Now because I am always curious about men who take an unusually intense interest in women's clothing, I noticed that a Muslim clergyman has worked himself into a tizzy over a recent Islamic dress fashion show in Tatarstan. The designers featured in the show had clearly made every effort to not show the slightest swath of flesh (even when decking women out in aqua feathered Cirque-de-soleil-style fluff dresses that would surely draw attention, skin-less or not) and to have their otherwise interesting and colourful creations conform to the expectation of lots of flowing fabric and no display of hair, necklines, elbows, ankles or any other devilish body part. But the very idea of a fashion show is "unIslamic" according to Nurislam Ibrahimov, a Tatar imam, who implores that "the human body is not a mannequin".

That's funny, because Ayatollah Asif Mohseni, the Iran-backed conservative Shia "scholar" and architect of Afghanistan's "rape law" seems to feel differently. He argued in early drafts of his infamous Shia Personal Status Law for an article that would legally require women to wear...More >>