Inner Voice

On Modestry

“Islam is naked; modesty is its garment”. (Holy Prophet S.A.)

Modesty is a virtue for men and women both, though it is more commendable in women. But in our days, thanks to the modern civilization, man appears to be more modest than the woman.

This industrial age has turned woman into a piece of merchandise. No advertisement is eye-catching unless it has a woman’s body in it exposed to me various degrees of nudity. Films and television are a flop unless they have sex-appeal, and plenty of it. Magazine and books flourish on the lustful desire of man, by providing a lot of erotic material in written words and painted photos. Hotels and restaurants, gone-by days, used to boast of their excellent food and superb service. Now they arrange dances and strip-tease performances to satisfy the customers. Commercial firms expressly say that their receptionists must have a “presentable appearance”. Even in political life a modest wife is considered a liability!

Woman has been selling her body since time immemorial. But never before was shamelessness given the glittering table of “art”. Never before was immodesty the accepted norm of life. It is in this age that woman has lost her sense of self -respect. There was a time when she was a coveted prize, to be pursued by man. Now she has put herself in show window. No more is she a hidden treasure to be discovered by her rightful husband. She is now a piece of beauty to be seen, selected and admired at every shop.

And this hoax has been given a blinding name: “Freedom of woman”. But, as I see, it is man, not woman, who has made himself free to exploit the woman in every conceivable manner. Now in the name of freedom, she has been persuaded to discard all “Superfluous cloth” and appear in public in bikini only, thus providing the man a chance to feast his eyes.

In the last century, when the Westerners penetrated in the heart of Africa they found some tribes who were roaming naked. Those pioneers of “civilization” forced the tribes to wear clothes. Now those advocates of “civilization” are themselves discarding the clothes. One often wonders if the “primitive tribes” of last century were not more civilized than the rest of the world. After all, it is rest of the world which is now imitating the ways of that “so-called primitive society”.