Now non-muslims too will ‘just do it’ with hijab

AS USUAL with any good thing going, every Mike, Tyke, and now Nike has jumped on the headband wagon. And, in the process, Nike, not exactly being your third-grade corner store but right up there with the bourgeois, scores lots of attention, lots of gratitude and lots of overwhelming money, from a community that forever sees itself as marginalised.

It’s also quite possible that there will be fringe benefits, for Nike, as everybody else, besides your average Muslim damsel, will want one too, to make a reconciliatory fashion statement and become part of the crowd, as well as assisting the slipstream around the obviously more aerodynamic design, and to offset any unfair advantage offered by the hijab in any athletic event.

Historically, probably just a desert-sandstorm filter for women with long hair, the cover eventually became a habit, and later, another excuse for women to run for cover if their man saw them mistakenly without one.

Does this not still happen?

Besides the headgear, the cloak and full purdah was probably invented to protect modesty and prevent women being perceived as attractive objects.

This plot was long lost, as the glitter of sequins from Samarkand, glass beads from Bahrain, diamonds from Dubai and pearls from Paradise made their way into the crafty hands of, first, male women’s tailors from Mumbai and Karachi, before ending up as templates for the giant electronic, industrial machines of Beijing.

So now even not-too-attractive women become attractive after visiting the cloak markets of either faraway, unaffordable Dubai, or somewhat affordable, and nearer Sparks Road.

Some of these cloaks, amazingly, still retain a few square centimetres of modest black, akin to the northern hemisphere, where lots of shiny stars but few pieces of dark sky are seen. So the original plot prevails. Modesty wins the day. EBRAHIM ESSA Durban