The Hijab and Beyond

C M Naim has a lengthy essay on the hijab as symbol and smokescreen:
"One does not hear about Afghan women now from Washington, nor about the Iraqi women, who had been doing very well in terms of health, education and professionalism, before the earlier sanctions and the recent war. Needless to say, while the lives of Saudi women are of no concern to the mandarins in Washington -- not a peep was heard when 15 Saudi girls died in a fire in 2002 only because the Saudi religious police did not let them come out bare-headed -- they seldom fail to mention Iranian women when expanding upon the ‘evils’ of the next country they just might target."
In Time magazine, Asra Nomani looks at the bigger picture:
"Those of us pushing for reforms are not seeking to change Islam. We are questioning defective doctrine from an intellectual and theological position, using the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and ijtihad, or critical reasoning, as ideological weapons in the war over how Muslim communities define themselves. Islamic scholar Amina Wadud notes that we are emboldened to take public action to reject the way extremists have defined Islam since 9/11. We are in the midst of jihad li tajdid al-ruh al-Islami, a struggle for the soul of Islam."