Should Burqa or Niqab be Banned? (Sulaiman)

Muslim women have an obligation to cover their aurat. They usually wear veil to cover their face. It reflects them as a Muslim woman. Nowadays, there are many trends of veil but few Muslim women still use traditional Niqab or Burqa (Full-Faced veil). It is commonly worn in many Muslim countries especially in the Saudi Arabian peninsula. Wearing Niqab or Burqa is a choice, made by individual Muslim on a personal basis. In Holy Quran in Surat AI-Ahzab verse 59:

“O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful

            This surah describe to women that how important cover their aurat; it is their obligation in Islam. Muslim woman who wear veil also must maintain their good behavior so that can reflect a good Muslimah. There many cases or issues that ban wearing the traditional Niqab, especially in UK. If Muslim woman as a witnesses or defendants, they must remove their Niqab when she gives evidence in front of the trial, but she may wears it other times during the trial. Only the judge, legal counsel, and jury will be able to see their face when she gives evidence. On the other hand, many people complaint with Judge’s ruling to remove Muslim woman Niqab in the trial, It reflects discrimination and they don’t give women rights in religion as set out by article 9 (Freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European convention on human rights. Discrimination over wearing veil also had happened in some countries, like France which prohibits all children from wearing religious symbols such as Muslim headscarves in schools

As a humane being we must respect each other, we need mutual understanding. Muslim women have a same rights like other people, they should get their freedom to manifest their religion in daily life.

PROSTITUTION (Vee)

Prostitution is an act of providing sexual service in exchange of money (or other beneficial payment) between two or more people. Prostitution sometimes referred to as “world’s oldest profession”, nevertheless the legalization of prostitution itself is different from one county to another. Some countries prefer to illegalized and criminalized prostitution while others may varies from decriminalized to regulated (legalized) prostitution. Until now ongoing pro-contra debates and opinions regarding legal prostitution are still spread wide across countries as they include human rights, personal choice liberation, moral degradation, human trafficking, poverty, law enforcement, violent/rape cases, religion and HIV/AIDS into the equation.

People who favor the legal-prostitution argue that the benefits come from legalizing prostitution are enough to protect the society in general and the persons actively involve in the act itself in particular. Regulated prostitution will provide law protection for the sex-worker and legitimate prostitution as a decent work along with the benefits that come from it; it will reduce the act of violence from the clients or the pimps, because the female sex-worker can report the abuse without being charged as a criminal for selling sex herself. It will also reduce the number of HIV/AIDS transmission because the sex-worker is finally granted regular health checks as a mandatory requirement for the profession. Economically, it will also benefit the sex-worker because they can earn their income legally and pay the tax which will also benefit the government. This pro legal-prostitution stated that it’s ridiculous to keep prostitution as illegal while the demand of sex service increasing each day, it will only lead to illegal human-trafficking. While human-traffic is wrong because it’s a coercion act, prostitution is seen as a decision between two consenting adults; it’s a human right for people to choose what they want to do with their bodies.

On the contrary, people who support the decision to keep the prostitution as illegal argue that prostitution needs to stay illegal because the destructiveness of prostitution outweighs its benefits (if any). Prostitution devalues all of our moral standards and thus legalizing it will mean legitimizing the idea of some women as commodities to be exploited. And grant implicit approval to a dangerous and immoral practice in society. Sex-workers are often forced into the industry by sex-trade, pimps or poverty, so it’s indicating some underlying problems within the society. Instead of legalizing prostitution as a legitimate work, we should provide adequate education for everyone to ensure them options to a better work than being sex-workers. Religion also hold strong opposes to the legal-prostitution as it’s a sinful act for selling sex when it should have held sacred within marriage, it’s not a legacy we would pass down to our children. It’s also wrong for the government to gain economically from legal-prostitution since it’s no better than encouraging government to involve in other unlawful trades such as the trafficking of drugs. Moreover, legalizing prostitution will increase demand which will increase the rate of human-trafficking to meet the demand and will eventually endanger our society health as it’ll increase the probability of HIV/AIDS transmission

The Women (Hasrul)

Every single religion and culture has an owned different premise about woman.  Even less, the history had told that before holy Quran was relegated, there were lots kind of big civilizations such us Greek, Romani, India, and china. And the world also knew some religions such us Jew, Christian, Buddha, and Zoroaster.

