Aisha Ajibola a UNILAG Student will Represent Nigeria At 2013 World’s Muslim Beauty Contest
(Muslimah) In Indonesia
The finale of a beauty pageant exclusively for Muslim women
will take place in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in a riposte to the Miss World contest in Bali that
has drawn fierce opposition from Islamic radicals.
Twenty contestants will show off the latest Islamic fashion trends in the Muslimah World pageant and will also take part in other
activities, such as reciting the Koran, aimed at demonstrating their piety.
“We’re just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful. We
are free and the hijab (Muslim headscarf) is our pride,” said
Ajibola.
The contestants can only enter the competition if they wear a headscarf and have undergone three days of “spiritual training” in the run-up to the final in Jakarta, waking up before dawn to pray together and sharpen their Koranic reading skills.
Organisers say they want to show Muslim women there is an
alternative to the idea of beauty put forward by the British-run
Miss World pageant, and also want to show that opposition to the pageant can be expressed non-violently.
Organiser Eka Shanti, who founded the pageant three years
ago after losing her job as TV news anchor for refusing to
remove her headscarf, bills the contest as “Islam’s answer to
Miss World”.
“This year we deliberately held
our event just before the Miss World final to show that there
are alternative role models for Muslim women,” she said.
[NAN]
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