Muslim women in history refused hijab: Kerala governor Arif Khan

Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi: Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan told reporters on Friday that there were occurrences in Islamic history where women refused to wear hijab, PTI reported.

The governor was responding to the media's questions when the whole country witnessed a massive row on hijab, and related incidents surfaced in Karnataka's Udupi district in the recent weeks, which reached Karnataka High Court as well as Supreme Court.

Arif Khan did not go further with his point but related a story of a girl who was Prophet Muhammed's own kin. There was this girl, he said, a household of the Prophet. The girl was Prophet's wife's niece, and she was very beautiful. The girl, whose husband was Governor to Kufa then, had scolded her for not wearing a hijab. But the girl retorted that God had created her beautiful, and he had placed "his stamp of beauty on her". She argued that she wanted her beauty as well as the grace of God in her beauty to be seen by people. She wants to be thankful to God. Arif Khan claimed that the first generation of Muslim women behaved like the girl.

Meanwhile, Arif Khan justified his act of signing the ordinance that meant to amend the Kerala Lokayukta Act. The ordinance was strongly criticised by the opposition, primarily by the state Congress.

Arif Khan reasoned that he could not sit and judge the merits of the ordinance, but it was the elected government's responsibility. He might have different opinions on the ordinance, but there was nothing unconstitutional regarding it, he added.