While Hijab means "cover", "drape", or
"partition"; the word KHIMAR means veil covering the head and the word
LITHAM or NIQAB means veil covering lower face up to the eyes. The
general term hijab in the present day world refers to the covering of the
face by women. In the Indian sub-continent it is called purdah and in
Iran it called chador for the tent like black cloak and veil worn by many
women in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. By socioeconomic necessity,
the obligation to observe the hijab now often applies more to female "garments"(worn
outside the house) than it does to the ancient paradigmatic feature of women's
domestic "seclusion." In the contemporary normative Islamic language of Egypt
and elsewhere, the hijab now denotes more a "way of dressing" than a "way
of life," a (portable) "veil" rather than a fixed "domestic screen/seclusion."
In Egypt and America hijab presently denotes the basic head covering
("veil") worn by fundamentalist/Islamist women as part of Islamic dress (zayy
islami, or zayy shar'i); this hijab-headcovering conceals hair and neck of
the wearer.
The Qur'an advises the wives of the Prophet (SAS)
to go veiled (33: 59).
In Surah 24: 31(Ayah), the Qur'an advises women to
cover their "adornments" from strangers outside the family. In the traditional
and modern Arab societies women at home dress quite differently compared to what
they wear in the streets. In this verse of the Qur'an, it refers to the
institution of a new public modesty rather than veiling the face.
...When the pre-Islamic Arabs went to battle, Arab
women seeing the men off to war would bare their breasts to encourage them to
fight; or they would do so at the battle itself, as in the case of the Meccan
women led by Hind at the Battle of Uhud. This changed with Islam, but the
general use of the veil to cover the face did not appear until 'Abbasid times.
Nor was it entirely unknown in Europe, for the veil permitted women the freedom
of anonymity. None of the legal systems actually prescribe that women must wear
a veil, although they do prescribe covering the body in public, up to the neck,
the ankles, and below the elbow. In many Muslim societies, for example in
traditional South East Asia, or in Bedouin lands a face veil for women is either
rare or non-existent; paradoxically, modern fundamentalism is introducing it. In
others, the veil may be used at one time and European dress another. While
modesty is a religious prescription, the wearing of a veil is not a religious
requirement of Islam, but a matter of cultural milieu.2
"The Middle Eastern norm for relationships between
the sexes is by no means the only one possible for Islamic societies everywhere,
nor is it appropriate for all cultures. It does not exhaust the possibilities
allowed within the framework of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and is neither feasible
nor desirable as a model for Europe or North America. European societies possess
perfectly adequate models for marriage, the family, and relations between the
sexes which are by no means out of harmony with the Qur'an and the Sunnah. This
is borne out by the fact that within certain broad limits Islamic societies
themselves differ enormously in this respect." 3
The Qur'an lays down the principle of the
law of modesty. In Surah 24: An-Nur: 30 and 31, modesty is enjoined both
upon Muslim men and Muslim women 4:
Say to the believing men that they Should lower their gaze and guard Their modesty: that will make for Greater purity for them: And God is Well-acquainted with all that they Do. And say to the believing women That they should lower their gaze And guard their modesty: and they Should not display beauty and Ornaments expect what (must Ordinarily) appear thereof; that They must draw their veils over Their bosoms and not display their Beauty except to their husbands, Their fathers, their husband's Fathers, their sons, their husband's Sons, or their women, or their Slaves whom their right hands Possess, or male servants free of Physical needs, or small children
Who have no sense of the shame of
Sex; and that they should not strike
Their feet in order to draw
Attention to their ornaments.
The following conclusions may be made on
the basis of the above-cited verses5:
1. The Qur'anic injunctions enjoining the believers to lower their gaze and behave modestly applies to both Muslim men and women and not Muslim women alone.
2. Muslim women are enjoined to "draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty" except in the presence of their husbands, other women, children, eunuchs and those men who are so closely related to them that they are not allowed to marry them. Although a self-conscious exhibition of one's "zeenat" (which means "that which appears to be beautiful" or "that which is used for embellishment or adornment") is forbidden, the Qur'an makes it clear that what a woman wears ordinarily is permissible. Another interpretation of this part of the passage is that if the display of "zeenat" is unintentional or accidental, it does not violate the law of modesty.
