Don't harm srilanka as india, forgive them, to Islamic ideology.

They are bending over backwards to please the Buddhist extremists. They must realize that this sort of thing only emboldens them further. It all started when they gave way over the halal meat labeling. They must stop doing this. Give an inch and they won't just take a mile. They'll torch your home! All indications are that the extremists have the govt's support. Sri Lankan muslims need to prepare for more violence.

Makes sense considering the global image Muslims have created over the past few years.

Very poor thinking on part of Muslim council. In black women look prestigious, rich, dignified, pretty and holy. Our noble great women preferred this color in old dayd og Islamic history. Please do not try to please others by sactificing Identity of Musllmat.

i see no problem with colored abayas, it would give them more of a choice in everyday wear, and more fun aswell, i wear colored ridas (different form of abaya), it gives me some happiness in knowing i can choose from so many colors and patterns and match my shoes and bags accordingly. kinda takes you away from the monotonous dark black all the time, and could make it easier for poeple to recognise you. theyre still covered head to toe, so there is nothing wrong with it.

Dear Mr. Frances Bulathsinghala, Its nice to see how you have used sentences from the middle of para-graphical statements and then you choose the sentence which can be presented in a twisted form and you Publish these! Unearth the complete story. Why just sentences ;-) Understand that journalist have a very responsible role to play and the impacts of your twisted words can result in spiraling negative thinking and remember that in someway, someday - devine justice will find you all. JOURNALISM ain't NO joke! It's a profession of ultimate purity, but Today unfortunately purity is the only thing they probably lack!

@Samra Ur understanding of Global Image of Muslims need deep correction.hope u dont mind and try to analyse.

@A concerned very well said

very well said

@A concerned wow are you for real? And if so, are you visually impaired?

All over the world, everyone is telling Muslims to do this, do that. Wait a sec, how about you stop interfering in Muslim's Business and mind yours. Next time, do tell Chinese Buddhist to stop wearing Orange color cloaks. Do tell Hindu priest to wear full clothes, Do tell Christian nuns to de-color their clothes. I mean come on....humans are born free on this world, you cant captivate them as per your wishes as long as they are in line with the social acceptable norms. If world is divided into territories doesn't mean that we dictate terms that are unjust, unfair and not equal for everyone. Stop spreading anti Muslims visions and stop propagating anti Muslim agenda in the name of Abaya color, so on and so forth. Stop eye washing others. Please!

@A concerned - How can black signify anything holy? Black, universally, signifies evil & disease. Your logic (or wherever it came from) is fundamentally flawed.

@Pakistani This is joke, esp with Muslim genocide going on in Buddhist Myanmar. After Hindus, it seems that the majority in Srilanka are going after Muslims.

@Raj Aryan Malhotra Islamic ideology brought some sense to India, otherwise instead of wearing an abaya and hijab those women would have been murdered either as an infant or burned alive with their dead husbands

Stop trying get into women's wardrobes. What kinds of stupidity is this. Sri Lanka following India's footsteps of acting like a child.

@Trishanku Black Universally signifies evil and disease? That's thinking is the part of racist mentality that has plagued this world for centuries. Black is considered evil and ugly while all other colours are a sign of happiness. BTW what do you suggest that they should start wearing saffron abayas.

These kind of immature acts will not stop Islam from being the fastest growing religion

Black color attract more heat but provide UV protection.

@Pakistani Read your own comments and put your self on the other side of the table and tell me you still believe what you say in your comments ??

Regardless of Sinhalese sensitivities, colored abayas make sense to me. Who has written the code "Black or White only"? Unfortunately, we see all kinds of excuses and justifications by mostly men (thekedaars of islam) against freedom of choice. Common sense has never been a strong point in our thinking.

I think they should wear clothes similar to people of other religions .

I don't see any harm.

Why not decent modern clothes?

Similarly colorful dresses shall be offered to the churches and nuns, they all look like a "uniformed force" in white dress.

@A concerned "prestigious, rich, dignified, pretty and holy" You must be joking! How can anyone look rich, pretty, dignified or prestigious wearing a shapeless, style-less black shroud, that every other woman is also wearing? But neither are they meant to. The whole purpose of an abaya is to hide women's identities, so that men do not know what they look like underneath!

@Masood In the west it is usually the colour of mourning at funerals.

That's totally fine because in Islam there is NO color restriction neither a dress code. There are six criterion of hijab which one has to fulfill from any kind of cloth he/she wants to wear. Six criterion are mentioned below: 1) Extent: The first criterion is the extent of the body that should be covered. This is different for men and women. The extent of covering obligatory on the male is to cover the body at least from the navel to the knees. For women, the extent of covering obligatory is to cover the complete body except the face and the hands up to the wrist. If they wish to, they can cover even these parts of the body. Some scholars of Islam insist that the face and the hands are part of the obligatory extent of

@Pakistani All of the humans should be in line with not the social acceptable norms but with the religious teachings and in our religion there is no color restriction nor a dress code.

@Raj Patel, be it on any side of the table this is a sheer mockery of human rights. How can you sell this idea of not wearing a particular color of cloth to even your own conscious? What havoc non muslims are breaking upon Muslims worldwide, no one notices and no media projects it. We all know the obvious reason. So its not about table. Its about REALITY, which bites.

@Trishanku I am so amazed to read your comments. Are you living in 100 B.C? Black color is holy or not, that's not the point. The point is you cant stop someone from wearing clothes of their own color choice. How about tell all the girls worldwide to come and exchange their pink color clothes with White one?

@karachiite the point of abayas is fo women to go unnoticed from the masses. People din even notice the great Swahabah women having passed away.

@chodhary If they are following the cultural norms then should we follow the same? Shouldn't we make our lives dependent on religion rather than culture and social values?

@karachiite eventually you want to wear fashion clothes and on the other hand want to say thay hey I am wearing abayas..

I pity these Sri Lankan Muslim women who accepted the black Abaya which was originally introduced to Sri Lanka by the Housemaids who wore Abayas in Arab households and came back home after employment loaded with Arab women's garb discarded by their Babas (Mistress) and started wearing them here and eventually caught up as a day to day dress for the other women too. If I look back 25 to 30 years no Muslim women ever wore such a dress locally they were either wearing sarees or Punjabi dresses. All I know is that what was worn then was very modest which attire covered the entire body. There were no issues at all. Alls well ends well!. Let the people change themselves and not the color of Abayas. Abaya has nothing to do with Islamic dress code. It varies culturally from country to country. for example African Muslim women or Indonesians does not wear Abayas in which ever color.

Being a girl who wears the black abaya on a daily basis, I dont see any problem with it. I choose to wear black for I believe it is modest and serves the purpose better than the coloured ones. However, there's no harm in wearing coloured abayas as well. I just think its not fair that the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka gets to choose what I should or should not wear. I want it to be my personal choice and not anyone else's! As mentioned by shaz, this movement not only takes away the muslim women's freedom of choice but it also gives in to the accusations made by the buddhist extremists.