Farima Nawabi
She slowly opened her eyes. It was one of those nights where the entire world seems dark.
The car was moving fast speed and the sky was getting lighter, as if forced by sun to take off its covers. The colors of the sky changed, but the city remained black and white: the hills, black; the houses, white; the pillars, black; the walls, white; the women, black; the men, white.
The city had two colors only. Men, wearing white, pass women covered in black, in the streets.
As she walked onto the sidewalk, she was puzzled: why these colors only?
She was wearing white, but all the women around her were in black.
She looked at the other women and in the small opening of their clothes their eyes were shining: black and white.
The weather was getting hotter and she was worried about all the school girls dressed in black. She asked a woman setting next to her, “Why are all the men wearing white?”
“Because it is hot,” she replied.
“Then why are women wearing black?”
The woman was silence. Perhaps she didn’t have the answer or didn’t want to reply.
Who has forced the women to wear black despite the heat. She wanted her questions answered. Seeking answers, she began her prayer. She hadn’t completed her first part of the prayers when a loud voice shook her. A man was asking her to leave the prayer site so that men could pray.
She didn’t stop praying, though she had lost her train of though. Who had allowed this man to prevent women from praying so that men can pray?
God hadn’t chosen the color and shape of women’s clothes. How could men make this decision? Is their authority more than that of God? Do they know more about right and wrong that what God has decreed? Isn’t this tyranny on women a disobedience to God?
Read this piece in Persian here.