Page - 106 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

106 | Elham Manea www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 91–110 is the case in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the areas controlled by Islamists in Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria; the list goes on. Those who defy Islamists’ dress code are subject to punishment that may include flogging, imprisonment, or fines. In countries where Islamists are not in power – Islamic countries or Western so- cieties with a Muslim minority – the veil is portrayed as both a religious obligation and part of freedom of choice. This strategy is well suited to Islamic fundamental- ism’s worldview, well described by Karima Bennoune. First, Bennoune argues, this worldview seeks the imposition of “God’s Law”, that is an interpretation of sharia, on Muslims everywhere. Secondly, it wants to create what Islamic fundamentalists deem to be Islamic states or diasporic communities ruled by these laws. Thirdly, Islamic fun- damentalism wants to police, judge, and change the behaviour, appearance, and con- duct of other people of Muslim heritage. Fourthly, it tends to limit women’s rights sharply, couching its constraints in the soothing language of protection, respect, and difference.53 Control of women and their social behaviour and the imposition of a dress code are all part of fundamentalism’s worldview. That fundamentalist worldview is clearly ar- ticulated in the literature of all major Islamist ideologists, as Lamia Rustum Shehadeh highlighted in her book The Idea of Women in Fundamentalist Islam (2007). Shehadeh examined the discourse on the Muslim Woman in the writings of the most influential Islamist ideologists such as Hasan al-Banna, Abu al-Alaa al-Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and came to the conclusion that despite their differenc- es, they “all agreed on their image of the ideal Muslim woman and her role in society; [and] all followed an interventionist policy on women’s issues and family matters ir- respective of the needs or the opinions of women themselves”.54 In other words, the ideal Muslim woman is part of the Islamist political project. The veil is intrinsic to this project. In Iran, for example, a member of the Iranian National Assembly bluntly explained to Shehadeh that the imposition of the hijab (veil) is politi- cal, noting, “The hijab is not being discussed as a religious issue, but as a political, so- cial, and economic issue.”55 Shehadeh comes to the conclusion that the veiled woman signalled the redefinition of gender roles and the transformation of Iranian society. An imposed redefinition, I must emphasise, as any woman who chooses not to veil is subject to a penalty of seventy-four lashes without trial.56 So much for the religious freedom hailed by the essentialists. Oddly, precisely the very context is often ignored by essentialists who instead choose to focus on an intellectual debate separate from reality. I find it interesting that in their writings on the Muslim Woman and her right to veil, the role played by fundamentalist Islam, whether or not from a position of political power, seems to be 53 Bennoune 2013, 14–19. 54 Shehadeh 2007, 236. 55 Shehadeh 2007, 236. 56 Shehadeh 2007, 236.