Veiling

Introduction

This course explores controversies associated with the practice of ‘veiling’ within Islam. The Islamic ‘veil’, be it in the form of the hijab, niqab, jilbab or burqa (we shall explore this terminology in more detail later), has been at the centre of many different controversies. Within the European and North American context, public debates around ‘veiling’ often evoke stereotypical images associating the Islamic ‘veil’ with ‘gendered oppression’, political and/or religious extremism, ‘otherness’, refusal to be a ‘good citizen’ and irreconcilable difference between ‘the modern West’ and ‘Islam’ (Sinclair, 2012). ‘Face-veils’ in particular have also been condemned on the grounds of perceived security, health and safety issues or the need to clearly identify the wearer. In other contexts, particular styles of ‘veiling’ are culturally regarded as the ‘norm’ and are socially expected. In some countries, such as Iran, particular forms of ‘veiling’ are legally enforced in public spaces, and political leaders stereotypically associate ‘veiling’ with decency, dignity, respectability and responsible citizenship, and present women’s decision not to ‘veil’ as indecent, immoral, undignified, ‘un-Islamic’, anti-social and so on. As the sociologist and anthropologist Annelies Moors points out, ‘what is perhaps most striking is the force with which politicians feel the need to fix the meanings of items of dress Muslim women wear’ (2010, p. 112). Or, as Reina Lewis, Professor of Cultural Studies at the London School of Fashion, puts it: ‘The veil […] is a garment fought over by adherents and opponents, many of whom claim their understanding of the veil’s significance is the one and true meaning’ (2003, p. 10).

The discrepancy between one-dimensional representations of the ‘veil’ in many public debates and the multifaceted, complex ‘reality’ of ‘veiling’ practices has led to many misunderstandings and has been the source of many controversies. In comparison with other pieces of clothing, interpretations of the symbolic meaning of the ‘veil’ and of ‘veiling’ practices seem to be particularly diverse and contested, among both non-Muslim and Muslim men and women. However, it is important to remind ourselves that apart from fulfilling practical functions, such as comfort, warmth and protection from the sun or from rain, every piece of clothing is loaded with symbolic meaning. The interpretation and careful negotiation of dress codes pose everyday dilemmas for many people and are clearly not limited to Muslim women. What to wear or not to wear is a decision most people face on a daily basis across the world within very different contexts, and this decision can be influenced by a vast range of different factors and can provoke a wide range of different reactions. Apart from financial constraints and consideration of weather conditions, there are complex sets of norms, social expectations and notions of what is considered to be socially acceptable or fashionable that influence what we wear and what we expect others to wear. Wearing a bikini or pyjamas to work in an office is, for example, likely to raise some eyebrows and could even cost you your job. As the anthropologist Emma Tarlo points out:

Social norms and expectations vary in different cultural, geographical and social contexts and are often subject to change within different historical periods and between different generations. The great popularity of denim jeans across the world is, for example, a relatively recent phenomenon.

Wider and intense examination of decisions made in response to the daily dilemma of what to wear ‘can reveal much about society, history, politics, culture and, above all, the way in which people seek to express their own identity’ (Tarlo, 1996, p. 1). As the novelist and academic Alison Lurie argues in her book The Language of Clothes:

Anthropological, sociological, historical and psychological approaches to the study of dress and clothing acknowledge the particular significance assigned to headwear in cultures across the globe as ‘a tactical marker of ethnicity, status, social cohesion, political affiliation, fashionable tastes and ethnic, national or group membership’ (Maynard, 2004, p. 201). It has also been stressed that ‘clothing is one of the most consistently gendered aspects of material culture’ (Burman and Turbin, 2003, p. 1). As a form of headwear and clothing, the ‘veil’ represents visual and tangible expressions of political, social and religious ideas, notions of gender and of lived religion. The study of the interpretation and use of this controversial garment can give us important insights into the fascinating interaction between dress, religion and culture.

