Suburban Capitalist girls love to shop at fancy malls with designer labels, don’t exclude Muslims from that!
For them, and the discerning Suburban Capitalist Muslim man, there are new designer fashions and catwalks to watch. Give them press, coverage, and a spot on the Today Show. American as apple pie.
““Sexy Rediscovered”: Meet the team behind Muslim fashion line, Eva Khurshid”
Tackling yet another field in which Muslims have not – yet – dominated are Nyla Hashmi and Fatima Monkush, the creative forces behind the most buzzed-about fashion line for Muslims, Eva Khurshid…Q: How did your backgrounds prepare you for your career and hands-on involvement (with both the Muslim and American communities)?
A: Because of our mixed heritages, we grew up in non-traditional yet conservative homes. Having American mothers has definitely shaped both of us and helped us take ownership in our American identity. Our Muslim upbringing is a huge part of our lives where it has served us with a strong foundation on how we live our day-to-day lives and conduct our business.Q: Do you think fashion is an area Muslims need to explore and work in?
A: We really encourage Muslims going into the arts; there are not enough of us in this field. If we don’t represent ourselves, who will? It’s so important for Muslims to branch out into non-traditional fields like fashion, even working with other Muslim artists in collaboration to help one another and giving support.”
Soon to appear on your Shop Rite checkout counter
For Muslim fashion designers, the market potential is enormous
Ausma Khan, chief editor for Muslim Girl, a young women’s lifestyle magazine that was started last year in the United States, believes that dedicated brands would have added appeal for many Muslim consumers. “The potential to design Muslim fashion for women and girls and to market to this audience is enormous,” Khan said. “Imagine the clothes you see in most contemporary and popular fashion outlets – Muslim girls and women are buying them and then creatively filling in the gaps. But they would absolutely buy the same clothes with higher necklines, longer hemlines, a more voluminous fit and so on,” she said.
Even in fashion sportswear and activewear, start-up companies like Hasema from Turkey and Ahiida from Australia have tickled market observers with the advent of functional Islamic swimwear. Aheda Zanetti, Ahiida’s founder, trademarked her designs as the “Burqini,” playing off the words bikini and burqa to describe her two-piece loose-fitting tracksuit.
“I think the Islamic fashion market is going to explode in the coming years. There are signs of it already,” said Gulsen Aydemir, editor of Modest Flair, a U.S.-based Web site that sources style trends and news for its Muslim readers.
America.gov shares this video about “American Islam” – Brooke Samad – . A graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Brooke and her business, Marabo Fashion, were featured in Muslim Girl Magazine in April 2008.
While fashion shows etc are all Western inventions, they aren’t limited to the Americas. Cultural Hegemony predicts we’d find them all across the globe:
Originally aired on Bab-i-Alem Program on MPL-TV in Turkey 09/14/2009. Full version (Turkish only) may be found at episode 132 here:
link
Translations of Parts 1-3 have been previously posted here.
Translations of Parts 4-5 can be viewed below:
The National – Sheykh Jihad Brown – 01 August 2009
Revisionist history in the Middle East likes to think of the Ottoman years as an episode of Turkish domination. The reality, however, was far from that.
The Ottomans were a diverse group. One of the most powerful positions in the empire, the Sultan’s chief of staff, was always an African. The top ministers and bureaucrats were more often selected from the ranks of the devshirme, Christian children raised in the palace and groomed for high-ranking functions, including military leadership. The language itself, Ottoman Turkish, was written in Arabic script.
There is a tendency in the Middle East to blame all failures in modernisation on the “Turkish Occupation”. The accusation appears moot, however, when we notice that the last Grand Vizier, Said Halim Pasha, was educated at Lausanne, Switzerland in the social sciences. He would be killed by Armenian assassins. If the Ottomans had really been the “sick man of Europe”, the British and their Anzacs would have faired better in the Dardanelles, but it was a rout.
More than anything, what may have contributed to Ottoman decline would be the impatience of the Young Turks to chase the fashion of modernisation. Add to that the intoxicating idea of nationalism, the latest import from Europe, as it spread throughout an ethnically diverse empire.
Istanbul today, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, remains diverse. Although rich in culture and still quite cosmopolitan, it abounds in contradictions: history and modernity; graceful beauty and kitsch; aristocracy and the nouveau riche; tradition and technology; authoritarianism and desire for democracy; conservative culture and moral abandon.
