An illustrated guide to Islamic veilsBy Lisa KoApril 26, 2010We liked this guide so much, we created a version in English.

Hijab

Hijab is a general term for Islamic dress code, which requires both men and women to dress with modesty and respect.Derived from the Arabic word for “veil,” hijab often refers to the headscarf won by many Muslim women. In Western countries, this scarf usually covers the neck and head, but not the face.

Niqab

Worn commonly in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, the niqab is a veil that is covers the face, leaving the eyes visible. A piece of fabric with bands or ties, it can be worn with a separate headscarf, eye veil or full-body cloak.Belgium is slated to be the first European country to ban the niqab in public places.

Burqa

The most concealing form of hijab, the burqa is an outer garment that covers a woman’s face, head and body. Leaving only a mesh screen for the eyes, it is worn primarily in Afghanistan and rural regions of Pakistan.French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that the burqa is “not welcome” in France.

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Chador

The chador is a cloak worn mainly in Iran. It consists of a long, loose, semi-circle of fabric that is open in the front. Worn over the head and wrapped around the body, the chador can also be paired with a smaller headscarf. It does not cover a woman’s face.

Why Hijab Is OppressivePosted by gls on April 22nd 2008 @ 10:16 pm

Many Muslim women have claimed that the wearing of the hijab — head-covering scarf — is not oppressive and that they do it voluntarily.

Could it be worn voluntarily and still be oppressive?

The answer lies in why it is commanded. Verses 30 and 31 surah 24 (The Light) read:

Say to the believing men that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts; that is purer for them; surely Allah is Aware of what they do. And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.

The list of who might see an uncovered woman can be distilled thusly:

▪husbands▪fathers▪fathers of their

▪sisters’ sons▪women▪those whom their right hands possess

husbands▪sons▪sons of their

husbands▪brothers▪brothers’ sons

▪male servants not having need (of women)▪children who have not attained knowledge of

what is hidden of women

There are two things that immediately stand out.

1. Almost everyone mentioned here is a man.2. The only men who can see a woman are family

members.Additionally, notice that the instructions given to the men are much less demanding than those given the women. Men are to cast their eyes down and to protect their private parts; women get a whole shopping list of requirements.

The Koran also addresses hijab in Sura 33 (The Clans), verse 59:

O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus they will not be given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

It all tends to smack of women being the possession of men, doesn’t it?

Yet it’s also a bit demeaning to men: it suggests that men have no self control, that men will automatically turn any and all women in to sexual objects, and that the only way men can notice a woman’s mind is if the women are covered.

CaveatsCaveat one: The New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 11,

commands women to cover their heads when in prayer. A couple of caveats to this caveat: first, this is only in limited circumstances, specifically in prayer and when prophesying. Secondly, most Christians have philosophized that away.

Caveat two: Not all Muslim women wear headscarfs. There is a caveat to this, though: to do so in many Muslim countries is to risk condemnation or worse.

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Notice: it’s a woman delivering the correctives, but a male police officer is close at hand, showing who the real authority is. Notice also that when the woman is discussing a poor stranger’s clothes, discussing her “sarafan,” a man walks by in a tight-fitting Western shirt, looking must un-Islamic. Nothing is said to him.

Caveat three: Nuns cover themselves. This is, however, an unequal comparison. Becoming a nun is a voluntary addition (or modification) to being a Christian. One can move into and out of a position that requires the head covering. Muslim women cannot do this.

Post filed under religion and politics and tagged islam, religion.

Muslim women wearing various type of Islamic veils, a Hijab (top left), a Niqab (top right) a Chador (down left) and a Burqa.

Veiled threatFrance is set to ban the hijab in schools. But forcing girls not to wear it is as bad as forcing them to, says Iranian exile Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi The Guardian, Thursday 11 December 2003

I have worn a hijab, and it was a question of survival. When I was 10 the revolution happened in Iran, where I lived, and from that point I was forced to wear the veil. If I hadn't done it, I would have been jailed.

That is why I am absolutely opposed to the veil. Forcing women to put a piece of material on their head is an act of violence, and even if you get used to it after a while, the violence of insisting that women must cover their heads in public with a small piece of cloth does not diminish.

But I also think that to forbid girls from wearing the veil, as the government of France is considering doing, is to be every bit as repressive. Yesterday a government-commissioned report recommended that all "conspicuous" signs of religious belief - including the hijab - should be outlawed in state schools.I passionately believe that the young women who have been expelled from school for wearing a veil should have the freedom to choose. It is surely a basic human right that someone can choose what she wears without interference from the state.

Critics argue that it is not the girls themselves who want to wear the veil, rather they are forced to do so by their parents. But if that is the case, if these are the kind of parents who will force their daughters to wear a veil, they are probably the kind of parents who will be happy to withdraw them from school and then to marry them off to a distant cousin at 15 with whom they will bear five children. If we want to give these girls any chance of emancipation, any chance that one day they will decide for themselves that they don't want to wear the veil, it will come from education. It will certainly not come from being withdrawn by their families.

It amazes me that so little of the debate here in France has centred round the ages of the girls in question. The fact is, they are adolescents, and when you are adolescent if you are told you cannot do something, you will surely do it. So it could become a fashion - worse, a symbol of rebellion. If wearing a veil becomes your symbol

of rebellion, then you certainly know about irony! Scarily, these women might come to believe that they are asserting their freedom, not their oppression.

When I was a student in Iran, I did so many forbidden things just because they were forbidden. Now these schoolgirls are going to wear the viel just because it will be forbidden. I know what it felt like to be pushed into being religious, so I know what it must be like to be pushed into being secular. Let's not make the same mistake that the fanatics made with the Iranian women. It is the same violence. I can be as opposed to the veil as I am, but I am also a defender of human rights.

