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Progress, Saudi Arabian Style

I learned something new about fashion statements in the Kingdom and in other parts of the world of Islam.

There are many ways of showing or not showing a woman's face. Some women use a scarf to magnify the touch-don't touch aspect of male-female relations. But what I didn't know is that there are two ways of treating the eyes. The most common one in Saudi Arabia is the hijab which covers the entire physiognomy except the two eyes.

This, now says a Muslim cleric in the country, encourages women to use make-up on their eyes, which provokes them to be more provocative, rather than less.

Sheikh Mohammed al-Habadan has come out for the niqab which covers one of the woman's two eyes. Less lee-way, the less salacious, I suppose. But doesn't the pious cleric realize that the rule is that the less that is shown the more that is imagined.