In Greek, the woman had got an intimidation from the ruling government; they could do whatever they would like to do. Such us, the women was put into the prison without any problem, the women could be sold by their husband, the sex relation at public place was fairly, the localization had become a central of politic and art. It is proven that the number of naked sculpture of women in Greek was increasing well.

The civilization of Romani, the parents of woman had proprietary right to sell their daughter. After marrying the proprietary right moved to the husband. In this situation the husband had authority to sell, to hit, to chase away, to kill, and to ill treat. These circumstances were occurring up to 6^th century of Masehi.

In my point view the story of Hindu and china were the worst story. Why? Because of the age of wife was determined by the age of husband. It means if the husband pass away of course the wife as well. The wife should be burnt while her husband was burnt too. It terminated in 17^th century of Masehi. At the time the women also became a ritual offering to which was named as the God. The ancient history says that the poison, the snake, and the fire are less evil than the women. Meanwhile the ancient of China says that you are able to listen to what the women say but do not trust what they are talking about.

In teaching of Jew, the status of women was like a servant. The father had a right to sell his daughter if she had no brother. In their thought of teaching that the women as a source of curse because the woman engendered Adam evicted from the heaven.      

On the hand, the Christian’s view the woman was devil’s tool in misleading human being. The 5^th century Masehi had been held a church council which was talking about whether the women had the soul or not, finally the women had no holy soul. It continued in the 6^th century Masehi was held the same activity which was talking about whether the women were human being or not. The conclusion was the women were created by the god only for being the servant of the man.   

To sum up, the living condition of women from the 5^th century up to the middle century were really concerning. The man did not think that if they were born by the women. And of course, behind the great man there is a great woman. Save the women from exploitation.  

WORKING MOTHER (by Hermita Arif)

Life after marriage sometimes put a woman in a dilemma situation; either she keeps being a career woman or totally being a housewife. Different consideration makes people different in viewing this matter.

Some people opine that woman may still have official job after getting married. Economic factor is one of their considerations. By working, a woman may help their husband to fulfill their daily needs which tend to be increasing lately. Furthermore, in a wide scope, it will pursue the economic growth of a country. It is based on the fact that potential number of woman is higher than man in terms of working field.

On the opposite side, some people are on the opinion that married woman has to focus on managing their household. They argue that by being full-housewife, a woman may dedicate all of her attention to the family, especially in educating the children in the best way. It is because they are the first and the primary education for the children. The future of children which mainly determines the future of a country depends too much on their parent’s role especially mother. Having said that woman indirectly contributes the country civilization.

I personally think that having a job for a married woman does not matter as long as they know how to manage their time properly between their job and family. But, being an official worker is not the best option. They may choose another job such as a business or a lecturer which is more flexible in terms of time and activity so that they can still execute their role as a housewife.

To conclude, in order for a woman to be able to play their role well as housewife and have any other profitable activity at the same time, she is better to choose the one which has more flexible time and busyness.

