HIJAB IS A GUARANTOR OF FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE

MELIKA SALIHBEG BOSNAWI

P1: Melika Salihbeg Bosnawi (formerly, Salihbegović), you are an author and philosopher, when and why you did "cover" yourself, as it is usually said about clothing according to the Islamic codes? 

M.S.B.: Bismi'lllâh^{1 To your initial question why did I covered myself, and your interest in the event with my late nana Karima Prohić, born Karamehmedović, which I narrated you about, I will answer in a form of an imaginary interview. This because in my biography exist not but prejudices, judgments and retributions, never questions. Not even the readings despite of my significant bibliography: www.bosnawi.ba.} In May 1979, when and because I have "discovered" the Divine nucleus of everything. And consequently woke up! It happened after eight years of schooling in Sarajevo Classical high school, the undergraduate studies in Zagreb and postgraduate studies in Sarajevo, followed by free research in Paris upon receiving scholarship by the French Government, and after a considerable artistic / literary affirmation.

 

Q. Was your childhood too marked with a religious upbringing? 

M.S.B.: As in the case of the better part of 20th century's Humanity; even a Socialistic one! In era of an overwhelming techno-ratio-mercantilisation of a human reality, and along with it (as its logical hanger-on) atheisation, militant nihilism, idiotization^{2 So-called Techno (music) produces ever lower "IQ" in young people, while reducing it, deliberately, to the progressive! zero level of idiotized civil obedience. . .  ,} religion, that is God, we used to get in a package along with the house breeding." (Auto-quotation from one of my books). When the said package is spent on traditional public and home feasts, meaningless habits, populistic naiveties, ignorance of both teachers and students, on political games of "the power". . . and fruitless struggle with the stereotypes from the ranks of the religions of "Others", religions, thenceforth those constantly generated by atheism, for it is a condition of its existence and its only substance, remains almost nothing. 

 

Unless there happens to you - love. I am saying this way, because faith, just as love, happens or happens not. In it, as in love, "there is no compulsion." The quote is of course from the Qur'ân. From the Holy Book, which is, like Islâm, an ontological and gnostic accomplishment / perfecting of the law / dîn / religion, and the completion of ni'mah / bounty by The One Who Has Revealed Himself to His greatest creature - Human, Microcosm, as his One, Unique, Only, and Unique Owner, Ruler, Source and Confluence. . . God. Who to blame me because I have embraced that crown of monotheism, which is the only natural and logical response of a Creature to His/Her Creator?! 

Q. Should one be a philosopher and artist in order to understand and know how to articulate the origin and meaning of the universal being and individual "happenings" of the religiosity; both as a principle and practice? 

M.S.B.: Not at all! You asked an author and gnostic, and s/he is answering you in a literary and gnostic / 'irfânî way. But every blade of grass, and bee. . .  , and every human being meets / cognizes, and then, naturally, praises one's God in the way and language peculiar to that creature. Arrogantly is to believe, because we understand just his, that Language is an exclusive privilege of Man. 

Q. What was the reason to cover your hair, and completely wrap yourself in the clothes that "detain" woman, as most atheists and followers of other believes look at the Islamic commitment and clothing? Many are inclined to accuse for it religious dogma, which they see particularly unfavourable to its female followers. 

M.S.B.: People are prone to semantic banalisation, even brutality, robbing the words their original meaning. Dogma means principle, learning, belief. . . , and just the ignorant give that lexeme an inevitably pejorative overtone. Dogma, doxa, doctrine, is simply THOUGHT. Its semantic support is the process (of perfecting), and therefore it is ridiculous attach to it the attributes which we are being daily familiarised with by the quasi-philosophers among political ideologists within the puffed up academic societies, by the impostors among political professionals, and by the ignorant among journalists-know-it-all at first place. Faith is, to cut short, a cognitive act, and process of perfecting the existence in every respect. Its base is, logically, islâm, obedience, submission – of a Slave to his Lord. That obedience (even to the strict order of covering) is an ontological, but also gnoseologic principle. The standard of existence, but also cognisance. 

Let someone try to return to the prenatal state, or never die. Of course one will not succeed in either of the two! But herenessly and therenessly, one may be in different ways. To be Muslim / submissive to Alllâh^{3 Musliman as used in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian languages is an irregular form of the Arab dual, connoting singular.} means by your Here-ness chose your There-ness. Alllâh is the all-embracing name of different God's names and attributes, and therefore untranslatable just with God, Ilâh. Nothing/ness that some see as termination of this undoubtedly transient life (and even this life itself, spreading one's absurdity like an infection), apart from impossibility to be an eschatological predecessor or continuation of Something, is neither ontologically possible in-itself. Impossible is that (Absolute) Existence and (Absolute) Non-Existence simultaneously exist, not either in a time sequence. Only bad translators of The Holy Scriptures plant on God a Creation from nothing (which, as a lexeme, never and none has found in the Qur'ân which one translates. Moreover, in chapter 52, The Mountain /Sûratu'ţ-Tûr, 35 'ayah says: "Either they are created out of nothing / min gayri šayinn /, or were they creators?"). Nothing/ness is a fantasy, chimera and wilderness, the aporia of Inanity. A very genuine trouble-field. 

 

It, Faith, therefore, for its metaphysical existential basis has the cover, hijâb for Other/s. Covering, concealment in front of others. A Vail with which we also, as well as Creator, "cover" our idea. Our poiesis without matter and space. To put it differently. It (Faith), for its metaphysical existence has the first, ideal, necessary matrix, umm; an idea/l software on the hard-disc of the complete being; a graphic board where from will be printed. . . ; Nominative which present/ed itself Accusatively in A Declination of The Being-as-Such; The Throne Nucleus in the atom of Everything. . .  ; One & Unique Divine Metaphysical Existence-in-Itself. 

God has, therefore, placed Umm/Mother on the very Throne, making Her the First Principle of Creation, and He covered Her just as Himself - with hijâb. Black one! Neither of these Two, nor God's Existence-in-Itself, or Idea, is visible to the naked eye. Great light blinds. There do also exist the veils of Light. Neither thought can remove all of Its curtains; it can be done but by the realities of faith (nota bene, faith, îmân, and not by the revealed religion, creed, dîn). That is why hijâb, covering, veil dropped from the top of the head over the chest ... is a common ruling for the followers of all three revealed religions. Unfortunately, in reading and practicing first two Books, essentially the chapters of the unique Mother Book,Ummu'l-Kitâb, Common Religion/Law of the Universe, that tenet is almost completely unobserved^{4 Never nobody on none painting/fresco/icone has ever seen Marie, mother of Jesus, hadrat Maryam, Mother of Îsâ, may Alllâh's blessing and peace be upon them both! except regularly (religiously, Islamic) covered.} (Islâm means Submission to God, and Salvation). Along with it is also ignored a logical reasoning, and its consequent appreciation, that with the rise of the female principle on the very Throne of Creation, Secret of Which is covered with the (Black) Veil, God has founded (also His Own) love and respect for Woman in the scale of non plus ultra.