In a clip of Hina Bayat on the Adnan Faisal Podcast, the actor talked about the idea of claiming to be religious without understanding guidelines and directives outlined by one's faith. "We want to call ourselves Muslims but we don't want to understand Islam" said the actor. "We just enforce fatwas," she added. "Because we've heard this happens."

The star recalled how she was taunted after her husband's passing. "'Why didn't you sit in Iddat? This is how much you loved your husband? You didn't even finish your Iddat? These women love putting on makeup and coming on camera,'" remembered Hina in a taunting tone, highlighting all that she had to hear during an already tragic period in her life.

She continued to highlight, "Iddat has certain conditions. It is not mandatory. If a woman has to run her home - forget me, think about whether she has kids. That time period of 'oh, the uncle will help her -' no." Hina furthered, "Even in the Prophet [PBUH]'s time, when there was war, women would bury their husbands. Has anyone thought about this?"

The star also shed light on the belief that women cannot frequent graveyards. "Who said so?" she questioned. "Yes, you can't go to the graveyard and start wailing. Some do it, all get dragged through the mud. But even men wail." Hina also differentiated between regular music and inciting music, claiming that the latter is prohibited, instead of music as a whole.

When questioned again about what issue people had with her working, she said, "This was the issue. That I didn't complete my Iddat." She asked, "You tell me, I sit at home, waste my time and cause harm to another - this is fine? This is what God wants?" Continuing on, she revealed, "There was an ongoing project, it was on-air. And I knew that the scenes for the next episode remained. Should I not have gone? Think about how many people would have suffered, what would they have run?"

Published in The Daily National Courier, December, 15 2023

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