O Woman! This jingle jangle is the clink of your chains!
What an old and rusty clink!
As if it has continued to ring for thousand of years of history till
this day. under the dominance of the systems devouring the blood of humanity,
Throughout the decadent society in which you live,
In the depth of your thoughts, wishes and tastes, and even your decisions, These chains, which have pierced from your skin into your flesh, Have gone deep into your brain and soul and bruised your Self, Behold! Hearken to their sound!
In the continuous whispers from morn till dark, around the house, (busy) with cooking pots, sweeping the floor, Amidst the factory wheels turning by your laborious hands, In the fields developed by your hands bound in tatters, and stooped back, There, in the office where you work and are consumed, Even where you learn or teach, Under that stinking layer of rouge which you rub on your face, In the side of the multicoloured garments you put on as a means of ostentation, In your thought, while you are thinking.
Throughout your life, in your destiny, if you look truly, you have never been the one really deciding about it.
Beside the insults, discriminations which you have to bear in different ways in this decadent system, How should I tell you that these chains have not only deprived you for soaring to heights, but also crushed all the people of your land under their pressure, Of course, all the people of your land, your countrymen, the oppressed creatures, who suffer and are tormented, robbed and plundered, yet their human wants are not supplied.
Of course, O Woman!
Whom thousands of years of decadent history have kept in chains,
Whose self has been wounded by the scourges of oppression of prevailing systems, Who throughout the history, in one way or the other, has been the slave of the economic powers;
O Woman! whom the religious despotism of several thousand years, in every age has, in one form or the other, kept in black claws of superstitions and groundless fears, Who has always been subdued by man;
Now at this height of awakening and freedom when the people of the world are straightening their backs from under the bloodstained boots of oppressors, are revolting and are. triumphant:
Wait a bit! Wait a bit!
And from the depth of this dark night,
Which is nearing the dawn,
From beyond the cries of the deprived, the hungry and those in debt, From beyond the chains fastened round the feet of the seekers of truth, Of course, and also from the depth of history, one thousand and four hundred years ago, From the depth of the long night which had brought the whole world under the cover of its darkness, You have linked (the people) with God.
And now that you have accepted Islam as a system of life and an Ideology,
Also accept hejab,
And under its vitalizing dress recreate yourself and get a new life.
With this bold negation have no fears.
What do you possess which you are afraid to lose,
Except a personality crushed under the load of thousands of years of contempt and chains which have hindered your movement, your journey, your flight to new heights?
It's nothing! It's nothing!
The legacy of this history made of rogues,
The corrupt and cruel regimes of two thousand and five hundred years with autocratic and bloodthirsty leaders and enslaving economic systems, And thousands Of years of religious despotism swayed by the traders of faith, How all these elements have changed you, your sex quality, your culture, your feminine character and your capacity to work!
You are nothing ! Your are nothing !
But a woman who adds passion to bed,
A doll which through its characteristics weakens determination, A commodity found in abundance in the private chambers of rulers and the common street harems, A domestic prisoner who from morn till night is put to drudgery in the isolated portions of the house and busies herself toiling, A slave who in lieu of minimum wages by her labour brings maximum profits to the landlords and mill-owners, Or rots in the expanse of the bureaucratic establishments, And lastly in every institution of a decadent society, in one form or the other, is despised and exploited.
Of course, this is what has been imposed on you.
The dirty culture they have framed for you,
The income they have fixed for you,
As if throughout the history all its autocrats and rogues, with hundreds of sabres drawn, have made you their target. Come and seek shelter in Islam and be safe, be strong, be armed.
With what ? With its laws, its universal outlook, its anthropology.
Yes, with Islam in toto, including indeed, its hejab system. Now that you have accepted Islam, also accept its dress, and throw away this cultural yoke of female exploitation imposed on you. Which dress ? What type of dress ?
Do we mean the dress which has been imposed on Islam by feudalism or Capital ism with the help of the tyrant rulers, With all those restrictions, contempts, but of course with an Islamic form Or a prison, a cloth which alludes to the large prison of house, society and your history ?
What difference does it make, whether it is a (head) kerchief, a loose garment or a chador, under which you may suffer unlimited contempt ?
Where you may be free to do whatever you like, dress yourself as you like, think as you like, even be more anti-Islamic than any infidel, be devoid of belief in God, or be without any cover ? No, never!
The free and unrestrained dress of the imperialist, capitalist or colonial systems, which places you uncovered before the eyes of the people, stupefying the brains, weakening the intentions and negating the higher values,
Or the Marxian dress whose limits are so much indefinite and incomplete that it cannot change into a protector of your total features, into a complete revolutionary base against the decadent systems and values of atheism, sex, beauty and pleasure.
No, no! None of these dresses, but only the Islamic dress to the extent it Is prescribed by the Islamic ideology which humanizes and liberates man.
It has no special form, no particular colour, neither black, nor yellow, brown, blue, red or orange, No, all these details are to be determined by the requirements of time, even social, economic, political conditions and specially the indigenous culture and tradition of your own land.
It is not a prison ?
Then, what is it ?
It is a sanctuary of concealment and chastity.
It is a message.
It is a weapon, or a stronghold.
A sanctuary of concealment and chastity which not only shields you in its cover and hides your physical features and bestows upon them perfection.
Your characteristic features, after all, are not confined to body and sex alone.
But it also covers the divine substance of your being a woman, The substance which bestows upon you the capability of being a mother, a sister, a beloved spouse, The substance in whose bosom the most admirable values are produced and become meaningful, A sanctuary which protects you from all sorts of disgrace, contempt and exploitation, Disgrace and contempt which are sometimes contained in the covers of praise and admiration in the verses of poets and pieces of vain artists, and sometimes on the tongue of the street vagabonds, while at times they are expressed and analyzed with the help of the capitalistic and imperialistic sociology, But how naively you have pleased yourself with such disgrace! Islam, however, introduces with this dress for you some other criteria for your identity.
After all Islam does not demand beauty from a woman.
It does not ask for an illusive appearance.
In the society, it does not demand the physical, sensual and feminine features.
No! No!
It rather demands from you belief in God, trust in Islamic identity, truthfulness, search for truth, pure human feelings, in short, faith, noble deeds and piety.
