Miss USA Controversy

From Voice of America online news:

'For the first time since it was founded in 1952, the Miss USA beauty pageant has crowned an Arab American as its winner. Rima Fakih, 24, - who was born in Lebanon - has been at the center of controversy since winning the crown. Some say as a Muslim she shouldn't be in beauty pageants while others say she has every right to wear the crown.'

In Islam, there is no compulsion in religion.

I respect Miss Rima Fakih and her family for her decision to do so in the Miss USA beauty pageant. We are living in the United States, and everyone is free to do anything according to his or her own wish as long as the action does not bring harm to him/herself and others. Although she is a Muslim (as stated on the web site) she has the right to choose how she practices her faith. If her parents do not force her to live her life according to the religious way, then others have no right to tell her to do so except to gently remind her of the benefits of doing so. I do not believe in criticizing people who choose not to follow the guidelines of their belief, whether they are Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists or others. We should respect their decision and accept them for who they are. We are answerable only to our own souls and nobody else.

Personally I do encourage my daughters to compete in intellectual events or travel the world to widen their horizon when they reach the legal age. But I will not allow them to compete in an event that requires them to remove their headscarves and wear clothes that do not cover their modesty. When I was in labor with DD1 and DD2, I prayed to Allah SWT to help me raise pious and healthy children. I prayed that Allah SWT help my children to live a righteous and religious way of life. That is how I hope to bring up my children in this world so that we can get the rewards for the world here after.

From Islam For Today:

The Holy Qur'an lays down the principle of the law of modesty. In Surah 24: An-Nur: 30 and 31, modesty is enjoined both upon Muslim men and Muslim women 4:

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for Greater purity for them: And God is Well-acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women That they should lower their gaze And guard their modesty: and they should not display beauty and ornaments expect what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that They must draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husband's sons, or their women, or their slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their ornaments.

The following conclusions may be made on the basis of the above-cited verses5:

1. The Qur'anic injunctions enjoining the believers to lower their gaze and behave modestly applies to both Muslim men and women and not Muslim women alone.

2. Muslim women are enjoined to "draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty" except in the presence of their husbands, other women, children, eunuchs and those men who are so closely related to them that they are not allowed to marry them. Although a self-conscious exhibition of one's "zeenat" (which means "that which appears to be beautiful" or "that which is used for embellishment or adornment") is forbidden, the Qur'an makes it clear that what a woman wears ordinarily is permissible. Another interpretation of this part of the passage is that if the display of "zeenat" is unintentional or accidental, it does not violate the law of modesty.

3. Although Muslim women may wear ornaments they should not walk in a manner intended to cause their ornaments to jingle and thus attract the attention of others.