As already mentioned, the second method adopted by the West for Effacement of the Islamic Self has been the obliteration of the manifestation (of this Self). In their view whatever is a manifestation, sign, expression or product of this "Self' must be obliterated. So the Algerian language must be changed from Arabic to French, the Indian language from Urdu to Hindi [4] and local dialects to English. The Turkish script must be replaced by Latin, our architecture must be replaced by Western architecture, our art by Nihilism and our local dress by Western dress.
The most important of all these, and the most living manifestation (of this Self) is woman, the Muslim woman. If they succeed in changing this manifestation of our Self, this Lap bringing up our Self, if this can be changed, the enemies would succeed in striking the biggest blow on "the Islamic Self."
Of course, the Eastern woman has an external self and an internal self. She has an intellect and a soul and a peculiar feminine character. The Muslim woman occupies the most distinct place among the Eastern women. Her pecularities are greater and her relationship with the identity and Self of her people is deeper and she has stronger roots than the rest of the Eastern women. Now, what should the West do to change her? What should be the plan of the West, and which of her weak points should be exploited? Is Muslims' bias [5] in encountering women a weak point? If it is so, how is it to be tackled?
Imperialist Tactics, Weakness of Muslims' Bias and Treacheries Perpetrated by the Satanic Regime
In order to execute their nasty plans against woman as a manifestation and exponent of Islamic Self, there were two internal factors which had been effective and paved the way for it.
- Weakness of Muslims' (not Islamic) Bias Against Women
On the one hand, it was long since Islam had been divorced from the field of social activity, and what was left of it was nothing more than its outward appearance and shell. On the other, the usurping tyrant powers had prevented the religious leaders and intellectuals from discovering and disclosing the Islamic practical solutions for the vexing problems of the society. This was why as a general mental attitude of Islam, particularly in regard to its relationship with woman, conditions had been created which were responsible for the opinion that not only Islam did not provide any support to woman, but it had also plenty of laws which were directed against the womenfolk and granted right of domination to man, and thus brought the shelterless Muslim woman under the yoke of heavy pressure. But they realized that if the womenfolk who find no supporter among the so-called Muslims come to have even an iota of information about their real rights and the power (granted to them by Islam) they would throwaway this yoke and release themselves from it.
This propaganda that Islam is against the womenfolk has been carried on by the Imperialists, under one pretext or the other, through their mass media in the East and the West, their news imperialism and groups associated with the Americans and the USSR as well as the other anti-revolution members of SAVAK and pro-monarchy groups, and every now and then they are raising a hue and cry against Islam and the Muslims. At one time they raise the question of inequality of man and woman in Islam, and at another they harp on the issue of hejab, and so on.
In fact, however, (under the illuminating and guiding leadership of Imam Khomeini), millions of common womenfolk have returned to their divine nature, to the dignity of their own Self, and under the loving patronage and protection of the Islamic Republic of Iran we are advancing towards preparing the ground for new legislation, so that on the basis of the Islamic laws and precepts suitable laws may be framed for this period of time for the rights and true worth of the womenfolk in order that all the oppressed women of the world may come to realize that the only way of their deliverance is the path of Islam and not the Capitalist, humanist or Communist ideologies, and that the only guarantee for materializing this objective is the Islamic revolution.
B. The other internal factor has been the multidimensional enervation of woman for the last over two thousand years. The Satanic regimes, which attached importance to woman from the sexual point of view, kept women in a state of extreme ignorance and lack of information and awareness. They had put woman's mind so much in inertia that with the least analysis she could take the most relentless foes for good and reliable friends and most deceitful hell for a paradise of kindness and favour, as all the plans for corrupting women implemented by the Imperialists have been misunderstood by a large number of women as friendly acts.
It was with this background that the Imperialist enemy turned towards the Muslim women and, in order to annihilate the Islamic identity of our people, he took up the mission of breaking the Muslim woman into pieces. He thought out the way to obliterate' the identity of the Muslim woman. He tried to find out the common factor between the identity of the Muslim woman and the Muslim community. He made "hejab" his target, as it was the manifestation of the Islamic character of a Muslim woman as well as the symbol of Islamic nature of Muslim community's self.
The Tragedy of Abolition of Hejab
Reza Khan, the founder of modern Iran on the foundations of three pillars: Occidentosis, Infidelity and subservience to Imperialism, first brought his own wife and daughter without observing hejab in the official functions, and later through a decree made it compulsory for women to appear without the conventional head-cover but wearing a Western chapeau in all gatherings and functions. How Surprising it is that this obnoxious practice which was started by the Occidentosis-stricken and the stooges of the British Imperialists in the beginning was later recognized as a true movement for advancement and emancipation and progress of women by the American Imperialism in the later Pahlavi period, and the nonobservance of hejab was considered to be a synonym for women lib! Although at first the brave Muslim people of Iran opposed this Imperialist conspiracy due to the just and proper religious orthodoxy, but they soon came to realize that behind this so called movement for abolition of hejab, the ban on the use of the special dress of the clergy and the disuse of the traditional dress of men was hidden nothing but a dangerous conspiracy of eroding the Islamic identity and Self of the Iranian people and handing over the country to the foreigners.
