George Banna, Ruba Mansour:
The concept of ‘awrah'(shame?) is a local one, as there is no global society or country the defines in the human body, especially in the body of a woman, areas worthy of contempt and rejection, and thus imposes covering them, on the basis that they are ugly and reprehensible areas worthy of being covered! There are three types of ‘awrah’ in religion: the ‘awrah’ of time, the ‘awrah’ of place, and the ‘awrah’ of women and men partially, As for the ‘awrah’ of a man, it is limited to the area between the navel and the knees, As for the ‘awrah’ of a woman, it is much wider than the ‘awrah’ of a man, as it includes the entire body except for the face and hands. Everything that no person has the right to see is ‘awrah’, and everything that a person would be ashamed to have exposed of his body, or the secrets of his private life, or his relationship with his wife, or his money and what he owns, is ‘awrah’.Before addressing the most important matter, which is the woman’s private parts, it is necessary to define very briefly the private parts of the place (And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to draw their headcovers over their bosoms and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private parts of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed).
The second type is the privacy of time, which is the time that must not be violated. As for the third and most important, it is the privacy of women, which was mentioned in Surah An-Nur in verse 31, which is specifically about the privacy of women. We do not want to get bogged down in the quagmire of jurisprudential interpretations regarding the Surah, or the privacy of place or time. The topic concerns the privacy of women…so let us think about it for a little while!!
The concept of the private parts is linked to the concept of nudity, meaning that it is not permissible to expose the private parts, that is, any part of the female body that is covered with cloth, The private parts are paired with nudity, and they became pregnant and gave birth to a mouse called nudity, and nudity became pregnant and gave birth to a gerbil called chastity and honor…etc. The generations that were born from the reproduction of the private parts can be traced back much further than what has been mentioned.
We do not know of any moral, practical, or objective reason that allows us to say that a woman has a “private part” and a man has a private part, etc. Whoever claims that there is a private part that must be covered is a “beast” that has no relation to humans, Private parts are the ugliness that makes one feel nauseous when seen. A woman’s private parts are almost her entire body,, The main center of private parts, whether in a man or a woman, is what is between the thighs, The center of utmost attention is, at the same time, the center of utmost alienation, as if this nation has been breastfed on ugliness and has taken pleasure in what disgusts the soul.
They consider your genitals the epitome of ugliness, yet the source of your pleasure and enjoyment lies in that very ugliness,Human beings are created whole, with no inherent flaw except the flaw of the mind and acquired morals, It is the flaw of vulgar, dogmatic texts and a faith that stifles reason, not the flaw of women, who are further accused of intellectual and religious deficiency, It is the flaw of those who see women as flawed, for their flaws are the very reason for seeing “shame” in women, and even in men, Both men and women have been distorted by a diseased perspective before any physical appearance or deformity,It is the distorted perspective, not the distorted appearance, that is the cause of this perception. A perspective founded on error and misguidance, it breeds error and misguidance; a vile perspective that begets vileness; a perspective of shame that begets shame, especially when this perspective is intertwined with the view that men are the protectors of women, or the view that women are deficient in intellect, or the perspective concerning what the Prophet saw regarding the scarcity of women in Paradise and their abundance thereof. In Hell, or the view of what is permissible in polygamy, or the duty to practice beating a woman to discipline her, or the duty of a woman to have intercourse with a male who is called her husband when she does not want to, so the woman’s refusal to be raped is evidence of her betrayal of her respectable husband with the devil, who has taken up residence in her, and imposed on her that shameless rebellion against the whims of that male beast.
We were terrified by the horrific images of women being killed because of their exposed private parts, which in some cases led to their liquidation to cleanse the shame, while the male was always safe from being killed to cleanse the shame, The woman produces shame, and the male stallion washes it away, the protector of honor, chastity, and the source of virtue, which the woman detests, which requires seeking help from the dominant, tyrannical, and rampant male, equipped with the mentality of the stone caves, which was revived and awakened by an ominous awakening,And we are nothing but vagabonds without the righteous one, who saw in the woman a collection of private parts.
We are living through a global cultural phenomenon characterized by the attempt to reclaim one’s body, especially that of women, Global culture does not permit anyone to usurp a woman’s body, regardless of who they are or what they are doing, Her body, her womb, her private parts, her mind, and her will belong to her. We are living in an era of new concepts related to the soul, the body, and the self. Liberation is no longer fundamentally linked to iron chains, but rather to the chains of ideas and values that can no longer find refuge in religion or the sacred,, They showed us no mercy, so we will show them no mercy, They transformed our women from the model of Ishtar to the model of Aisha, and from the model of Zenobia to the model of Zainab, and to avoid any confusion, the daughter of Jahsh!