We need to explain to young women that this interpretation of the Koran is a very masculine interpretation. It is time for women to read the holy book themselves, to interpret it themselves and to realise that the holy texts can be interpreted in so many different ways. Why has it been interpreted in this way? This is what these women need to ask.

But are we putting our finger on the real problem? Aren't we simply scared of Islam, and of talking about Islam? Instead of having an open debate about the religion, France wants to ban a symbol of Islam.

It is important to consider what has happened in this country (France). In the 1970s, women who had come from North Africa didn't wear a veil, but now their daughters want to. Why? The answer is these people may be French, but they have to live in the suburbs where there is cheaper housing, without good jobs, without equal opportunities, and they have no other way to express their identity than through their religious identity. The problem is not the veil, it is their exclusion from society.

I have been incredibly surprised by the reaction of French feminists, who have publicly campaigned for the banning of "this visible symbol of the submission of women". The western woman is so entranced by the idea that her emancipation comes from the miniskirt that she is convinced that if you have something on your head you are nothing. The women who are forced to wear the veil, and the women who are portrayed naked to sell everything from car tyres to orange juice, are both facing a form of oppression. But for me, anything that uses the language of banning is wrong.The example of Iran is a good one. When the father of the last Shah of Iran became king in the 1930s, he banned the veil. It was probably

a good thing because many women who believed that if they removed it they would be turned to stone, realised that they wouldn't. After one or two generations it became more accepted. But why was the Islamic Revolution able to overturn that, to force everyone to wear a veil, so quickly? It was because in Iran we wanted to force through a whole social revolution overnight.

Today in Iran everyone is increasingly in support of secularity and democracy. Women now wear the tiniest peice of material on their heads, and they are ready to remove that, when they are eventually permitted. In Iran, 63% of students are now girls; society has changed completely. It has been another revolution. But it has happened in their own time.

Everywhere I go the first thing anyone wants to talk to me about is women's veils in Iran. And I ask them, if tomorrow we take off the veil, will the problems of which it is a symbol be solved? Will these women suddenly become equal and emancipated? The answer is no.

· Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is published by Jonathan Cape, price £12.99

The hijab has liberated me from society's expectations of womenWearing the hijab doesn't have to be about religious dedication. For me, it is political, feminist and empowering▪

▪ ▪

▪Nadiya Takolia

guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 May 2012 05.50 EDTJump to comments (1005)

A woman wearing a hijab. Photograph: AFP/Getty ImagesWhen you think of the hijab, you probably don't think "political". Or "independent". Or "empowered". Feminist? Certainly not – feminism is far better known for burnt bras and slut-walks than headscarves.

There is much misunderstanding about how women relate to their hijab. Some, of course, choose the headcover for religious reasons, others for culture or even fashion.

But in a society where a woman's value seems focused on her sexual charms, some wear it explicitly as a feminist statement asserting an alternative mode of female empowerment. Politics, not religion, is the motivator here. I am one of these women.

Wearing the hijab was not something I deliberately set out to do. It was something I unexpectedly stumbled upon as a twenty-something undergraduate, reading feminist literature and researching stories of women's lives in the sex industry. From perfume and clothes ads to children's dolls and X Factor finals, you don't need to go far to see that the woman/sex combination is everywhere.

It makes many of us feel like a pawn in society's beauty game – ensuring that gloss in my hair, the glow in my face and trying to attain that (non-existent) perfect figure.

Subconsciously, I tried to avoid these demands – wearing a hat to fix a bad-hair day, sunglasses and specs to disguise a lack of makeup, baggy clothes to disguise my figure. It was an endless and tiresome effort to please everyone else.

Sure the hijab was not the only way to express my feelings and frustrations; but knowing that our interpretation of liberal culture embraces, if not encourages, uncovering, I decided to reject what society expected me to do, and cover up.

It was not a decision I made overnight. It took several months of agonising over the pros and cons – will it change the way others treat me? Will I get hot in a headscarf? Is it possible, at all costs to avoid the all-black look?

I rarely discussed the decision with others – I wanted it to be mine and mine alone. Like so many women, my main reservation was the discrimination I might face. Things like looking for a job, or socialising and being judged by others based on prejudices about Muslim women (because now I would look like one) before they even got a chance to know me. And not just the prejudices of non-Muslims, but also the simplistic assumptions of Muslims who think that a veiled woman is a holier woman.

The first day I stepped out in a hijab, I took a deep breath and decided my attitude would be "I don't give a damn about what you think". The reaction was mixed. One friend joked that I was officially a "fundamentalist". Extended family showered me with graces of "mashallah", perhaps under the impression that I was now more devout. Some, to my surprise (and joy), didn't bat an eyelid. I was grateful because, ultimately, I firmly believe that a woman's dress should not determine how others treat, judge or respect her.

I do not believe that the hair in itself is that important; this is not about protection from men's lusts. It is me telling the world that my femininity is not available for public consumption. I am taking control of it, and I don't want to be part of a system that reduces and demeans women. Behind this exterior I am a person – and it is this person for which I want to be known.

Wearing the hijab has given me a new consciousness of this. Though my mode of expression may appear Islamic, and my experiences carry a spiritual dimension, there is no theological monopoly on women's empowerment; I really believe that a non-Muslim woman could do this if she chose to. My motivations have been explicitly political, and my experiences human.

The result has been refreshing. In a world as diverse and changing as our own, the hijab means a multitude of things to the many women who choose to wear it. I speak as a woman who just happens to come from the Islamic faith, and for me the hijab is political, feminist and empowering. This dimension is increasingly important for many women who choose to wear it; it's a shame it is understood by so few.

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