September 18, 2005
Those legs are weapons of mass distraction, apparently.Sports
Don’t these people have anything better to do with their time than pick on a teenager?
Police will provide a huge security detail for Indian tennis star Sania Mirza during a world tennis tournament in Calcutta next week.
The heavy security follows rumours that a radical Islamic group threatened to stop her playing in the tournament unless she changed her on-court dress.
Awesome. Let’s harass one of the few decent athletes India has, it’s a fantastic way to thank her for reaching the fourth round of the US Open.
The radical Islamic group in question is the Jamiat-e-Islami, they claim they haven’t threatened her at all.
“These are rumours, we have not threatened to stop Sania or anybody else from playing,” he said.
“Though it is true that the kind of dress Sania wears offends us - we don’t expect a Muslim girl to wear such skimpy clothes in public.”
Look. If you want to be offended by something Sania wears while playing tennis, go after what’s REALLY outrageous— those horrid black socks she likes. Priorities, people!
Understandably, Sania’s safety is important to the authorities who are taking all threats very seriously.
“We cannot take a chance with the security of someone like Sania,” Calcutta’s additional police commissioner Gautam Chakrabarty said.
“We have deployed the best of our women police, nearly a hundred of them, to guard her both on and off the court and we have made special arrangements to frisk all spectators attending the tournament,” he said.
What does sweeeet Sania have to say about all this nonsense?
Sania Mirza has refused to be drawn into the controversy, merely asking forgiveness “for whatever I have to do on court as an 18-year-old.”
She didn’t write something irreverent about the Prophet Muhammad. She didn’t molest a mullah. She doesn’t have strange hair and a penchant for criticizing Islam. Don’t get it twizzy— she is not the enemy.
anna on September 18, 2005 03:30 AM in Issues, Religion, Sports · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
There's something about Sania that kicks alive the animal in me.
That's all I had to say.
Apparently the women are backing her.
From Madhubala to Waheeda Rehman,
From Mumtaz to Zeenat Amaan,
From Mandakini to Nigar Khan...
(notice the rhyme)
There have been lotsa mouzzi chics who didn't exactly follow the mouzzi way of life, but no one ever threw a fatwa against them. So, why's shweet Shaania being given a hard time? If even a strand of her beautiful hair is harmed, I'm gonna hurt someone real bad.
This is sheer stupidity.
As Atlasdrugged puts the things, probably there is something in Sania that irks the Mullahs. I think they are disturbed by the assumption that one of their 70 hoors (beautifull women promised in heaven)is springing in front of them and they just go crazy. She had no effect on the Jamaati women.
Well done Sania to shake the fundamentalism, backwardness and limitations on and off the field.
yeah, her black socks are really out there. someone should tell her to get rid of them.
There are many people like anna, who only waiting to write this sort of absurd things. First of all its not jamaat-e-islami that said whiich he quoted, but an unknown outlet called jamaat ulema dug by, again people like anna. these outfit operate from their letterhead only with themseves appropriating as Maulanas. Funnily nobody heard of them untill people like anna go poking them for "hey isn't it unislamic what sania is wearing?" yes its unislamic and we don't approve it from muslim girls....wow this nasty mullah has issued fatwa agaisnt poor sania. How backward the muslim are, how he feel offended, why do these pervert watch her. How sania is doing the right thing and all the Indian muslims....... yes all muslims are against poor sania. so on so forth whip the muslim put a name here and there about rushdie blah blah the picture is complete. Good job anna.
Good job anna.
hallelujah!!! good job anna! i mean, it is hard to find evidence pointing to a lack of liberalism amongst followers of the religion of peace!
btw, nice pic.
.ms provides the killer quote the Tamil Muslim Womens association
I reckon these are the quotes of cool as me Muslim women that should be put up as headlines - much more positive and true than just highlighting what a bunch of hypocrite old men say - because the sisters need our support!
Mullas and radical muslims should go to pakistan and banglandesh.
Reason Nehru and other wisemen agreed to division is to get rid of these types.
