Has everyone seen the photo of the Archbishop of Canterbury presenting an award to Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi? If not, please have a look

[TheStateWeAreIn]

I don’t know what to say really, I just want as many women on MN as possible to see this picture.

Particularly Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi‘s wife.

There’s so much going on there.

(I know there’s another thread about the award and it’s subsequent withdrawal, I just wanted to start a thread to focus on the photo)

Is that a Christian being a Christian and a Muslim being a Muslim ?

Weather to follow ?

If you look at the wider picture that includes his daughter in a hijab and black face mask, covered to the wrists, then it's a photograph of three women obeying and paying court to a misogynistic religious extremist.

The little scootering shits wearing balaclavas around town are being asked not to, by police, as I understand. I imagine they choose to wear balaclavas? Or are they made to by someone else? Either way, do we love it? No. In the majority of British culture, we go around with uncovered faces unless there's a blizzard. So shoot me - covered faces make us uneasy. There's a mum at school all veiled up to the eyeslits. If you smile at her, say 'Hi, morning,' you can't hear any more than a mumble, and can't see if she's smiling, looking daggers, what? Also, Arch of Cant looks like she's thinking 'Why the F didn't I wear my bikini!'

Yes, totally this.

The choice the balaclava boys make is a free one, in that they wouldn’t be prosecuted or disowned or attacked if they left the balaclava at home.

No man has ever been beaten to death
for NOT wearing a balaclava

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mahsa_Amini

But is it though? Some balaclava 'boys' have been found to be up to no good, involved with gang activities/ drugs...

Exactly 💯

@EmmaOfNormandy
Wearing a Niqab or burka has nothing to do with Islam. True Islam is about the emancipation of women. All the Qur’an requires is both men and women dress modestly. Don’t bring Islam onto something which is a cultural practice

Many others who also follow 'true Islam' heartily disagree that Islam is about the emancipation of women. Who's right I wonder?

I was/am proud of the UK being a tolerant society. It’s only relatively recently that it’s occurred to me that tolerance is expected to go only in one direction by some men of the Islamic faith in Britain.

Tolerance for women’s rights, freedom of expression including freedom of dress is less apparent for some men including Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi. It does worry me to see more and more women in the Burka in this country. If we want some indication of how Muslim women might dress if left to themselves, let’s look at what women wore before and after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan…and what they were/are fighting for again.

Edited to add that I find the global movement of all religious men towards fewer rights for women worrying, but Burka is a very tangible example here.

I think all the people who say they didn’t even see the woman to start with are really hitting the nail on the head about why this picture is so shocking.

So Sarah Mullally is there in her lowkey Bishop’s outfit as the first ever woman ArchBishop of Canterbury, an extremely powerful position she must have worked for for years, using her skills and personality to ascend to that position. And we can see her smile, and her big glasses and her stylish haircut. We can see things about her, as a cleric, as a woman and a person.

The less said about the man, the better.

The other woman on the other hand, is a shroud. We can see nothing about her. Nothing. She is expressing not one single aspect of her personality or her life story. No-one will have seen her expressions. She probably didn’t speak. We know absolutely nothing about her except that she is Muslim and that she is his wife, which says it all really.

For once I have almost no words!! Jeez it’s the 21st Century!!

The photo is cropped, there another woman in it who's reported to be his other wife. Also wearing almost full face covering. He apparently says that men can have up to 4 wives.

I always find comments like this interesting.

it does affect me as seeing people’s faces and body language is part of being human. Non spoken commutation is such a big part of how we interact with one another

that aside, if I were to wear a tiny tiny bikini all day every day, at you saying no one should be able to complain? I mean, how would that affect you?

I believe it's his daughter? At least, that's what I read. But I don't doubt what you say about wives. Sounds about right.

Indeed, our boys are being seduced into criminality, county lines, etc. but we aren’t actually seeing boys beaten up for going out barefaced.

There’s no equivalence between a woman’s ’choice’ to cover her skin and the boys’ choice to wear a balaclava. They may or may not be being drawn into criminality. They would not be taking the same risks these women would.

Deleted as I failed to quote

Yes, that infuriated me too. Even before reading that he’s a supporter of terrorism. Apparently the award was made to his wife as well as him, otherwise I doubt if she’d have been there. How anyone could have considered them to set a good example is beyond me.

Making the award on the anniversary of 9/11 was just the icing on this indigestible cake.

Well said - as are many posts on this thread - sadly there are some very odd ones too!

This ^

@BronzedSun Do you think girls such as Sara Sharif ( hijab used to cover her injuries and bruising) was safe? You write, Who cares? about women and little girls being made to cover up. I care. A lot of women and men care.
It is wrong.

Interesting response. There are three people in the photo, not two.

I’m not understanding your weather comment. Please can you clarify?

@DebbieSavage
Was Sara Sharif liberated by being made to cover up? (She was beaten to death, burned etc and the hijab used to cover her injuries) Or are you part of the 'Who cares' group?

How come so many Muslim women wear it then? Do the Imans remind them it's not a requirement?