Discussed on February 5th 2013

NATURAL BEAUTY VS ARTIFICIAL BEAUTY (Zakia)

“Beauty” is an identical word to a girl. Of course, girl is a beautiful creature of God. But, what is the definition of beauty? Beauty is when someone not only has elegant face, but also has good attitude and behavior. Inner beauty sparkled to outside by elegance, softness and loveliness. That is the real beauty. But most of girls think that beauty is like an actress who has ladder feet, slim body, white skin, long hair etc. most of girls think that beauty is only identical with physical appearance, not from the characteristic. By these reasons, most of girls do anything to look beautiful in front of many people. They do many treatments; from traditional ones until high quality of technology.
One of the popular way is by conducting plastic surgery. Plastic surgery or jirahatajmil in Arabic is surgical operation which is done for repairing and beatifying a part in body, either the seen ones or the unseen parts of the body. By adding or removing some features hopping to repair the body function and aesthetics
Plastic surgery is very delighted because of some reasons. They are:
I. Plastic surgery is deemed able to help the girls to have a perfect and permanent body.
2. Plastic surgery is deemed as good way to hide the physical deficiency. Such us pug, fat or chubby.
In country like Korea there are 20.000 girls who did plastic surgery procedure and this number always increasing l0-l5% per year. This increasing is caused by appearance rivalry among girls. Especially in entertainment field. They think that by having a perfect face, it’s easy for them to get job, success and a perfect spouse.
Try to be beautiful is not false for all the women in the world. Even in Islam, Allah SWT suggests that either by jewelry or fragrance, as long as it doesn’t exceed what is natural. However extreme way to be beautiful by plastic surgery is very dangerous for health and there is no guarantee that the result of plastic surgery will look perfectly. It can cause health disorder such us tissue infarction because less of oxygen, lived because of blooding, nerve damage until death. There are many failures of plastic surgery. For example: women 29 years old. Lindsey Easman from England did plastic surgery by injecting implant into her breast hopping to get perfect breast. But after 4 years the implant smashed and caused death.
Beauty doesn’t mean we must change what God has given us. The beauty of women is not look from her physic, but from her heart. So make your heart beautiful and it will spark to your physical beauty.

WHEN SHOULD ABORTION BE PERMITTED ? (Vee)

Abortion is the termination of pregnancy. An abortion can occur spontaneously, which called a miscarriage, or it can be deliberately induced. The term ‘abortion’ refers to the induced abortion of a pregnancy by any means. Induced abortion can be done by various methods such as traditional methods (using herbal abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, physical trauma) or by surgical procedures (vacuum aspiration, curettage, etc).
There are many reasons brought forward to justify the decision of  abortion, specific conditions such as pregnancy resulted from incest or rape, fetal defects, contraceptive failure, economy reason, women rights of controlling their own body, gender of the baby doesn’t suit parents favor, or the mother's health being at risk. In many parts of the world there is a divisive public and religious controversies over the ethical and legal arguments concerning abortion.
In many developing countries, abortion is lawfully illegalized except for specific reasons, which mostly the life of mother being at risk or because the pregnancy was a result of rape/incest, and can only be done if certain criteria were to be met, such as the fetus can only be aborted if the pregnancy is under 120 days or a letter of consent from husband presented. While in developed country like US, abortion is legalized on most cases. ‘The Planned Parenthood’ is an independent clinic anyone can go to consult about their plan on abortion, although in cases of minor (teenager under 18), a letter of consent from parents is mandatory, at some states she can ask a judge to ruled out this procedure and is granted abortion without her parents involvement. This is mostly based on “Woman rights of controlling her own body” and “Freedom of personal choice in family matters” which protected by 14th Amendment. Although people who against abortion would argue that the fetus as a potential human being has “The right to life”, and the right to life (which stated at  ‘United States Declaration of Independence’) should always outweigh the right of an individual to personal choice or to control their own body.
All religions have taken strong positions on abortion; most of them regard abortion as murder and forbidden. Except for special condition where the mother’s life is put on danger. In Islam, this is the only reason accepted for abortion after 120 days of the pregnancy. Even to this day, there is still an ongoing debate among other schools within Islam about whether abortion should be permitted on cases of rape/incest, economy reason, the pregnancy where the fetus so defected that it will suffer from physical/mental disability later in life or where the pregnancy will interfere with the woman’s education or career. The Qur'an states: “Whosoever has spared the life of a soul, it is as though he has spared the life of all people. Whosoever has killed a soul, it is as though he has murdered all of mankind.” Qur'an (Al-Maidah: 32). Most Muslim would say that a fetus in the womb is recognized and protected by Islam as a human life.

