OutSyed The Box

OutSyed The Box

The Hindu And Parsee Purdah

Posted: 13 Dec 2012 10:46 PM PST

The word purdah is generally understood to mean a veil that covers a woman's head, face and also from her head to toe. 

Today many people think that the word purdah is of Arabic origins or has 'Islamic' roots. Neither is the truth.  Purdah is not even an Arabic word. Therefore it is not found in the Quran at all.   The following is derived from the Wikipedia and other sources :

The word purdah is of Indian and pre-Islamic Persian origins.  The concept of purdah as a "cover-all" for women is of Hindu and fire worshipping Zoroastrian Persian origins.  
  • pur·dah NOUN:
  • A curtain or screen, used mainly in India to keep women separate from men or strangers.  The Hindu system of sex segregation, practiced especially by keeping women in seclusion.
  • ETYMOLOGY: Urdu pardah, veil, from Persian, from Middle Persian pardak, from Old Persian paridaka, from pari-d-, to place over : pari, around, over; Indo-European roots, to place.
Fire-worshipping Persian Practise

The ancient Greco-Roman historian Plutarch (46 - 120 AD), who lived 600 years before the advent of Islam, reported that the fire worshipping Persian Achaemenid rulers  hid their wives and concubines from public gaze. This was known as pardak  (purdah). 

The Achaemenids were followers of Zoroastrianism, the fire worshipping religion.  Plutarch wrote :

"The barbarous nations, and amongst them the Persians especially, are extremely jealous, severe, and suspicious about their women, not only their wives (hai gamētai), but also their bought slaves and concubines (pallakai), whom they keep so strictly that no one sees them abroad; they spend their lives shut up within doors (oikoi) and when they take a journey are carried in closed tents, curtained on all sides, and set upon a wagon (harmamaxai)". The wives were hidden in wagons and litters."

This Achaemenid custom of veiling is believed to have continued through the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sassanid periods. This tradition of Purdah is reflected in the Shahnameh, the Persian chronicle in which women are generally referred to as pushide-ruyan (پوشيده رویان) "those whose faces are covered" or pardegian (پردگيان) "those behind the curtains".

The purdah was an ancient fire worshipping Zoroastrian custom of keeping women hidden behind curtains. This is the origin of the 'purdah' in Zoroastrian Persia.

Purdah in Hindu Practise 

"In most of the northern half of India, traditionally dressed Hindu women cover the tops of their heads with the end of the sari or dupatta (Scarf). In many orthodox families Hindu married women still do not show their face to their father-in-law and elder brothers of her husband by covering their face with extension of sari.

Here are some pictures of Hindu women in purdah:



The Persian Achaemenid Empire of course ruled from northern India, through all of Afghanistan  into Central Asia into Arabia, north Africa and into parts of Southern Europe. Their rivals were the Greeks.  

The Zoroastrian Persian customs of the Achaemenids became prevalent in many of the lands they ruled including Afghanistan and north India (today's Pakistan).  

Others may say that the word 'purdah' was first used among the Hindus in India and it later spread to Zoroastrian Persia. There is some basis to this because Hinduism (3000 BC) predates Zoroastrianism  (500 BC) by over 2000 years. Many parts of the Zoroastrian fire worship religion have Hindu roots, especially from the Agni (Fire) Veda. This is one view and there may be other views as well. 

Here is something more :

1. "In his 1946 book "The Partition of India", B. R. Ambedkar, a social reformer and the chief architect of India's constitution, attributed many of colonial-era India's evils on the system of purdah saying that women lack "mental nourishment" by being isolated and that purdah harms the sexual morals of society as a whole."

2. "In 1925 Marmaduke Pickthall, a British convert to Islam and translator of the Koran, gave a lecture in Madras entitled "The Relation of the Sexes" which condemned purdah in the Indian subcontinent "

I think Ambedkar was referring to the Hindu women under purdah in India. Pickthall may have referred to Muslim women as well as Hindu women in India. 

It is interesting that BR Ambedkar noted that purdah "harms the sexual morals of society". There are a lot of "sumbang mahram" cases as well as rape and harrasment among many societies where women are placed behind 'purdah'.  We do not hear of many (or any) sumbang mahram cases in societies where women dress more normally.

This is just some background information on the purdah in Hinduism and Zoroastrian Persia.

More Fighting To Start In Egypt

Posted: 13 Dec 2012 01:17 PM PST

From Middle East media.
  • Morsi faces massive uprising similar to that against Mubarak two years ago. 
  • demonstrations against Muslim Brotherhood intensifying 
  • real potential for a new revolution.
  • confronted by large coalition of non-Islamist parties belonging to all opposition forces. 
  • Leftists, Nasserists, Liberals coordinating through National Salvation Front 
  • headed by Mohamed ElBaradei 
  • newspapers, television channels openly opposing president.
  • Several presidential assistants resigned.
  • Morsi well aware he received barely 25 percent of the vote in elections 
  • decree calling on army (to keep his seat) lost (Morsi) legitimacy   
  • By letting army in internal affairs, regime acknowledging no longer in control 
  • opposition not willing to stop demonstrations 
  • constituent assembly massively dominated by Islamists
  • non-Islamist members – including all Coptic Christian delegates  – resigned 
  • proposed constitution illegitimate since no consensus 
  • 236 articles veil overall Islamist nature.
  • Brotherhood will do everything to remain in power 
  • clashes between Brotherhood and opposition will get worse. 
  • Most Egyptians do not want an Islamist regime intent on imposing Shari'a
  • they want new, democratic Egypt,  the dream of the young people 
  • no longer afraid of defying the regime and fighting for their freedom.
  • new revolution has started. 
  • people will keep on fighting attempts to impose Shari'a.
I think what the young people are really fighting in all these confused Arab countries is Satan and satanism. The problem with these Arab countries is that the people in beards and robes are agents of satan. This is the problem.  
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