Islam demands from you your existential value, and not sensual value.
It is your faith, your practice which brings about and establishes a progressive society based on the belief in One God, and not the physical and sensual features which are the elements of a decadent, pollute and Satanic society, or a society whose political, economic and social system as well as its leadership is opposed to the form liked by God, where a few men and women, young and old. are devouring one another, and considering themselves to be beasts wriggle with each other with the least human feelings and sentimental attachments, and from above, in the words of Our'an, a few "satiated and opulent", bloodthirsty people watch with pleasure, and by sucking their blood, the juice of their youth and life. give perpetuity to their power and pelf. Their examples are most of the societies of today, including your own.
Now, that you have come to recognize Islam, come to believe in it, also accept its dress. But beware, your hejab alone is nothing. It can be a shell without a kernel. When you come to face the Islamic teachings in a superficial manner without paying due attention to its depth and content and have a shallow and merely a reactionary approach in accepting every word of it, every precept and every political social and economic consideration, your hejab would be nothing more than affectation.
''When you adopt a series of Islamic rituals through your intellect, without a belief in the depth of your heart, you follow some claims without actually translating them into conscious and persistent practice, although at the same time from head to toe you are governed by all the frailties you have suffered throughout history, in other words, the same lack of self-confidence, lack of vigilance and lack of decision about yourself and your society. the same submissiveness before falsehood and oppression. the same self-defeatedness, indetermination and thoughtlessness vis-à-vis the man, with the same feminine, deviating ostentation of the dark ages (of pre-Islamic period), but somewhat in the intellectual way and this time you appear wearing the holy Islamic dress.
Your hejab may be something you have inherited from your family, when this dress has been conventional in your family as a custom, habit or uniform, without your having an iota of thinking about the responsibilities of wearing this holy dress. In its shelter you may think whatever you like, you may attire yourself in whatever way you like, adorn yourself and at the same time carry under it all the feminine weaknesses imposed on you.
Lastly, your hejab may be something forcible, an act against your own will, when you have been compelled to adopt it by your father, your husband or your brother, and you may have accepted it without being aware of the responsibility of wearing this vitalizing dress, without having endeavoured to realize the aims and message of this dress, without ever having tried to refine and reform yourself in order to deserve this dress, this attire. In all such circumstances, your hejab can never be Islam personified, identicalized. It shall never be a revolutionary stronghold against tyranny, despotism and decadent values and systems. It shall never bring a glad tiding of liberty for the people of your land, except when you should have learnt Islam as a deen (a system of life), a comprehensive ideology, recognized it as such, and linked it truly and boldly with all your existence, your being, your life, your traits of character, your aims and objects as well as your ambitions.
It is only then that your hejab would serve as a shield for protecting your piety and chastity. It is then that your hejab would be a message, a weapon. It is then that your hejab is so much developed, so much advanced that all of a sudden it transforms itself into an ideology personified. Your hejab becomes Islam altogether, another side of your belief in God and faith in Islam, in the same way as Islam negates all other powers except God, the Peerless, as it allows fear for and submission before only and only God, as Towhid, the belief in oneness of God; is the message which gives new life to the society, a message which is enjoyed by all, according to which all the human beings are equal like the teeth of a comb, as it is the elevator of ideas, souls, society and with the same extent as it attains freedom for the weak, in the same way as it knocks down the (evil) powers, with all its ideals and its love for the creatures of God, and with all its wrath against the enemies of God and His people.
Of course, your hejab shall then become an Islamic hejab, and you shall adopt it only when you have recognized the true Islam and have linked your very being with it and its ideals. As you proceed with all these heights, your hejab shall comprehend all these dimensions and shall incorporate them in itself. In other words, it shall assume the position of Islam personified. Now, you, a Muslim woman, with your hejab, which has risen to the position of a deen, an ideology, an ideal, a desire identified with truth, send a message to your people, the people of your land, to the oppressed people of the world in the following words:
My sisters! My brothers! People of my land, my deprived and toiling people! My people under debt! People entangled in countless problems and issues! People brainwashed by mass media of communication and disinformation programmes! People duped by consumption (of consumer goods), loans and installments (of loans)! Oppressed people whose heroic bodies have been bruised by the beat of prickly scourges and bloodstained boots of the rogues of history! O people of my land! O toiling and deprived people of the world! O oppressed people of history from its dawn to this day, and from this day to the auspicious moment of the rising of (Imam) Mahdi, (peace be upon him), do not consider my hejab to be something small and negligible, as it is a glad tiding and a guide to your freedom and salvation. It is a signal for the Ideology of Islam, which, in fact, is a theory of revolution and freedom of all the oppressed and deprived people.
Of course, O people of my land! My sisters! My brothers! All oppressed people of my land! Look at my hejab and beside it the revolt against the false systems, against all the dirty and atheistic values, power, wealth and (so-called) beauty, against all the inhuman considerations based on selfish motives and treating women and human beings as commodities, against the suffering at the hands of atheism, exploitation, debts, decadent and soporific propaganda, a revolt against the oppressive classes, against the bloodthirsty governing regimes, against the autocrats, against godlessness and religious despotism, against the solely material-oriented and materialistic standards, ideals and world views.
O oppressed people of my land! O oppressed people of the world! My hejab is a unit of Islamic ideology, and gives glad tidings of a society proclaimed by Islam, a society in which all its members in the form of a single community turn towards God, not dollars, money, without there being any head, without any position, wealth, prestige, so-called beauty, sex, lust, (filthy) enjoyment. Nay, it gives the glad tidings of a society based on Towhid, belief in the Oneness of God, where the classes would be abolished and the control of all and untruth, the forces of political, economic and religious oppression would be lifted.
Of course, it gives the glad tidings of a society in which there are no cries of the deprived, the hungry and the tears of the orphans. In that society there is no mother suffering the pain of her ailing child left without food or medicine, or a father ashamed of his inability to support his family. There is no disgraced woman rotting in her house, in the offices, exploited in the working place, or a woman who displays her feminine features in the streets and is thus despised to the extent of inhumanity. There is no single-dimensional effort for production and consumption for the sake of production and consumption. There is no dictatorship, whether having an autocrat at the helm of affairs, or the dictatorship of a group of capitalists, whether it is the dictatorship of the proletariat or the Communist party. What difference does it make? They are all different forms of despotism.
