Social Networking

Last night I blogged on my reaction to women wearing hijabs in London, Ontario. My thoughts had me thinking about how I treat Muslims and why I treat them that way.

This morning I heard from a blogger in Iran! A woman who goes by the name of Shahrzah, and she gave me permission to use some art from her site. She also took the time to enrich my knowledge concerning the attire of Muslim women.

Here are her comments:

Salam/Hi/Peace

I read your post and it's thoughtful. You have permission to use photos from my blog if you want to. And i am so happy that you've decided not to treat Muslim stereotypically as some few people do.

However i would like to give you few information about the hijab and hijab law in Iran. Actually based on law, Iranian women must cover their head by scarf, but it does not include forcing to wear burka or things like that. There's no force to cover the head thoroughly as well. There was a religious police since some years after revolution, but now after coming for second term, Ahmadinejad has eliminated that ancient religious police!

Nobody wears burkas in Iran. Burkas are popular in Afghanistan and some other Asian countries. In fact Iranian women never cover their face, bcs religiously they're not recommended too. (Iranians follow a different sect of Islam, name as 'Shia or Shiite Islam and women are not recommended to wear face cover.)

There's a traditional way of hijab with the name "Chador" and this chador has a history related to pre-Islamic era when Iranians used to follow Zoroastrian religion and women of rich families were obligated to wear chador. Nowadays nobody is forced to wear chador, but some women 'chose' to wear it.

Best Regards,
Shahrzah


My addition: Years ago, while still working at the newspaper I shot pictures of two sisters who were practising Zoroastrians. At the time there were about four or five dozen Zoroastrians living in London, Ontario.