“Hespress” magazine published a strange dialogue with a political Islamic jurist about the veil of young girls, in which the jurist defended the necessity of veiling young children as a matter of “training in chastity” against those who denounced it among the “irreligious, former communists, and secular extremists,” as he called them.
The dialogue reflects a great ignorance of the psychology of the child, as it includes many contradictions, the first of which is that the “faqih” considered that the veil for girls is not stipulated in the Sharia, but he returned to consider those who denounce it as insisting “on contradicting the Sharia, which does not prevent anything except that they strive to permit it, and it does not command something except that they strive.” to get rid of him.” He also considered the campaign against the veil of infant girls a campaign to “terrify Muslims in their faith, religion and privacy” (sic), which is an obvious contradiction. And the logic of the “faqih” is as follows: “Although the Sharia does not contain what obliges non-adults to fully cover except for the face and hands, there is also nothing in it that prevents the rehabilitation of female children, training them, encouraging them, and urging them to cover, chastity, and modesty from the age of discrimination.” The goal here is clear, which is to train young girls in behaviors that do not match their age and status as children, which reflects the extent of the extreme Islamists' disregard for human beings, as they prioritize their ideological program over children's childhood and innocence.
On the other hand, it seems that extremists do not hesitate to impose concepts and values on children that they cannot understand, such as the concept of “chastity”, “concealment” and “awrah”, because they are originally concepts related to the body of a mature woman as viewed by the extremists, which is a projection of the position of adults on Children are not allowed at all, but it reflects the amount of psychological distress resulting from religious extremism, in which these people wander. If the child’s hair is “awrah,” then the jurist must declare that without shame or hypocrisy, and if it is not like that, then he does not have the right to justify what he went to with flimsy arguments.
The “faqih” deliberately confuses the forced veiling of girls with “training them to fast and pray,” considering that this is one of the “goals of the Sharia,” “so that it will be easier to adhere to these obligations when they reach puberty and obligation.” The confusion in this matter is that the prayers of young children are only for a few minutes, and their fasting is only completed in a few hours and not throughout the day, while the so-called “veil” is imposed on the girls, so they stumble in it throughout the day and throughout the moments of their childhood, which hinders them from playing freely. With their peers, even the mere attempt to get rid of it seems a crime for extremists, and that is why they do not hesitate to reprimand when necessary.
Al-Faqih made another mistake when he talked about the personal freedom of children, considering that the veil of girls is part of the “individual freedoms that the “modernists” rave about, as “boys choose that,” according to his opinion, which is an incoherent statement because the meaning of “choice” is conditional on puberty and maturity. What is done in this case is the oppression of childhood, rape, sentencing her to symbolic imprisonment, and depriving her of her right to enjoy the life of an innocent childhood.
The truth of the opinion held by this excessively ideological “faqih” is that it involves an abnormal view of the bodies of girls, which has never rid itself of the remnants of masculine jurisprudence of past centuries, which legitimizes tampering with the body of a nine-year-old girl. Religious extremists are just like child rapists, who only see the body in innocent childhood, just as they see it in adults, and that is why they represent a danger to society. Rapists violate the sanctity of the body and extremists assassinate the childhood of the heart, soul and mind. And the innocence of a dream in a child who does not think of the body as adults do.
Children do not understand the sexual fantasies of religious extremists, but when it is imposed on them before the age of psychological and mental maturity, it becomes a cause for certain psychological damage.
Extremists have enough time for preaching and guidance inside their homes to convince their daughters through religious education and good manners to wear the “veil” when they reach puberty and maturity. As for the forced veiling of girls by a reckless decision of adults, it is compulsive behavior that is not hidden, and is based on the doctrine of “awrah” on the one hand, which does not mean children. On the other hand, it is based on the belief that the child may not obey when she grows up, or that she may have another dissenting opinion, which leads the father who is in the clutches of Salafism to hasten to accustom her to clothing that does not suit the child’s personality, which is rejected and rejected, because it contradicts the principle of freedom of choice. Which is not an option for children, but is a basic right of an adult.