3. Although Muslim women may wear ornaments
they should not walk in a manner intended to cause their ornaments to jingle and
thus attract the attention of others.
The respected scholar, Muhammad Asad6, commenting
on Qur'an 24:31 says " The noun khimar (of which khumur is plural)
denotes the head-covering customarily used by Arabian women before and after the
advent of Islam. According to most of the classical commentators, it was worn in
pre-Islamic times more or less as an ornament and was let down loosely over the
wearer's back; and since, in accordance with the fashion prevalent at the time,
the upper part of a woman's tunic had a wide opening in the front, her breasts
were left bare. Hence, the injunction to cover the bosom by means of a khimar
(a term so familiar to the contemporaries of the
Prophet) does not necessarily relate to the use of
a khimar as such but is, rather, meant to make it clear that a woman's
breasts are not included in the concept of "what may decently be
apparent" of her body and should not, therefore, be displayed.
The Qur'anic view of the ideal society is that the social and
moral values have to be upheld by both Muslim men and women and there is justice
for all, i.e. between man and man and between man and woman. The Qur'anic
legislation regarding women is to protect them from inequities and vicious
practices (such as female infanticide, unlimited polygamy or concubinage, etc.)
which prevailed in the pre-Islamic Arabia. However the main purpose is to
establish to equality of man and woman in the sight of God who created them both
in like manner, from like substance, and gave to both the equal right to develop
their own potentialities. To become a free, rational person is then the goal set
for all human beings. Thus the Qur'an liberated the women from the indignity of
being sex-objects into persons. In turn the Qur'an asks the women that they
should behave with dignity and decorum befitting a secure,
Self-respecting and self-aware human being rather
than an insecure female who felt that her survival depends on her ability to
attract or cajole those men who were interested not in her personality but only
in her sexuality.
One of the verses in the Qur'an protects a
woman's fundamental rights. Aya 59 from Sura al-Ahzab reads:
O Prophet! Tell Thy wives And daughters, and the Believing women, that They should cast their Outer garments over Their Persons (when outside): That they should be known (As such) and not Molested.
Although this verse is directed in the first place to the
Prophet's "wives and daughters", there is a reference also to "the believing
women" hence it is generally understood by Muslim societies as applying to all
Muslim women. According to the Qur'an the reason why Muslim women should wear an
outer garment when go out of their houses is so that they may be recognized as
"believing" Muslim women and differentiated from street-walkers for whom sexual
harassment is an occupational hazard. The purpose of this verse was not to
confine women to their houses but to make it safe for them to go about their
daily business without attracting unwholesome attention. By wearing the
outergarment a "believing" Muslim woman could be distinguished from the others.
In societies where there is no danger of "believing" Muslim being
confused with the others or in which "the outer
garment" is unable to function as a mark of identification for "believing"
Muslim women, the mere wearing of "the outer garment" would not fulfill the true
objective of the Qur'anic decree. For example that older Muslim women who are
"past the prospect of marriage" are not required to wear "the outer garment".
Surah 24: An-Nur, Aya 60 reads:
Such elderly women are Past the prospect of Marriage,-- There is no blame on them, if They lay aside Their (outer) Garments, provided they make Not wanton display of their Beauty; but it is best for them
To be modest: and Allah is One
Who sees and knows all things.
Women who on account of their advanced age
are not likely to be regarded as sex-objects are allowed to discard "the outer
garment" but there is no relaxation as far as the essential Qur'anic principle
of modest behavior is concerned. Reflection on the above-cited verse shows that
"the outer garment" is not required by the Qur'an as a necessary statement of
modesty since it recognizes the possibility identification women may continue to
be modest even when they have discarded "the outer garment."
The Qur'an itself does not suggest either that women should
be veiled or they should be kept apart from the world of men. On the contrary,
the Qur'an is insistent on the full participation of women in society and in the
religious practices prescribed for men.