They came to understand that this anti-Islamic movement was, in fact, a movement against the political, cultural and economic independence of the country. This was why they sought refuge in the shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in the holy city of Meshed and took sanctuary in that holy shrine. At the time of the brutal attack on the shrine of Imam Reza (AS) by the agents of Reza Khan, a Western stooge, they took themselves to defend their Islamic identity, beliefs and self, and soaked the floor of the Gowharshad Mosque of Meshed with their own blood.
Whatever the nature of the tragedy of abolition of hejab might be, at first it had to face a strong resistance from the noble Muslim men and women spearheaded by the clergy and the students of religious institutions. The genera! massacre at the Gowharshad Mosque in Meshed was but a part of the bloody defence of the holy dress and this manifestation of the Islamic and divine Self of our oppressed people.
For our Islamic Self there has not been a greater tragedy than the abolition of hejab. Likewise, on the body of Islamic identity of our people one could not think of a deadlier blow than the separation of this divine symbol from the Iranian belief and this most penetrating and effective Islamic message from the hearts of the people. As soon as this lofty and exalted flag of Islam and nobility fell down from the hands of the people, it was replaced by ignominy, dishonour, unlimited freedom, villainy, cruelty, ostentation, depravity, debauchery and loss of complete freedom and independence. May God break the hand of the Western and Eastern system of oppression that has thrown us for the fast fifty years in the abyss of ignominy of the isolation from our exalted Islamic Self!
Analysis of Abolition of Hejab among the Marxists having Orientosis and those having Occidentosis
The Islamic Revolution of Iran has in practice been a crucible in whose burning flame all beliefs, schools, groups and factions have been put to test:
How better it would be if persons are tested on the anvil of experience so that everyone who has an alloy may suffer disgrace. The Marxists, the Capitalists, those suffering from Orientosis and those suffering from Occidentosis and the gleaners in spite of their apparently different theories are unanimous, united and supporters of one another in opposing Islam, fundamentals of Islamic Revolution and the spiritual values of women including the observation of hejab by Muslim women. They have been in unison with the Western Imperialism, particularly the American Imperialists, in their hue and cry against hejab.
Now, that we have come to understand the methodology of the Imperialists regarding the abolition of hejab, it would not be out of place if we also analyze hejab in the opinion of the Marxists (those having Orientosis) as well as those suffering from Occidentosis. However, before we continue the analytical study of the Imperialist roots of the abolition of hejab, let me point out two explanations of these phenomena at which I have arrived recently. Hejab is like a gate of a green garden, a wooden gate whose colour has faded, which is not so pretty that whenever you open it you may come across a pleasant garden of spring on whose branches you would find the illumination of divine light. In this respect, hejab is a prologue to gnosis. If you dare come close to this gate and open it, enter its threshold, you shall explore that green and pleasant garden of spring and that eternal light.
The other explanation is that hejab for a woman is what fire was for Abraham, so that when among the rising flames of fire he surrendered himself to the Almighty One, every flame turned into a bough and every amber into a flower, till at last the burning fire turned into a cool garden for Abraham.
A woman who accepts hejab and surrenders her heart to its hidden laws succeeds gradually in exploring the spiritual garden, and becomes so much habituated to it that whenever she is away from that garden her heart starts singing sad songs like a nightingale (away from its flower}. Thus the enemy started with the intrigues for damaging and eroding the "Self" of the Muslim women through taking her away from hejab. If we have time we shall try to analyze the attitude of every school towards hejab. As regards the Imperialist roots of the abolition of hejab to which brief reference has already been made, we have to discontinue that discussion in order to go deep into the matter, and refer briefly to the analysis of the hejab by the Marxists. They analyze hejab in two ways, both of which as usual have economic roots. The first of their analyses about the Imperialist roots of the abolition of hejab is that they believe that during the days of Reza Khan, the accursed, which coincided with the unlimited growth of capitalism and its transformation into Imperialism, abundance of capital and piling up of surplus products, the Western Imperialism, in order to save itself from insolvency which was the natural outcome of such economic conditions, found it indispensable to export its capital as well as its products to other countries, so that it could invest its capital in their industries and also sell its products to the unfortunate people of these countries, and thus protect it from lying in the god owns and going waste and rotten.
