Miss Perceived Motives

by Feòrag

At least 100 people are known to have died as a result of rioting in Nigeria over the Miss World beauty contest. The riots were started by youths, ostensibly as a protest against a newspaper's claim that the prophet Muhammed would have married one of the women in the contest had he seen it. Muhammed's first wife, Khadija, was twenty years his senior and a successful businesswoman - not the sort of feminine qualities the Miss World contest promotes. The area is known for religious violence, and the rioters attacked churches - perhaps a better indicator of the rioters' motives.

Other Muslims have criticized the contest as being degrading to women and immoral, and are upset that the preliminaries are being held during Ramadan. The events are only taking place in the south of the country though, and not in the largely Muslim north.

Several of the contestants plan to boycott the final as a protest over a Muslim court's death-by-stoning sentence on a woman for being raped - a major controversy in Nigeria which looks likely to lead to the Sharia courts losing the right to impose any death sentence. Miss World riots 'leave 100 dead' - BBC News, November 22nd 2002. Question #34550: How did the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) marry Khadeejah? at Islam-qa has some background information on Khadija.