Naysayer

“A covered girl like Rabeya would not have done what she had done in the movie. It is wrong.” It was the man that had spoken up during the Q&A portion of the premiere of The Taqwacores. He had said that a woman in niqab would not have acted as Rabeya had at the end of the movie. He was now arguing with Rasika Mathur outside of the theatre. I rolled my eyes as Rasika grabbed my arm and pulled me into the conversation.

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“I am a Muslim and I know that a woman wearing niqab would not have done that.”

“Well, I am a Muslim woman. And I’m saying that you don’t ever really know. You can’t judge.”

“I know that a covered woman would never behave that way.”

“So you are telling me that you, as a Muslim man, are telling me, a Muslim woman, that you know better than I do on how Muslim women behave?”

He smiled, patronizingly.

Fuck that bullshit. I walked away. I’ll be damned if at The Taqwacores premiere a Muslim man tells me how Muslim women should or should not behave. That was the whole point of why Rabeya did what she did, isn’t it?