Yasmine Mohammed ياسمين محمد  🦋

And I should add-it’s not even mainstream Islam. In fact, niqab is not allowed to be worn in prayer or hajj (2 of the 5 pillars) it’s the clothing of a far-right fundamentalist interpretation of the religion. Similar to Mormon underwear.

But doesn’t banning it on principle set up a basis for banning other stuff too? Won’t people argue that the chandor or hijab makes it too hard to identify people and that they should then be banned on principle too?

These things, again, I don’t particularly like and I think limit people’s rights and opportunities. And again, I’d want to argue STRONGLY for people not to wear them.

But arguing strongly against them and banning them from every public place in your state, whether people want them or not, seem like very different things.

I really appreciate the conversation, Tom, but I feel like we can’t get anywhere when I’m speaking as a women who lived under fundamentalist Islam and wore a niqab. There’s a huge chasm between our understandings and experiences w the topic.

I wish I still had my podcast and I’d invite you on to talk it out. Twitter makes it difficult to have such a conversation.

I totally understand, and I have such enormous sympathy and you’re right there is a massive gulf. I can only speak through analogy with people I have met who believe strongly and passionately things I cannot understand and seem to limit and damage their own lives.

Whether that’s Christians arguing against divorce, or that they can’t ever experience love with a partner of the same sex, or believe that women are fundamentally inferior and must obey men - all of them seem totally insane to me, and I would argue against them all day...