Ilhan Omar: Hijab Today, Full Burqa Tomorrow?

• Ilhan Omar has declared that she will seek to overturn a rule that has been banning the use of hats and head covering in Congress. 
• Sees America as “dangerous”. 
• Pushes fundamentalist Islamic agenda.
• Muslims and Ex-Muslims around the world have been fighting the use of head coverings as a symbol of oppression. 
• Citizen Petition calls upon Rep. Omar to respect US Congress.

She hasn’t even started her work as a legislator but she’s already confirming our worst fears about the agenda she brought to Washington from Minneapolis. Ilhan Omar has declared that she will fight to overturn a 181-year old House of Representatives rule which bans the wearing of hats and head covers in Congress. In her own words:

No one puts a scarf on my head but me. It’s my choice—one protected by the first amendment.

And this is not the last ban I’m going to work to lift. https://t.co/7U3ZLTaWur

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 17, 2018

Ilhan Omar ran a campaign declaring that America is a “dangerous” place. In her sit down with MPR and Jennifer Zielinski before the midterm elections she said:

“Right now our country is at a really dangerous crossroads. We get to decide what kind of country we want and what leaders we want representing us in Washington. I came to this country hearing about prosperity and better tomorrow for everyone and that’s what this country promised. I believed that America would be a place that had the tools neccessary for people to reach prosperity, lead a happy life. Shortly after I came here I realized that wasn’t the case.”

MPR Interview, Oct. 23, 2018

Turns out shortly after Ms. Omar came to America she began to realize America is really a terrible, dangerous place which lacks the “tools” neccessary for people to reach prosperity and lead a happy life. One can’t help but wonder why she didn’t escape this dangerous place? It sounds like she’s describing Somalia, not Minnesota. Dangerous place, no tools to lead a happy life…In other words, America needs help. And Ilhan Omar is going to Washington to fix America so that we don’t live in danger anymore.

How will she do that?

First thing on her list is to start fighting the rules by which Congress has been abiding for generations like the 181-year old rule banning the use of hats and head coverings. As if changing this rule and allowing Ilhan Omar to parade her head covering in Congress would make America less dangerous and will definitely deliver the tools neecessary for people to be happy. Is this what she was elected to do in Washington? If she ran a campaign on such agenda, how would the voters have responded?

“Hi, I’m Ilhan Omar and I’m running for US Congress so I can start polarizing, causing division and going after rules that have served Congress well for 181 years!”

Now let’s talk about the head covering issue.

Ilhan Omar is wearing the head covering because of the following commandment in the Quran:

“O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks (veils) all over their bodies.”

Quran (33:59)

According to this commandement, Ilahn Omar is obeying the Quran only partially since she is covering only her head at this point, not the enire body.

But who’s to say she won’t become more zealous in her efforts to obey the Quran fully in the next few months? She might decide at any given point to do exactly what the Quran demands.

Hijab today? Full burqa tomorrow?

Anything can be expected of her now that she has declared her defiance against House rules.

But what have head coverings meant to Muslims historically? With all due respect to Ms. Omar, Islam goes way back and her opinions matter only to a point. It behooves us to take a look at the history of head coverings in the Muslim world and what it means to us today. Modern Muslims want to get rid of the hijab and bring Islamic cultures in sync with the 21st century. Ilhan Omar wants to impose on America a culture that belongs in the Dark Ages.

Kemal Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey banned head coverings with the Hat Law of 1925. While the law was aimed more at men women followed suit and got rid of the head scarfs. In the 1980’s the Turkish military banned the wearing of Islamic head scarfs for women, too.

“The burka is like a cage,” said Mahjuba, a 42-year-old housewife from Afghanistan who never learned to read or write. “I wish that the men [who want to impose it on women] could be trapped in this cage so that they can understand how much we suffer.”

The Tunisian Foreign Minister Abdelwaheb Abdallah has said: “the veil is a political slogan raised by a tiny group that hides behind religion in order to realize political goals… It is the distinctive sign of a hard-line, insular fringe.” [El-Watan, Algerian Daily newspaper October 15, 2006]

One of the most significant outward signs of imposing the fundamentalist Sharia Islamic Law is the head cover. Pictures from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan from pre-fundamentalist times reveal astonishing views of happy men and women going about their lives just like people anywhere in the world. After the rise of fundamentalism, the head covering police kicks into high gear and barbaric Islamic rules begin to govern every aspect of women’s lives.

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This year has been particulary significant for Muslim women around the world who are fighting against the oppression imposed on them by the Islamic culture of head coverings. Tens of thousands of women have been posting pictures of burning their head coverings as a way of showing protest against this oppresive practice of fundamentalism.

Isn’t Rep. Omar aware of all this? Of course she is. But it looks like she is dedicated to a fanatical spreading of oppressive Islamic culture, not liberty. 

Anoud Al-Ali, an ex-Muslim was one of many Muslims women who posted pictures of themselves earlier this year boldly announcing:

#NoHijabDay Yes, I was forced to wear the #Hijab, not only by my family, but also by my school. We had to wear it, or else we get lower grades. Now no more. It feels so liberating. Hijab is not a symbol of liberation, It is the symbol of oppression. pic.twitter.com/Cj4myw31Tl

— Anoud Al-ali ?? (@__AnoudAl_) February 1, 2018

Rep. Omar knows how to use Twitter. She should check out the hashtag #NoHijabDay to see what Muslim and Ex-Muslim men and women from all over the world have to say about Islamic head coverings. 

Islamic head coverings have been banned in France since 2010 – and the ban was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in 2016 after a 24-year-old French woman sued France, arguing that the ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and expression.

While Muslim and Ex-Muslim women in the US and around the world are fighting to get rid of the head covering due to its dark history as a tool of oppression, Ilhan Omar is bent on fighting Congress to allow her to flaunt this very symbol in a desperate attempt to show once again what a victim she is and what victims all Muslims in America are.

Is this why Ilhan Omar went to DC? Is this what the voters sent her to do?

Sign this petition and tell Ilhan Omar to respect US Congress and to do the work of a representative with the respect due to the US Constitution and the institutions created the defend Liberty, not to enslave people.

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