This course explores how and why Muslim women wear ‘veils’ today, and how they negotiate complex social and legal rules and practical challenges associated with wearing or not wearing ‘veils’ within the context of contemporary societies. It highlights the diversity and complexity of different styles and interpretations of this controversial piece of clothing. In the following section, some relevant terminology that is used to refer to different styles of ‘veiling’ is explored. The course then moves on to consider a range of different factors that can influence why women do or do not wear ‘veils’ or adopt particular styles of ‘veiling’. The section on ‘Hijab and sport’ then looks at how Muslim women negotiate the practical challenges of leading an active lifestyle while wearing ‘veils’. In the section ‘Hijab and fashion’, the role of the ‘veil’ within the context of the emergence of an increasingly wide variety of interpretations of ‘modest fashion’ is explored. The final section considers the issues raised within this course in the specific local context of contemporary Kerala in India, particularly the city of Kozhikode (also known as Calicut).

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course A332 Why is religion controversial?.

Learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• demonstrate skills in the analysis of visual and material expressions of religion

• understand the role of material culture within religious rituals and practices

• recognise the complexity and diversity of the many different styles of ‘veils’ and ‘veiling’ practices in Islam and of the range of different factors that can influence the adoption and interpretation of different ‘veiling’ practices and styles of dress among Muslim women

• understand the limitations of the terms ‘veil’, ‘Muslim clothing’ and ‘Islamic dress’ and use some relevant terminology to distinguish between different styles of ‘veiling’.

1  Different styles of ‘veiling’

In this section we are going to explore different styles of ‘veiling’ and introduce you to some relevant terminology.

Activity 1

Take a look at the images in Figure 1 and consider differences and similarities between them.

Figure 1  Examples of ‘veiling’. Photos, from top left to bottom right: © Pilchards/Alamy; © Imaging and Photographic Unit, University of Bath; © Jaggat Images/Alamy; © Zubin Shroff/Getty Images; © Szefei Wong/Alamy; © Victor Englebert; © akg/PictureContact.

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This figure consists of seven photographs illustrating different styles of veiling.

On the top row, there are two photographs. The first shows two women with their whole bodies (including their heads and faces) veiled in black garments carrying shopping bags. One of the women also has her eyes covered. The second photograph shows a close-up of the face of a smiling middle-aged woman, with a white veil covering her neck and hair (though some of the hairline on her forehead can be seen) and a black loose-fitting top that also covers her neck and shoulders.

On the middle row, there are three photographs. The first shows a smiling young girl sitting in a cross-legged position, wearing jeans, sandals, a green long-sleeved top and a headscarf in different shades of green that is covering her hair and draped across her neck and shoulders. The second is a close-up photograph of the face of a young woman, wearing a veil covering her hair and neck. Two different layers of veils are showing. The woman’s forehead is covered with a bright multi-coloured piece of cloth, while her hair and neck are covered with a smart black veil. She is wearing make-up and has a pensive expression on her face. The third photograph shows a young woman wearing a loose-fitting pink/orange flowery top and a multi-layered headscarf that matches the colours of her top (the bottom half of her outfit is not shown). She appears to be speaking on a mobile phone.

On the bottom row, there are two photographs. The first photograph shows someone wearing a veil that consists of several layers of black, white and blue cloth draped around their head. The mouth and forehead are covered, but the eyes, cheekbones and nose of the weathered face are showing. The second photograph shows a row of three women, holding the hands of two toddlers and walking along in a public square, carrying shopping bags. The women are wearing loose-fitting outer garments that cover their heads, faces, eyes and upper bodies. Two of these garments are blue and one is white, and the clothes the women are wearing underneath these outer garments are very colourful.

Figure 1  Examples of ‘veiling’. Photos, from top left to bottom right: © Pilchards/Alamy; © Imaging and Photographic Unit, University ...

Discussion

These images show examples of different styles of ‘veiling’, covering different parts of the body (while all of them cover the hair, ears and neck, some of them also cover the whole body and/or face), using different materials, colours and patterns. You might have assumed that they are all photographs of Muslim women. However, the picture on the right of the top row actually shows an Orthodox Christian nun, and the picture on the bottom left shows a veiled man (a member of the Muslim Berber group, the Tuareg, where this type of ‘veil’ has traditionally been worn by noblemen).