POLYGAMY (M. Rizal)

In social anthropology, polygamy is the practice of marriage to more than one husband or wife (according to the sex of the person concerned). This is in contrast with the practice of monogamy that has only one husband or wife.
There are three forms of polygamy; polygyny (a man having multiple wives at once, polyandry (a woman having several husbands at once), and the wedding group (English: group marriage, which is the combination of polygyny and polyandry). The three forms of polygamy are found in history, However polygamy is the most common form.
Although allowed in some cultures, polygamy is opposed by some, especially feminists who strongly oppose polygamy, since they regard polygamy as a form of oppression to women.
The fact that polygamy is often regarded by almost all women as oppression is a clear wrong opinion. Polygamy is fairness and allowed by the religion (Islam). Women should be fully aware that polygamy is a right of a man and is obviously clear that it’s more beneficial to the development of the number of mankind in the future. The opposition to polygamy is clearly an apparent opposition to the destiny of human life. Polygamy is an honorable decision of a man who wants to be responsible for another woman in a good way too, which is legally married according to religious law.
Islam essentially ‘allows’ a man to have more than one wife (polygamy). Islam ‘allows’ a married man up to four wives on condition that the husband should be able to do ‘justice’ to all his wives. Polygamy in Islam both in law and practice, applied varies in each country with a majority Muslim population. in Indonesia there is a law that tightens rules for civil servants to practice polygamy, and is in the discourse to apply to the general public. Tunisia was the example of the Arab countries where polygamy is not allowed.

MISS UNIVERSE (Agus Putra Gowa)

The annual Miss Universe pageant was held on 19 December in PH Lived Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. The previous Miss Universe, Leila Lopes from Angola crowned Olivia Culpo from USA. 89 Countries and territories get involved on this pageant and broadcasted in many countries by NBC, Telemundo and international broadcasting media.
Miss Universe is an annual international beauty contest that is run by The Miss Universe Organization. The pageant is the most publicized beauty contestin the world with 600 millions viewers. The contest was founded in 1952 by California clothing company Pacific Mills. Miss Universe changed its name from Miss Universe, Inc to The Miss Universe Organization, and the headquarters moved from Los Angeles, California, to New York City that year. Donald Trump brought in a new team of professionals to the contest headed by its new CEO, Molly Miles, and president Maureen Reidy. The contest would use the slogan “Redefined for Today” for promotion of the pageants.
Each year, Miss Universe organizers receive bids from organizations who wish to select the Miss Universe contestant for a country. Usually a country’s candidate selection involves pageants in major cities, with the winners competing in a national pageant, such as putri Indonesia as the way to select a candidate to represent Indonesia. The organization makes continual efforts to expand the pageant, but the participation of some countries such as Algeria has proven difficult due to cultural barriers to the swimsuit competition.
The Miss Universe crown used from 2002-2007 was design by Mikimoto the official jewelry sponsor of the Miss Universe Organization, and depicted the phoenix rising, signifying status, power and beauty. The crown has 500 diamonds of almost 30 carats (6.0 g), 120 South Sea and Akoya pearls, ranging in size from 3 to 18 mm diameter and is valued at $250,000. The crown was designed specifically for the pageant on Mikimoto Pearl Island in Japan with the Mikimoto crown and tiara being first used for Miss Universe 2002.
Since 2009, Diamond Nexus Labs has made the Miss Universe crown. The crown is set with 1,371 gemstones, weighing a total of 416.09 carats (83.22 g). It contains 544.31 grams of 14k and 18k white gold as well as platinum. The crown features synthetic rubies to represent Miss Universe HIV/AIDS education and awareness platform. Diamond Nexus Labs is the first ever Eco Friendly Official Jeweler of Miss Universe and was selected as part of NBC Universal’s “Green is Universal” initiative.