BBC's Panorama: Covering Up - your views?

[cutelilhijaabi]

Assalaamulaikum wr wb,

I'm sure a lot of you watched it - Panorama: Covering Up on
Sunday night. It basically featured 3 Muslimah's who wore the
hijaab and one who wore the niqaab, Alhamdulillah. The programme
sought to show them not as oppressed individuals, as is often
the case, but as educated women who escaped the usual stereo-
type of Muslim women.
I personally think the programme was very good, with only
minor flaws - my belief was cemented when I returned to the
BBC website the following day to find comments by both Muslims
and non-Muslims claiming they found the programme refreshing.
What did everyone else think?

[Undercover]

:salam:

yep yep i have to agree
the girl in the niqab that was on (ameenah) actually lives near me, and :alhamd: i have to say i was quite impressed by what she said

other than that the other sisters, espesh the birmingham one (anti war campaigner) and the east london one, were excelent too

wasalaam

[Mariah]

:salam:

yeah the lawyer.. sister mudassar.... hmm i thought that was a guys name? *shrugs* oh well guess sister Sajeda can clear that up for us seen as shes doing the muslim names.. but bak to the topic.. think she was kinda reali good in what she had to say.. especially the bit about first her believing that she could be "whiter than white" and then realising her true identity and stuff... guess alot of us need to get that through.. and be proud of who we are and have the courage to stand up for our worth!

anyways tek cre guys..

wassalam

[Raeesa]

I missed it, but it sounds pretty good...
*wonders if we'll ever see a re-run*

[Goldi]

yeah the lawyer.. sister mudassar.... hmm i thought that was a guys name? *shrugs* oh well guess sister Sajeda can clear that up for us seen as shes doing the muslim names..

WHAT!?????

SISTER MUDASSER??

NO. NO. NO.

She is CLEARLY having a man's name.

:evil:

[Omar_Farouk]

MashaAllah it was a good programme, as all the sisters outlined that they were not forced to wear the hijaab, pity it was on quite late, as if it was on at an earlier time, more non-muslims could have watched it aswell and realised what hijaab actually is.

[Aasiya]

Yeah the programme was good, Sis Ameena said a good point about integration and how it should work both ways ;)

The gal from birmingham, the anti-war campaigner was real good, the bits they showed of her speeches for 'stop the war' protests were really good mashallah.

Overall the programme was good, and yes the only thing I found weird was sis Mudassars name. :lol:

[Mariah]

WHAT!?????

SISTER MUDASSER??

NO. NO. NO.

She is CLEARLY having a man's name.

:evil:

:salam:

hmm i guess i touched a raw nerve there...

but then again people have all sorts of wierd names coz iv heeard of a woman with the name Iqbal and that is DEFINATELY a mans name :rolleyes:

anyways wassalam

[Omar_Farouk]

:rolleyes:

[Saleel]

:salam:

The only thing I noted (well, I didn't, but when I spoke to others, this is what they pointed out) was the fact that they didn't show any reverts/converts. The programme sort of portrayed hijaab to be a cultural thing. I think if they had a revert to Islam on the programme it would have been more balanced and possibly more appealing to non-muslims.

And I must rant. Did anyone see "World Weddings" (I think that's what it was called) last night? On BBC1 I think. I have never seen such trash shown before on BBC about muslims. :subh: I was so mad by the end of it. They portrayed Iran to be the country of junkies. They even showed a muslim Iranian injecting himself with heroin - the full-shot of him with a needle and syringe sticking out of his arm and him talking about how good it makes him feel. But the programme focussed on an Iranian - ironically named Muhammad - who was 47 and a junkie who had given up for 3 years, and his search for "love". He was HIV+. His doctor matched him to a 21 sis, also HIV+ but that didn't work out.

Next scene we see is the guy walking around with his "girlfriend" and discussing how they can't live without each other. Then, they proceeded to get a 6month temporary marriage done, and showed the whole ceremony from start to finish. It was really pathetic - they made no effort to make it clear that this was NOT part of conventional sunni Islam. I was just thinking how a non-muslim audience would be reacting to this - no doubt many of them believe that mutah is permissible in Islam after watching the show. :astagh:.

The show then went on to the "wife" discussing with her "husband's" doctor about their intimiate relationship and how her husband is worried he'll give her the HIV. And finally, the show ended with her completely transformed into western clothing, now with no head-scarf on, and the two dancing together infront of all to see because the guy was celebrating 3 years of being clear from drugs.

:subh: they painted such a bad image of Iran and Islam I was so furious at the end. Never as any other show about Islam made me so angry. :frown:

:salam:

[FatimaM]

Salaams

I thought that programme was really good! Very good intelligent points from all the sister - there goes that image of a docile wotless muslim woman!


Saleel
I really wanted 2 watch that show but judgening from your reaction - it would have depressed me even more.....

But you know what, I think it's time we faced facts and accepted that our Muslims commit sins and use drugs, commit zina etc. Once we akcnoledge that we can deal with the problems. In most cases our Muslims suffer a great deal difficulty because we prefer covering the problems up instead of dealing with them.....