It is important to bear in mind that ‘veiling’ practices have existed in many different cultural, religious, geographical and historical contexts and have been adopted by both men and women. There is a wide range of different styles of ‘veils’ and varieties of ‘veiling’ practices. Before we engage more deeply with the study of different styles and practices of ‘veiling’, it will therefore be helpful to look at some relevant terminology. You may have noticed that in the first part of this course I have put the words ‘veil’ and ‘veiling’ in inverted commas. I have done this because there are certain limitations associated with the use of these terms. Some of these limitations are explored in the following reading, where the anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi critically engages with the origins and meanings of the word ‘veil’, explains the limitations of the use of this term, and highlights the diversity and complexity of the practices that the concept of ‘veiling’ is referring to.

‘Veils’ and ‘veiling’

Notions of ‘Islamic dress’ or ‘Muslim clothing’ are no less complex and ambiguous. As the writer, researcher and activist Aisha Lee Fox Shaheed points out in the next reading, the use of these terms also needs to be carefully considered.

‘Islamic dress’ and ‘Muslim clothing’

Terminology

The previous readings have drawn attention to the limitations of the terms ‘veil’, ‘Muslim clothing’ or ‘Islamic dress’. Figure 2 illustrates some of the terminology that has been used to describe different styles of veiling adopted by Muslim women and shows some examples of these styles. However, when considering such images, we should bear in mind that the distinction between different styles of veiling is often fluid and that many Muslim women choose not to wear a veil at all. Furthermore, all of the styles pictured have many different variations and come in a myriad different colours and shapes. The use of these terms can also vary in different regional contexts, or among different social groups. Finally, you will find that, because these words are derived from other languages, they are sometimes spelled differently in English. On the following pages, this terminology will be explored in some further depth and detail.

Figure 2  Terminology of veiling

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This figure shows simple drawings illustrating examples of different styles of veiling, including a hijab, chador, burqa, khimar, niqab, abaya and jilbab. These different styles of veiling are described in Section 1 of the course.

Figure 2  Terminology of veiling

As noted above, the term hijab is often associated with a particular style of veiling: a headscarf covering the hair and neck. While the word is generally used in this way, particularly in the European and North American context, it is important to bear in mind that it also refers to concepts of covering and modest clothing, and to abstract notions of privacy or morality in a wider sense. Faegheh Shirazi, a scholar of Middle Eastern studies, summarises the different meanings of the concept of hijab as follows:

In Asia, the term pardah (or purdah) is often used in a similar context, though it is not restricted to Muslim women:

The terms used to describe different styles of veiling in Figure 2 can be interpreted in many different ways, and some of the distinctions between these styles cannot be clearly drawn. Just type ‘hijab’ or ‘burqa’ into an internet search engine (such as Google) and look for relevant images, and you will see the vast range of different styles, materials and colours that are shown in these images. It is also important to bear in mind that veils are not static or fixed items, but tend to be made from soft, flexible fabrics that can be fairly easily adjusted, straightened, folded up, lifted or pinned up, lowered down, pulled together or tucked in. This means that it can be relatively easy to shift between different styles of veiling in different social situations. The notion of a hijab or cover also often goes beyond a headcover and can relate to other pieces of clothing, such as a jilbab or abaya. As becomes apparent in the list of definitions above, there are a range of Arabic terms (such as jilbab, niqab, abaya, burqa, hijab and khimar) and Persian terms (such as chador) for these garments. These terms have been used in many different cultural, geographical and historical contexts, and preferences for their use vary in different contexts. Burqa is, for example, originally an Arabic word, but it is now very rarely used in countries where Arabic is spoken as a first language. Instead it is now predominantly used in Pakistan and Afghanistan (and in western European mainstream media and political debates). There are also different preferences between different generations. For instance, at the time of writing, younger generations in Pakistan tend to prefer the word hijab (as its use has recently become more widespread globally), but older generations often prefer chador (Bokhari, 2012; 2013). It has also been argued that approaches to veiling have often been influenced by local customs that are not directly related to Islamic traditions. The Oxford Dictionary of Islam maintains:

The existence of such a wide variety of different approaches to veiling within Islam is also due to the fact that there are different schools of thought among Muslim scholars as to how notions of ‘modesty’, ‘decency’ and ‘purity’ should be understood, and as to whether covered dress in public should be regarded as a religious duty and, if so, which parts of the body should be covered. There are also different views on the extent to which women’s covered dress serves to protect women from being molested by men, and on whether women need to cover themselves in order to protect men from temptation. However, it is important to note that modesty and freedom from vanity are ideals that apply to both Muslim men and women in Islamic thought, and that both Muslim men and women are expected to dress modestly in public (‘Modesty’ in Esposito, 2003).

