21-year-old UNILAG Student Wins World Muslim Beauty Pageant In Indonesia

Obabiyi Aisha Ajibola being crowned as Muslimah
World
Obabiyi Aisha Ajibola, tearfully prayed and recited
Koranic verses as she won a world beauty pageant
exclusively for Muslim women in the Indonesian capital
Wednesday, a riposte to the Miss World contest that has
sparked hardline anger.
The 20 finalists, who were all required to wear
headscarves, put on a glittering show for the final of
Muslimah World, strolling up and down a catwalk in
elaborately embroidered dresses and stilettos.
But the contestants from six countries were covered
from head to foot, and as well as beauty they were
judged on how well they recited Koranic verses and
their views on Islam in the modern world.
After a show in front of an audience of mainly religious
scholars and devout Muslims, a panel of judges picked
Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola from Nigeria as the winner.
While the event in a Jakarta shopping mall paled in
comparison to Miss World on the resort island of Bali,
in which scores of contestants are competing, Ajibola
was nevertheless overwhelmed.
Upon hearing her name, the 21-year-old, a student of
the University of Lagos, knelt down and prayed, then
wept as she recited a Koranic verse.
She said it was "thanks to almighty Allah" that she had
won the contest. She received 25 million rupiah ($
2,200) and trips to Mecca and India as prizes.
Ajibola told AFP before the final that the event "was
not really about competition".
"We're just trying to show the world that Islam is
beautiful," she said.
Organisers said the pageant challenged the idea of
beauty put forward by the British-run Miss World
pageant, and also showed that opposition to the event
could be expressed non-violently.
Eka Shanti, who founded the pageant three years ago
after losing her job as a TV news anchor for refusing to
remove her headscarf, bills the contest as "Islam's
answer to Miss World".
"This year we deliberately held our event just before
the Miss World final to show that there are alternative
role models for Muslim women," she told AFP.
"But it's about more than Miss World. Muslim women
are increasingly working in the entertainment industry
in a sexually explicit way, and they become role
models, which is a concern."
Hosted by Dewi Sandra, an Indonesian actress and pop
star who recently hung up her racy dresses for a
headscarf, the pageant featured both Muslim and pop
music performances, including one about modesty, a
trait the judges sought in the winner.
The pageant, which also featured bright Indonesian
Islamic designer wear, is a starkly different way of
protesting Miss World than the approach taken by
Islamic radicals.
Snowballing protest movement
Thousands have taken to the streets in Indonesia in
recent weeks to protest Miss World, denouncing the
contest as "p****graphy" and burning effigies of the
organisers.
Despite a pledge by Miss World organisers to drop the
famous bikini round, radical anger was not appeased
and the protest movement snowballed.
The government eventually bowed to pressure and
ordered the whole pageant be moved to the Hindu-
majority island of Bali, where it opened on September
8.
Later rounds and the September 28 final were to be
held in and around Jakarta, where there is considerable
hardline influence.
But there are still fears that extremists may target the
event — the US, British and Australian embassies in
Jakarta have warned their nationals in recent days of the
potential for radical attacks.
More than 500 contestants competed in online rounds to
get to the Muslimah World final in Indonesia, one of
which involved the contenders comparing stories of
how they came to wear the headscarf.
The contest was first held in 2011 under a different
name and was only open to Indonesians, Shanti said,
but after the media began comparing it to Miss World,
it was rebranded as a Muslim alternative to the world-
famous pageant.
Because of its popularity, organisers accepted foreign
contestants this year for the first time, with Iran,
Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Nigeria and Indonesia
represented.