In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds and I seek his peace and blessings for the best of creation – Mohammed, may Allah exalt his mention, members of his household and his companions.
News of how the hijab (Islamic female headscarf) caused an aspiring lawyer to be denied a call to the bar in no mean a place as Nigeria is in part mindboggling but also revolutionary. Mind boggling because of the explicit nature of religious freedom on the country’s statutes.
Revolutionary because (lawyer-to-be) Amasa Firdaus from of the University of Ilorin in Kwara State has dared to chart a path that many others will soon walk without hustle. A path that thousands of her predecessors did not bother to tread – for whatever reason.
For five years Firdaus had no issues wearing her hijab to and from class. It was an effortless routine I guess. The hijab has triumphed in different courts across Nigeria. The most recent if I’m right was in Lagos State this year.
Incidentally, it was on the day of her crowning as a professional in the field she had studied and excelled that the furore broke out. By the way, she has in subsequent interviews stated that her action (refusal to yield) was to challenge a rule that she believed was unfair.
Caveat: I don’t have a position on hijab save for what the Quran and Hadith says about it – that is, that it is an OBLIGATION for the Muslim woman. May Allah reward those that adhere to it and strengthen them.
A few veiled and lawless questions from my end, never mind I’ll attempt to answer them:
a. Is it all rules in this life that are fair?
b. How did thousands of earlier female lawyers manage their call?
c. Why study and obey the law for five years and break it on your last day?
d. What is the importance of this religiously – legal tussle?
Of course we will all agree that not all rules in life are fair and it is incumbent on us to keep fighting to change rules where applicable. The story of Rasool during the Treaty of Aqabah where he ceded key positions to the Kuffar is one such – in the end, you win.
Firdaus is not the first Muslim lawyer to have passed law exams, many have come before her. They removed their hijabs and wore their wigs for the call to the bar and afterwards put it right back – that they bent the rules doesn’t mean she should.
Even a number of Muslim colleagues on the day she was refused entry pulled off their hijabs for the event and put it back at a time Firdaus stuck to her guns that not even at gun point will she yield. Well within her rights.
To tie the last two questions: Could it be said that she did not know of the rule prior to the Abuja event? If she did not too bad, but if she did; could she not have sought to rectify the issue before the day? Well, any which way, ignorance of the law is no excuse, or is it?
So she studied the law and ‘broke’ an existing law on her day of glory. But therein comes the revolutionary class act. The debate thanks to an Instagram post by an ‘enraged’ colleague hit national and international headlines.
Whether the law school likes it or yes, this is snowballing into a reform call. That they accept and modify same or be sued and forced to accept that despite having enforced a seemingly discriminatory law (which I support at the time), the time to change seems long overdue.
Firdaus, I will not compre to any freedom fighter anywhere. She could have been a lawyer by now but opted to be a liberator for now till the next call to the bar. She will most likely wear her hijab on that day. With double pride of having prevailed and having set the standard.
For years to come, Muslim ladies that pass through the law school, long after her, will be told of her heroics. In Ghana, I know of private call to the bar, if lucky the Nigerian authorities could grant her a similar audience.
I respect the many before Firdaus who signed up for the existing rules. I’m without a shred of doubt that many of them lodged protests but felt it was not much of a big deal. Not so for the trailblazing Firdaus. May Allah ease her and our collective paths to Jannatul-Firdaus.
News of how the hijab (Islamic female headscarf) caused an aspiring lawyer to be denied a call to the bar in no mean a place as Nigeria is in part mindboggling but also revolutionary. Mind boggling because of the explicit nature of religious freedom on the country’s statutes.
Revolutionary because (lawyer-to-be) Amasa Firdaus from of the University of Ilorin in Kwara State has dared to chart a path that many others will soon walk without hustle. A path that thousands of her predecessors did not bother to tread – for whatever reason.
For five years Firdaus had no issues wearing her hijab to and from class. It was an effortless routine I guess. The hijab has triumphed in different courts across Nigeria. The most recent if I’m right was in Lagos State this year.
Incidentally, it was on the day of her crowning as a professional in the field she had studied and excelled that the furore broke out. By the way, she has in subsequent interviews stated that her action (refusal to yield) was to challenge a rule that she believed was unfair.
Caveat: I don’t have a position on hijab save for what the Quran and Hadith says about it – that is, that it is an OBLIGATION for the Muslim woman. May Allah reward those that adhere to it and strengthen them.
A few veiled and lawless questions from my end, never mind I’ll attempt to answer them:
a. Is it all rules in this life that are fair?
b. How did thousands of earlier female lawyers manage their call?
c. Why study and obey the law for five years and break it on your last day?
d. What is the importance of this religiously – legal tussle?
Of course we will all agree that not all rules in life are fair and it is incumbent on us to keep fighting to change rules where applicable. The story of Rasool during the Treaty of Aqabah where he ceded key positions to the Kuffar is one such – in the end, you win.
Firdaus is not the first Muslim lawyer to have passed law exams, many have come before her. They removed their hijabs and wore their wigs for the call to the bar and afterwards put it right back – that they bent the rules doesn’t mean she should.
Even a number of Muslim colleagues on the day she was refused entry pulled off their hijabs for the event and put it back at a time Firdaus stuck to her guns that not even at gun point will she yield. Well within her rights.
To tie the last two questions: Could it be said that she did not know of the rule prior to the Abuja event? If she did not too bad, but if she did; could she not have sought to rectify the issue before the day? Well, any which way, ignorance of the law is no excuse, or is it?
So she studied the law and ‘broke’ an existing law on her day of glory. But therein comes the revolutionary class act. The debate thanks to an Instagram post by an ‘enraged’ colleague hit national and international headlines.
Whether the law school likes it or yes, this is snowballing into a reform call. That they accept and modify same or be sued and forced to accept that despite having enforced a seemingly discriminatory law (which I support at the time), the time to change seems long overdue.
Firdaus, I will not compre to any freedom fighter anywhere. She could have been a lawyer by now but opted to be a liberator for now till the next call to the bar. She will most likely wear her hijab on that day. With double pride of having prevailed and having set the standard.
For years to come, Muslim ladies that pass through the law school, long after her, will be told of her heroics. In Ghana, I know of private call to the bar, if lucky the Nigerian authorities could grant her a similar audience.
I respect the many before Firdaus who signed up for the existing rules. I’m without a shred of doubt that many of them lodged protests but felt it was not much of a big deal. Not so for the trailblazing Firdaus. May Allah ease her and our collective paths to Jannatul-Firdaus.
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