It gives the glad tidings of a society presented by Islam, for whose attainment all the Muslim fighters are making efforts and struggle, offering sacrifices of their own life and achieving martyrdom. Praise be to the pure souls of those sacrificing their lives in the way of Allah.
O my people! How long and how far, all this shame, disgrace, contempt and insult, all this plunder of the natural resources at the hands of the Eastern and Western imperialists, the regimes of the oppressors and the savage plunderers?
How long shall we tolerate the opulence of the few and the abject poverty of the majority ? How long shall we see our beliefs, culture, ideals and values trampled by the oppressors of the time and the dominant cultures? How long shall we hear the cries and laments from all the four Corners of our land and from all the deprived people of the world? How long shall we see our sisters as the prostitutes selling their bodies, persecuted women and source of profit and entertainment of the capitalists?
No more. It's enough. I give the message of my hejab. I invite all to the true Islam. I appeal for a revolt and struggle, and give the sole glad tidings of achieving truth, justice, equality and perfection by turning towards God.
This is the message of a Muslim to all the people.
Here I have also a message for you, O sister, O Woman. I do not know to which section of the! class. to which religion and culture you belong, what occupation you have, what degree you hold. But I know that you belong to half of the bruised body of the group of the oppressed people of my land.
I know, I fully know how difficult it is for you to recognize and believe in Islam.
Now, what do you see in Islam? What do you know about it? In the words of Hazrat Ali (AS): (The corrupt Islam consists of) a skin-coat turned inside out, incantations on the tongues of the peers (or the so-called mystic saints) and the Qur'an placed at the cornices of the tombs!
What do you know of a Muslim woman? A poor woman sitting within the four walls of her house who has throughout her life received orders from her father, husband, son or brother, suffering different afflictions, whose life is governed by the slogan. "The jihad of a woman is looking after her house and her children and striving for the pleasure and satisfaction of her husband," but without paying due attention to its deep meanings.
Of course, my sister, it is a big job to bring up children, and it is a valuable job. But Islam expects you to be a mother fighting against falsehood, injustice and tyranny, and at the same time a chaste mother bringing up faithful and justice-loving sons and daughters, a kind wife for the husband, and also a woman sensitive to all the social problems, and responsible before God, her conscience and the people of her land, in other words, a complete woman, a Muslim woman, and not a domestic slave, nor a slave of the bourgeoisie, nor a slave of the Marxian type. On the contrary, the present Muslim woman is an obedient woman in a modern form, a pampered person whose sole social occupation is attending the parties or talks at the religious functions, expressing pride on possession of wealth, gold, jewellery and exercising coquetry.
No, this is not Islam. It is the influence of feudalism, capitalism and imperialism, which, through the ruling regimes, has besmeared Islam, and the appearance of a Muslim woman. But I am one observing hejab, which is Islam personified. I remind you of the days of the advent of Islam, when all of a sudden, like a spring of light, it came out of the womb of dark and fearful night which had enshrouded the whole world. I give you the glad tidings of the dawn of Islam, which would give you freedom.
There is a violent agitation in your mind. How had they introduced Islam to you? What is it that you hear now? What is it that you see now?
I know how difficult it is for you to accept and believe what I am telling you.
I know how difficult it is to nullify the pictures drawn before you by the ruling regimes throughout history; how difficult it is to trample the values, ideals, objectives and tastes which have been imposed on you. But what is the aim of these autocratic powers. (Nothing but) greater benefits, more lasting power and more enduring pleasures, or spreading their political and economic control and culture to all the people of the world.
Is it not a fact that in order to achieve this dirty goal, they have chalked out plans for all the sections and classes of the people of your land? So they have also prepared most sinister plans for you, women who comprise half of the population, and this they have done with the help of sociologists, designers, and hired technicians, and have transformed you into a base, a base for the fulfillment of their nasty designs, bits by bits, step by step. Yes, a woman of my land, they have fully conquered you, and you are a base at their disposal. How inauspicious conquest it is (for you) and how great a conquest it is (for them) !
(You are) a base for getting more profits, a base for crushing and corrupting the supreme divine values, a base for stupefying and deviating another half of the population, namely the men, through you, and eventually they want to wield greater control over the people, plunder, disgrace, exploit and colonize them and get hold of the rule and domination over all of them.
What do they want from you? What standards have they imposed on you? (Nothing but) beauty, exciting lust, attractive, dressed in fashionable clothes, stripping you of clothes, so that you may continue to be a prostitute, a doll having no brain, a scarecrow! You too have surrendered unwittingly. You waste all your nights and days in thinking about all these values and endeavouring to achieve them, with multicolour garments, with fashion journals, with the filthy stuff for makeup, scents, rouges, etc.
After all these autocratic powers, sucking the blood of the people, need cheaper raw material for getting more profits from their factories. Which land is better than your land, with all its rich and plenty resources? But when the people are awakened, vigilant and careful, how can they be plundered, and how can their wealth be robbed? They should therefore be forced to sleep, stupefied and petrified. For this purpose which source is better, more effective than you for inducing the people to sleep and stupefying them? Do you know what you have been doing with my land? Do you see, O Muslim woman, how you have changed into a plaything in their hands? If the surplus products of the factories of these bloodsuckers remain lying in the godowns even for a short time, it would paralyze them and their system completely, and will ultimately annihilate them. So what should they do, so that their surplus commodities, surplus to their needs, may not rot in their godowns? They need markets, new markets. But which market is better than your land, and such other lands?
Yes, they are in need of conquering new markets. This is why they use all your special qualities, your hair, your voice, your body, your tastes, your physical features for the publicity and sale of their waste products, the inferior quality products surplus to their own needs.
