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The Great Trouser Debate

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The Great Trouser Debate
Nafisa
08/07/02 at 07:13:25
[slm]

.........or as our American sistas would say, [glow=red,1,300]'The great pants debate'. [/glow]


i'd just like to field everyone's opinions on wearing trousers/jeans/pants.  is it okay to wear them?  i was asked whether wearing trousers was 'halal' and my immediate answer was yes, it's okay.  but then it was put to me that women only started wearing trousers during the WWII (or around that time) and that it was really men's clothing that women have adopted.  also, trousers show the shape of the legs and that isn't really acceptable for some peeps.

some muslimahs i see wear the tightest jeans imaginable and then wear a hijab aswell!!  this astounds me.  i think if they dress so provocatively they should take off their hijab cos it makes the rest of us look bad and other muslimahs might think it's acceptable to do that.

myself?  i wear trousers and skirt over it so it looks like a shalwar kameez but in the winter i wear a long coat so i dont need the skirt then.  but ppl have different standards i guess.  so tell me your thoughts on the matter, don't be shy!

08/07/02 at 08:12:58
Kathy
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
Ruqayyah
08/07/02 at 09:11:19
[slm]

[quote]i think if they dress so provocatively they should take off their hijab cos it makes the rest of us look bad and other muslimahs might think it's acceptable to do that.[/quote]

Do 2 wrongs make a right? I don't think it would make the situation better for these girls to make another poor choice and to take off their hijab. These are the sisters that we need to embrace and involve them in our MSA activities, etc and gently remind them of what hijab really is- yes, a piece of cloth, but also a way of being modest in dress and in actions. Maybe what they need is someone to give them that gentle reminder. I know that i'm really grateful to all my friends who are good to remind me, when they see me doing something I maybe shouldn't be.

[wlm]
Ruqayyah

Re: The Great Trouser Debate
sunset
08/07/02 at 09:24:02
[wlm]

My grandfather is not happy with women wearing pants cause according to him its a man thing but my father is okay with that.  I thought he said that because of being conservative  ???

I prefer pants to long skirt cause its just hard to move wearing a skirt and it limited your movement as well. I took more minutes to reach the train station when walking in a skirt rather than my pants ;D

Can anyone knowledgable clarify if wearing pant is not encourage/permissible in Islam for women...

[slm]
:-)

Re: The Great Trouser Debate
M.F.
08/07/02 at 09:30:40
assalamu alaikum
I don't think this is a debate anymore.  The rules for hijab are simple: it should not be transparent, and it should not describe the form (be tight).  Pants (yes I'm american ;) ) can be either tight or baggy, and you can either wear something long or short over them, so it's easy to see how they can be part of hijab, if they're baggy and you wear something long like a long shirt over them.   I mean even a skirt or jilbab can describe your form if it's windy.  Sometimes I think pants that are usually rather stiff material cover better esp. when it's windy.
As for them being men's clothes originally, well, sisters wearing pants are not TRYING to look like men, and nowadays women's pants are very distinct from men's clothes.  Imitating men isn't just from one piece of clothing (which has been adapted) but from a whole outfit, mannerisms, haircut, etc.
As for the girls in hijab and provocative clothes, it doens't make us look bad because they're obviously not wearing hijab, and their behavior as well as their dress proves it.  May Allah guide us all.
08/07/02 at 09:32:01
M.F.
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
theOriginal
08/07/02 at 12:39:11
[slm]

It's all about comfort.  You can't wear a skirt in -30 deg C type weather, it can't be physically SAFE :P .  

Other than that, I know my friends and I have similar problems with skirts, especially in a professional environment, where it is unprofessional to wear long skirts.  And that's not even a joke.  When I started working (I work at a law firm), they gave us a list of "dos" and "don'ts" which included a recommendation stating that pants or shorter skirts are preferred.  Go figure.