Nazira Zin al-Din stipulates that the
morality of the self and the cleanness of the conscience are far better than the
morality of the chador. No goodness is to be hoped from pretence, all
goodness is in the essence of the self. Zin al-Din also argues that imposing the
veil on women is the ultimate proof that men suspect their mothers, daughters,
wives and sisters of being potential traitors to them. This means that men
suspect 'the women closest and dearest to them.' How can society trust women
with the most consequential job of bringing up children when it does not trust
them with their faces and bodies? How can Muslim men meet rural and European
women who are not veiled and treat them respectfully but not treat urban Muslim
women in the same way? 7 She concludes this part of the book,
al-Sufur Wa'l-hijab 8 by stating that it is not an Islamic duty
on Muslim women to wear hijab. If Muslim legislators have decided that it
is, their opinions are wrong. If hijab is based on women's lack of
intellect or piety, can it be said that all men are more perfect in piety and
intellect than all women? 9 The spirit of a nation and its
civilization is a reflection of the spirit of the mother. How can any mother
bring up distinguished children if she herself is deprived of her personal
freedom? She concludes that in enforcing hijab, society becomes a
prisoner of its customs and traditions rather than Islam.
There are two ayahs which are
specifically addressed to the wives of the Prophet Muhammad (S) and not to other
Muslim women.
These are ayahs 32 and 53 of Sura
al-Ahzab. ".. And stay quietly in Your houses," did not mean confinement of
the wives of the Prophet (S) or other Muslim women and make them inactive.
Muslim women remained in mixed company with men until the late sixth century
(A.H.) or eleventh century (CE). They received guests, held meetings and went to
wars helping their brothers and husbands, defend their castles and bastions.10
Zin al-Din reviewed the interpretations of Aya 30 from
Sura al-Nur and Aya 59 from sura al-Ahzab which were
cited above by al-Khazin, al-Nafasi, Ibn Masud, Ibn Abbas and al-Tabari and
found them full of contradictions. Yet, almost all interpreters agreed that
women should not veil their faces and their hands and anyone who advocated that
women should cover all their bodies including their faces could not face his
argument on any religious text. If women were to be totally covered, there would
have been no need for the ayahs addressed to Muslim men: 'Say to the
believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty.'(Sura
al-Nur, Aya 30). She supports her views by referring to the sayings of the
Prophet Muhammad (S), always taking into account what the Prophet himself said
'I did not say a thing that is not in harmony with God's book.'11 God
says: 'O consorts of the Prophet! ye are not like any of the(other) women' (Ahzab,
53). Thus it is very clear that God did not want women to measure themselves
against the wives of the Prophet and wear hijab like them and there is no
ambiguity whatsoever regarding this aya. Therefore, those who imitate the
wives of the Prophet and wear hijab are disobeying God's will.12
In Islam ruh al-madaniyya (Islam:
The Spirit of Civilization) Shaykh Mustafa Ghalayini reminds his readers that
veiling pre-dated Islam and that Muslims learned from other peoples with whom
they mixed. He adds that hijab as it is known today is prohibited by the
Islamic shari'a. Any one who looks at hijab as it is worn by some
women would find that it makes them more desirable than if they went out without
hijab13. Zin al-Din points out that veiling was a custom of
rich families as a symbol of status. She quotes Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Maghribi
who also saw in hijab an aristocratic habit to distinguish the women of rich and
prestigious families from other women. She concludes that hijab as it is
known today is prohibited by the Islamic shari'a.14
Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali in his book Sunna Between Fiqh
and Hadith 15 declares that those who claim that women's reform
is conditioned by wearing the veil are lying to God and his Prophet. He
expresses the opinion that the contemptuous view of women has been passed on
from the first jahiliya (the Pre-Islamic period) to the Islamic society.
Al-Ghazali's argument is that Islam has made it compulsory on women not to cover
their faces during haj and salat (prayer) the two important
pillars of Islam. How then could Islam ask women to cover their faces at
ordinary times?16 Al-Ghazali is a believer and is confident that all
traditions that function to keep women ignorant and prevent them from
functioning in public are the remnants of jahiliya and that following
them is contrary to the spirit of Islam.
Al-Ghazali says that during the time of the
Prophet women were equals at home, in the mosques and on the battlefield. Today
true Islam is being destroyed in the name of Islam.