Do you see what profit they are accruing from you? They have not only made you a source of publicity for getting more profits and expansion of their markets, you with half-naked clothes, well-scented and coquettish, for the sale of their inferior quality products and consumer goods, but they have also at the same time changed you into a permanent customer and consumer of their commodities including means of decoration, garments, cosmetics, domestic goods, etc., a consumer having a bad taste, so that you like everything they produce and whatever they supply in the market. You are ready to buy it, and thus you give manifold profit to these bloodsuckers. Yes, my sister, you have been serving these criminals through your blunders and your weak points. You are not only serving them, rather I must say that you are inadvertently abetting them in their crimes against the oppressed people of your land.
Now, lend your ear to my message. This is the message of hejab of a Muslim woman, a message of Islam, which openly negates all these values, these rogues, these systems, these deceitful machinations and such outlook about women.
My sister, profit is the god worshipped by all the rogues. It is the devil before whose irresistible temptations all the autocratic bloodsuckers lie in prostration. It has dictated another intrigue to its followers, the ruling regimes against you in order to suck your blood. At another front, through constant publicity among you, women of the toiling, labour class on the one hand, and by aggravating the material poverty on the other, they have dragged you from the house to the factories and farms, so that through your cheap labour power, they may get more profit at the cost of your lifeblood, at the cost of disturbing the whole system of your family and at the cost of depriving your children of your protection.
Woe and disaster be the companion of those,
Who are so much flourishing due to oppression (to others). You see how in order to get more profit and power they prepare plans for exploiting every section and class of the people. With my hejab, I invite you to the fold of Islam, the Islamic ideology, the Islamic hejab. Prepare yourself, destroy all their system of intrigues and plots. Nullify them.
With the type you are, a woman who is a mere plaything and a tool in the hands of the bloodsuckers, what an effective means you have become for spreading ignorance and unawareness among the minds, stupefying the youth, deviating from the right path half of the population consisting of men, so that they may be ignorant of the acute and basic problems of the society, unaware of the oppression, tyranny, poverty, plunder of the natural resources, annihilation of the faith, belief and the indigenous conventions. You, a woman, unwittingly have surrendered before those corrupt values and depraved and oppressive system. You have been deceived by the publicity of the faces of the so-called worthy daughters, and have turned into a base, a stronghold for trampling morals, modesty, chastity, nobility, valour, rebellion and sacrifice. Know that wherever in the society there is prostitution, trespass against the honour of a woman or against human rights, wherever there is absence of gentlemanliness, willy-nilly you have also a hand in it. You are the one in whom values, reverence and morality used to pour forth, rather gush out not only from your faith, but also from your pure essence and your celestial origin. Wherever there was a woman, she was a mother, a sister and a wife, and in her side from her being would shower piety, veneration, modesty, chastity, fervour, pure love and holy devotion.
Now that those rogues have conquered you as a base for themselves and for the preservation of their system, they have also slaughtered all these supreme values on the altar of their interests.
O my sister, with my hejab I give you a message. A half of the body of the oppressed people, oppression and exploitation are your problems too, and not the problems of men only, This bruised land which has always been plundered by rogues, super-criminals and enemies is your land too and not a land of your father, brother or husband alone.
O you who have been humiliated, oppressed and exploited by the enemy, these tyrant powers in the most savage manner! Not the men alone, but you too have also been subjected to a more savage, more brutish and more rude behaviour.
O Woman all the sacred and revered things, values and culture of the people of your land have been trampled under the hooves of domination by the Eastern and Western enemies, and you notice all that carefreely and pass by it, and pull on with your daily routine of life. Nevertheless in all the countless days of your life you only do your domestic work. You busy yourself with your teaching or your school, sit on your table in your office or work in some factory, and are thus satisfied with the disgraceful feminine role imposed on you.
Now, listen to my message of hejab, believe it and accept it, and negate all these oppressions and this culture imposed on you, crush them, destroy them and throw them away.
Now, that you have accepted Islam and its dress and have entered the sanctuary of Islam, now these profiteering plunderers, capitalists and political powers, in one word, Imperialists of the Left and the Right are thinking how to make you, half of the population, a permanent customer of their dirty products, how to turn you into a base for crushing the supreme and elevating values, through your existence, your peculiarities, immodesty, unchastity, ostentation, obscenity and coquetry, now to turn the other half of the population, the men, the minds of the youth away from the basic problems of your land, and by turning your attention to sex, beauty and ostentation, how to make half of the population, namely, the womenfolk, paralyzed, worthless, senseless and careless, so that you may never be able to fight against falsehood, the autocratic regimes of oppression and their filthy standards and values. Of course, O my sister, O woman of my land, do you know that their conspiracy for destroying you and the people of your land is not only an economic conspiracy, but also a political and cultural one.
Now, that through your hejab and your Islam you have repudiated all the rogues and their false world systems, how can those bloodsucking tyrants go on sucking the blood of the people of your land carefreely and be busy in their nasty business? The whole beauty of your dauntless deeds, your belief and sincere faith lies in the fact that you have ruined their pleasant dreams of constantly grazing (in your land's pastures), and this blow you have struck with your faith and revolutionary piety on the inauspicious and fragile structure of their system and they have fully felt the pain of this blow.
Henceforth, in order that you may be a means of publicity for their commodities, in order that you may be a customer of their products, in order that you may stupefy the minds, and in order that you may be a source of destruction of the supreme values, what intrigue should they bring to use your hair, what market should they open and what commodities should they produce, of what colour, what lavender, what type of shampoo, what fixtures and what models should they prepare in order to turn your attention, the mind of men, to makeup and cosmetics? No, now it is enough as God has commanded:
"They should draw their veils...." [6]
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Now, how should they display your neck and your bosom? How can they use it as a means of publicity for their refrigerators, their fans or their washing machines, or a means for deviating the minds, which too God has placed in the shelter of Islamic dress, (where he says):
"They should draw their veils over their bosoms...."[7]
Of course, my sister, woman of my land, all oppressed women of the world who have been subjected to the tyranny of these powers in one way or the other, and your whole body has been a source of publicity for some shoes, some garments or some machines, how should they use the peculiarities of your feminine character as a tool for sex, lust, pleasure and profit and impose them on the society, while God has placed you within a safe enclosure in a nice garden, (as He commands):
"They should cast their outer garments over their persons."[8]
Now, how can they reject the values of your being through the decoration of your physical features and laying emphasis on your physical values, conceal your capabilities for development and perfection, in order to keep you in the lowest levels of knowledge and understanding, even if you happen to be educated, as education in such Satanic circumstances is not a proof of proper understanding.
