COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Muslim women are beginning to give up wearing the black abaya in favour of the garment of other colours.

Early this week the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka (MCSL) began a campaign to distribute coloured abayas.

“There has been a positive response to our project to give abayas of different colours in exchange for black abayas. Within a short time, 1200 abayas have been exchanged. In another week, we hope to cross 2,000,” said Hilmy Ahamed, vice president of the council.

The project is currently confined to Colombo and other urban areas.

Since the rise of powerful anti-Muslim organisations like Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) in 2010, Lankan Muslim organisations have been trying to negate the anti-Muslim feelings, generated at least partly by the Muslims’ adoption of Arab culture in place of local culture.

The Muslim council denies that men are imposing colourful abayas on orthodox women and states that the idea of switching to other colours came from Muslim women during recent consultations on steps to take to encourage ethnic harmony.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2014