MARGINALIA: The Cloth They Hate

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 1 February) – “Time has changed.”

If I had a peso for every time I heard that line whenever modesty is discussed, perhaps I could fund a community library by now. The phrase always comes out casually; sometimes jokingly, sometimes defensively, and at times with a hint of condescension, as if one were saying, “Please, stop being primitive.”

And yet, beneath that line lies a worldview: that decency, dignity, and even the body itself must bow to the shifting tastes of mortals.

When modesty is surrendered to human whims, we all know what happens. Its garb becomes shorter and shorter, thinner and thinner. The market adjusts, the designers adjust, the ideology adjusts, and soon, the entire definition of “decency” becomes a floating concept, elastic enough to accommodate whatever the moment demands. After all, mortals carry their own biases, interests, and appetites. And they mask these appetites with sophisticated language:

“Modesty is subjective.”

“We must evolve.”

“We are just keeping pace with the times.”

But when a hijabi walks by silently, confidently, and unapologetically, those voices tremble. Why? Because that small square of fabric is a reminder of something they’d rather not think about: that not everything is the creation of human negotiation. Some boundaries are Divine. Some meanings are non-negotiable. Some lines cannot be erased by hashtags or trend forecasts.

They hate the hijab because it draws a line. In an age when everything must be fluid, flexible and “your truth, my truth, their truth,” the hijab dares to proclaim: there is a Truth that towers over all of us.

The hijab bothers them because it reminds them not everything is reshapable. Not dignity. Not womanhood. Not worship.

They hate the hijab because it interferes with an economy predicated on the commodification of bodies.

When a woman opts out of that economy, the grinding machinery significantly slows down. Marketing teams fidget. Entire industries dependent on exposure flinch. A woman who covers becomes a woman who cannot be sold.

But perhaps what unsettles them the most is this: They just hate the hijab because it is a reminder that the Creator, not the market, is ultimately calling the shots on what’s best for His finest creation.

In a society where applause seems to be the moral compass, the hijab doesn’t dance for applause. It bows to One, not to many.

And that, for some, is intolerable. So, they respond with slogans. They shout, “freedom of expression” and “freedom of women,” as though the hijab were the enemy of freedom. As though choice only becomes choice when it aligns with their own.

But beneath those slogans lies another truth: What they are actually protecting is a civilization of nudeness and, rather paradoxically, the nudeness of a civilization stripped of transcendent reference points, boundaries, or humility.

On World Hijab Day, we remember the women, be they young and old, students and working professionals, urban and rural, who make the hijab a choice every morning. Sometimes joyfully. Sometimes nervously. Sometimes with trembling hands after reading another discriminatory policy or hurtful comment online. Yet they choose it still.

Not because they have a grudge against the world but, simply, because it is love of Him who made it.

Not because they are victims, but for the freedom of a world that’s obsessed with how things look.

Not because they despise beauty, but because they refuse to diminish themselves for mass entertainment.

On this day, we say to every hijabi: You are not just wearing a cloth. You are wearing a worldview. A commitment. A testimony. A freedom rooted in faith, not fashion.

And to those who still hate the hijab: perhaps the cloth you despise is the very cloth that reveals what the world has forgotten.

#Hijab #WorldHijabDay #MyHijabMyChoice #MuslimWomen #Modesty

[MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Mansoor L. Limba, PhD in International Relations and Shari‘ah Counselor-at-Law (SCL), is a publisher-writer, university professor, vlogger, chess trainer, and translator (from Persian into English and Filipino) with tens of written and translation works to his credit on such subjects as international politics, history, political philosophy, intra-faith and interfaith relations, cultural heritage, Islamic finance, jurisprudence (fiqh), theology (‘ilm al-kalam), Qur’anic sciences and exegesis (tafsir), hadith, ethics, and mysticism. He can be reached at mlimba@diplomats.com and http://www.youtube.com/@WayfaringWithMansoor, and his books can be purchased at www.elzistyle.com and https://ift.tt/xoisT6K.]