If wearing the hijab is truly to be a Muslim woman’s choice, Muslim advocacy groups based in Britain should be on the front lines defending her right to refuse to wear it.
“Muslim woman sacked from estate agency for REFUSING to wear a headscarf,” from the Daily Mail, October 3 (thanks to Zulu):
A Muslim woman has been awarded more than £13,500 after she was sacked for refusing to wear a headscarf at the estate agency where she worked.
Ghazala Khan – a 31-year-old non-practising Muslim – was fired less than two weeks into her job at a company run by traditional Muslim businessman Masood Ghafoor simply because she refused to cover her hair.
Mr Ghafoor told Miss Khan, who had nine years experience in the trade, that his wife and female relatives all wore full veils or burkas, telling her that her parents had given her ‘far too much freedom’.
A tribunal heard that Miss Khan had been employed to run Mr Ghafoor’s Go Go Real Estate office in Leeds, West Yorkshire, in June 2009.
However, within days of working there she was left feeling ‘very uncomfortable and intimidated’ when Mr Ghafoor put it to her that she had not been brought up as a ‘good Muslim’ and that if she had been his daughter she would not be allowed to work and would have been long since ‘married off’.
He asked her to wear a headscarf at work – even though white non-Muslim women he employed in the same office were never asked to and never did.
On the day she was due to start her third week in the job, Mr Ghafoor told her not to bother coming in.
When she eventually caught up with him later that evening he told her that members of the Muslim community had been ‘gossiping’ and suggested that she was not ‘respectable’ and that there might be ‘something going on’ between her and members of staff.
Mr Ghafoor added that his cousin Shakeel, who was also employed in the office, was unhappy working with a female especially as she did not wear a headscarf, was not religious and was Westernised. […]
The tribunal heard that at her job interview Miss Khan had worn a grey pinstripe trouser suit, described as ‘conventional modern professional dress’. […]
Changing his story:
The tribunal heard that Mr Ghafoor had originally told Miss Khan there was no problem with the way she dressed.
‘He was happy that she was fully covered up by the black trousers and long sleeved blouses and tops that she wore to work,’ the tribunal heard.
‘By the time of the hearing, he was saying that she had chosen to wear clothing of a very revealing nature.’…