“Islam encourages everybody to practice sports and maintain physical fitness,” said the imam addressing worshippers at the Omar Bin Al Khattab mosque on Friday.
Excellent.. carry on shaikh.
“However, while Islam does not prohibit women taking part in sports such events should be held in places where men cannot see them and the matches should not be telecast in a way that allows men to see the sportswomen,” he was quoted as saying by local daily Gulf Times.
Where’s the fun in that? YOU don’t want to watch, then switch the channel for goodness sake. I watch purely for the sports, and then, why the hell does he blame the lady athletes if some of the men watching have dirty minds? If a guy gets a hard on watching hot, sweaty, fit, athletic, young, itsy-bitsy bikini-clad, female competitors competing hard at a sporting event, that is not the ladies’ fault, surely, that there guys should go have cold showers and let the athletes compete how they see fit.
The call remained unheeded as men of all nationalities flocked to Sports City where teams of women fought for a medal in the beach volleyball competition.
Phew, I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one feeling that way!
excerpts from the Gulf News
Comments
It’s important to call out Qardawi and co for their sexism.
But, we should also not lose sight of the gender inequality and sexism presented by the governing body of beach volleyball, which requires women to wear skimpy skintight bathing suits, while men must wear loose shorts. Quite degrading to women in my opinion.
true, but at the end of the day, women have the right to choose whether or not to participate. and if the players hate the uniform, they can try to change it from the inside.
on the other hand, if this idiot has his way, women would be locked behind closed doors once again.
some idiots just don’t get that people are people. women aren’t receptacles and men aren’t animals.
Mahmood,
The idea of men watching women athletes with dirty minds is an overly simplistic idea. I am sure this is not what the Sheikh intended.
The main concern I see is that with showing um.. Female athletes.. in an ..er.. “non muslim approved” attair will cause said attair to be regarded as norm.
Much like countries world wide ban smoking scenes in movies, TV, cartoons and advertising so the idea of smoking wouldn’t be as accepted.
It is common sense. Scientists proved that what people see everyday they start to accept. Why do you think girls swoon over the next star acadamy contestant? Studies showed that even though its a TV image, our subconcious mind sees a face. Thus, upon daily dosage of said face, it will be fammiliar, and your subconcious thinks it as family or friend.
Same with smoking and… aha! Same with unislamic female attair.
So he makes sense, what I would do is try to fulfil your desire to see female sports while eliminating his concern.
Yup, its tough to please everyone isn’t it?
Redbelt, every time I hear the phrase “studies show” I tend to think that whoever said it didn’t even bother to read the title of such study, if it in fact exist.
As to the concept of familiarity breeds acceptance, well, the adage goes to the opposite: familiarity actually breeds contempt! That’s number 2.
Third, the sport we are talking about is called BEACH Volleyball! Beach = bikinis. Get used to it. So if they (or we) have a problem with women (or men) wearing BEACH attire and playing a sport that was invented on a beach, then it is best to take that sport out of the competition.
However, as these are the Asian games, and as Asia and its varied cultures differ greatly than ours, which is minute if you wish to consider the numbers (Arabs), or at least we could be considered a minority (Muslims) in this continent, then it behooves us to shut the hell up and let them play the way the game was meant to be played.
No one forced a Muslim or Arab nation to take part. And I can guarantee that Doha did not force desperate people to go have a perv at a sporting contest.
So get over it. The whole world does not owe us a living, and the whole world – contrary to what we have been fed so far – is NOT Muslim, and most certainly it is not Arab.
I vote for the BEACH volleyball to continue exactly as is. And whoever doesn’t like it, well, get used to it or just simply change the channel.
I would like to see naked snooker. It’s a great game, especially in mixed doubles
“As to the concept of familiarity breeds acceptance, well, the adage goes to the opposite: familiarity actually breeds contempt! That’s number 2.”
I don’t think that this applies here. I think in this case we are talking more about people in this region becoming ‘socialised’ so that they don’t freak out at this sort of thing.
You remember that ten years ago or so, women smoking shisha was a huge taboo. The mulla’s said the same thing about the Internet and Star Academy, etc, etc.
Nowadays, these things are normal and the world hasn’t ended and we haven’t falled into the depths of moral decay as they have predicted. Well, maybe we’ve falled a little bit…but women in bikinis playing volleyball? I think this is the sort of thing we should be encouraging!
😉
Well said, I’m still laughing now but you are of course, perfectly right. =D
I’m all for the cold showers if I can take them with “hot, sweaty, fit, athletic, young, itsy-bitsy bikini-clad, female competitors”. :yes:
Did you hear of the 6 Qatari young ladies, in their car, on their way home from the games, collided into the side of the road, all 6 died, because one “olympic fan” wanted to take a photo of them!
I guess to imagine them later playing beach volleyball 😉
I did. How tragic and how disgusting. People here need to loosen up some.