Please note that the following is NOT a religious post. It is a writer's thoughts about female decorum in dressing.

MANY a Southerner might ask what the Hijab is.
To this ‘mystery’, I have shed some light. The
Hijab is a veil that covers the head and chest and
is particularly worn by a Moslem woman beyond
the age of puberty in the presence of adult males
outside of her immediate family. According to the
encyclopedia of Islam and Muslim World,
modesty in the Qu’ran concerns both men and
women’s gaze, gait, garments and Instruments; and
the Qu’ran admonishes Muslim women to dress
modestly and cover their breasts and genitals.

In my youth, when overt religious chauvinism
still had the best of me, I never understood the
Hijab. I perhaps even loathed it. I lent myself to
the otherwise ‘Western’ school of thought that it
was merely some fabric worn by some
uncivilised, uneducated ilk of women enslaved by
their husbands under the guise of religion.
However, spending time in Zamfara State opened
my eyes and I nearly wish all our southern ladies
wore Hijabs.

Our Southern schools and streets are filled with
cute girls with very ‘generous’ dress codes.
Outside your door, girls on bum shorts litter the
corridor. Get downstairs you find ladies doing
laundry on lust inspiring apparels. We are used
to leggings with no ‘long top’ to cover the bum;
so tight you see the genitals and panties well
carved out by the clothing. We’re used to all
forms of skimpy clothing - flaunting bra straps;
see-through tops, free flash of cleavages, etc. This
has become normal; at school, in the church, at
work, everywhere! And if you live here long
enough, you get used to it. You stop complaining
and even start ‘enjoying’ the sight.

For National Youth Service (NYSC), I was
deployed to Zamfara. Though the Sharia seemed
to have condensed upon Yerima’s exit, the
vestiges remained. Boys and girls couldn’t even
live in the same camp.

Some day we drive past the Federal College of
Education Technical (the first all-girls College of
Education I had seen), and I expect to see instant
activity. Perhaps a couple of bars by the side with
loud music and happy young ladies sipping
booze with their men; a couple of lewd damsels
waiting on car flaunting men; or a bunch of girls
on skimpy clothes, seeing their men off and
exchanging prolonged hugs. I wanted to see
‘chicks’ bending down and selecting cheap, used
clothes; fixing fake hair and nails, throwing
colour on their faces, window shopping or just
standing around and looking good. Perhaps I was
only expecting to see life as I knew it. To my
chagrin...NONE OF THE ABOVE! Just a bunch of
young ladies wearing maxi hijabs that mostly ran
from head to toe, obviously detached from male
folk. Fresh feces without flies, I thought.

I took a couple of weeks to tour the town and
the stark truth began to settle even more. No
bars, no ‘ethanoic’ happiness, no Davido! Every
female, young or old, great or small, seemed to
be wrapped in bed sheet-size hijabs. See, I had
encountered ‘hijab-wearing’ ladies before now. I
was quite used to the ‘exposed’ Moslem ladies
from rich families mostly in Abuja, Kaduna,
Kano, Jos, Kogi and Yoruba land with their short
stylish hijabs that could even pass for sexy;
allowing the shape of the bum and busts be seen
and felt, provoking all the undesirable effects our
Southern ladies exude. But here was I, stuck on
ladies engulfed in fabric! Instantly, I missed
home.

After two months in Zamfara, my libido had
dropped a great notch. I could pass for a monk in
thought and deed. These ladies were graciously
and totally wrapped. No curves to behold, no
stray cleavage and bra strap, no busts, no bum;
nothing to mess with your head or thoughts and
get your mind trying to figure out whatever is
under that see-through top. Living there had
some sort of purging effect on my sight and
consequently my mind. The sacred parts of a
female’s body gradually started to become sacred
again and seemed to earn a right to be covered,
and for once, I began to admire and respect both
the Hijab, and the ladies who make a habit of
wearing it. And oh yes: I did find that brazen
immorality was very low in this part. The vibe was
more like – ‘if-you-want-her,-marry-her’ rather
than the ‘if-you-want-her-then-get-in-her-pants’
idiosyncrasy that’s predominant down South.

