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JAKARTA
(AFP) – A Nigerian woman tearfully prayed and recited Koranic verses as
she won a beauty pageant exclusively for Muslim women in the Indonesian
capital Wednesday, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has sparked
hardline anger.
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.
Snowballing protest movement
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.
