Yvonne Ridley
You could understand it if Yvonne Ridley hated Muslims. Back in September 2001, shortly after 9/11, she was captured by the Taliban whilst reporting undercover for the Sunday Express newspaper, and held captive. Despite her fears and preconceptions, she says they treated her well, and when they invited her to join Islam they were satisfied with her response that she could not make such a decision under duress, but pledged to study Islam when free. Looking back on it she laughs now, “my captors probably thanked Allah when I was kicked out of Afghanistan. They appeared very happy to see the back of me since I spent most of my time being rather abusive and obnoxious to them – I think some are still receiving counselling!”
Upon her return to England, Ridley began to reflect upon her experience. “My captors had treated me with courtesy and respect (despite my bad behaviour) and so, in turn, I kept my word and set out to study their religion”. She began only with the intention of fulfilling her promise, but “I became more engrossed with each page I turned, I became more impressed with what I read. With Islam I need no mediator or conduit to rely upon, I can have a direct line with God anytime I want”. She was particularly impressed with how the integrity of Islam’s holy sources has been preserved; “I was absolutely blown away by what I was reading – not one dot or squiggle had been changed in 1,400 years”. However, the road from there to conversion would not be easy; “when I initially thought about converting, I reflected I had a fundamental problem… I started the day with a bacon sandwich and ended it with a large glass or three of whisky”.
Eventually the strength of her conviction defeated her concerns, and she became Muslim, quickly adopting the hijab. This made her a target for jokes and abuse, from a taxi driver instructing her,”‘Don’t leave a bomb in the back seat” to “amusing moments such as being congratulated in Regent’s Park mosque for my excellent grasp of English”. She continues, “But, in the eyes of many, I no longer am a real person. Waiters talk loudly and slowly if I am on my own, and if I am with a non-hijabi female, she is asked what I would like to eat”. “I knew I would become a target for abuse from the odd Islamaphobic oik, but I didn’t expect so much open hostility from complete strangers”.
Every Western woman who converts to Islam seems to encounter the same confusion from non-Muslims as to why on earth she might want to exchange her hard-fought cultural freedoms for sexual oppression and ‘enforced’ concealment of her beauty. This is an issue about which Ridley feels strongly,
There are oppressed women in Muslim countries, but I can take you up the side streets of Tyneside and show you oppressed women there. Oppression is cultural, it is not Islamic. The Koran makes it crystal clear that women are equal.”
Western women are still treated as commodities, where sexual slavery is on the rise, disguised under marketing euphemisms, where womens’ bodies are traded throughout the advertising world. As mentioned before, this is a society where rape, sexual assault, and violence on women is commonplace, a society where the equality between men and women is an illusion, a society where a womens’ power or influence is usually only related to the size of her breasts … how liberating is it to be judged for your mind and not the size of your bust or length of your legs?”
Further reading
YvonneRidley.org
‘It’s only a piece of cloth’
‘From captive to convert’
‘Journey towards Islam’
‘How I came to the veil’
