Islam also to blame for prizing white skin.

[burahadeer]

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Islam Also to Blame for Prizing White Skin

Just like everything else, perceptions of sexiness have globalized. Hollywood movies, the fashion industry, MTV and Miss World beauty contests have set universal standards for female sexual appeal. It is in this context that Arab and African men have come to measure the beauty of their women. But the pressure on women to meet men’s expectations of beauty isn’t a recent invention, and standards have changed over the years.

 

Over sexualizing girls is as dangerous as global warming. In the Arab world, the features of an ideal woman changed between being opulent, plump, slim or obese, according to Abdelwahab Bouhdiba in the book Sexuality in Islam. Sometimes large breasts were preferable, sometimes firm round ones. At other times, pink flesh, chubby and curved (samina, maluma), a wasp-like waist, or a bamboo-like figure (ghusn al ban, gudib khizuran) were fashionable.

 

Bouhdiba even cites that women in the Abbasid era had to compete with the marked homosexual features that were in vogue; something similar to what happens in fashion today. “ The Abbasids,” he says, “ even preferred a tomboy type of women, with hair cut very short and a manly stride.”

 

Arab men’s views for female beauty, however, for many years sought a firm well rounded behind, large breasts and translucent skin. Arab belly dancers with their plump bodies remain the fantasy of the ordinary Arab man. Fair or translucent skin was always a highly demanded feature of beauty. Even in the old days, Arab women used a bleaching agent known as Batika.

 

In Mauritania, an Arab-African country, women are still force-fed to become fat and meet their men’s standards of beauty.

 

Men of the Somali race always have long valued slender waists. It was not that long ago when Somali nomad girls used to tie a rope around their waist to prevent them from filling their stomachs when eating. But extremely skinny women were never in vogue. While fair skin was considered not bereft of beauty (Casaan qurux kama qatana), it was the marriin dhalaal, shinning brown skin that caught the imagination of poets. Fair skinned women were often used as the butt of jokes, accused of being airheads, just as are blondes in the West. Somali women have never come under great pressure to lighten their skin. Those who used whiteners were often looked down upon.

 

It is Islam, however, that instituted a new set of unnatural beauty standards on women through the description of Hur-al-ain (black-eyed houri). The description of Al Suyuti, one of Islam’s eminent Quranic interpreters of the houris, is telltale. “Their bodies,” he says “are so diaphanous, so transparent that one can see the bones through the flesh and the marrow through the bones, just as a drinker can see the ruby red of the wine through the clearness of crystal.”

 

No wonder that most Arabs today see no offense in watching ad nauseam a commercial showing a female applicant for a TV presenter job who is rejected due to her brown skin but gets the job after she lightens the tone of her skin with a brand name cream.

 

World folklore is rife with princesses but I bet there is not a child of any race that has imagined a princess with black skin color, or even a black prophet of any religion for that matter.

 

One therefore can say that although pressure on women to measure up to the existing norms of beauty is as old as history, it is the conversion of women’s sexuality into a commercial industry using global media as its vehicle that portrays women only as sex objects.

 

It is soap opera’s such as Sex in the City and Desperate Housewives where the unnatural looks of the models and MTV singers that make today’s standards of beauty for teenage girls around the world.

 

Also the pharmaceutical industry thrives on peoples’ fear of fat. They portray thinness as the epitome of sexual appeal, thus prompting young generations around the world to suffer from psychological disorders in their quest to boost their sexual appeal and remain in vogue.

 

Over sexualization is not limited to girls only as boys also undergo similar torture. They have to adhere to certain sexual charisma standards imposed by the fashion and music industry. The industry needs them to be thin, hairless, have a six pack, pecs and dress well.

 

The banning of skinny models from catwalks by Spanish fashion organizers may be a good place to start a concerted international campaign to help the young generation regain their health, their self-esteem and their natural bodies.

 

Maybe it is time for the United Nations to assign a panel of experts to study the health and psychological impacts of sexualizing women in cinema, fashion and the pharmaceutical industries. This is indeed an issue that is as threatening as global warming and needs to be addressed at the highest levels of power. If global warming endangers our physical existence on earth, our sexualizing of girls is to use Susan Brownmiller’s words “…the ultimate restriction on freedom of the mind.”

 

 

 

POSTED BY BASHIR GOTH ON MARCH 3, 2007 1:10 PM

Somali veteran journalist.

 

 

 

PostGlobal is an interactive conversation on global issues moderated by Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria and David Ignatius of The Washington Post. It is produced jointly by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, as is On Faith, a conversation on religion. Please send us your comments, questions and suggestions.

[Blessed]

Hahaha. Must confess that I've actually missed reading this mans' BS. I've never come across women aiming for transparent bodies as far as skin lightening it's has the the hallmarks of Hollywood and colonialism and the fact that some idiotic people (most Arab, Africans and Indians) idolise white people on so many levels.