Another Muslim scholar, Abd al-Halim Abu
Shiqa wrote a scholarly study of women in Islam entitled Tahrir al-mara'a fi
'asr al-risalah: (The Emancipation of Women during the Time of the Prophet)17
agrees with Zin al-Din and al-Ghazali about the discrepancy between the status
of women during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the status of women today.
He says that Islamists have made up sayings which they attributed to the Prophet
such as 'women are lacking both intellect and religion' and in many cases they
brought sayings which are not reliable at all and promoted them among Muslims
until they became part of the Islamic culture.
Like Zin al-Din and al-Ghazali, Abu Shiqa
finds that in many countries very weak and unreliable sayings of the Prophet are
invented to support customs and traditions which are then considered to be part
of the shari'a. He argues that it is the Islamic duty of women to
participate in public life and in spreading good (Sura Tauba, Aya 71). He
also agrees with Zin al-Din and Ghazali that hijab was for the wives of the
Prophet and that it was against Islam for women to imitate the wives of the
Prophet. If women were to be totally covered, why did God ask both men and women
to lower their gaze? (Sura al-Nur, Ayath 30-31).
The actual practice of veiling most likely
came from areas captured in the initial spread of Islam such as Syria, Iraq, and
Persia and was adopted by upper-class urban women. Village and rural women
traditionally have not worn the veil, partly because it would be an encumbrance
in their work. It is certainly true that segregation of women in the domestic
sphere took place increasingly as the Islamic centuries unfolded, with some very
unfortunate consequences. Some women are again putting on clothing that
identifies them as Muslim women. This phenomenon, which began only a few years
ago, has manifested itself in a number of countries.
It is part of the growing feeling on the part of
Muslim men and women that they no longer wish to identify with the West, and
that reaffirmation of their identity as Muslims requires the kind of visible
sign that adoption of conservative clothing implies. For these women the issue
is not that they have to dress conservatively but that they choose
to. In Iran Imam Khomeini first insisted that women must wear the veil and
chador and in response to large demonstrations by women, he modified his
position and agreed that while the chador is not obligatory, modest dress
is, including loose clothing and non-transparent stockings and scarves.18
With Islam's expansion into areas formerly
part of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, the scripture-legislated social
paradigm that had evolved in the early Medinan community came face to face with
alien social structures and traditions deeply rooted in the conquered
populations. Among the many cultural traditions assimilated and continued by
Islam were the veiling and seclusion of women, at least among the urban upper
and upper-middle classes. With these traditions' assumption into "the Islamic
way of life," they of need helped to shape the normative interpretations of
Qur'anic gender laws as formulated by the medireview (urbanized and
acculturated) lawyer-theologians. In the latter's consensus-based prescriptive
systems, the Prophet's wives were recognized as models for emulation (sources of
Sunna). Thus, while the scholars provided information on the Prophet's
wives in terms of, as well as for, an ideal of Muslim female morality, the
Qur'anic directives addressed to the Prophet's consorts were naturally seen as
applicable to all Muslim women.19
Semantically and legally, that is, regarding both the terms
and also the parameters of its application, Islamic interpretation extended the
concept of hijab. In scripturalist method, this was achieved in several
ways. Firstly, the hijab was associated with two of the Qur'an's
"clothing laws" imposed upon all Muslim females: the "mantle" verse of 33:59 and
the "modesty" verse of 24:31. On the one hand, the semantic association of
domestic segregation (hijab) with garments to be worn in public (jilbab,
khimar) resulted in the use of the term hijab for concealing garments
that women wore outside of their houses. This language use is fully documented
in the medireview Hadith. However, unlike female garments such as jilbab,
lihaf, milhafa, izar, dir' (traditional garments for the body), khimar,
niqab, burqu', qina', miqna'a (traditional garments for the head and neck)
and also a large number of other articles of clothing, the medireview meaning of
hijab remained conceptual and generic. In their debates on which parts of
the woman's body, if any, are not "awra" (literally, "genital," "pudendum")
and many therefore be legally exposed to nonrelatives, the medireview scholars
often contrastively paired woman's' awra with this generic hijab.