India is for people who appreciate freedom tolerance and openess. People who want to practice Arab culture should move to Pakistan and Bangladesh. People need to stand up to these types and then them "where" they should go.
Good point, but none of those Muslim women ever gained as much international attention as Sania has achieved. And this seems to really irk those Muslim misogynists. It is scary how it doesn't take much to reveal the underlying hate these mullahs have for any streak of independant thinking by a Muslim woman. It is truly sad if Sania now has to play with an armed guard protecting her.
Thanks for making me laugh mg - if India is only for people who appreaciate freedom tolerance and openess there has to be a much bigger clear out than just the old mullahs - I mean we can send them to those famous Arab countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh but where are we going to send all those other fascists and bigots who dont belong to that religion?
Feel bad for her really. Her choices are a) ignore the mullahs & protect herself which is what she's doing now (although i doubt this is a good long term solution) or b) fight back at the mullahs, but that, in my opinion would be a move that could ruin her career if she gets into that msess....if she wants to play as an indian that is.
on the other hand, she could, i suppose, become an american citizen like most other tennis players, and actually have a decent career as a tennis player.
Are they socks? They look like ankle guards from here. But maybe not.
Maybe the socks are kind of like Bjorn Borg's beard ... a symbol of luck ?
I think this has been blown out of proportion, really. The fatwa is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think there is zero public support among Muslims (in India) for this kind of ludicrous ideas. As someone has pointed out, there have been Muslim women in Bollywood who wore far more glamorous attires than Sania. The current political climate and the attention of the world media have added to the whole thing.
sidekick: she could, i suppose, become an american citizen like most other tennis players, and actually have a decent career as a tennis player
Like who? Except Eastern European players during the cold war era, I haven't seen anyone do that, have you? Living or being based in the US is not the same thing as becoming citizens.
I disagree that this is blown out of proportion, nanda, especially when a physical threat has been made, however baseless it may seem. i suppose i was thinking along the lines of seles..the parallel i'm drawing is physical harm, being from a country that is not as strong as the US in protecting the interests of its citizens.
Vikram is right, those are not black socks. Sania wears ankle protectors on both legs ever since she recovered from her ankle injury in early march 05.
I guess they dont make those protectors in any other color but black.
I need ankle supports too (very scrawny, pathetic ankles and wrists - also need wrist cuffs).
finding exposed ankles sexy.....
reminds me of the scene from meenakumari-rajkumar film "Pakeezah".. where the hero falls in love with the courtesan after a glimpse of her ankles as she climbs on to a berth in a train.....
and then delivers a line which ( roughly) translates as " your feet are most delicate, never set them on the ground"
Maybe they are foot fetishists
Shit, there is even a desi link here:
tauba tauba!
Quit it with that stuff.
The former don't make much sense without the latter for context. I do think it would be a good policy to frequently try and find links to "the opposition"---groups fighting the problem of the hour---to give them some linkage and exposure. I totally appreciated reading about the The 'Tamil Nadul Muslim Women's Jamaat.
Kudos to Sania for, at least publicly, keeping her calm and doing her best not to antagonize the clerics--ridiculing them would likely backfire amongst more conservative muslims, especially if they're currently on the fence.
She is attracticve!
I'm not into tennis. I'd only read her name in newspaper,web headlines and ignored it untill this
brouhaha.
I dont recall seeing her picture or may be i did but i didnt pay any attention.
My mistake
But thanks to the attention drawn to this issue by the mullahs i a non muslim am paying close attention to her legs and looking for outline of her sport bra in the pics.
HeHeHe Mullahs got what they wished for.
I hope she does a debonair spread...
she is 18...people should not be making an 18 year old girl discuss being a sex symbol. she's 18 years old and good at tennis, thats all come again
Fatwa.... she should change her religion. Then lets see what these ignorant ppl will do.
Any religion that forces people on how to dress is a fascist religion. Unfortunately religions like islam and sikhism force people to dress in ways that are in conflict with modernism.
Sikhism does not force anyone to dress a certain way
"In conflict with modernism" ?
I see - modernism dictates a homogeneity of dress, everybody should dress like a European?