The gift of globalisation, however, has brought to this cosmopolitanism the creep of the uni-culture. The visitor looking to experience all that is unique to Turkey is challenged at every step by American fast-food restaurants, shopping malls, hotel chains and a plethora of other stylised conventions. If one allows oneself to be seduced by the siren song of the familiar, he or she might just forget where they are until they bump into the next monument. The advertisements are fundamentally the same, the banter of the radio jockeys is the same, the commuter traffic to their bedroom communities is the same; and it’s all just boring.
Today’s uni-culture is plastic, one-dimensional, and tastes of polyurethane. The alternative is the “authentic”, but that too is an enigma. “Authentic” is an adjective applied to another thing, like one might apply the “rustic” theme to their screensaver or interior design. We should be conscious that even when visiting a historic sight, we are seeing it through the filter of “presentation”. This is a stylised representation or interpretation of life as it was. It is still not the lived reality of the historical moment of the place and its occupants. They didn’t gaze at the walls and tour the objects as we do; they lived and “did” within that supporting context.
Reality, the third level of experience, is founded on continuity. It is a portal connecting us to the real. Uni-culture and “authentic representation” are temporal and never enduring.
In the narrow streets of the Fatih district and the hills of Uskudar live real Ottomans, who can show you, with the most gracious hospitality, a continuing history that no guidebook could “represent”. The Quran says: “And as for the froth, it will dissipate as if it had never been; but what benefits the people will remain in the Earth.”
From Imam Bukhari’s Adab al Mufrad:
973. ‘Abdu’r-Rahman ibn Razin said, “We passed by az-Zubda and were told, ‘There is Salama ibn al-Akwa’. I went to him and he greeted us. Then he brought out his hands and stated, ‘With these two hands I offered allegiance to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.’ He held out his palm which was as huge as a camel’s foot, and we got up and kissed it.”
974. Anas was asked, “Did you touch the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with your hand?” He replied, “Yes,” so they kissed it.
From various texts about Ottoman culture and its incorporation of this practice:
As Turkish society values respect toward elders, elderly people are turned to for their wisdom and highly respected. In fact, the custom of kissing the hand of elderly people and putting it to one’s forehead as a symbol of respect is still common in Turkey.
ph 156
International Perspectives on Family Violence and Abuse: A Cognitive Ecological Approach
By Kathleen Malley-Morrison
Published by Taylor & Francis, 2004
The relations between the various members of an Osmanli household, and the deference from younger people towards their seniors required by family etiquette, may appear somewhat curious to Europeans. They are, however, the necessary outcome of the patriarchal system which has obtained among all the nationalities of Turkey, and has only of recent years been to a certain extent abandoned by the Christian element in the seaboard towns of the ^Egean. According to the customary laws of this ancient social system, if a man’s widowed mother reside permanently under his roof, which is not unusual, his wife’s position in the house is but secondary, and she is required to defer to her mother- in-law in all things. Hand-kissing being the usual mode of respectful greeting, the wife kisses the hand of her Kain Validt, as also that of her husband, on the occasion of any family event, or any anniversary, and also on special Moslem holidays, such as the opening of the Bairam festival.
Home Life in Turkey
By Lucy Mary Jane Garnett
Published by The Macmillan company, 1909
The lady of the house, informed of this, hastens to receive her guests with all honour, and should there be more than one daughter, the eldest proceeds to dress and adorn herself for inspection—for among the Turks, as with their Greek neighbours, daughters are married according to seniority. The two mothers meanwhile exchange conventional compliments until the portiere is raised and the maiden enters, and after saluting the strangers by kissing their hands, she offers to each in turn a cup of coffee from the tray which has been brought in at the same time by a slave. While this is being partaken of, she stands in modest attitude, and after receiving the empty cups salaams and vanishes.
Home Life in Turkey pg 238
By Lucy Mary Jane Garnett
Published by The Macmillan company, 1909
Both husband and wife salute the bridegroom’s parents by kissing their hands, and receive the customary presents from them in return. At noon a grand reception is held, called the “Feast of Sheep’s Trotters,” from the dish which it is customary for the couple to partake of on this occasion.
pg 489 The Women of Turkey and Their Folk-lore
By Lucy Mary Jane Garnett, John S. Stuart-Glennie
Published by D. Nutt, 1891
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