November 12 2002

Muslims in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, were angry today at the imminent arrival of more than 90 international beauty queens, competitors in this year's Miss World pageant.

The contestants were to be escorted under tight security to a luxury hotel in the heart of the religiously mixed city.

Muslims in Abuja assured reporters that there would be no violent protests, but they denounced what many here see as an immoral and provocative event.

"All Muslims in Nigeria are against this beauty pageant," said Islamic scholar Huseyn Zakaria Mohammed outside the Utham bin Affan mosque, where he is an imam who teaches Muslim morals to worshippers.

"Beauty contests are an alien innovation, not only in the Muslim community but also in the western world. They are a secularist innovation," he said.

"They expose women to the hazard of sexual harassment, and they commercialise nudity. They are against morality at every level," he said.

Around half of Nigeria's 120 million citizens are Muslims, and the imam's complaints echo those of some senior Islamic leaders and people in the streets around his mosque.

The influential emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, traditional ruler of the largest city in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, said last month that "the contest is against the moral teachings of Islam" and called for it to be shelved.

In a mobile phone shop a short distance from the crowds gathering to pray, a poster has been taped up behind the counter.

"Beauty contest is nudity and debases womanhood. It promotes sexism and HIV/AIDS, it is dangerous. Save humanity, stop beauty contest," it reads.

Shop manager Mohammed Rilwan, 32, said the poster and other tracts have been distributed in the area and that, while he believes Muslims will not protest in the streets, they will make their opinions known.

"It's going to harm women and debase their value and promote sexuality," he said. "It's a health danger to humanity."

Worshippers were particularly angry that the event is taking place during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting and prayer, Zakaria Mohammed said.

Although the ceremony to celebrate the crowning of the new Miss World has been postponed from November 30 to December 7, to avoid clashing with Ramadan, the contestants will be in the country for a month.

They will take part in a fashion show, rehearse and make film clips against the backdrop of the Nigerian countryside to be broadcast on the final night.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2002