Sheesh.
Regarding your comments 'those horrid black socks she likes' -- sorry to say that you're wrong -- those are ankle braces for her ankle injury that she wore just in case.
I've a feeling that our press will kill her career -- please please leave her alone!!
The "foot" link seems to be an old one, and as far as I am aware there's nothing particularly "Islamic" about it: one linguistic analysis of "Oedipus" (and picked up on in Freud's Interpretaion of Dreams) is "swollen foot"...
I've a feeling that our press will kill her career -- please please leave her alo
That's a really interesting idea, actually. In the arts press is sort of necessary. Without an audience, the art doesn't happen. But in athletics, there's no reason one can't have no press and still excel. The score is what counts. Of course the audience funds the facilities and also endorsements that fund training, but they aren't strictly necessary.
cd + rk:
chill.
cd- you're wrong. conflating the sikh male choice to wear a turban (i think that's what you are getting at?) and the sometimes draconian clothing requirements for muslim women...just...no.
rk- i was being funny. also, your fear that we are "killing" her career" is just bizarre.
Well, for all the attention SHE wants, this is something she will have to pay for - threat to security.
And well, for the culturally challanged ones - forget muslims, even the Hindu fundamentalists would have had problems with her dress.
I am not complaining, but she looks horrible anyway.
You sound like a fascist yourself dude - take a cold shower.
You know why nobody says anything about Anju Bobby George's sports attire?
Because it's appropriate for the sport. Hint, hint.
Although the attire in a lot of female sports, e.g. tennis and beach volleyball, has definitely been tarted up for ratings.
Manish: I think you make a good point; recall that in her later playing years Navratilova started playing in shorts, which are just as practical from the game's point of view...
" You know why nobody says anything about Anju Bobby George's sports attire?"
I thought even the world class, iconic runner, Hassiba Boulmerka from Algeria ran into serious problem with clergy.
http://people.africadatabase.org/en/profile/10860.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassiba_Boulmerka
there is a great article on sania in the latest india today. i think she is a great 18 year old talent who should have all the freedom she wants, and wears.
Note that a Shiite body has criticized the fatwa re: Sania's dress:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1488424,00070002.htm
Distraction? I'm sorry - those aren't even great tennis legs! Anna Kournikova, either of the Venus sisters (ah, what an appropriate name), even Michael Chang - those are/were great legs. Sania is a cutie when she lets her hair down and dons those dorky black frames (1,2,3), but her legs? Merely average. I can't say I find them distracting at all, but then I'm not a mullah.
Here is an interesting discussion about a recent incident of Islamic dress codes being imposed via Photoshop ! A bizarre story to say the least. Perhaps this is a new special effects industry in the making... a "drop in hijab filter" for all Islamic tv, where a hijab can be digitally composited in real time on women not meeting the Islamic dress code. Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic may be landing a new contract...
photo doctored for Islamic correctness
After going through all the comments, the common denominator of the readers is hatred, yes hatred for Muslims runs so deep I could not imagine. I assume all these hatred is coming from american based NRI, when in India perticularly the rural india where I come from there is little to be seen. I was given to understand that knowledge gives the power of understanding between different relegion, which is not being seen here.
God bless you all
whatever, man. this girl can play tennis and for once, here's someone who can tell the journos to stick it up their a**!
Read this: awesome!
http://in.rediff.com/sports/2005/sep/17sania.htm
Read this have some understanding. I hope anna and his ilk will take some time thinking before ranting. I still belive that this medium can be used for understanding rather than bringing out the prejeduce.
and i hope YOU know that ANNA has ovaries. "his"?
"I hope anna and his ilk will take some time thinking before ranting"
zak probably thinks "anna" = Big brother ( as in Tamil)
zak had me there for a minute! ;)
I also thought what SP says. thank god!
This is a story and a half - e-mailed to me by my Pakistani Christian ex girlfriend:
That is the Tableeghi Jamaat for you folks - their headquarters in Europe are in Dewsbury, Yorkshire - the town where the ringleader of the London suicide bombers came from.
