Seite - 93 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 02/01
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Images of the Muslim Woman |
93www.jrfm.eu
2016, 2/1, 91–110
Third image: A female protester is savagely beaten by Egyptian military forces (fig. 3).
The woman was wearing a black abaya3 but ironically is known only as “the woman
in the blue bra”. The clip of the “blue bra incident” on 17 December 2011 shows a
limp woman being dragged by her arms along the street with her abaya ripped open,
exposing her naked torso and blue bra. Military forces surround her, many wielding
batons; guards hit her, and one stomps on her.4
The woman in Arena is articulating Salafism, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam
that argues that the face of a woman is a source of temptation and should be cov-
ered to protect men and society. That position is considered extreme in the Islamic
world(s) and is not shared by the majority of Islamic legal interpretations. Within Mus-
lim countries it is highly contested and deemed a fringe belief by many. On 2 April
2010, for example, the Mufti of Al Azhar, the highest religious authority in Sunni Islam,
stated in a programme on Al Arabiya TV that wearing the burqa is a “custom, not a
religious requirement” and the product of a “lone opinion” in Islamic jurisprudence.5
The poster, propagated by far-right and xenophobic Swiss political forces, uses the
burqa as a visual symbol for a threat endangering Switzerland, with the image of the
3 Abaya or cloak is a black loose over-garment, essentially a robe-like dress, worn by some women espe-
cially in the Arabian Peninusla.
4 Coleman 2011.
5 Al Arabiya TV 2010.
Fig. 3: The “blue bra” female protester beaten by Egyptian police during clashes in Cairo’s Tahrir
Square on 17 December 2011 © Reuters.
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Band 02/01
- Titel
- JRFM
- Untertitel
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Band
- 02/01
- Autoren
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Herausgeber
- Uni-Graz
- Verlag
- Schüren Verlag GmbH
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2016
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Seiten
- 132
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften JRFM