Islam the deliverer, has snatched such opportunity too from all indulgence in lust along with hero-worship, dandyism, well-scented-rogues, profit-mongers and their followers, (as Allah says:)
"They should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof. [9] Now, how should they ruin the minds, deviate the brains and sell their products of inferior quality for high prices through the use of your eyes and looks, the eyes which should never be cast at what is forbidden to look at, whatever is forbidden. What difference does the futile knowledge which has no utility for the development of you and the people of your land, as well as the consumer goods including the garments, cosmetics and other means of living, whatever is unfruitful for the elevation of your persons and your character, whatever proves to be an impediment in your development and movement towards God.
Do you know, it is the eyes that must be cast on facts, on the ailments of the society, the distresses of the deprived, the plunder of the natural resources, culture, religious, communal and indigenous values, on the laws which give perfection to the being and on the facts of Islamic faith which bring salvation. It is the eyes that are answerable. Of course, (as Allah commands:)
"The women should lower (the gaze of) their eyes." [10] My sister, I give you the message through my hejab. I tell you the truth. I tread the path of development and elevation. Lend your ear to my message.
All the oppressors of history, and now their heirs and successors, the world imperialism and their stooges, who have deprived the people of a pleasant living and undisturbed sleep, have made the use of every peculiarity of yours for the benefit of themselves and the perpetuation of their rule as well as increasing their wealth. Islam has wittingly protected all these peculiarities through its all-pervading teachings in the shelter of its ideology from being exploited or harmed by the oppressors, and has changed them into a weapon against these people.
Do you see? Do you hear? (Is it) your own voice? They have regulated even your voice, by determining its frequencies, its higher and lower tones, in the different hours of the day, on various occasions, on the office table, in the bed, on the telephone, as to how you should behave, a prostitute from head to toe, so that you may have observed the training of the modern woman, in order that you may spoil the minds, weaken the willpowers and avert the brains from facts so that the Imperialists may sell more of their spoiled commodities by controlling the lower and higher tones of your voice.
They would make use of your tempting and lascivious voice for the publicity of a refrigerator or a juicer, or. ..Alas! How much they have degraded you, to the position of an article, a tool, an implement simply for making profit and perpetuating their control over the sleeping minds, the petrified brains, interested in sex, pleasure, consumption and grazing like cattle.
Islam has also taken away this base from them, (as Allah orders):
"Be not too complacent of speech."[11]
But speak, wherever the truth is to be expressed, redress is demanded, justice is implored, a pious society is to be formed. It is there that your speech shall serve as a weapon against them. It would be a call of truth that will fall on their heads. It shall be an arm that shall make the heart of their power its target, and shall invite the people of your land, the masses, to the heights of evolution and perfection.
"Speak a speech (that is) just." [12]
Then all of a sudden it throws all the weight on the forces preventing the masses from achieving elevation and perfection, and explains all the essence and philosophy of hejab, as to what it is. Woman has throughout history expressed a strong inclination towards ostentation and self-display. In every period it was there in one form or the other. Now under the sway of the most powerful empire of the world, the plundering West and the Imperialist East, this love for display has dragged woman to humiliation and has degraded her to the extent of becoming an article or an animal, so that "The most beautiful female animal of the world" is the title of one of the modern film advertisements.
Let us weep bitterly. Let us revolt through our deeds, words, acts and (sacrificing) our blood, so that we may destroy this decadent system from our society and throughout the world, wipe off these disgraceful stigmas and these filthy values from the human society and from the holy face of the woman. Praise be to the souls of those who took a step forward in the way of this sacred path by sacrificing their blood.
O Woman! O my sister! O prisoner of the ruling regime! O the one oppressed by the political and economic powers and religious despotism!
Is according to the analysis of Islamic Ideology this love for display and ostentation at the social level an innate trait of woman's character?
No, never! Islam that bestows salvation and elevation considers self-display as one of signs of conditions imposed by the Ignorance (period). What type of society is an Ignorant society? It is an atheistic or class-oriented society under the control of political or economic and, sometimes, pseudo-religious power with the criteria of beauty, sex, entertainment, womanizing, sensuality, indulgence in lust along with hero-worship, dandyism, well-scentedness and coquetry that the ruling regimes have imposed such conditions on a vast scale upon all the units and sections of the society including men, women and children.
A woman who places herself for display is inspired by such society. She has full faith in her physical and external features, as she lacks the internal and supreme human values. In the words of the Qur'anic explanation, the influence of the ignorant conditions brings down the knowledge of all the masses, the understanding of every individual including men and women about their responsibilities for the achievement of the gradual perfection of the society and in their own place in the course of the development of the phenomena of masses to the lowest and the most brutal level. A woman who displays her feminine features and her special culture before the strangers is a woman, the influence of the ignorant society has so much over-powered her person that her understanding has declined to the level of an animal or her mere instinctive level, and has distorted her human character, social responsibility and the fervour of the original values bestowed in her divine essence under the hooves of brutish culture of Imperialism and exploitation imposed on her by the rogues.
Yes, O sister! O woman! This is why Islam through this command invites you to (achieve) self-understanding and knowledge of the society, its original needs, the principal cause of its corruption and depravity and at last to soar towards heights, or revolt for ransacking the ignorant conditions of the decadent society and the prevailing system, (as Allah commands:)
"And make not a dazzling display, like that of the former Times of Ignorance." [13]
In this manner Islam has blocked all the possibilities of deviation and profiteering. But it has not blocked your way. It has demolished the domination of the tyrant rulers that has come down through the course of thousands of years of history, since the last 2500 years, demolished the capitalists and the Imperialists and disarmed them. But it has not done so with you. Through this dress, it has bestowed upon you a garden, a green field the horizon of which is spread before you to infinity. You may achieve heights, rise and strive for the deliverance of yourself, your land, your religion, your culture and your oppressed masses, and fly high towards God, the Absolute Perfection.