What a nightmare -
- he was the only Christian in the Pakistan team and used to make the sign of the Cross whenver he reached fifty and a hundred - but the tableeghis just could not tolerate it - amazing stuff.If you want to get an idea of why there is so much "alienation" amongst some Pakistani youth in Britain just read the above quotes from Youhana - this is the kind of supremacist dementia the Tableeghi Jamaat are pumping into the heads of Pakistani youth in Britain - and when you get brainwashed with this kind of bakwaas it is no wonder that people turn to violence - the stuff about Israel and the rest is just an excuse.
This is the link about the Tableeghi Jamaat attending the Pakistan training ground.
Punjabi Boy whats wrong with the statement of Yousuf? You even raised objection to Jamaat, where the Crusading American dare not.... these guys are doing propgation for the last century.
You too are propogating.... sadly hatred.
zak
Sorry dude - the line wont wash with me - that is a terrible thing to happen, to have Tableeghi Jamaat visiting the Pakistan cricket team and prosletysing - it would be like the RSS visiting the Indian cricket team and telling Harbhajan and Irfan and Kaif to become Hindus - my Pakistani Christian friend is really upset about it and she says its only a matter of a few more years before Christians in Pakistan are finished - and yes, I know the Tableeghi mentality well having grown up amongst them and talked to them many times - and they are a bunch of bigots and lunatics.
Of course to someone like yourself who has sympathy and love for and cannot see the horror in a statement like this:
I am not surprised by your posturing - the whole world knows that pointing to hatred is not hatred dude - someone with symapthy for the worldview and ideology for the Tableeghi bigots and lunatics should tread carefully with his accusations and language.
In England you can see the effects of this kind of supremacist nonsense in the wreckage of the trains and bus in London.
I'm sorry Zak but that line just doesnt wash anymore - get a new style.
zak,
To point out intolerance in certain ideologies and groups affiliated with the Islamic tradition is not hatred against all Muslims. This is a medium to promote understanding, so help us understand your point of view. Instead of crying "hate! hate!" at the mere mention of a group like tableeghi jamaat, why don't you share your view of the organization? You don't see ANYTHING wrong with statements like "God willing, soon a day will come when Islam will be the sole supreme religion of the world," and there will be a day when there are no more non-Muslims in Pakistan?
Zak has no problem with:
and says we are propagating hatred because we are angry that Sania Mirza has to have security to protect her from death threats.
Zak,
There is such a concept as "constructive criticism". Disapproval does not automatically mean "hatred" -- don't think in such extreme black-and-white terms, because you're misunderstanding people's viewpoints and intentions.
If the mullahs and radical Islamic groups disapprove of Sania's sports attire to such an extent that the former group has submitted a fatwa against her and she requires bodyguards against the latter, then if they truly have the courage of their convictions, perhaps -- in the interest of fairness and their alleged integrity -- they should also issue fatwas/warnings against actors such as Salman Khan, Shahrukh and Saif. After all, in orthodox Islam, men are also supposed to "dress modestly", and I would hardly perceive the shirtless depictions of these actors in various films to fit that description.
I don't support any such fatwas or threats, of course, but am playing Devil's Advocate. I wonder why there is such an obsession with female attire whilst the behaviour of Muslim men in this regard is simultaneously being ignored.
Perhaps the mullahs are more comfortable seeing semi-naked men than women... for some reason seeing women is a similar state disturbs them. I wonder why...
Is it really his choice?
Sounds a lot like brown-nosing, to me. Is he being forced to do this, in order to survive in the rapidly-being-Islamised Pakistani cricket world?. I guess it won't be long before he sprts a full beard, like most of the other cricketers mentioed - Anwar, Inzy, Afridi, Saqlain.Hell, I guess now we'll Danish Kaneria (the only Hindu in the Pak team) spout this kind of stuff.
Yeah, that Youhana story was soooo depressing...I don't even think coercion is an issue, the wider problem is a mileu where onlu one religion has ANY legitimacy, so over time one begins to internalise the dominant worldview...