For this purpose, Reza Khan, who was a stooge of the West, took himself to abolish hejab by force, so that firstly women who, as a result of their dress, which had been an obstacle in their easy movement, had become inactive should be free to work in the factories run by Western capital, and secondly by the abolition of hejab there could be some activity in the consumption of the commodities exported by the West, and at the same time the women through their beauty and sex-appeal could be used for the publicity of the Western commodities. So Reza Khan, the accursed, resorted to the abolition of hejab more than forty years ago, so that he could save the Western capitalists who were on the verge of insolvency.
According to the second analysis of the Marxists, as Islam is a feudal religion, hejab is also based on a feudal system of dress. As during the historical stages of evolution feudalism is replaced by capitalism, a system higher and more advanced than feudalism, we may conclude that when society has passed the stage of feudalism and entered the stage of capitalism, it is said to have attained capitalist stage.
In the view of the Marxists, Reza Khan's time was a period of progress of the bourgeoisie, non-enlightenment and decline of feudalism. So according to the above conclusion, the abolition of hejab, which is one of the characteristics of the feudal age, manifests advancement, and is, in fact, a historical evolution in the dress of women. This is the reason why the Marxists have very delightfully welcomed this glorious evolution in their writings of that period as well as of the present period, because, according to their analysis, the dress of a Muslim woman (as worn by the Iranian ladies) is a reactionary dress.
In view of the above two analyses by the Marxists, you may notice that, in their consideration of the hejab in both the ways, they have one thing in common with Reza Khan and Imperialism, namely, that the present dress of the Muslim (Iranian) women is not worth wearing. The difference, however, is that the Capitalists say that the reason for their opposition of the present dress of Muslim women is that the abolition of the present dress has an economic utility for the Capitalists, while the Marxists assert that the abolition of the Islamic dress is a sign of evolution and advancement from the stage of feudalism to the Bourgeois stage and a proof of progress and development. They link the end of the so-called discussion about reaction and advancement with the summit of hejab. As regards the opinion about hejab of those suffering from Occidentosis, being at the same time a class-analysis too, according to their view whatever is Western or has a Western brand is a sign of advancement, and whatever has an Eastern brand, particularly the Eastern Islamic one, is reactionary. The dress of the Muslim women, which has no prototype or pattern in the West is a reactionary dress as compared to the dress of the latest Western fashions. Reza Khan himself believed that he wanted to guide Islam towards the gates of advancement. One of such gates was the abolition of hejab and civilizing and modernizing the women!
This is why you may find that in the opinion of the nobles and aristocrats of Reza Khan's time, the majority of whom consisted of Western educated persons and intellectuals or those suffering from Occidentosis, the dress of the Muslim women is the dress of illiterates, the lower classes and the maidservants. In the words of Dr. Shari'ati:
"The wife of a Europe returned graduate does not observe hejab! while his maidservant and illiterate mother observe hejab." According to the above opinion, hejab is a sign of illiteracy, poverty and backwardness, because according to the view of such persons, suffering from Occidentosis, and patronized by Reza Khan, human beings are either advanced, fashionable, a la mode and in the Western style, or the reactionary men, growing beards, or women wearing chador and observing hejab in the style of Muslims. Meanwhile, the roots of reaction and advancement in our country, as well as in other Imperialist colonies, are exactly linked with this problem that everything which is imported from the West and is based on a new and latest fashion is advanced, and on the contrary, whatever has come down from the past, and belongs to the East, particularly to the Muslim East, is reactionary.
It is astonishing to note that the Marxists and those suffering from Occidenteosis have reached the same conclusion in their final analysis of the dress of the Muslim women. It is not only with the Marxists and those suffering from Occidentosis, but the Imperialist West, who is the mother of all Occidentosis, also sees eye to eye with the Marxists as regards this analysis.
In our study of the Imperialist roots of the abolition of hejab, we have reached the following conclusions:
1. Effacement of Self is an Imperialist method. In order to impose their own culture on the oppressed country, the Imperialists first degrade its identity and Self in its own eyes and then give another identity to it according to what they like.
2. The Self in the Muslim East is the Islamic Self, and so the effacement of Self here is identical with the effacement of Islam.
3. The Muslim woman is the manifestation of the Islamic Self of her own people.
4. The dress of the Muslim women is the common factor between 1the Islamic Self of the Muslim people and the Self of the Muslim women.
5. The Marxists believe that the abolition of hejab had a sole economic objective, and its final aim was to benefit the capitalists. At the same time they believe that the hejab-oriented dress is a feudal dress, and with the evolution of the society and its entering the stage of Capitalism, this dress will automatically become extinct. In other words, the abolition of hejab will take place parallel with the evolution and advancement.
6. Those suffering from Occidentosis believe that hejab is a symbol of reaction, while the nonobservance of hejab, being a Western phenomenon, and that too modern and progressive, is a symbol of evolution and advancement.
Now the important problem is that, in principle, every explanation which is formed without taking into consideration the indigenous mechanism and on the basis of merely dry theories shall be deficient and shall lack the capacity of analysis and appraisal of the problems.
