolution."

Protections offered by the Islamic Republic's constitution have been rendered meaningless in practice. Not surprisingly, the daily regimen of discrimination makes Zoroastrians feel wholly unwelcome in their Iranian homeland. Only between 35,000 and 90,000 now remain in a country of approximately 74 million citizens -- and, fearing persecution, many do not readily identify themselves as Zoroastrians.

Yet, Zoroastrians are no mere footnote in human history and religiosity. Their ideas still determine how many of the globe's residents behave. The end of Zoroastrianism in Iran should be prevented. Making religious freedom a priority in U.S. and EU foreign policies will help achieve that goal.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/14/opinion/choksy-iran-zoroastrian/index.html

[Sofiyya 1,687]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b

It is sometimes alleged that the face-veil was originally part of women's dress among certain classes in the Byzantine Empire and was adopted into Muslim culture during the Arab conquest of the Middle East.[2] However, although Byzantine art before Islam commonly depicts women with veiled heads or covered hair, it does not depict women with veiled faces. In addition, the Greek geographer Strabo, writing in the first century AD, refers to some Persian women veiling their faces;[3][not in citation given] and the early third-century Christian writer Tertullian clearly refers in his treatise The Veiling of Virgins to some pagan women of "Arabia" wearing a veil that covers not only their head but also the entire face.[4] These primary sources show that some women in Arabia and Persia veiled their faces long before Islam.

The claimed rationale of the niqab comes from the Qur'an and Hadith. It was known that the many wives of Muhammad were made to cover themselves around men they did not know. However the Quran explicitly states that the wives of the Prophet are held to a different standard.[18] It is claimed that under Islam the niqab is a requirement for all women, since womanhood is mentioned along with the wives of Muhammad in the Qur'anic dictat to cover.[19] The following verse from the Qur'an is cited as support for this:[20]

"O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters, and the believing women, to draw their cloaks (veils) over their bodies. That will be better that they should be known (as respectable woman) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."God is forgiving and kind.[Quran 33:59 (Translated by Ahmed Ali)]

Another reason for laymen not to rely on Wikipedia.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Ok thanks for that, but which countries would it be recommended, unsafe to not wear, or required for a western non-muslim woman to wear a veil?

There are villages in many countries where the locals demand it, and there it's best to wear it, but in most places, it's no big deal. Western women rarely wear the head covering that conceals the hair anyway. They tend to just drape it like they would in the US on a windy day.

[^_^ 5,021]

There are villages in many countries where the locals demand it, and there it's best to wear it ...

OR ELSE! <sinister laugh>

[Sofiyya 1,687]

The ironically in my country, some Muslim women think that wearing niqaab is a part of religion. I do not know, where are they get the idea if all you said was true? Most of them said from Quran which is still debatable since many ulamas or Muslim scholars have pros and cons to the topic. If we TRY to have an argue about these things, they would come up and say," you are apostate because not follow Quran!".. Who they are that decide to calling me that way?

I agree with you. It's ridiculous how much weight headcovering is given in Muslim countries and in the west. You would think Islam is about scarves the way some people act like it's a sacred covenent with God to hide your hair.

[Amby 490]

There are villages in many countries where the locals demand it, and there it's best to wear it, but in most places, it's no big deal. Western women rarely wear the head covering that conceals the hair anyway. They tend to just drape it like they would in the US on a windy day.

Ok thanks I was just curious. Are there any countries where there's a law that says women even if they're not from there must wear a covering?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

The ironically in my country, some Muslim women think that wearing niqaab is a part of religion. I do not know, where are they get the idea if all you said was true? Most of them said from Quran which is still debatable since many ulamas or Muslim scholars have pros and cons to the topic. If we TRY to have an argue about these things, they would come up and say," you are apostate because not follow Quran!".. Who they are that decide to calling me that way?

I know a few gals...one from Bali (Kuta Beach) and the other from Jakarta and they are Muslim, but they are totally liberal. The one from Bali even eats pork.

Another reason for laymen not to rely on Wikipedia.

The citations and references to that piece are located at the bottom of the page. Like the poster Girl from Celebes pointed out, the Persians had the Niqab before anyone in that area.

[Girl from Celebes 588]

I agree with you. It's ridiculous how much weight headcovering is given in Muslim countries and in the west. You would think Islam is about scarves the way some people act like it's a sacred covenent with God to hide your hair.

Exactly. What a most worst of it, some Muslim women have to burden many rules they said have been taken from Quran. One example, if you are not accept your husband to be polygamist, God will hate you. If Muslim women willing to accepted that, God will reward her sanctuary in Heaven. I am afraid these women do not know their rights and have been brainwashing then blind-sided by that. This is a real things happened in my country. I grew up in Muslim family and am very strong to against these stereotypes apply to women.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Another reason for laymen not to rely on Wikipedia.

So when you linked a wikipedia article in the previous page to respond to Amby, then it's an acceptable scholarly entry. But when someone posts something from there, that contradicts what you say, then it is an unacceptable resource? Do you even realize how much of a ponce you look like when you post like that? You are so full of yourself.

[Girl from Celebes 588]

I know a few gals...one from Bali (Kuta Beach) and the other from Jakarta and they are Muslim, but they are totally liberal. The one from Bali even eats pork.

The citations and references to that piece are located at the bottom of the page. Like the poster Girl from Celebes pointed out, the Persians had the Niqab before anyone in that area.

That's a reality and I have to admit that.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Ok thanks I was just curious. Are there any countries where there's a law that says women even if they're not from there must wear a covering?

Primarily in Saudi and Iran, maybe Yemen, but it's been a while since I've been there. Although Saudi defines the "Muslim world" in the minds of many westerners, due to its deeply tribal culture and alliance with Wahabbism, it's a very unique place where not much is the same as in other Muslim countries.

As far as most countries go, hijab is a trend that comes and goes, like in Egypt, for example. They're going through a phase where hijab is not legislated, but expected. When political fervor is high, women, as the bearers of tradition, are expected to cover. I'm going there soon, btw. I was supposed to be away now, but we had a funeral yesterday I had to attend.