Lifting the Veil on the Debate over Veils – from the Huffington Post

I was surfing looking for some interesting angles on Byzantium and found this piece about the controversy over the veil which includes a discussion on its origin in the Byzantine Empire. Given that this debate is one that affects many European countries with Muslim minorities, and is a very hot topic in Turkey itself, I thought I would post a link here. These are the views of the author and not necessarily my own …

“I returned last night from a week in France where a debate is raging over whether Muslim women should be permitted to wear the burqa, the traditional Middle Eastern garment that covers not only the whole body, but the face as well. President Nicholas Sarkozy unleashed a firestorm of controversy with his recent call for a ban against the veil, with supporters calling it a necessary stance to protect women’s rights, and opponents decrying the proclamation as racist and symbolic of Europe’s bigotry towards its Muslim population.”

Read the rest of the article by Kamran Pasha here.