007-Re: Muslim Veiled teacher suspended – Private vs Public face

It was fascinating to watch this interview of Aishah Azmi, which began very stridently, with practiced responses from her. But when questioned concerning the hypocrisy of coming to the interview for the job without a veil, and in front of a male, she changed, becoming shifty, asking for the question to be repeated, or asking not to answer at all. It showed me something that I see often when working with Muslims at Speaker’s Corner, or on the universities. What they tell you publicly is not necessarily what they will tell you privately. And when questioned, they will explain that it has to do with the two realms we live in (i.e. ‘Dar al Islam’ — ‘House of Islam’ vs. ‘Dar al Harb’ — ‘House of War’). The West is ‘Dar al Harb’, thus, since Muslims are in the context of war they can say anything they want. Knowing this we should be careful not to take everything Muslim’s say at ‘face value’, which harms open and honest debate. Can we not all be open and honest in what we say, so we won’t have these embarrassing and needless mis-communications?

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