This permitted the debate to remain conceptual rather than get bogged down in
the specifics of articles of clothing whose meaning, in any case, was prone to
changes both geographic/regional and also chronological. At present we know very
little about the precise stages of the process by which the hijab in its
multiple meanings was made obligatory for Muslim women at large, except to say
that these occurred during the first centuries after the expansion of Islam
beyond the borders of Arabia, and then mainly in the Islamicized societies still
ruled by preexisting (Sasanian and Byzantine) social traditions.
With the rise of the Iraq-based Abbasid
state in the mid-eighth century of the Western calendar, the lawyer-theologians
of Islam grew into a religious establishment entrusted with the formulation of
Islamic law and morality, and it was they who interpreted the Qur'anic rules on
women's dress and space in increasingly absolute and categorical fashion,
reflecting the real practices and cultural assumptions of their place and age.
Classical legal compendia, medireview Hadith collections and Qur'anic exegesis
are here mainly formulations of the system "as established" and not of its
developmental stages, even though differences of opinion on the legal limits of
the hijab garments survived, including among the doctrinal teachings of
the four orthodox schools of law (madhahib). 20
Attacked by foreigners and indigenous
secularists alike and defended by the many voices of conservatism, hijab
has come to signify the sum total of traditional institutions governing women's
role in Islamic society. Thus, in the ideological struggles surrounding the
definition of Islam's nature and role in the modern world, the hijab has
acquired the status of "cultural symbol."
Qasim Amin, the French-educated,
pro-Western Egyptian journalist, lawyer, and politician in the last century
wanted to bring Egyptian society from a state of "backwardness" into a state of
"civilization" and modernity. To do so, he lashed out against the hijab,
in its expanded sense, as the true reason for the ignorance, superstition,
obesity, anemia, and premature aging of the Muslim woman of his time. He wanted
the Muslim women to raise from the "backward" hijab into the desirable
modernist ideal of women's right to an elementary education, supplemented by
their ongoing contact with life outside of the home to provide experience of the
"real world" and combat superstition. He understood the hijab as an
amalgam of institutionalized restrictions on women that consisted of sexual
segregation, domestic seclusion, and the face veil. He insisted as much on the
woman's right to mobility outside the home as he did on the adaptation of
shar'i Islamic garb, which would leave a woman's face and hands uncovered.
Women's domestic seclusion and the face veil, then, were primary points in
Amin's attack on what was wrong with the Egyptian social system of his time.21
Muhammad Abdu tried to restore the dignity to Muslim woman by way of educational
and some legal reforms, the modernist blueprint of women's Islamic rights
eventually also included the right to work, vote, and stand for election-that
is, full participation in public life. He separated the
forever-valid-as-stipulated laws of 'ibadat (religious observances) from
the more time-specific mu'amalat (social transactions) in Qur'an and
shari'a, which latter included the Hadith as one of its sources. Because
modern Islamic societies differ from the seventh-century umma,
time-specific laws are thus no longer literally applicable but need a fresh
legal interpretation (ijtihad). What matters is to safeguard "the public
good" (al-maslah al'-amma) in terms of Muslim communal morality and
spirituality. 22
In the Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation
of Women's Rights in Islam, the Moroccan sociologist Fatima Mernissi
attacks the age-old conservative focus on
women's segregation as mere institutionalization of authoritarianism, achieved
by way of manipulation of sacred texts, "a structural characteristic of the
practice of power in Muslim societies." In describing the feminist model of the
Prophet's wives' rights and roles both domestic and also communal, Mernissi uses
the methodology of "literal" interpretation of Qur'an and Hadith. In the
selection and interpretations of traditions, she discredits some of textual
items as unauthentic by the criteria of classical Hadith criticism. In
Mernissi's reading of Qur'an and Hadith, Muhammad's wives were dynamic,
influential, and enterprising members of the community, and fully involved in
Muslim public affairs. He listened to their advice. In the city, they were
leaders of women's protest movements, first for equal status as believers and
thereafter regarding economic and sociopolitical rights, mainly in the areas of
inheritance, participation in warfare and booty, and personal (marital)
relations. Muhammad's vision of Islamic society was egalitarian, and he lived
this ideal in his own household. Later the Prophet had to sacrifice his
egalitarian vision for the sake of communal cohesiveness and the survival of the
Islamic cause. To Mernissi, the seclusion of Muhammad's wives from public life
(the hijab, Qur'an 33.53) is a symbol of Islam's retreat from the early
principle of gender equality, as is the "mantel" (jilbab) verse of 33:59 which
relinquished the principle of social responsibility, the individual sovereign
will that internalizes control rather than place it within external barriers.