Wassalaam

[Saleel]

:salam:

FatimaM - I agree, Muslims are in a state. I was watching a VCD of Abdal-Hakim Murad today, and he made a brilliant analogy. He said that although people might jump out of the lifeboat, the lifeboat still stays afloat. Similary, if people wish to leave the deen of Allah swt, that's their god-given choice, but people shouldn't taint the picture of Islam.

I think two issues come into play...

1. Open fisq.
2. Portraying a negative picture of Islam.

I'm not saying that Iran does not have problems - I was unaware that it had a drug problem, but if that is the case, then I do not deny it. But what is sad is that two/three muslims accept to their lives being shown on camera... their sins being shown to the UK population. Sunnipath says that to talk about your own sins is a sin itself. If these people wish to indulge in zinnah, they should do it in private but not make it viewable by all.

Secondly, and this is what really annoyed me, the programme was completely one-sided. Again, I do not deny that there might be a heroin problem in Iran, but can we start listing the problems the UK has? Drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc. Yet, the UK is still shown in a balanced perspective. The BBC did not do that with that programme. I cannot recall one positive factor they showed in the whole programme... and at one point, you could even hear the adhaan in the background while the people were indulging in fitnah.

Khair... may Allah swt forgive us all.

:salam:

[Wayda]

Assalamu-alaykum,

Okay a slight shift and back to the BBC1 documentary on hijabsters.
I definately think this was aplus point on our side, considering it was the BBC that launched it I was actually mildly surprised. No I wasn't expecting them to completely skew he whole point of hijab but I didn't expect this to be ...pleasing?

Compared to the Channel Four documentary a whle back on veiled women (presented by Yasmin ali Bhai Brown at the Leicester Islamic Academy, a girls school) it was actually pretty balanced. The Channel four documentary was ridculous to say the least.

Sister Ameena, I'm gald they got a youth voice in there, and she defnately did show that it was possible to be a niqaabi and British at the same time :)
Arani...hmm I do recall her saying smething pretty odd but I don't recall what. However they did show that al these women were hijabi's and were pretty much part of society, meaning they still went ahead and had a career or were building one atleast. Also...the donning of islamc of modest dress. Made a distinct difference between wearing an islamic dress because they justified it both personally and islamically not simply becasue islam says so. Nice.

The BNP leader *grr* :evil: The erm...interviewer/presenter did however try to ask some leading questions on the idea that by donning islamic dress they were segregating their society and basically pulling away from 'western culture'. I don't think that was cleaned up too well and viewers will still see it as a problem and will begin to see it as a problem had they not seen this as an issue before the documentary was aired.

Okay, Enough waffled.

Assalamu-alaykum.

[Aasiya]

salamz


:salam:

hmm i guess i touched a raw nerve there...

but then again people have all sorts of wierd names coz iv heeard of a woman with the name Iqbal and that is DEFINATELY a mans name :rolleyes:

anyways wassalam


heh, Mudasser = Goldi

and according to my previous Arabic teacher, Iqbal is an arabic name for a girl. so hmmm, it is a weird world ;)

[Mossy]

Hmm.. From the sounds of things it sounds like it may have been a dash skewed, but in the opposite way to normal (I didn't watch it myself)..

There are those who choose to wear the hijab and those who do not choose to wear it.

There are those who understand what it means and how it goes beyond a piece of cloth on your head and those who take it off the moment they reach school and go to daytimers.

Ideally any objective look would include all viewpoints/motivations, but that's hard these days..

The "other side" also appeared to be rather oddly picked..

But hey, it's nice to even things up.

Seeing the BNP, I was reminded of something rather ironic recently.

Apparently in Brick Lane, bengali men were handing out their leaflets in the recent elections instead of ones for Respect.

Why?

Because BNP stands for Bangladesh Nationalist Party of course.. :rolleyes:

[Mariah]

salamz




heh, Mudasser = Goldi

and according to my previous Arabic teacher, Iqbal is an arabic name for a girl. so hmmm, it is a weird world ;)

:salam:

most Muslim name sources tend to have Iqbal under the males section.. hmm but then again yeah as u say it is a wierd world...

well back to that marriage programe.. it got me pretty annoyed coz it was shown from the shia's side and not how sunni muslims deal with marriage... yeah thats fine but the least they could have done was clarified the fact that sunni muslims do not do dum temporary marriages n so on...

anyways theres gona be lots of this kinda junk in the media and were jus gona have to deal with it somehow...

wassalam

[Saleel]

:salam:



well back to that marriage programe.. it got me pretty annoyed coz it was shown from the shia's side and not how sunni muslims deal with marriage... yeah thats fine but the least they could have done was clarified the fact that sunni muslims do not do dum temporary marriages n so on...
Exactly.

:salam:

[Aasiya]

lol @ BNP...

Mariah, sorry, I meant that my Arabic teacher simply used to tell us that Iqbal was really a females name as well as a males name... :)

wasalam

[Mariah]

lol @ BNP...

Mariah, sorry, I meant that my Arabic teacher simply used to tell us that Iqbal was really a females name as well as a males name... :)

wasalam

:salam:

lol no problemo.. i fully understand the wierdness of names :)

wassalam

[HiJaaBi]

salaamz. im looking for a play based on hijaab to be acted out at our youth program. could anyone please share some ideas or maybe a sketch you may have.i will greatly appreciate it. jzkl. wasalaam