Wahhabism?

This morning Omar brought to the cafe the relevant Qur'anic verses to which he had referred the day before. These verses from Chapter 24: 30-31 outlined the required dress and deportment of women and also dealt with the male gaze. As we know it in the West, this latter is almost non-existent in the Islamic communities with which this author is familiar—East African in Melbourne and Indian-Malay-Arab here in Singapore. Ogling of the Latin sort, or even the less extravagant Western form, one never sees in these communities. It needs some while to comprehend the kind of discipline and strictness involved. If one looks carefully one might notice flitting eyes that are quickly lowered. In a group of lads at ease with each other there may be seen the ghost of a smile perhaps; certainly nothing like overt observation, not to mention wolf-whistling and the like. For the reception of beauty by the male you need to look very carefully indeed. These particular verses in question stipulate lowered gaze on both sides, and for the woman covering of the beauty of form and feature. 

         An interesting addition was appended in the last verse, 31, pertaining to anklets and footfall. Gold and silver anklets are quite common among the Chinese fashionistas; subtle and discrete tattoos on the foot or ankle likewise. The Muslim girls are the exception—always excluding the rebels and outsiders of course, like in any other community. Clacketing footfall however was an interesting added area of concern. The focus here is the percussion of the female passage through the public place. Just as the woman should not be seen, equally the allure of her presence should not have notice drawn to it by any means. The tap-tap-tap-tap of high and hard heels along the street, over hard surfaces—not in the desert presumably—that can make such an impression on the weak and susceptible male was well understood almost fifteen hundred years ago in the Prophet's time. As everywhere else, here in Geylang one sees and hears that alarming signal of the female from girls coming down bus stairs well in advance of their visible person, under the shade of the famous Sir Stamford Raffles five-foot walk-way, over the tiles of the malls—in each case altering the mood of the moment, introducing an inevitable tension and element of drama into the scene. Outside the cordon sanitaire down in lower Geylang, the weak and floundering one can see on all sides of this town. Up until the last week or two, on the busiest corner in the precinct, Geylang Road and Sims Way, one of the Buddhist organizations had raised their billboard warning against the scourge of lustfulness, “the root of all evil”, as it was recorded there. Coming out of town at the top end of Little India on Rochor Road, probably the worst traffic sewer on the island, the same billboard had stood the better part of the whole of the last calendar year.
         In outlining the position of women in Islam Omar gave the insight yesterday that man-to-man greetings and Howdeedoos? ought not include an enquiry after a man's wife. How are things? How's the family?.... Nothing however touching the wife, so to speak. The wife was confined in all her relations to inner family—husband, children and the elders on one side, and her community of women on the other.
         It certainly sounded Wahhabi to this novice. (Omar is indeed of Arab, Yemeni descent.) As expected, when Zainuddin was quizzed on the matter that was his response. For Arabs that might be the case; not for the Malays, the Sufi suggested. Which fits with the author's impression twenty three months and counting in these parts. (Understandably, the East Africans, across the Red Sea from the Arab heart-land, fall into the conservative camp.)

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