Calm down on garb, scholar tells Muslims

COTABATO CITY—A popular Muslim scholar has called on Filipino Muslims to “calm down” on the wearing of Arabic garb as Halloween costume by Sen. Tito Sotto and his cohost Joey de Leon in the Oct. 31 episode of the noontime television show “Eat Bulaga.”

Wael Ibrahim, an online preacher who studied Islam and comparative religion at the American Open University, said Muslims should not have taken the Halloween show so seriously. “This attire is not a Islamic dress code that Muslim men must wear unlike the hijab (veil) and niqab (long dress) for women,” he said.

Ibrahim, chair of the Hong Kong-based Serving Islam Team which aims to clarify misconceptions about Islam, said many people from the Philippines had asked him to comment on the news about Sotto and De Leon wearing the Arabic thobe and keffiyeh (headgear with black ring) for a Halloween costume while hosting the TV show.

“The white thobe, red scarf and black ring are attire known for Saudi men and it is not an Islamic requirement for Muslim men to wear at all. In fact, sometimes I am wondering why non-Arab Muslims are wearing it,” he said in a post on his Facebook account.

He wrote: “My Filipino brothers and sisters in Islam. Calm down, ignore the whole issue and instead seize the opportunity of this Halloween occasion to introduce Islam to the public in the best possible manner.”

“Don’t we have a World Hijab Day where some Muslims themselves ask non-Muslim ladies to try on the Muslim dress code? Why this (case of the thobe) seems to be different?” Ibrahim asked.

The Eat Bulaga show drew flak on social media, mostly from among Moro Muslims who deem the use of the garb in its Halloween segment as an affront to Islam.

Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao even issued a statement requesting the show’s producers to apologize to the country’s Muslim public.

Ibrahim also posed the question as to what the Prophet Muhammad (saw) would have done, if he were alive today, in dealing with “insulting remarks on Islam.”

“(Would he have) asked the insulting party to apologize? Would he protest with his companions, etc? The answer is an absolute NO as we do have plenty of stories showing how the Prophet (PBUH) did respond to attacks on Islam and on his person. So again, either way, we should intellectually respond with an intention to invite him and others to (dialogue on) Islam rather than show him how much do we hate him and the like,” he said in an earlier post on the same subject.