Model Muslims: Can Islam and a fashion career mix?

By Caroline Overington

BEFORE she became famous as the young woman arrested in Bali for possession of ecstasy, Michelle Leslie was one of thousands of young Australian girls trying to make it as a model. As part of her job, she posed in bikinis and underwear, and she once was photographed astride a motorbike baring her bottom.

After her arrest Leslie adopted a more modest wardrobe. At one court appearance she wore a sarong over her head; at another, she adopted the full, black burka, the garment worn by the most devout (and the most oppressed) women in the Muslim world. Leslie's spokesman, Sean Mulcahy, says she converted to Islam at a private ceremony at a friend's house a year before she was arrested.

Yet Muslim commentators, including Australian Federation of Islamic Councils head Ameer Ali, say Leslie can't be Muslim and a model. "There's an Islamic code of dressing [that] says women must be modest," Ali says. "You can't go cat-walking with a semi-naked body. That is not allowed in Islam." But Leslie is not the world's only Muslim model; there are thousands working with the sanction of their parents and communities.

Source: [The Australian]

Eva Roslan, 22, is one example. She started modelling at 16, after getting permission from her Muslim parents. "I actually did ask my parents because it was important that they approved," Roslan says.

"They had no objection. They were actually quite worried that I was still too young and I will be influenced, that I will get into dangerous stuff, because people are saying that modelling is dangerous. So my mother, she actually followed me everywhere, from when I was 16 until I was 19 and after that she trusted me. Then she said: 'Now I think you can go on your own, just don't break the trust."'

Roslan, who was born and reared in Singapore, says her religion is important, but Muslim society in Singapore is not as strict. "There are a few models who are Muslim," she says. Roslan follows Muslim teaching, she fasts at Ramadan and prays at the mosque, "although not five times a day".

"My parents are not very strict because they believe the more they control the child the more the child will want to do the opposite," she says. "They treated me more like a friend than a child and a trust developed." Roslan say she is "very OK with swimwear and underwear" and her father "is OK with that, too. He understands that a model has a job, that you are being paid to work and that the things you wear, that is your job."

She has not posed nude but has no objection to doing so in the future, depending on what the occasion. "I haven't so far, but I think I wouldn't mind," she says. Roslan feels proud to represent Muslim women, "because there is a belief that a Muslim girl cannot be a model, cannot travel alone or cannot leave the house".

One of the first internationally known Muslim models was Iman Abdul Majid, who is married to David Bowie. The Somalian-born Iman, now 50, was reared by progressively minded Muslim parents. She was discovered at 19, living in Kenya, by photographer Peter Beard, who took pictures of her nude from the waist up, with her breasts covered by her hands and traditional necklaces.

In an interview in 1999, Iman said she knew her Muslim parents would not approve of the photographs, "known in the fashion world as artful nudes. My father would have found other words," she said. The photographer asked Iman to leave Kenya for a modelling career in the US. "But I was a Somali girl who had been raised a devout Muslim," she said. "I was a diplomat's daughter."

She was also secretly married and could not leave the country without her husband's permission, so she forged the documents she needed to get a passport and fled. She hated disappointing her father by becoming a model, a job he believed unworthy of her talents, and when her parents visited she collected photographs that showed her in any state of nudity and stored them until they left.

The father of supermodel Yasmeen Ghauri, who was born in Canada in 1971, also disapproved of her profession. Moin Ghauri is a former imam of the Islamic community of Quebec. In interviews, he has expressed strong disapproval of his daughter's chosen career. "She is still my daughter, but her actions are completely contrary to the teachings of Islam," he said in one interview. "She is doing something that encourages others to be doing bad things."

Yasmeen Ghauri has said she tried to become a devout Muslim, particularly after she once visited Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive or show any flesh. "I thought, 'OK, OK, I'm going to be really religious, I'm going to cut off school, I'm going to cover my head and everything.' Then I woke up and said: 'This is ridiculous, I haven't gone to hell."'

She has contracts with the Versace fashion label and Victoria's Secret, which makes bras and underpants decorated with feathers, diamantes and fishnet. But her career has damaged her father's standing in their community.

Not long after Yasmeen Ghauri became famous, rivals at the local mosque published pamphlets titled Imam in Hot Water, which asked why a person "who could not even regulate the affairs of his own family" be allowed to provide religious guidance to the wider community. Some Muslims refused to attend prayers led by Moin Ghauri. "I've been cut off," he said.

Yasmeen Ghauri responded: "I know he doesn't like it, but he can't really change it. I am sure somewhere deep inside he's proud."

Another Muslim model, Waris Dirie (whose name means desert flower), abandoned her family after her father, who was head of a Somali tribe of nomads, tried to arrange a marriage for her with a 60-year-old man. At the time, Dirie was 12. She fled to London, where she worked as a domestic servant before being discovered by model scouts while working at McDonald's.

Dirie became a successful international model and was among the first black women to feature on the cover of Vogue. More recently, she has become a prominent opponent of female genital mutilation, which her family inflicted on her. Dirie was subjected to this torture (in which the genitals are partly or entirely removed or injured with a blade) when she was five. She campaigns against the practice, particularly in Europe, where it flourishes among Muslim immigrants.

The issue of whether Muslim women can be models turned deadly in 2003 when organisers tried to hold the Miss World contest in Nigeria. The country's tourism minister, Boma Bromillow Jack, urged them to stay away from the 12 Nigerian states that enforced Islamic law. (Under sharia, women who expose too much flesh can be flogged.)

Riots broke out. Newspaper offices and Christian churches across the countryside were torched and bystanders were beaten with clubs. More than 100 people died and the event had to be abandoned. It was staged, instead, in London.

But Britain proved no safe haven for four Muslim women who entered the Miss England competition last year. Criticism from Islamic leaders quickly followed. One Muslim model, Hammasa Kohistani, 18, who was born in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, to Afghan parents, won the contest, which required the women to wear sports clothes and to sing and dance.

The imams said the women would compromise the teachings of the Koran by showing bare flesh. In response, Kohistani said: "I don't think I have done anything wrong. I have the utmost respect for the strong beliefs of the religious leaders." She said her parents were supportive and proud, "and as long as they're happy then my conscience is clear that I have done nothing wrong".

Keyser Trad, a prominent Australian Muslim spokesman, says Leslie should be free to explore and adopt the Islamic faith at her own pace. "Michelle is going through a difficult time and the fact that she's found comfort in religion is actually great news, even though people are ridiculing her for it," he says.

"She's embracing God and this spiritual journey is not always an automatic, total transformation. It's unrealistic to expect people to totally change their lives immediately after adopting a faith. It's true that the religion promotes modest dress, but there are Muslims all over the world in the entertainment industry, some in modelling, some in acting, some in belly-dancing. It's obviously a great temptation when these careers are very lucrative and exciting, and people need time to find other ways to express themselves to follow the spiritual path."

Leslie argues that how she or anyone else practises their religion is a personal affair. She is hurt by accusations that she is a "fake Muslim" who concocted the story to get out of jail. "I am a Muslim," she says. "I practise these beliefs in the best way that I can. You can be a Muslim regardless of your clothes. I know a lot of Muslim models who still do underwear and those sorts of things and they still believe in their God. They practise their religion the way they want it."

Leslie's father, Albert, is also angry, saying: "I'm Church of England and my wife is Catholic. We don't go to church ... but we live Christian lives."