"For us, as mainstream Muslim women, born in Egypt and India, the spectacle at the mosque was a painful joke and reminder of the well-financed effort by conservatives to dominate modern Muslim societies."

"This modern-day movement spreads an ideology of political Islam, called 'Islamism,' enlisting unsuspecting well-intentioned do-gooders, while promoting the headscarf for women as a virtual 'sixth pillar' of Islam, after the traditional 'five pillars,' the shahada (or proclamation of faith), prayer, fasting, charity and pilgrimage. We reject this interpretation. We are not too sexy for our hair.... In interpretations from the 7th century to today, theologians, from the late Moroccan scholar Fatima Mernissi to UCLA’s Khaled Abou El Fadl, and Harvard’s Leila Ahmed, Egypt’s Zaki Badawi, Iraq’s Abdullah al Judai and Pakistan’s Javaid Ghamidi, have clearly established that Muslim women are not required to cover their hair. To us, the headscarf is a symbol of an interpretation of Islam we reject that believes that women are a sexual distraction to men, who are weak, and, thus, we must cover ourselves. We don’t buy it. This ideology promotes a social attitude that absolves men of sexually harassing women and puts the onus on the victim to protect herself by covering up."

From a column in The Washington Post by Asra Q. Nomani and Hala Arafa titled "As Muslim women, we actually ask you not to wear the ‘hijab’ in the name of interfaith solidarity."