Sheikh Abdul al-Bahadli, a firebrand cleric with an artistic bent, drew a tree on a notepad. It was not a bad sketch. After a pause his pen returned to the pad and drew a box around the tree. “Is it not more beautiful if it is put in a frame?” he asked.

This was not an invitation to discuss aesthetics, but an argument for women wearing the Islamic headscarf known as the hijab. It was also a justification for the transformation of Basra and southern Iraq.

read the rest…