Wasalaam

SF>  
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
Aurora
08/07/02 at 13:13:09
[quote author=M.F. link=board=sis;num=1028718805;start=0#3 date=08/07/02 at 09:30:40]Pants (yes I'm american ;) ) can be either tight or baggy, and you can either wear something long or short over them, so it's easy to see how they can be part of hijab, if they're baggy and you wear something long like a long shirt over them.   [/quote]

I agree.
Although personally I prefer long skirts to pants, as I find them more 'comfortable', now whether that level of comfort has to do with my physical state or mental state i can't really decide:) But to be honest, a long skirt compared to pants just feels more modest to me, but that doesn't mean pants aren't okay to wear, they are.
And one should remember just as there are different cuts for pants there are also different types of skirts,  and in both cases some conflict with the etiquettes of hijab. So whether its a pant or a skirt, one should use one's common sense.

[i]Other than that, I know my friends and I have similar problems with skirts, especially in a professional environment, where it is unprofessional to wear long skirts[/i]
??? Hmmm I can see that in the case of a broomstick skirt or really full gathered skirt. But a simple a-line / bias cut skirt (long) looks really elegant (read professional ;) ) with a blazer type top.   I think if you want to wear long skirts, go for it, as long as they don't look 'frumpy'  no one should have a problem with it.

[i]It's all about comfort.  You can't wear a skirt in -30 deg C type weather, it can't be physically SAFE [/i]

;D LOL - sorry i can't help it, i missed reading this the first time around. SF sister, we've got to talk:--) Skirts can be way warmer or way cooler than pants depending on how you wear them, i always wear something that fully covers underneath, i just dont feel comfortable otherwise. In winter you can wear those really warm tights/leg warmers/longjohns whatever you know them as, and in summer, i wear hmmm you know those pants you find in the slips section ? Long 'n loose 'n light? Those.

The only times i find a skirt irritating is when the weather is really windy and it gets tangled up in your legs tripping you up every step of the way. Or when i'm wearing a store bought skirt, most of which have a tendency to be straight cut making it real hassle to get anywhere fast because of those teeny tiny steps it lets you take.


08/07/02 at 13:14:58
Aurora
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
Nafisa
08/07/02 at 16:01:54
[slm]

thanks for everyone's input.  i agree with your point, M.F.  i was just worried that maybe wearing trousers might be wrong because men wear them too.  however, women's trousers are designed for women and i think that's okay to wear.  

i do prefer skirts but in UK the fashion is to have American pioneer type skirts that look like petticoats or flimsy gypsy style skirts with a diagonal slash that shows half your legs.  i'll just have to wait till modesty comes back into fashion!  :D

Ruqayyah,

i concede on your point of embracing muslimahs to help them dress more appropraitely.  i just really don't like the mentality of wearing tight revealing clothes to compensate for the modesty of wearing a hijab.  it's the effort put into making oneself attractive to blokes despite wearing hijab which narks me.  i guess they don't really understand the purpose of hijab and that should be corrected.  
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
AyeshaZ
08/07/02 at 16:25:45


Asalamu alykum wrb,

I saw couple sister wearing really long thick slips or thin skirts without slits under skirts that have slits( usually this works best with skirts that only have one slit in the back). I do this all the time now, it reallly works and you can walk pretty fast in them  ;)..
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
bhaloo
08/07/02 at 23:36:47
[slm]

Dr. Siddiqi (former ISNA president) said:

One of the rules of the Shari'ah in the matter of dress and personal appearance is that men and women should not imitate each other. Men should not try to look like women and women should not try to look like men. This is indicated by the Ahadith of the prophet on this subject quoted in al-Bukhari and other books of Hadith. In one Hadith it is reported that the Prophet -peace be upon him- cursed men who imitate women and women who imitate men. It seems to me that what is meant here by imitation is fraud, deception and hiding of one's personality. If there is a dress that conceals a man's identity as man and a woman's identity as woman then it is haram to wear that type of dress. However, there are many dresses that are common to men and women. For example in India and Pakistan men and women both wear 'shalwar'. There is not much difference between the shalwar of men and the shalwar of women. Similarly men and women both wear jeans and pants.

