However, this sensitivity may in fact argue for comment. Too often, many of us adopt a policy of not wanting to get involved in the question of the place of Islam in modern society. We may fear causing offence, or sparking uncontrollable passion. Many Muslims too consider it illegitimate for non-Muslims to comment on Islam. Our views are not welcome. We are dismissed from the outset as biased against Islam ; this dismissal and prejudgement itself testifying to the fact that many Muslims see themselves and their faith as under siege by outsiders.

The result is not healthy, for without engagement there can never be any resolution or synthesis.

The issue of Islam in the modern world is a very, very big topic. For this essay, I am merely going to limit myself to the question of the full-face veil, known as the niqab (sometimes spelt niqaab). In Singapore too, we occasionally see Muslim women in them, typically accompanied by their husbands in Middle-eastern garb, complete with turban.

Britain

Two news stories related to the niqab came out of the United Kingdom recently. One was about a 23-year-old teaching assistant from West Yorkshire, Aishah Azmi, who insisted on wearing the full-face veil while in her school which caters to 6 – 11 year-old kids. The school authorities sacked her, ruling that covering her face impeded her ability to perform her job, since children needed to interact with facial expressions. She sued, but the verdict mostly went against her.

Around the same time, Jack Straw, a British cabinet minister, said he would prefer that Muslim women not wear the niqab.

As reported by the BBC,

Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if he would rather the veils be discarded completely, Mr Straw replied "Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being prescriptive but with all the caveats, yes, I would rather."

"That’s made more difficult if people are wearing a veil. That’s just a fact of life. "I understand the concerns but I hope, however, there can be a mature debate about this. " — BBC online, 6 Oct 2006, ’Remove full veils’ urges Straw

Straw also said that he was worried about the "implications of separateness" and the development of "parallel communities".

Some quarters of the Muslim community in Britain reacted strongly to Straw’s comments. Nazreen Nawaz, a spokeswoman for the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir said "The Muslim community does not need lessons in dress from Jack Straw".

"He has once again shown that for Cabinet ministers it is open season on Muslims and Islam," she added.

The Lancashire Council of Mosques said the minister had "misunderstood" the issue and it was a "very insensitive and unwise" statement. "Many of these women find Mr. Straw’s comments both offensive and disturbing."

Netherlands

The latest news is that the Dutch government will ban the wearing of the full-face veil in public.

The Dutch government agreed on Friday a total ban on the wearing of burqas and other Muslim face veils in public, justifying the move on security grounds.

"The cabinet finds it undesirable that garments covering the face — including the burqa — should be worn in public in view of public order, (and) the security and protection of fellow citizens," the Dutch Justice Ministry said in a statement. — Reuters, 17 Nov 2006, Dutch to ban wearing of Muslim burqa in public

The rule will actually ban all face coverings, including heavily tinted motorcycle helmets and ski masks, but for some reason, either the press or the government seems to be focussing on the effect of the new rule on the niqab. Hardly anyone in the Netherlands wears it, and critics of the government have accused them of using this angle merely to score points with conservative, anti-immigration voters.

Unsurprisingly, Dutch Muslims were unhappy. "They are going to have to find a better argument than security. It is an infringement on the freedom of religion," said Ahmed Markouch, a Moroccan mosques representative.

The freedom of religion

Ah, freedom of religion. Truth be told, I am very sceptical of such a thing, particularly in its current, often dogmatic formulation, that takes it as given that religion should trump larger, societal interests.

It cannot be. Very often, organised religion has interests that are divisive and ghettoist. Basic crowd psychology will tell you that that is one of the proven ways by which leaders keep a flock together. Outsiders are painted as dark and sinister, insiders as pure and righteous, with contact cast as contaminating. The discouragement of contact then has the desired effect of minimising defection from the group, which in turn means the group’s numbers and political strength are kept up.

Whipping up emotions, e.g. through imagining that the religion is under attack, is another good way of cementing solidarity — and opening purses.

But there are larger societal interests e.g. that of getting along peacefully with each other with as little mutual suspicion as possible. Shared cultural outlook helps integration, and social mobility, e.g. promoting people on merit, renting homes from each other, maximises economic benefits for all.

So I have no truck with the notion that freedom of religion should come anywhere to claiming prior rights over the larger public interest, not when it’s so easy to show that religion can be used for divisive and conflict-prone ends. In any case, the whole notion may be just a big red herring, for who defines what is religion ?

Take the niqab. Nowhere in the Q’uran is this mentioned as an Islamic requirement. Most scholars, including Islamic ones, see it as a cultural practice and perhaps a political statement, but it is not a religious injunction. In fact, historians have suggested that it can be traced to the Babylonian, Persian and Moghul Indian practice of the purdah — the seclusion of females from public view by clothing, high walls, curtains and screens.

Yet even if most Islamic theologians do not consider the niqab a religious requirement, minor leaders, usually the more extreme ones, do. Then what ? Are we to say that a certain clique of people -– the more orthodox leaders in this case -– should be given powers to define religious belief for others ? And that the State and larger society will defer to them to interpret what constitutes religion, and furthermore, whatever they say constitutes religion must be free from interference by the State in the name of "freedom of religion" ?

Surely, that cannot be. Just because these more orthodox guys are more numerous or have more adherents doesn’t mean the smaller sects are not sincere in their own beliefs. But then, what about a sect with a membership of one ?

You’ll never be able to draw a line to say this is where a religion begins and another ends, or determine who speaks for what religion. Ultimately, this leads us to the individual. Religion is not a matter of what any group says it is on behalf of others, but what each individual says it is for himself. In that case, how different is it from personal liberty, the pursuit of happiness, etc ?

But we do accept that personal liberty is not unconditional. It is subject to legitimate, compelling public interests : you cannot walk down a street brandishing a sword as your lucky charm, for example, nor can you play music at full blast at 2 a.m.

Hence, if religious beliefs and practices are in essence no more than the exercise of personal liberty, shouldn’t they be subject to the same measure of conditionality ?

On what woolly notion is the concept of the "freedom of religion" left to stand ?

This is especially when some leaders of organised religion use their influence to control the way members of their faith live their lives, sometimes through subtle brainwashing, often through social shame and manipulated peer pressure. Church-led homophobia, mosque-led subjugation of women (see sidebar about Sheikh Taj al-Din a-Hilali) are examples that come to mind.

To me, such action runs counter to individual liberty. If the purpose of the State is to protect the individual’s liberty from unwarranted coercion -– and as a liberal, I do believe in that fundamental principle -– then there will be times when the public interest, as represented by the State, collides with the interest of religious leaders.

So once again, I do not accept that there is any special value in "religious freedom" ; a person’s religious freedom is just one of his personal freedoms. There is no logical reason why "religious freedom" should be in a class of its own, accorded unusual immunity from intervention by the State.