Nigeria’s representative at the Muslimah World
Beauty pageant, 21-year old Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola has been crowned winner of
the pageant, beating the other 19 contestants to the final prize. 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.
While the event in a Jakarta shopping mall
paled in comparison to Miss World on the resort island of Bali, in which scores
of contestants are competing, Ajibola was nevertheless overwhelmed.
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.
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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