The first veiled woman I came across was a teacher at a mosque in Oldham, Greater Manchester, where I grew up. Most of us Muslim girls, then aged 9 or 10, found it very odd. Whenever the male imam came into our section she would rush to either cover her face or turn her back so he couldn’t see her. We didn’t get it.
So I was surprised at the furore last week when Boris Johnson wrote that Muslim women who wear the face veil “look like letter boxes” and compared them to bank robbers. Quite rightly, he doesn’t think we should ban the niqab in all public places, as Denmark has done, but described them as “absolutely ridiculous”.
There are many Muslims — including many of my relatives — who hate the niqab and what it stands for, and will use much worse language than “letter box” about them: words like “ninja” and “bin bags” come to mind. [The Times (£)] Read more