2  ‘Do they make you veil?’

After considering different styles of veiling and the terminology used to describe them, I would now like to move on to consider factors that influence why women do or do not wear veils or adopt particular veiling styles and practices. To what extent is women’s rejection or adoption of the Islamic veil (in whatever form) constrained by rules and expectations imposed on them by their families, local religious authorities, communities or governments? How much room is left for individual agency, choice and creative expression?

In mainstream media and political debates in Europe and North America, the hijab, burqa and niqab in particular have frequently been associated with the oppression of women (see, for instance, Sinclair, 2012). It is often assumed that male family members force women to veil themselves. (See, for example, Shaheed’s reference to the question ‘Do they make you veil?’ at the beginning of Reading 2.) The idea that Muslim women need to be rescued and liberated from ‘Islamic male tyranny’ has had ‘tremendous emotional appeal and longevity’ (Morey and Yaqin, 2011, p. 10). However, perhaps the issues are not as clear-cut. As Lewis points out:

The British researcher Sophie Gilliat-Ray (2011) argues that a disproportionate amount of public attention has been paid to the outer appearance of Muslim women, when other issues that are of much greater concern to them are often neglected, such as access to adequate housing, education or appropriate healthcare, or help with caring responsibilities for young children and older people.

In some countries (such as Iran or Saudi Arabia) women have been expected or even forced to veil themselves, while in others (such as France, Belgium or Turkey) governments, institutions or employers have imposed bans on hijabs, burqas or niqabs. In addition to concerns regarding either the separation or the union of state and religious authorities, both veiling bans and the legal imposition of veils have often at least partly been justified on the ground that they protect and liberate women. However, they have also been criticised for limiting women’s choices and their freedom of expression. In recent years, an increasing number of young women have voluntarily adopted the veil, and many Muslim women have actively resisted the introduction and enforcement of regulations banning veils. Figure 3 shows a female university student in Turkey amid male and female police officers who are tearing off her hijab against her will as they are enforcing a hijab ban at Turkish universities. This photograph was taken in 2001, and strict regulations banning hijabs at universities in Turkey have since been considerably eased in response to public protests.

Figure 3  A university student having her headscarf ripped off by police officers in Turkey, 2001. Photographed by Ibrahim Usta. Photo © Cihan news agency

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This is a photograph of a young woman surrounded by a group of people (we can see two women in uniforms, two men and the shoulders of a fifth person). One of the women in uniform is tearing off the young woman’s pink headscarf.

Figure 3  A university student having her headscarf ripped off by police officers in Turkey, 2001. Photographed by Ibrahim Usta. Photo © ...

The understanding of the hijab as a symbol of resistance and solidarity can be traced back to the 1970s, when the hijab became increasingly regarded as ‘a symbol of public modesty that reaffirms Islamic identity and morality and rejects Western materialism, commercialism, and values’ (‘Hijab’ in Esposito, 2003). In her book A Quiet Revolution (2011) Leila Ahmed, an Egyptian American scholar of Islam and Islamic feminism, examines changing dress codes among Muslim women across the globe, with particular focus on Egypt and the USA. She argues that Egypt was the first ‘country in which the new hijab and Islamic dress had begun to appear’ (Ahmed, 2011, p. 118). It was initially adopted in the 1970s by a relatively small group of female university students who associated themselves with the Muslim Brotherhood (which you encountered in Book 1, Chapter 4), but has since spread across the world. Ahmed’s use of the term ‘new hijab’ refers to the fact that the resurgence of the hijab in Egypt in the 1970s was preceded by a period of time when ‘being unveiled and bareheaded had become the norm in the cities of Egypt, as well as in those of other Muslim-majority societies’ (Ahmed, 2011, p. 10). She also maintains that the ‘new hijab’ had relatively little resemblance to traditional Egyptian styles of veiling in terms of its style, fabric and colours (Ahmed, 2011, p. 83). She argues that ‘These garments were essentially standardized and were typically in sober solid colours, such as blue, brown and beige. […] This standardization in material and color had the effect of erasing social and economic differences between wearers’ (Ahmed, 2011, p. 83).

