EX-MUSLIM WOMAN says, men use the hijab, or rather the lack thereof, to “slut shame’ Muslim women

According to Arab-Canadian human rights activist, Yasmine Mohammed, the hijab is a tool of patriarchy, misogyny, and dehumanization, while perpetuating a rape culture by encouraging victim-blaming and slut-shaming. What’s more, she’s says there are no Quranic verses that mandate the wearing of either the hijab or burqa.

Yasmine Mohammed says: “There is no verse in the Quran or edict in Hadith that mandates a woman to cover her hair in the way that is commonly described as hijab. These demands that women dress a certain way– covering their hair, in some cases even covering their face– these are all man made ideas to control women. There is no religious justification. The Hadith describe so many things in detail, down to the minutiae. There are Hadith on the proper way to cut fingernails. If Allah or Mohammed thought it was so important for women to dress a certain way, then that would be clear in Islamic scripture.”

Yasmine was raised in a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim family in Canada. At the age of nine, she was forced to wear Hijab and she was sent to an Islamic school. When she was only nineteen years old, she was forced into marriage with an Al-Qaeda operative member. After marriage, she was beaten and raped by her husband. Finally, she succeeded to escape from that marriage and Islam. She rebuilt her life, went to university and now she advocates for the right of women living in Muslim countries.