Google – AFP, Angela Dewan (AFP), 18 Sep 2013
The newly
crowned Muslimah World 2013 Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola (C)
of Nigeria speaks on
September 18, 2013 (AFP, Adek Berry)
|
Snowballing
protest movement
JAKARTA — A
Nigerian woman tearfully prayed and recited Koranic verses as she won a beauty
pageant exclusively for Muslim women in the Indonesian capital Wednesday, a
riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked hardline anger.
The 20
finalists, who were all required to wear headscarves, put on a glittering show
for the final of Muslimah World, strolling up and down a catwalk in elaborately
embroidered dresses and stilettos.
But the
contestants from six countries were covered from head to foot, and as well as
beauty they were judged on how well they recited Koranic verses and their views
on Islam in the modern world.
After a
show in front of an audience of mainly religious scholars and devout Muslims, a
panel of judges picked Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola from Nigeria as the winner.
Muslimah
World pageant contestants
prepare backstage for the grand final of
the contest
in Jakarta on September 18,
2013 (AFP, Adek Berry)
|
Upon
hearing her name, the 21-year-old knelt down and prayed, then wept as she
recited a Koranic verse.
She said it
was "thanks to almighty Allah" that she had won the contest. She
received 25 million rupiah ($2,200) and trips to Mecca and India as prizes.
Ajibola
told AFP before the final that the event "was not really about
competition".
"We're
just trying to show the world that Islam is beautiful," she said.
Organisers
said the pageant challenged the idea of beauty put forward by the British-run
Miss World pageant, and also showed that opposition to the event could be
expressed non-violently.
Eka Shanti,
who founded the pageant three years ago after losing her job as a 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 told AFP.
"But
it's about more than Miss World. Muslim women are increasingly working in the
entertainment industry in a sexually explicit way, and they become role models,
which is a concern."
Hosted by
Dewi Sandra, an Indonesian actress and pop star who recently hung up her racy
dresses for a headscarf, the pageant featured both Muslim and pop music
performances, including one about modesty, a trait the judges sought in the
winner.
The
pageant, which also featured bright Indonesian Islamic designer wear, is a
starkly different way of protesting Miss World than the approach taken by
Islamic radicals.
Thousands
have taken to the streets in Indonesia in recent weeks to protest Miss World,
denouncing the contest as "pornography" and burning effigies of the
organisers.
Despite a
pledge by Miss World organisers to drop the famous bikini round, radical anger
was not appeased and the protest movement snowballed.
The government eventually bowed to pressure and ordered the whole pageant be moved to the Hindu-majority island of Bali, where it opened on September 8.
Contestants
of the Muslimah World pageant rehearse for the grand
final of the contest in
Jakarta on September 18, 2013 (AFP, Adek Berry)
|
Later
rounds and the September 28 final were to be held in and around Jakarta, where
there is considerable hardline influence.
But there
are still fears that extremists may target the event -- the US, British and
Australian embassies in Jakarta have warned their nationals in recent days of
the potential for radical attacks.
More than
500 contestants competed in online rounds to get to the Muslimah World final in
Indonesia, one of which involved the contenders comparing stories of how they
came to wear the headscarf.
The contest
was first held in 2011 under a different name and was only open to Indonesians,
Shanti said, but after the media began comparing it to Miss World, it was
rebranded as a Muslim alternative to the world-famous pageant.
Because of
its popularity, organisers accepted foreign contestants this year for the first
time, with Iran, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Nigeria and Indonesia
represented.
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