In this context, the hijab was used not only as a symbol of Muslim women’s public assertion of their religious identity but also of their active participation in the fight for social justice and against wealthy elites, ‘western’ imperialism and secularisation. Although in the 1970s it was a relatively small minority movement that understood the hijab in this way, in recent decades across the globe an increasing number of young Muslim women have adopted the hijab (in different styles, colours and materials) for similar reasons. For example, drawing on two decades of research on US American Muslim communities, Yvonne Haddad, a scholar studying the history of Islam and Christian–Muslim relations, observes that in the aftermath of 9/11 (the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001) ‘an increasing number of adolescents and young adults (daughters of immigrant Muslims) are assuming a public Islamic identity by wearing the hijab […] despite the fact that their mothers have never dressed Islamically’ (2007, pp. 253–4). She argues that many women have donned the hijab in response to and resistance against ‘Islamophobia that took hold as a consequence of the propaganda for the war on terrorism’ (Haddad, 2007, p. 253) and as a symbol of pride and solidarity with Muslims that have been the target of hostility, abuse or discrimination (see also Chrisafis, 2001). It is, however, important to bear in mind that there are a wide range of different, complex factors involved in why women don the hijab or adopt a particular style of veiling, and in how much choice they have in the matter.

The veil as symbol of empowerment or oppression?

Activity 5

Have a look at Figures 4 and 5. Figure 4 is a cartoon that was originally published in newspapers in New Zealand (the Christchurch Press, the Timaru Herald and the Manawatu Standard) in January 2011. Figure 5 is a cartoon that was published in October 2006 in The Times.

Figure 4  ‘Bikini vs. Burqa’, 7 January 2011. © Malcolm Evans

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This is a cartoon-style drawing of two women walking in opposite directions. One woman is wearing a bikini and carrying a beach bag; she is wearing high heels, jewellery and sunglasses. The other woman is wearing a black burqa covering all of her body except for her eyes. Each woman looks back at the other, and each has a ‘bubble’ telling us what they are thinking. The woman in the bikini is thinking: ‘Everything covered but her eyes. What a cruel male-dominated culture!’. The woman in the burqa is thinking: ‘Nothing covered but her eyes. What a cruel male-dominated culture!’

Figure 4  ‘Bikini vs. Burqa’, 7 January 2011. © Malcolm Evans

Figure 5  Cartoon from The Times, 17 October 2006. Peter Brookes/The Times/NI Syndication

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This is a cartoon-style drawing of two young men wearing jackets with their hoods up, as well as baseball caps and scarves under the hoods. Only their eyes are visible. They have passed a woman wearing a black burqa and carrying shopping bags. One of the ‘hoodies’ is saying to the other: ‘That’s effin’ well out of order, innit?’

Figure 5  Cartoon from The Times, 17 October 2006. Peter Brookes/The Times/NI Syndication

1. What does Figure 4 tell us about different perceptions of the burqa and the bikini, and about their association with the oppression or empowerment of women?
2. How do you interpret the view of the ‘hoodie’ youths in Figure 5?

Discussion

1. The two women shown in Figure 4 adopt radically different dress codes. One of them is scantily clothed in a bikini, high heels and sunglasses, while the other is wearing a black cloak covering her whole body and face – in other words she is wearing a burqa. As becomes apparent in their ‘think bubbles’, each woman regards the other as oppressed and as a victim of a ‘cruel male-dominated culture’. This cartoon highlights that it is not just the burqa that is often stereotypically associated with the oppression of women. Revealing dress codes which women are encouraged to adopt as part of ‘western’ secular mainstream culture can also be regarded as oppressive (not just by Muslims), and as a sign of the sexual exploitation and objectification of women because they put so much emphasis on physical charms and sex appeal, rather than on personality or intelligence. It also becomes apparent that neither of these two women perceives herself as oppressed; rather, each feels liberated from the constraints of the ‘male-dominated culture’ that appears to oppress the other woman.
2. In Figure 5 hoodie-wearing youths express their dismissive opinion of a burqa, but seem to be blissfully unaware of the fact that their hoodies are actually remarkably similar to the burqa in terms of the way they cover their bodies and faces and are perceived controversially by many members of society – though for reasons that are different from those that lie behind the perception of burqas.

