Some Muslims Say Hijab Case Has No Merit

posted on: Sep 5, 2009

Some Muslims are raising questions about the credibility of a lawsuit filed by a Muslim woman against a Wayne County judge alleging he forced her to remove her headscarf.

Majed Moughni, a Dearborn attorney who is Muslim, claims that the woman who filed the lawsuit was not wearing an Islamic headscarf — often called a hijab — but rather a fashionable garment. And Moughni notes that the woman didn’t protest when the judge asked her to remove it.

In flyers he said were distributed this week in metro Detroit, Moughni defended Judge Bill Callahan of Wayne County Circuit Court and criticized the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a co-plaintiff in the case that publicized the lawsuit. He said the lawsuit has brought negative feedback and is “a disservice to all Muslims.”

But CAIR and the woman’s attorney, Nabih Ayad, said Friday that Moughni is a lone wolf who has no community support and no authority to judge Islamic dress.

“Who made him an expert on hijab?” Ayad said.

Ayad filed the federal lawsuit against Callahan on behalf of Raneen Albaghdady, 32, of Dearborn Heights, on Aug. 26 after her courtroom appearance on June 16, in which she wanted to get her name changed. During the hearing, Callahan said, “No hats allowed in the courtroom.”

Albaghdady replied, “OK, it doesn’t matter” and took off her headscarf, according to a court transcript.

Moughni and some other Muslims say her action shows that she wasn’t serious about wearing hijab, which often refers to Islamic headscarves that Muslim women wear to cover their hair, but also refers to a modest style of dress in general.

Nadia Charara, a Muslim woman from Dearborn who wears hijab, opposes the lawsuit, saying: “I don’t understand why she took it off.”

But Ayad said that Albaghdady took off her headscarf because she was fearful of authority after living in Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein. And some Muslims said that Moughni failed to realize that there are variations on how to wear hijab, which is not incompatible with being stylish.

“He’s not the hijab police,” Dawud Walid, head of Michigan CAIR, said of Moughni.

Marquia Ziyad, a Muslim woman from Detroit who wears hijab, also supports the lawsuit, saying hijab is “part of our religion.”

Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press