Now, it is enough. O most oppressed among the oppressed of history! O woman! It is now enough. Now hark to the message of Islam, and receive it from the Qur'an, from the call of the truth-seekers, from the blood of the martyrs, and once for all with the hatchet of Towhid break into pieces the tyrant powers, the whole corrupt systems and all the values imposed on you which have dragged you into such disgrace and humiliation, and raze their edifice to the ground.
Give a helping hand to those who have openly been defeated in the path of truth and to the masses.
Rise and revolt against the autocratic regimes, against the decadent societies and the dirty values imposed on you. Rise, and incite others against them, with the help of your Islam, with the help of your hejab, the depth of which you have now fully realized, which has bestowed upon you the infinite capacity of being human, and which has liberated you from all the criteria of Imperialism and exploitation. Warn the people of your land to demand piety from you and not beauty; modesty and not immodesty and betrayal of secrets; chastity and honour and not prostitution, obscenity and coquetry, revolt and rebel, in and not passive submission to whatever is given to you, to whatever orders are issued to you by the regimes, rogues, capitalists, imperialists and even the rotten customs and traditions through which they compel you.
Let the people wish to find you like the magnificent and proud summits, a sister revolting against the ruling regimes, the ebullient rivulets springing from within the hearts of the lofty mountains. Let them long to see in you an indefatigable combatant against falsehood and untruth.
Let the people like to see in you a brave, chaste and responsible mother, a loving wife interested in the well-being of the family, the stronghold for the upbringing and stimulation of those who tread on the path of truth. Let them see in you a Khadijah, the first among all the women who embraced Islam before others, a woman who sacrificed her whole being at the altar of the growth and spread of Islam.
Let them wish to find in you a (Fatimah) Zahra who suffered a lot in saying what was true, who always spoke the truth and, due to the torture at the hands of untruth, she opted to die and be buried under the dust in the prime of her youth.
Let them long to see in you a Zaynab, the combatant, whose call for the awakening and search for truth still echoes and shall continue to echo until the end of the world in the mountains, plains and societies, and the human history shall sing the song of her ideal, her path, and call the people to emulate her.
Let them want to see you like the sisters who with their holy blood have given a response to this invitation, to this call. It is enough, now I have heard your message, Muslim woman, and have now come to understand Islam. I have adopted the hejab. Of course, I have responded to your call. My sister, I have adopted the hejab. I have achieved self-recognition. The old self, made by others, made by the family training, brought up by the political and economic powers, trained by the unfruitful conventions and useless customs of the community I have inherited, yes I have destroyed such Self, and have made another Self on the basis of the Islamic teachings. Now I am a Muslim woman. I am free. I am released. This is the real freedom, namely, being a Muslim.
My hejab is a weapon. It is a stronghold for war against oppressors. I make them a target of the volley of truth and wrath discharged from my hejab and send them to the graveyard of history.
O powerful people! O disobedient tyrants! O Pharoahs! Throughout the millenia of decadent history you have used me as a domestic servant, a tool for the bed and a source for enervating willpowers, stupefying the brains and destroying the supreme values and have turned me subservient to the whims of man.
You have closed on me from all sides all the channels of true knowledge and understanding of truth, the bitter facts of being and have nailed me in the lowest plane of thinking and meditation. O Croesuses of history, old and modern capitalists, you have been exploiting my labour power in the most savage manner in the factories and farms, and have persuaded me to serve the bureaucracy in the office so that I may rot and rot.
You have unclad me. You have employed me as a source for the sale of your stinking, low quality products.
You have diverted my mind, my ideal and my will towards sex, pleasure and self-display. You have prepared plans so that my father, my brother and my husband should like me only for the sake of my weaknesses, my fears, my submission and undue passivism, my devotion, my lack of self-confidence, my overindulgence with housekeeping, my self-display before strangers. Of course, you managed to make all these weaknesses of mine, and then for the sake of these weaknesses you made me lovable and wanted.
Now, let you know that in the shelter of modesty and chastity I have abandoned the display in streets and markets and the mass media of communication, the pieces of works of filthy and selfish poets and writers who by picturing my eyes, eyebrows and my body try to make good for their lack of aptitude. I entrust my sex-appeal, feminine character and features solely to the limits of my family, so that throughout my life I may be pure and fresh like the morning dew, so that I may lend inspiration to my home and may be the sole beloved of my husband, so that my sex, my special features and my feminine culture may achieve perfection within the garden of my home, may grow and may bestow upon myself and my household stimulation, love and freshness.
I am myself a believer. With my Islam, with my hejab, with the heavy social responsibility of the commands to do what is good and forbid what is wrong, with which I am charged by the external ideology of Islam, I enter the stage of the society and conquer all its planes. I speak truth and seek after truth and tread the path of (God,) the One.
I have understood Islam. I have upheld hejab, You, bloodsucking Oppressors have lost an anti-people stronghold, namely, the woman of the type you had yourself forged, you had yourself trained, you had yourself taught the ideals, the way of walking, talking, laughing, wishing and longing. Of course you had yourself taught all these things to her. You have now lost such a woman, such a stronghold. How sensitive a stronghold! Hence by the Grace of God and our efforts, this stronghold shall never fall into your hands. Myself and my people, women who form half of the population, and. men who form the other half of the population, have got hold of a stronghold against you and for crushing you. My hejab which is by itself now an Islam personified says that it will crush you. It tells you that it is an avowed enemy of you, the ruling regimes, you the corrupt politicians, you the chosen of the strong, you Pharoahs, Croesuses, imperialists, and (their) stooges. It warns you that in this world you shall be punished by the weak masses and on the Day of Judgement shall be subjected to eternal torture of Hell.
I picture Islam with my hejab, give it a positive form. I revolt against you. With my Islam, my hejab, and my struggle every day I bring closer the death of you, of your class and of your system, (as God says:)
"Away with those who do wrong!". (Surah Hud: 11 :44)
Now, we Muslim sisters with our hejab give a message to our Muslim brothers and to our Muslim sisters. How inspiring is the sight of truthful women and men! With one another, with our being, with our existence, with our possession, we send message to one another, give strength to one another, enforce one another and invite to perseverance and steadfastness.
We are the "balanced community" [14], the best community, believing in God, in Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, in the World Hereafter. We are "the Party of Allah" [15] and certainly we shall triumph over the oppressors.
