No, I'm not kidding. The choice of athletic wear for an Indian Muslim tennis player has resulted in a fatwa from an Islamic cleric in India.

Sania Mirza, 18, who became the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam at the US Open last week, is hugely popular in India.

The fatwa - in effect, a demand that she cover up - was issued by a senior cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, a little-known group. Similar fatwas have been issued against Mirza, who comes from a devout Muslim family, but none has ever gained popular support among India's 130 million Muslims.

"The dress she wears on the tennis courtsÂ…leaves nothing to the imagination," Haseeb-ul-hasan Siddiqui told The Hindustan Times. "She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence."

He said she should follow the example of Iranian women who wore long tunics and headscarves to play in the Asian Badminton Championships.

There is mixed reaction in India and abroad.

Expressing shock, Nanduri from Werribee, Australia writes, "Sania is an Indian and is Muslim by birth, and not by her own choice. She represents India and not the Muslim group of such self-centred religious leaders. India should ban such leaders from making such rubbish statements."

"Sania goes to the field to play the match and not to portray her religion. And one does not become a Muslim by growing beard and by wearing a veil," says Ambrin, another reader from Dubai. Avnish from the US flashes a cogent argument, "Indonesia has 90 per cent population, which is Muslim and most ladies wear skirts above the knees?"

But there are other views as well, Javed, from Toronto says, "Why can't a woman wear a long sleeve shirt and sports pants and play tennis if men can do it? Nadal wears pants that go below his knee. Why can't Sania wear pants that go all the way to her ankles?" he argues.

Taking a broader perspective on the subject Badri Raina from New Delhi says, "The very fact that Sania is out there playing suggests that she has the correct perspective on history; from the time of the first organised human societies, residual notions have sought to make targets of select individuals and events to attempt continued survival in the face of the knowledge that they are on the way out."

My question is what comes next -- will Sania be the next Muslim girl murdered for her failure to follow a sharia dress code?

More at MasalaSpice, Pickled Politics, Fine? Why Fine?, IsraPundit, In The Bullpen, and Instant Kaapi,

Posted by: Greg at 12:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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