There are many different social, political, cultural and geographical factors that can influence why Muslim women adopt particular styles of veiling or do not wear a veil at all. Contrary to Shaheed’s claim in Reading 2 that ‘religious’ factors often play only a minor role in the adoption of different styles of veiling, many Muslim women stress their religious motivations. Tarlo notes that supporters of the niqab often highlight the spiritual benefits of the sense of physical closure it creates: ‘The sense of physical closure attained by the face veil operates both outwards and inwards. It has the effect of people turning in on themselves, enabling them to concentrate more fully on issues of self-discipline, self-restraint, self-mastery, devotion and prayer’ (2010, p. 151).

However, can ‘religious’ motives ever be neatly separated from politics, culture or geography? Are they not inevitably closely intertwined? It is clear that there are many contrasting points of view on the issue of veiling within Islam, and many different motives behind the adoption of different veiling practices. For some, the adoption or rejection of different styles of veiling makes them ‘unwilling targets of attention’, while others use veils as part of a ‘self-chosen visible declaration of their identity and faith’ (Tarlo, 2010, p. 1). The adoption of the niqab has been particularly controversial. Based on her analysis of forum discussions on Islamic websites, Tarlo comes to the conclusion that there are many disagreements on this issue among Muslims and that the niqab ‘has both male and female critics and supporters’ (2010, p. 150). Tarlo notes that a common theme ‘in discussions concerning niqab is the conflict between those emphasizing an individual’s religious path or duty and those more concerned with the wider social implications of niqab wearing’ (2010, p. 149).

The case studies explored in this section also highlight the fact that women can change their approaches to veiling practices at various points in their lives, adopting a range of veiling practices and investing them with different meanings in different contexts or situations. In Reading 2 Shaheed gives the example of her grandmother, who temporarily adopted the burqa to enable her to attend university. This example also demonstrates that the adoption of the hijab can open up choices and opportunities for Muslim women and can facilitate access to public space, education and work. It can enable Muslim women to observe notions of modesty without having to radically limit the range of activities they pursue outside their homes. Nevertheless, veiling practices can still pose a range of practical challenges.

3  Hijab in sport and fashion

Hijab in sport

Sport is one of the areas where wearing a hijab can pose a range of practical challenges. These challenges can be linked to the potential physical limitations of modest clothing that might restrict movement or be uncomfortable to wear during strenuous physical exercise. However, these challenges are often also tied to clothing regulations that sporting associations impose and that cannot be reconciled with modest dress codes. In some instances, Muslim women have not been allowed to compete in sporting competitions unless they remove their hijab. An example of such an incident, which caused local, national and international outrage, took place in 2007 and involved an 11-year-old girl who was ejected from a football tournament in Canada on the grounds that her hijab posed a health and safety risk, even though her supporters claimed it was safely tucked in (Adelman, 2011, p. 246). (You might note some parallels here with the Sikh motorcycle helmet controversy discussed in Chapter 1.) In the same year, the international football association FIFA introduced a ban on female players covering their heads, thus effectively excluding the Iranian women’s national football team from international competitions (Khaleeli, 2012).

In an article published in 2010 in the Sociology of Sport Journal, Nisara Jiwani and Geneviève Rail present the findings of their analysis of interviews with young Shi‘a Muslim Canadian women, focusing on how these young women combine their religious beliefs and the practice of wearing a hijab with physical activity, and how they negotiate the practical challenges that a hijab can pose during physical exercise. Jiwani and Rail establish that the majority of their interviewees felt that ‘neither the Islamic religion nor wearing the Hijab [were] barriers to participating in physical activity and some actually [felt] that participating in physical activity [made] them better Muslims’ (2010, p. 261). They come to the conclusion that their interviewees challenged the stereotype of ‘passive’, ‘oppressed’ veiled Muslim women: ‘These young Shi‘a Muslim women do not feel constrained, uneducated, tradition-bound, domestic, or victimized. They rather offer “active” resistance to the usual way in which Western discourses construct brown and/or veiled women and offer a drastically different view of “solutions” to better their lives’ (Jiwani and Rail, 2010, p. 263).

