Sertac Sehlikoglu Karakas is a PhD candidate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. The Turkish-Canadian is owner of the blog muslimwomeninsports.
Sehlikoglu Karakas says “sports is an important tool to empower women” but it’s wrong to assume all Muslim women are carbon copies of each other. For instance, the Istanbul native notes FIFA’s current ban doesn’t exclude Muslims females who don’t wear head scarves.
“(The term) ‘Muslim women’ is not a single group looking, thinking and feeling similar,” Sehlikoglu Karakas writes in an email.
“So, such a (soccer) ban drives away one group of Muslim women who believe in modesty and prefer to observe Islam in terms of dress code. These women often face bans in international games and cannot participate. However, it is equally important to recognize that there are Muslim sportswomen who have been competing in international games for decades . . . who do not follow Islamic dress codes or simply do not believe that such a dress code (i.e. headscarf) is Islamic.”
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2012/03/03/fifa_to_vote_on_lifting_hijab_ban_prince_ali_says_scarf_poses_no_danger.html