Concerning A'isha's involvement in political affairs (the Battle of the Camel),
Mernissi engages in classical Hadith criticism to prove the inauthenticity of
the (presumably Prophetic) traditions "a people who entrust their command [or,
affair, amr] to a woman will not thrive" because of historical problems
relating to the date of its first transmission and also selfserving motives and
a number of moral deficiencies recorded about its first transmitter, the
Prophet's freedman Abu Bakra. Modernists in general disregard hadith items
rather than question their authenticity by scrutinizing the transmitters'
reliability.23 After describing the active participation of Muslim
women in the battlefields as warriors and nurses to the wounded, Maulana
Maudoodi24 says " This shows that the Islamic purdah is not a
custom of ignorance which cannot be relaxed under any circumstances, on the
other hand, it is a custom which can be relaxed as and when required in a moment
of urgency. Not only is a woman allowed to uncover a part of her satr (coveredness)
under necessity, there is no harm."
In the matter of hijab, the conscience of an honest, sincere
Believer alone can be the true judge, as has been said by the Noble Prophet:
"Ask for the verdict of your conscience and discard what pricks it."
Islam cannot be properly followed without
knowledge. It is a rational law and to follow it rightly one needs to exercise
reason and understanding at every step.25
REFERENCES
1. Cyril Glasse. The Concise
Encyclopedia of Islam. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1989, p.
156
2. Ibid, p. 413
3. Ibid, p. 421
4. Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.
The Holy Quran (Amana Corp., Brentwood, Maryland), 1989. Pp 873-874
5. Riffat Hassan. Women's Rights and
Islam: From the I.C.P.D. to Beijing. Louisville, Kentucky, 1995. pp. 65-76
6. Translated and explained by Muhammad
Asad. The Message of the Qur'an. Dar al-Andalus, Gibraltar. 1984. p.538
7. Bouthaina Shaaban.The Muted Voices of
Women Interpreters. In
FAITH AND FREEDOM: Women's Human Rights in
the Muslim World, Mahnaz
Afkhami (Editor). I. B. Tauris Publishers, New York, 1995. p.68.
8. Nazira Zin al-Din, al-Sufur
Wa'l-hijab (Beirut: Quzma Publications, 1928), p 37
9. Bouthaina Shaaban, op.cit. P.69
10. Nazira Zin al-Din, op.cit.pp. 191-2
11. Ibid, p.226
12. Bouthaina Shaaban, op. cit. p.72
13. Shaykh Mustafa al-Ghalayini,
Islam ruh al-madaniyya (Islam:
The Spirit of Civilization)(Beirut: al-Maktabah al-Asriyya,
1960) P.253
14. Ibid, pp.255-56
15. Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali.: Sunna
Between Fiqh and Hadith
(Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1989, 7th edition, 1990)
16. Ibid, p.44
17. Abd al-Halim Abu Shiqa.: Tahrir al-mara'
fi 'asr al-risalah
(Kuwait: Dar al-Qalam, 1990)
18. Jane I. Smith.:The Experience of
Muslim Women:Considerations
of Power and Authority. In The Islamic Impact. Haddad,
Y.Y. (Editor), Syracuse University Press. 1984. Pp. 89-112
19. Barbara Freyer Stowasser.: Women in
the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation.Oxford University Press. 1994. P.
92
20. Ibid, p.93
21. Ibid, p.127
22. Ibid, p.132
23. Ibid, p.133
24. Syed Abu Ala Maudoodi. Purdah and the Status
of Woman in Islam. Islamic Publications. Lahore, Pakistan. 1972. P.215
25. Ibid, p.203
No comments:
Post a Comment