{"id":47924,"date":"2018-09-05T20:55:06","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T19:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=47924"},"modified":"2018-09-05T21:25:12","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:25:12","slug":"miss-england-contestant-in-hijab-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/miss-england-contestant-in-hijab-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Miss England contestant in hijab first"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-47925\" src=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Sara.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"168\" \/>A Miss England contestant is set to wear a hijab in the finals on Tuesday, in a first for the organization.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sara Iftekhar, a law student, is among 50 competitors for the Miss England crown and hopes to become the first Muslim winner.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIt just proves Miss England represents the way England is today,\u201d competition spokeswoman Angie Beasley was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail newspaper.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Iftekhar, 20, has already won the Miss Huddersfield title, representing the northern English market town.<br \/>\nShe is a make-up artist and often shares pictures of herself wearing traditional Pakistani dress on social media.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The student started a clothing business aged 16.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cI may be the first woman to wear a hijab. However, I am just a regular girl and we all have a fair opportunity in this contest,\u201d the BBC quoted her as saying.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIf I want to cover myself up and dress modestly why should that be an issue? I am just like the other contestants.\u201d<br \/>\nThe first stage of the competition was held in July, including the sports beach beauty, top model, beautiful mind and publicity rounds.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cHere is a vibrant, confident young woman who is proving, on a huge platform, that beauty comes in many forms, that Muslim women in hijabs can be beautiful, and that we can own our beauty,\u201d wrote Iqra Choudhry in The Independent online newspaper.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe fact that she\u2019s reached the Miss England finals is something that should be celebrated by the Muslim community, and by women at large.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tuesday\u2019s events in the second stage at Kelham Hall in Nottinghamshire, central England, will round up the ethical fashion show, talent and evening wear catwalk sections of the contest.<br \/>\nPublic voting by text message closed at midday (1100 GMT) on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 2018 Miss World finals are being held in Sanya, China, in November and December.<br \/>\nMiss World started in 1951.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\r\n<script>(function(d, s, id) {\r\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\r\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\r\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\r\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_GB\/all.js#xfbml=1\";\r\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\r\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));<\/script>\r\n <fb:comments href=\"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/miss-england-contestant-in-hijab-first\/\" font=\"arial\" num_posts=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" colorscheme=\"light\"  style=\"background:#FFFFFF;padding-top:0px;\r\npadding-right:0px;\r\npadding-bottom:0px;\r\npadding-left:0px;\r\nmargin-top:0px;\r\nmargin-right:0px;\r\nmargin-bottom:0px;\r\nmargin-left:0px;\r\n\"><\/fb:comments>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Miss England contestant is set to wear a hijab in the finals on Tuesday, in a first for the organization. Sara Iftekhar, a law student, is among 50 competitors for the Miss England crown and hopes to become the first Muslim winner. \u201cIt just proves Miss England represents the way England is today,\u201d competition &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,27],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47926,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47924\/revisions\/47926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}