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

two things, there is laterally no worst look then those casper the friendly ghost looking black girls who clearly have abused that whitening stuff. nothing and I mean nothing! at the same time, certain things the olden Somalis found beautiful are confusing:

 

Xaad (what the heck where they thinking lol)

black lips and gums, again not sure why

tall, sure somalis are tall generally

slim waisted but curvaceous like all black men

mareen or casaan and Mali girls are either or, there are no shades in between.

 

now that we got that over with, not sure what arabs or Islam have to do with anything lol. The thing about Somalis is that no one associates more with arabs then Somalis but no one complains more about them either...

[Malika]

LOL - Mr Goth better stick to his other nonsense, wabuu kaa sii daree..lool

 

He sounds soo naive.

[burahadeer]

""It is Islam, however, that instituted a new set of unnatural beauty standards on women through the description of Hur-al-ain (black-eyed houri). The description of Al Suyuti, one of Islam’s eminent Quranic interpreters of the houris, is telltale. “Their bodies,” he says “are so diaphanous, so transparent that one can see the bones through the flesh and the marrow through the bones, just as a drinker can see the ruby red of the wine through the clearness of crystal.”"

 

statement in quran ...is there one talking about ebony like!

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Reer Casiirka Carabaha ku koray waxaan ugu wacan. Bashiir Good is one. Had iyo jeer ku wareero dhaqan Carabeedka iyo diinteena.

 

Some of them abuseka ay kala kulmaan Carabta ayee diinta Islaamka ku eedayaan. Hatredka ay Carabta u qabaan ayee diinta dul saaraan.

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Bashiir Goth is walking on thin ice

[burahadeer]

and facts...

[AYOUB]

Buuryodheer....

[burahadeer]

^^^^ Crooks,same,same,same everywhere.......they have to resort to insults or gun everywhere in the name of religion:D

their way of exerting pressure to silence!

 

 

Don't buy a nigga without the whip(arab proverb).

[Taleexi]

The prolific writer got it wrong yet again.

[gooni]

Carabtu diinta wey taqaan midab kala soocuna waa jiray ilaa samanadii horee

Waa laga yaabaa in somaalidu ka aamin santahay carabta dad xun oo tarxiil iyo dhib badan balse ogow nin dalkaaga ku jeclaysiiyay oo kuu tarxiilay waa kaaga sokeeyaa gaal kuu qoslay kuna soo dhaweeyay si aad u jeclaato dhaqankiisa iyo diintiisa

 

Ma ogtahay akhriyow in qaar ka mida carabta siiba badawiga inay aaminsan yihiin in dumarka madow dhabarka daawo u yihiin kuna dhiiradaan inay guursadaan? mase ogtahay in soomaalidu ka cunsiryad iyo quursi badan tahay carabta,kuna dhaqmaan 4.5?

[Boondheere]

its true that Islam praises the white skinn. for example there are hadiith which prophet was said. do you wanna know how satan look like? and sahaba said yes. and prophet said" qoute just look nabtal. satan look like NABTAL. nabtal was tall black man whit wolfy hair.

 

so according hadiith satan is a black man.

 

and you know xuurul cayn in janah they describe as whitest women in the world.

 

Al tabari whos the man who wrote siiraul nabawi or The History of the Prophets said

 

Ham [Africans] begat all those who are black and curly-haired, while Japheth [Turks] begat all those who are full-faced with small eyes, and Shem [Arabs] and greeks begat everyone who is handsome of face with beautiful hair. Noah prayed that the hair of Ham’s descendants would not grow beyond their ears, and that whenever his descendants met Shem’s, the latter would enslave them

and here another hadiith about whites being better than blacks

 

Abu Darda reported that the Holy Prophet said: Allah created Adam when he created him (sic). Then He stroke (sic) his right shoulder and took out a white race as if they were seeds, and He stroke (sic) his left shoulder and took out a black race as if they were coals. Then He said to those who were in his right side: Towards paradise and I don't care. He said to those who were on his left shoulder: Towards Hell and I don't care. - Ahmad"

[Maaddeey]

The Quran says: INNA AKRAMAKUM CINDALLAAHI ATQAAKUM, and there is this famous hadeeth: 'laa fadla li carabi calaa cajam, wala li abyad cala aswad'. When Abu darr said to Bilal (out of anger): Ya ibnal sawdaa 'o son of the black mother', the prophet scolded Abu darr and said to him: A cayyartahu bi ummih?, innaka imru'un fihi khaslatun jaahiliyah!. Islam has zero tolerance against race ee afkiinna qurunka leh xaggaas nooga jeediya yaa khubathaa!.

[N.O.R.F]

Burahadeer, come on now. Seriously?