Burkhas

Many Saudis holidaying all over Kuala Lumpur and I could tell you several stories, only I won't just yet and instead I'll show you something I found genuinely disturbing:

The temperature was 33 degrees too. 
And see how she's checking her hubby doesn't notice
while she takes a surreptitious scratch 
in the crook of her elbow

which had me wondering about

the extent of her prickly-heat rash.

There were many Middle-Eastern tourists in these brutal mega-burkhas but the one above was more than most since it was extra-extremely long and came with woollen gloves too.

I was already thinking "Oh, you poor honey!" because of the heat but they got off at the same stop we did and, walking behind this pair, I noticed something I'd never known about these veils: these women can't see a damn thing because that narrow eye slit shifts when they move and is constantly covering their eyes.  

And the dirt-trailing length of that "modest" veil just made everything so much worse.

First, she tripped on her skirt stepping onto the escalator and only just managed to catch herself in time, which almost didn't happen because she could barely get purchase on the handrails with those sweat-slicked gloves, and then she tripped again getting off, and then she tripped again on her skirt walking down the steps, stumbling down two of them, and again she stumbled stepping off the pavement to cross the road. And all the while, hubby stalked on ahead, totally ignoring her.

I kept thinking how stupid she was that she didn't hoick her skirt up and then realised she wasn't allowed to; that it was Against The Rules.

They passed out of our lives at that point, but I couldn't stop thinking about how, surely, it was only a matter of moments until she tripped and fell in front of traffic or down her next flight of stairs. And the only joy in that was the thought of her husband right in front of her and that she'd undoubtedly take him down with her and then land on him.  Yayyy!

Allah only said women should "be modest" but just look at that veil.  That isn't modesty.  That is ridiculous extravagance. And forcing a wife to constantly risk an accident, or even her life, this way surely also constitutes spousal abuse.  

And surely it doesn't have to be this way. Just look at how Malaysia does Islam:

 I thought this lady was gorgeous.

See! Nothing all-black and threatening. Just a very pretty veil. And no nonsense about those extra-long skirts. Of course, there's always the problem of prickly-heat rash around the neck but that's always so much better than that awful rash you get under the arms and other places where it's embarrassing to scratch. 

And these mega-burkhas are NOT traditional. Remember those photos The Redoubtable Walker's great uncle took on his jaunts through the Middle East a century ago?  There wasn't a brutal black mega-burkha anywhere in sight.  All those ladies were in elegant ankle-length white veils that they held up to cover their eyes whilst walking in public.

So what on earth are these modern Middle Eastern Islamic-types thinking? The Sisters of Islam should get onto this, shouldn't they: either demand the burkha eye slits are made bigger so these ladies can see or shorten the skirts so they don't continually step on them.  Or at the very least they should be permitted to hoick them up while walking.

 

It's logical.  It's sensible. It's sane. So how difficult can it be to institute that?