Pacifiers, rides in the stroller, and shiny mobiles — those are so passé these days. What your baby girl really needs is a burka.
Wait, huh?
No, really. According to a Saudi cleric’s fatwa, or religious decree, burkas are what will protect young girls from being sexually assaulted. His comments, made during an interview last year, surfaced on social media sites Sunday, setting off a fiery Twitterstorm.
During the interview, Sheikh Abdullah Daoud told parents that their female children should wear the Islamic headscarf, suggesting it would prevent their young girls from being sexually violated. He backed his claim by bringing up instances of sexual molestation of baby girls around the Saudi kingdom, quoting unnamed medical and security sources, Al-Arabiya reported Sunday.
Yeah, well, like we said, not everyone shared Sheikh Daoud’s sentiment.
Sheikh Mohammad al-Jzlana, a former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, told Al-Arabiya that Dauod’s ruling was denigrating to Islam and Shariah, or Islamic law. People should ignore unregulated fatwas, he said, explaining that the Saudi authorities have special regulations on the issuance of religious edicts. He said he felt it was an “injustice” when he saw families walking around with a veiled baby.
One tweeter suggested the phenomenon of young girls wearing burkas wasn’t such a rare occurrence.
Another raised the question: Do the sheikh’s comments “sexualize” young children?
This tweet kinda says it all though.
