Today on the streets of Jaffa, where I live, I saw for the first time in my life a woman in hijab (helmet on top) driving her motorbike in full throttle along Jerusalem Boulevard. She was too quick for me (on my peddle bike!) to take a photo. I was pretty proud of her, because although Muslim women in Israel can be quite liberal, this was something that broke all stereotypes.
But in Iran it’s another story… women who are not wearing the traditional headscarves, also known as hijab, are now being blamed for devastating drought.
She’s causing rivers to dry every time she rips off her headscarf.
Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai-Nejad, an arch conservative prayer leader in the city of Isfahan announced that Iranian women who continue to wear immodest clothing are causing the nation’s rivers to run dry. They are also damaging the environment in other ways, the cleric has claimed.
A strict Islamic dress code must be enforced, he mandated, to ward off drought. In media reports this same cleric, also suggested the use of acid attacks, and the whip on “bad hijab” women: those who are not properly covered up.
Couple support scarf-free head.
Last month he roiled against a new trend where Iranian women are taking selfies without the headscarf and posting them online.
“They have brought me pictures that shows women by the side of the dry Zayanderud river, ” the cleric said. “These actions will ensure the upper stream of the river will become dry too. Believe me it is true.”
!["I want freedom.... No matter you might think of my demand, my male compatriots... No matter what you might think of my dear fellow female compatriots. What I want is to save my hair from the storm blowing over in my country. I do not want to simply have to go abroad in order to save my hair. Yes, my dear male compatriots... Freedom should oblige you to stop obsessing about the body of your female compatriots [when they do not wear the hijab]. It should not oblige me to wear the hijab.](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/river-iran-hijab.jpg)
“I want freedom….I do not want to simply have to go abroad in order to save my hair. Yes, my dear male compatriots… Freedom should oblige you to stop obsessing about the body of your female compatriots [when they do not wear the hijab].”
“You may ask yourself why European countries with so much crime and sin have so much rainfall … God punishes the believer, for remaining silent and letting girls take pictures by the river as if they were in European countries.”
Headscarfs have been compulsory since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Those who can get away with it bend the rules.
Thousands of women have posted pictures of themselves without headscarves on the Facebook page, My Stealthy Freedom.
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist and publisher that founded Green Prophet to unite a prosperous Middle East. She shows through her work that positive, inspiring dialogue creates action that impacts people, business and planet. She has published in thought-leading newspapers and magazines globally, owns an IoT tech chip patent, and is part of teams that build world-changing products to make agriculture and our planet more sustainable. Reach out directly to [email protected]