I don't even think coercion is an issue, the wider problem is a mileu where onlu one religion has ANY legitimacy, so over time one begins to internalise the dominant worldview...
Ummmm...isn't that, like, the entire foundation of the very concept of Pakistan? And yes, I am aware of that one solitary reference to pluralism in that address by Jinnah but that is merely one feeble exception to the norm. Ever since its inception, Paksitan has made extermination of all non-Islamic religions and a deliberate Arabising of the society to disown any links with the infidels next door the core of its nationhood.
We're talking about a sick country that names its missiles in memory of those who invaded their land, and raped, pillaged and plundered the pre-Islamic society. It does not surprise anyone - except perhaps a few South Asia-wallahs - that the project to annihilate all traces of non-Islamic identity from Pakistan continues unabated. Let's not forget that Hindus and Sikhs formed as much as 30% of post-partition Pakistan but today their numbers are down to less than 1%. Why all this hue and cry about Yohana when millions of others before him have already persihed to the sword of Islam in Pakistan?
Punjabu boy, You mentioned about RSS visiting Indian cricket team, why should I have any objection to it. RSS profess to be a social organization and myself was part participated in their shakas. Except telling how shivaji faught, you know whom, and akhand bharat incorporating pak and bangla which I welcome anytime, they have nothing to else to say. Hinduism you said! Well tell me what hinduism you have an audiance here.
Deepa, am as much with you to condemn, if you point me who issued death threat to beloved Sania.
Jairaj singh, If only you want to understand, In Islam their is NO, yes absolutely NO priest hood, UNLIKE PADITS OR FATHER AND THE POPE. The concept of Muslims in the grips of mullah is your imagination only. In Islam every muslim has equal right to lead prayers.
If only u want to understand FATWA, the so damn word, is nothing but an opinion. I can have an opinion as any other muslim can have opinion on issue. IF I say sania is OK for me do you publish it as fatwa, NO absolutely no. becouse you ignore and seek the one that suits you and rant here, how bad these guys are, how intolerent and finally ISLAM needs some reformation.
Well i wonder why Fob is so sad. well its shocking that he wonder he embraced Islam at Gun point, oh no sword edge.
Zak,
The RSS is a right-wing fascist organisation in India which openly admires Hitler and wishes to "Hinduise" the whole of India. And, for your information, they don't exactly like Muslims very much either. As a Muslim it would be worthwhile for you to remember this. And they're also pursuing an propaganda-fuelled agenda to merge Sikhism into Hinduism, whilst simultaneosly attempting to convince Sikhs (and everyone else) that Sikhism is not actually a separate religion but a "sub-sect" of Hinduism.
Events of the past 25 years indicate othewise. Hell, what's happened here in the UK also contradicts this, especially when you consider the London bombs.
You still haven't answered the questions posed to you regarding whether or not you a) agree with the concept of there ultimately being no non-Muslims in Pakistan, and b) if you agree with the aim of Islam being the dominant, and possibly only, religion in the world.
By the way, my name is not "Jairaj" -- just Jai.
Jai Singh
Everybody has the right to dream don't they? So let RSS also. Thanks for the advice, I do know they don't like Muslims. But I feel the concept of Hinduising the whole India is simple.. ...everyone living in in Hindustan is geographically Hindu. Sikhism being part of Hindu, well for that you need to define hinduism. IF idolatry is the basis for defination then Sikhs are not hindus. If any religion/Philosorhy springing from India is basis of Hinduism, then anybody who is not muslim, christian, jew is hindu, which is what the defination of Gov of India.
As far as me subscribing to views of Yousuf, well that didn't happen after thousands of Prophets and I don't see that in near future.
http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=55809&headline=Lifting~the~veil:~'Look~beyond~Sania's~skirts'
Those black socks look VERY sexy.
The Tamil Nadu governent should give full protection to Tamil Muslim Heroine DAUD SHARIFA KHANUM. They are wasting crores for a stupid TV distribution scheme filled with illegal sales and muRaiKedu, paNa mOsaDi.
20 crore rupees for a peNgaL paLLivaasal (women's mosque) should be throw-away.