We are those demanding to avenge the blood of the martyrs, obtaining the rights of the persons wronged and those forming an Islamic society based on the Oneness (of God) and enjoying growth, perfection and happiness in the future which is not very distant. We are ordered to command our oppressed people to the good deed, namely, fight against the oppressors, against the anti-God, anti-people and decadent systems and against their dirty values, and forbid to do everything wrong, namely, every type of conspiracy, abetting and surrendering before the system of oppressors, humiliations, disgrace and their criteria. [16]
We are those who have responded to the call of God and his Messenger, when they called us to understand truth and fight for the annihilation of falsehood. Of course, it is we who have, through this response, achieved a real life in being a Muslim, in Islam.[17]
We have now started our war, war against the oppressors and the rogues so that all our people may achieve this life, this happy life in a pious, Islamic society.
Our strength is getting more and more, our number greater, our group more organized, our fists more clenched, our steps more firm, the storm of our wrath against the enemies of God and the people more crushing and implacable, and friendship and kindness towards the oppressed people of our land stronger and stronger.
Then our victory is also closer. The palaces of the oppressors would become desolate and their system shall be closer to annihilation, so that at the dawn, with our efforts and with the help of God, the support of Allah shall reach, and all and sundry, belonging to the various types, sections and groups shall enter the fold of God's faith in groups, and shall join their stormy wrath with our inexorable rage, so that we may be blessed with victory and triumph and may succeed in forming a society based on Oneness (of God) with the help of all the people of our land, and the oppressed, the tormented, those in debt, the toiling masses and those who are under the political, economic and cultural domination of the oppressors, and prisoners in chains of the tyrants may, by the Grace of God, take up their historical leadership in the society.
Here I have also a message for you, O atheists, those suffering from Orientosis and Communists! I also give a message with my Islam and my hejab which itself has become identified with Islam, to you O worshippers of matter in the system of creation, historical and class determinism, production in the society, tools in the history, the multitude in the Communist society, and to you the worshippers of the founding theoreticians and the great leaders and epoch-makers, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao!
Yes, to you who deny One God, but worship numerous gods. What can be done? It is a positive and scientific fact. One should think and analyze scientifically. After all man has been a worshipper throughout the course of history. Sometimes he worshipped stones, sometimes wood, individuals, things, matter, etc., which are all deviating forms of worship, a deviation from the original and actual worship of One God, a natural quality which has been inborn in the nature of man. Is it not a fact that in Qur'an, the lexicons of religion and polytheism, the meaning of worship is to submit oneself to the will of a thing, an individual, a matter, or anything else? You also submit before the laws of matter, growth of the factors of production, historical determinism, etc.
You must know that certainly victory and salvation are ours, provided that we possess the special belief, piety and vigilance of a believer.
Of course, victory is ours, as we worship One God, and are under the control of His power. We believe that, He is our Creator. We live for winning his favour, and travel to obtain closeness to him. We fight in his way, and against everything and every person other than Himself, whether an individual, a tool, production, class, historical determinism or any other thing. We are strong, superior, powerful and possessing free will and determination.
On the other hand, you, despite all the ideological weaknesses and blind alleys, in an open analysis in the West and Far East, on account of the weaknesses of Christianity and Budhism, are at present the most progressive school of thought and per force successful, but according to the same scientific and positive analysis while confronting Muslims in the East and Islam, this eternal ideology of all the phenomena of creation, including man, and vis-à-vis its economic and social solutions and moral laws, you are very deceitful, wicked and are striking blows on the Islamic movements. Of course, the history of the battles of our land bears testimony to this fact. Now, I, in the capacity of a Muslim woman, have a message for you, with my hejab and my Islam. For you who have turned your back upon your indigenous and national traditions: For you who have never taken the trouble to understand Islam, a religion that gives life, with which the warp and woof of the mental and social life of your people is made, and then you cry hoarse claiming to be the supporters of the people. How strange! Which people do you talk of? You do not understand the people. You have never tried to obtain the true understanding of the background of their faith. Then, what do you say, and what do you want? How do you want to arrange their salvation?
I have also a message for you. You who have completely lost yourself, have sprung up lately as a branch of the Western culture in an ideological form. for you the consumers of the Western cultural commodity in an intellectual and truth-oriented form. Lend me your ear. This is a message of Islam. It is the wish of the people. You are those whose ultimate ideal with regard to woman and her freedom is confined to arranging her participation in the social production. Oh, only this much. Well, this is nothing new. The ideal of the bourgeois society has since long been the same, and even now its achievement is exactly according to the same ideal.
Most shamefully, however, you try to crush Islam whose ultimate ideal for woman in this world is that she must be armed with the weapon of the ideology of Islam. Not only the woman, half of the population but also men, the other half of the population too, and the active participation of these two halves, namely, women and men, shoulder to shoulder, in the socio-revolutionary mission of commanding others to do what is good and forbidding them from doing what is wrong, or their constant participation in the invitation to (service for) truth and justice, annihilation of the oppressors, obtaining the rights of the oppressed and the equal distribution of the divine gifts among all the people, each of the men and women performing this liability in their special respective way. Of course, this is Islam and the Islamic ideal for women!
This is the religion, which you, by your unscientific and dogmatistic analysis, call one of the feudal religions and its laws source of misery and backwardness of woman, and hejab an impediment in the way of her development and something bringing debasement to her.
You are those who have not yet found a complete, ideological and forceful dress for women, call the hejab of a Muslim woman, the hejab which humanizes and liberates woman and is a stronghold of woman against the rogues of history, the decadent feudalistic regimes and domination-oriented political systems reactionary and a source of trouble for women. But you do not think at all. But it does not matter for you, the followers of the great leader, Lenin, the revolutionary, the annihilator of Russian Czarism, the huge idol, who was the founder of Marxism-Leninism and who, by a clear blow, laid the foundation of the open treachery against the deprived people of Iran.
