We live in a modern society, live and let live.. Why don’t you all leave Muslim women alone and let us dress the way we want. We don’t tell non Muslim women to cover up. I wear a hijab ( head covering ) and am proud to wear it, I feel it completes me spiritually, I would feel naked in public without it. In my home I dress how I want. My beauty is not for the world to see, its for myself. I would love to wear a veil and God Willing I will when I am ready. But when I do, I don’t want to be scrutinised but accepted for the choice I have made. I accept all people regardless of how they dress, because Islam teaches us to respect all faiths. Why cant you do the same?

Sajeda , West Yorkshire, UK

The veil is beth demeaning and demonic.
God didn't create us so that man could dictate what a woman can or cannot wear.
Ban the veil in public places and definately is places where security is paramount.
One of the leaders of the Red mosque was caught fleeing in a veil.

James Currie, london, UK

The problem is not that some women want to wear the veil out of their own free will (so they say). The problem is that orthodox islam wants ALL women to wear the veil, including those who don't want. Should we allow such a doctrine to grow in strength in the Western World?

l.karremans, Heusden,

Another veil issue. Thanks to all the profile the hijab/veil is getting, only more and more women are beginning to don the hijab/veil, and more so in the Western nations. People are reading, people are learning. Critics of the hijab/veil/religion/muslims need to unlearn and relearn. Bring it on..

Nasr, London, UK

The only time the veil can be justified is as a protection against sandstorms or motor exhaust when the veiled one is on her hog..I gues the bedouin women adopted the veil to prevent the sand getting in their hair..Makes no sense whn there are no sandstorms..

Kara Swart, London,

This is from The Times of 21 February:

"An Islamic fundamentalist shot and killed a female Pakistani minister yesterday because of her refusal to wear a Muslim veil.

Police said that the bearded attacker had singled out the prominent women’s rights activist in the belief that women should not be in politics. "

It seems that not merely do women within Islamic societies have no choice in the matter, but the entrenchment of their inequality will be ruthlessly enforced by male terror tactics. They can't even convert to a different religion.

There is a wide divergence of views and of practice within Muslim communities around the world. I work with three female (legal) colleagues, none of whom would even consider wearing a scarf, let alone a veil. But they both take great delight in their faith. They just happen to be lucky enough to live in a constitutional state which recognises personal freedoms.

Deon Irish, Cape Town,

There are so many controversial things around the world. whether the women should wear additional cloth to cover their body or not is one of them. Many seem to say a lot of things without having adequate knowledge of islam. we ought to know what islam is and what it consists of. Apparently it is one and only deen (Religion) given by Allah. we have Quran , Hadith. we have to follow both. there is nothing opponent to each other in Islam but some people oppose to each other by saying that what you belive is wrong. as a muslim it is everyone,s responsibilty to know and understand what islam actually say. Back to the point, as a muslim, women should cover themselves properly. no one has the right to unveil herself by showing lame excuse of being modern. why do some people compare with animals? We are human beings the best creatures of Allah. what is perfect and suitable for women is not same for men. Fishes live in water why dont we?, hervibores live on grass why dont we,?

Abdullah, London, U.K.

Most of u know jack about Islam and its teachings and about what it seeks to promote. I often hear people say stuff like 'this is our country and blah blah blah, well its funny how when all these colonial powers were in other countries they neither respected nor followed the dress code of those countries, or their beliefs, especially Britain. down right hypocritical it seems

The Southerener, London , U.K.

Madam Patil, please help people to know that we no longer live the middle ages. Veils are an outgrowth of men blaming women for their own lustful thoughts - not about the immodesty of women.

Mary Knight, Pittsburgh, PA/USA

Wearing a bit of cloth around your head is to be against God? What kind of God is that? Why didn't this God not just provide females with bits of cloth instead of hair. Or would women then have had to wear wigs to cover their cloth heads?

Why don't female camels have to wear headscarves? How about gorillas? Didn't God have a view on that? Why single out women.

I now realise that there is something worse than being black in South Africa before apartheid. It is being female and living in a fundamentalist Islamic state.

I'm opposed to stupidity and backwardness. Just don't bring it into this country.

ian, bristol, UK

What did Muslim women do between the 8thC and the 13thC.? 500 years of wearing what? Why hasn't what they wore then become the universal dress of Islamic women? Why do these guys never actually quote the Koran chapter and verse when they say it is 'required'? Perhaps because they can't, or because it doesn't actually say it in the Koran but only in the hadith, which are open to interpretation.......

Mike, London,