It was the first step towards enervating or distorting the...

It was the first step towards enervating or distorting the potentialities and faculties of woman a leap more forward than taken by all the other despots and power-seekers of history, so that by the display of her physical features and replacing the Islamic breeding and behaviour by the Western habits and character, Western Imperialism may drag the Muslim people to gradual annihilation and ultimately lead the Muslim men and women to cultural, followed by, political and economic subjugation.

Now, let us study the inauspicious course of the abolition of hijab in the Muslim countries, particularly in Iran, and see how the enemy started his evil designs.

Effacement of the Self The roots of the effacement of Muslims' self go back to the past, a distant past, to the Crusades, when the West during the Crusades learnt a large number of sciences and arts from Muslims, and within a very short span of time, with the help of these sciences and arts, the Western people succeeded in developing their own techniques and equipments, but, instead of being grateful to us, most shamefully and ungratefully they used the same weapons against us which they had borrowed from us.

Travelling around the world, which took place very sparsely, became very frequent. The world travellers or tourists of yore turned into greedy traders whose voracious appetite for ownership could not be satiated by any amount of wealth. Travelling from one place to another brings maturity in man's outlook. He can see every image, as far as he can, in the mirror of original moulds.

The travellers of yesterday, who had turned into avaricious traders through penetrating eyes and long experience, entered the depths of the earth beneath its heavy surface and, in the heart of the warm and ancient lands of the Orient, they discovered untouched pearls, springs of oil and mines of gold, silver and copper. With what sort of eyes and with what type of equipments did they do it? With the eyes of greed and the equipments of covetousness and the insatiable desire for more and more.

Henceforth they were not content with dealing in spices or cloth alone or stealing away (the gold and diamonds from) the tombs of the saints or rings and seals (of kings and princes). They had now turned all their attention to unearthing the hidden treasures of these lands. But it required the riches of Croesus to buy the contents of these underground treasures.