Aqsa

A few months back, Vatican created uproar in the Muslim world by making false claims about our beloved prophet and now once again, Vatican is poking its nose into Muslim issues without any invitation! 

There wasn’t any need to make such comments about our prophet but the pope just did that. It’s obvious that a man of his stature was well aware of the consequences. But still he had some reason to bring it up and I still can’t figure it out! Though he apologized later on but again sparking of such a controversy is not making any sense to me!
Muslim women who wear veils won’t remove their veils because Vatican wants them to!

 

Here’s the seed to a new controversy.
 

A senior Vatican cardinal has expressed concern over the use of some Muslim veils by Islamic immigrants in Europe. This is the first time that the Vatican has joined in the Europe-wide debate on how women who insist on wearing the veil affect the integration of Muslims. Cardinal Renato Martino said immigrants must respect the traditions, culture and religion of the nations they go to. They ought to abide by local laws banning the wearing of certain types of Muslim veils, he added. 

“It seems elementary to me and it is quite right that the authorities demand it,” said Cardinal Martino, who heads the Vatican department dealing with migration issues. He was speaking at a news conference launching a papal statement calling for laws which encourage the better integration of migrants. 

Here in Italy, a law was passed during the attacks of the Red Brigades urban guerrillas three decades ago which still makes it an offence to cover your face in public if your identity is challenged by a policeman. At that time there were very few Muslim women immigrants in Italy. 

Common values Another Vatican expert on immigration, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, said it was important in the course of dialogue with Muslims to make them understand that the consequences of some of their religious traditions might not be positive in the societies in which they now find themselves. The Italian government is trying to draw up what it calls a Charter of Common Values to get local Muslim leaders to help integrate Italy’s fast-growing population. But it is hard going. 

At one recent meeting, a radical Muslim delegate proposed separate charters for men and for women, and favoured the death penalty. Equal rights for men and women are guaranteed, and the death penalty is banned, under the Italian constitution. 

  

I understand that any migrant should respect the local law of the country in which he reside but does that mean that the local law or the people should not respect the migrant and his faith that’s entirely personal? For security reasons if women are asked to co-operate, it’s understandable but simply depriving them of their right to dress up the way they want is sheer hypocrisy. When Muslims don’t interfere with the dress code of western women then why is the west concerned about Muslim women and their dresses?? Some scholars advocate the covering of head and many advocates the covering of face as well. And that’s why many women prefer keeping their faces covered. 

This calls for another debate on the role of religious leaders in politics. I personally feel that religious leaders should limit themselves to religion only. Intermixing religion and politics is a dangerous thing to do. Religious leaders should understand that religion and politics are two different things and if they start talking like politicians it will have dangerous consequences as it further increases the distance between different civilizations. And it applies to leaders from all religions. I’m disappointed with the way Vatican is dealing with Muslims. It’s sad that religious leaders are falling prey to politics.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 10:25 am and is filed under being a woman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.