It seems our ladies just want to go naked. We’ve
watched the skirts grow shorter and ‘huggier’. We
(everybody) let them wear two-legged apparels for
sports and better covering; they turn it to ‘bum
shorts’…perhaps for want of fabric. They change
from pants to tight as undies, but knowing they
had tights on...they started to sit anyhow. The
tight is now leggings which they used to wear with
a long top to cover the bum. Today, in our faces,
the long tops disappeared, leaving us with plain
skin tight - a brazen case of underwear going to
school, work or church. Nowadays they don’t
even wear pants with it, and it’s getting even more
transparent! Today they wear see-through tops
with a flawless bra underneath. Their tops must
reveal bra straps somehow, and the cleavage
must come pouring forth!

Truth is, a lady who ‘shows some flesh’
torments a man’s senses far more than a totally
nude one, for men are turned on hard by sight.
Their imaginations run wild; they get hooked;
soon they become willing victims all their lives.
Women know this, I am sure.

I sometimes wonder how many young men out
there are addicted, perverted, and sexually
bedeviled by a few stray sights they happened
upon on the street all because a sister wants to
be called ‘sexy’. We lament that faithful husbands
have flown from amongst women, we decry ill-
gotten wealth. We lament that standards have
fallen, that men ask for sex to give women jobs,
roles, marks, admissions, favours, contracts,
money. And the United Nations cries –
emancipate the woman!

However, by your dressing you suggest that
‘sex’ is a currency you are willing to pay in and
start up this vicious circle of promiscuity that’s
killing the society. Jay-Z sings fully clothed from
skull to foot; the ‘add-on’ lady simply wears
thongs and wiggles her butt? I feel certain that if a
bill is passed banning certain clothes in public,
women will vehemently protest their right to be
naked, tell us we are living in the stone ages all
over again; and fill us with all that ‘woman
emancipation’ mantra.

Consequently, our three-year-old boys have
learnt to poke at their sisters and classmates,
because you showed them how. Our sons
approach puberty, the site of nudity on the
streets pushes them ‘pornward’, and by 15, they
have pierced themselves with many sexual
sorrows. Such a boy will grow to be a
philanderer, a pedophile, an abuser of women
and an unworthy father. See how you make
perverts out of us. See why you must stop!

We all are culpable. From the man who calls
her ‘hot and sexy’, speaking more from lust than
love, to the lady who courts attention at all costs,
selling womanhood short. From the father who’s
not always there, to the mother who feels she’s
just being like her generation…and refuses to
scream, correct and insist. From the media or
marketing professional who feels – sex sells, to
the customer service and public relations peeps
who think this lewdness is the best way to reel in
customers. From the designer of these kinds of
clothes, to the ‘stars’ who teach our kids that this
is how to be. We all are!

Hence, if women cannot all wear Hijabs like the
Moslem women do, at least get a moral one,
dress modestly!

Source:www.ngrguardiannews.com/features/youth-speak/189587-the-beauty-and-moral-of-hijabs

dey tink of, "heat". Nd dey 4get d heat in d grave. . . ALLAH DEY O.

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Op. I wish ur will is granted

Long term paper but true.

Although the Hijab no longer cover boobs and booty, rather it covers bombs and Ak47.

True, but doesn't cultural orientation of the mind play a bigger role. I mean my grandparent wore basically nothing till just the other day and their generation had a higher level of morality than ours.

muafrika:
True, but doesn't cultural orientation of the mind play a bigger role. I mean my grandparent wore basically nothing till just the other day and their generation had a higher level of morality than ours.

This is generally true:

Truth is, a lady who ‘shows some flesh’ torments a man’s senses far more than a totally näked one, for men are turned on hard by sight. Their imaginations run wild; they get hooked; soon they become willing victims all their lives. Women know this, I am sure.

Exposing one's body many atimes is peer pressure related...Everybody does it so why will I not.
But if a lady has a reason to live she has a reason to cover her body well.
Being profesaional in one's dressing is the key.
Good write up.

Beauty does not equal more skin...

Lovely covered Ladies.

Hijab with style.

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texanomaly:
Lovely covered Ladies.

Me likey

beutiful

Ok

OK let me see

Lovely

i've seen some couple of ladies with the juhab looking pretty cool in them

I simply love it cos nt only do dey nt expose dr bodies, 1 can attest to natural beauty easily

one of the best write up I have ever seen on nairaland

I love the pics... "cuties"

i tink that christins should alxo wear hijab 2 churches,so as to cover dia unclothed nes ...but wait Dose muslim galx are beautyfuk o...Are dy 4 sale?

Absolute rubbish,
a girl doesn't have to cover her face like a masquarede to look modest,

what is this?