Actually there are special jeans and pants for men and women. They cover very well the parts of the body that must be covered. So like wearing the Shalwar for men or women, I do not see any thing wrong in jeans and pants. Muslim men and women, however, should not wear very tight jeans and pants. I also remind Muslim youth in America not to wear some baggy jeans, not because there is anything wrong in baggy jeans, but because they give resemblance to some gangs' dresses. Muslims should avoid wearing the special dresses of people who become known in any society as wrong doers or criminals.
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
Ameeraana
08/08/02 at 00:30:13
Just remember guys, that in most parts of the history of the world when women always wore skirts or dresses, women did not work.  Men were the workers/laborers.  Even like, Japan for instance, the women wore kimonos which are their very beautiful traditional dress that is very tight and you cannot spread your legs far in it. The men, or, like the Samurai and the laborers wore pants, although nothing like pants or trousers in the Western world.  Even say, in Mozart's living years, the women wore those ourtrageous (but gorgeous) dresses while tying a strict piece of cloth so that there waists were as thin as they could get them to be.  Women did not need unrestrictive clothes back then because they did not labor like the men.  Women started wearing pants in the age of when women started to work also.  But then again that is most of the world.. because in the gulf countries, many of the med wear the jalabeahs or khandoras...kind of like a dress...
 I work at the airport, though not on the ramp...but it would not be very comfortable for a woman to have to load and unload bags after bags in a skirt!!
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
Anonymous
08/09/02 at 04:37:05
Actually some Western women began to wear "pants" around the mid-1800s; often
these were women working for the right to vote, as an act of rebellion against the dresses
they were wearing, because the corsets they wore under them were crushing their internal
organs. They were called "bloomers," and they were modelled after Turkish women's
clothes, NOT after men's trousers. They were loose and feminine, and very figure concealing --
probably more so than the figure-hugging dresses!

Photo [url=http://www.fashion-era.com/images/Victorians/bloo20.jpg]here[/url] from
[url=http://www.fashion-era.com/rational_dress.htm]http://www.fashion-era.com/rational_dress.htm[url].

[url=http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/photos/html/1018.html]Wisconsin women exercising
in the early 1900s[/url]
[url=http://www.duke.edu/web/Archives/history/womensports.html]Female Duke students
exercising in their bloomers[/url]
[url=http://www.spirithistory.com/blomer.html]Amelia Bloomer on the history of the
bloomer, or "Turkish pantaloons," as she called them[/url]
Some other nice pictures are available on Corbis.com:
[url=http://shopping.corbis.com/search/productsearch.asp?pf=&search=IH161286]An American
woman[/url] and also this Algerian woman shown
[url=http://shopping.corbis.com/search/productsearch.asp?pf=&search=IH034414]here[/url]
wearing a very loose sort of pants outfit in the late 1800s.

And I don't understand the whole "pants are for men, skirts are for women, therefore
women who wear pants are imitating men!" argument -- plenty of Muslim men around the globe
wear what I'd personally refer to as dresses and skirts (don't play games: thobes,
dishdashas, caftans, these are DRESSES!) so this is obviously not just for women.
Re: The Great Trouser Debate
sofia
08/11/02 at 22:31:45
As-salaamu 'alaikum wa rahmatullah!

Allahu'alim, although it is true that pants are ok to wear (depending on the pants, and if there is a long shirt to go over it), you really can do a lot more wearing a dress than one may think.

All depends on what you wear underneath and the type of dress. A lot of sisters wear jilbaabs with slits so they can wear pants underneath (and even sneakers). Trust me, you can horseback ride, run and go to amusement parks with a dress on. Again, depends on what exactly you wear with it and the type you have on.

The Prophet (s) mentioned Islam was characterized by modesty.  Some orthodox Jewish, Mormon, and some Christian women continue to wear dresses/skirts exclusively, so why do Muslims question it?

[Again, some scholars have allowed pants for women with conditions, blah blah blah, but this is just a rhetorical, general question for us to think about.
And while it's true that men in various parts of the Muslim world wear what some may consider a jilbaab/dress, the point is modesty, not imitating the opposite sex here (although the type males/females wear are somewhat different). It is incumbent on both men and women to conceal their figures, especially from the navel to the knees, which includes shape. This is why so many Muslim men either wear a thobe or untuck their shirts from their pants.  Allahu'alim]
NS
08/11/02 at 22:35:33
sofia


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