Refer to history. [18] It is he who crushed the armed revolt of the jungle (by Mirza Kucheck Jungali) for the sake of political and economic interests of USSR, for the sole reason that the Mirza was guided by the Islamic ideology and Lenin, therefore, arranged the so-called ideological coup d'etat against him. It is he who kept the representatives of Mirza Kuchek, the monotheistic spiritual fighter, waiting for a long time to be granted an audience and eventually did not grant it, but on the other hand, granted an audience to the representatives of Reza Khan, the Oppressor, the then ruler of Iran, who had gone to USSR coincidentally with the representatives of the Mirza, and supported them, and in this way preferred a reactionary, brutal regime to a people's revolutionary government and that too for the sole offence (!) of being religious.[19] Of course, it was a treachery against not only the people of Iran but against all the people of this region, because with the freedom of Iran, the Gordian knot of their salvation, deliverance and prosperity would also be untied.
Are you (not) the true followers of the same Lenin, the children suckled by the same materialist school?
You are those the theoretician founder of whose philosophy, Engels, called the occupation of Algiers by France and the exploitation of the deprived people of that country an epoch-making victory. (He wrote:) "The occupation of Algiers is an important and happy event in the progress of civilization. If we are sorry that the freedom of nomads (i.e. the people of Algiers) has been lost, we should not forget that these very nomads have been a nation of robbers, and a neo-bourgeoisie with civilization, industry and discipline, or at least their enlightenment enjoy advantage over a Khan, a feudal lord, a robber and a plunderer, a nation of robbers who belong to a society having barbaric government."[20] These are the holy words written by him, according to which the Algerian people and Abdul Qadir, one of the greatest Muslim leaders, were robbers, feudalists, but one who endorses the imperialistic policies and paves the way for their success is called "epoch-making" (Mao), and the leader who considers such a treachery against the people as justified is called "Great". This is a new terminology. Let us read it, take a lesson from it and should not allow ourselves to be deceived by it.
Here for the present I leave you with your contradictions and entrust you to your rotten ideas, and turn to our chief enemy, [21] as I know that in the process of the freedom of our Muslim people, such a school of thought, with the ever increasing weaknesses, countless headaches and ideological blind alleys and constant blows on the Islamic movements, with its illogical and single dimensional (materialistic) worldview, with lack of faithful, cultural and traditional base among the Muslim masses shall soon become worn out and obliterated.
Now I, a Muslim woman, with my hejab, which has become identical with Islam and an ideology personified, give you a message. Does human dignity not lie in understanding truth, in accepting it and following it?
So I invite you to study Marxism and its original evidence with a critical eye. Do study it. Find out its weaknesses and blind alleys, its inexorable blows, its inhuman perceptions (like the one of its founder) and its constant treacheries (like the treachery of its great (!) leader) against the Muslim masses. Then, (I am sure) on account of the same human dignity you shall say goodbye to the (Marxian) school. Then look at the creation of the universe, the system of creation, the order of the phenomena, the wisdom behind the laws, relationships and objectives of the phenomena, certainly you will find God and (the truth behind the belief in) the next world. Then if you think about the people, and the incessant torture of the people of your land incite your human feelings, if you want to realize the liberty of the oppressed people not only in your mind but also in the solid social and historical realities, understand the true Islam which is the very foundation of the faith and thinking of the people of our land.
Then you should also say, and say from the depth of your heart, that there is no God, but God, the One. There is no other Power (but He). Say this and achieve salvation, so that then we may all, with a united Godly front, destroy this world of polytheism, oppression and inequality and may send its Satans, the tyrant political and economic powers, to the graveyard of history, so that "Faith in Allah may prevail altogether and everywhere" (Surah al-Anfal: 8:39); only the faith in Allah may govern the society and then the history, and the oppressed and the deprived people under its radiation be relieved of torture, tyranny, exploitation, debt, deprivation and backwardness, may ascend the heights, and by the Grace of God, may take up their historical leadership throughout the (human) society.
Notes:
[6] Surah Nur 24:31.
[7] Ibid
[8] Surah Ahzab 33:59.
[9] Surah Nur 24:31. With regard to the beauty and ornaments, which may be displayed, some of the reports say that they are the bracelets and ring of a woman. Others say that it is collyrium which a woman applies to her eyes for (attracting) her husband and it is not rubbed off. It also includes the face, the palm of the hands and feet. As regards the decoration which must not be displayed some believe that it is the whole body of the woman, from head to the toe, some parts of which despite being covered have to be displayed, such as the face, features of the body, etc. (Refer to the Tafseer-e-Burhan)
[10] Surah Nur24:31.
[11] and [12] Surah Ahzab 33:32. This verse concerns the wives of the Prophet, but with reference to the verse 71 of Surah Towbah (9) and the standard of the ideal of Islam regarding a woman, it applies to all women.
[13] Surah Ahzab 33:32. This verse also concerns the wives of the Prophet, but in view of the general ideal of Islam regarding the women and the verse 60 of Surah Nur which condemns wanton display of beauty even for old women, it applies to all women.
[14] Surah al-Baqarah 2:143 and Surah AaIi-Imran 3:110.
[15] Surah al-Ma'idah 5:56.
[16] Surah Towbah 9:71. For the commentary of this verse refer to "Tuhaful 'Uqul". It is a report from Hazrat Ali which has come down through Imam Husayn.
[17] Surah al-Anfal 8:24.
[18] Vide all the works on Marxism, particularly the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, Historical Materialism by Stalin and the other works on Marxism.
[19] Vide "Sardar-e-Jangal" by Ibrahim Fakhra'i, and "Shuravi va Nehzat-e-Inqelabiye Jangal" (The USSR and the Revolutionary Movement of Jangal) by Mostafa Shoa'iyan.
[20] Engels: Basic Writings, Some Political. and Philosophy, London, 1969, pp. 4889.
[21] The experience of the Islamic Revolution and the role of small groups associated with Marxism and International Communism have proved that this opinion is not correct. The correct method for the relation with Marxism is that in the process of revolution from the beginning to the end the intellectuals must take up the elucidation and analysis of both the doctrines of Capitalism and Marxism (which, according to Martyr Mutahhari, are like two blades of scissors trying to put an end to Islam), so that the young generation may consciously understand both the schools of thought and reject them, and the blows suffered by our people after the victory (of the revolution) may not be repeated. In fact, Islam is basically opposed to both Marxism and Capitalism, and both these schools are the enemies of Islam.