Figure 6  Mecca Laa Laa wears a specially designed 'burqini' while on lifesaving patrol in Sydney, Australia, 2007. Photo: © Matt King/Getty Images

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This is a photograph of a woman wearing a bright red and yellow swimsuit and swimcap. The swimsuit covers all of her body except for her face, hands and feet. She is standing on a beach holding a surfboard.

Figure 6  Mecca Laa Laa wears a specially designed 'burqini' while on lifesaving patrol in Sydney, Australia, 2007. Photo: © Matt ...

In recent years, the clothing industry has increasingly responded to Muslim women’s desire to find practical solutions that address the difficulties associated with wearing a hijab during physical exercise. This has, for example, led to the development of burqini swimwear (Figure 6) and the sports hijab (Figure 7). The Iranian-born French-Canadian designer Elham Seyed Javad designed the ‘ResportOn’ sports hijab for female Muslim athletes. It is made from antiperspirant fabric and is advertised on the resporton.com website using the tagline ‘Be yourself. Unveil your performance’. While this garment has been bought and used by Muslim women across the world, it has also attracted interest from non-Muslim women and men looking for an effective way of keeping long hair out of their faces during exercise (Qureshi, 2011). A growing number of sporting associations have begun to show greater understanding of modest dress codes and the needs of Muslim women. In 2011 the International Weightlifting Association started to allow female weightlifters to cover their arms and legs, and in 2012 FIFA lifted its ban on headcovers for female footballers (Khaleeli, 2012).

Figure 7  Saudi Arabia's Sarah Attar, complete with sports hijab, competes in an 800-metre heat at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Photo: © Associated Press/Matt Slocum

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This is a photograph of a woman running on an athletics track in a big stadium. She is wearing a green and black tracksuit and a white, tightly-fitting sports hijab.

Figure 7  Saudi Arabia's Sarah Attar, complete with sports hijab, competes in an 800-metre heat at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. ...

Hijab and fashion

Muslim women have shown active initiative in translating the concept of hijab into diverse veiling practices in many different ways. This can involve selecting precisely which parts of the body should be covered by the veil and adopting practical garments, such as sportswear, that conform to notions of modest dress and enable them to pursue active lives. However, women have also taken creative control of their hijabs through the use of different materials, patterns, layers of fabrics and accessories. In her observations of different styles of hijab worn on contemporary British high streets, Tarlo notes the great diversity of colours and textures women use:

The sociologist and anthropologist Annalies Moors makes similar observations with regard to the emergence of an increasingly wide variety of interpretations of ‘modest fashion’ which is appearing in different guises in different parts of the world, often reflecting a cross-fertilisation of various cultures and styles of dress:

This can, on the one hand, be read as an opening for opportunities of creative expression. On the other hand, the increasing desire or need to conform to popular fashion trends and ideals could also be regarded as an added social and financial pressure on women. However, Moors comes to the conclusion that

This sense of creative freedom is perhaps related to the fact that in Europe and North America the hijab has not yet fallen into the grasp of the mainstream fashion industry. On the one hand, this means that it is harder to access ‘modest fashion’ in high-street shops. However, since the beginning of the twenty-first century there has been a growing number of internet websites that are targeted at Muslims living in the west which market and sell modest fashion, or serve as a platform for information on how to put on a hijab or for the exchange of fashion ideas. Just type ‘hijab’ or ‘hijab fashion’ into an internet search engine, and you will have multiple hits. According to the Guardian fashion blog (2012), market research in 2012 estimated the global Muslim fashion market to be worth £59 million. While Muslim fashion is a growing business, in many European and North American countries it is still a relatively small niche market that leaves plenty of scope for small independent fashion retail businesses and room for the creative combination of a wide range of different styles and designs.

Activity 6

In this interview, Emma Tarlo (Reader at the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London) speaks about her research into Muslim women’s motivations for adopting the hijab. She considers how Muslim women combine notions of the ‘pious self’ with their interest in fashion and explores specific features of Muslim modest fashion retail. Listen to the interview now, with the following question in mind:

What kind of contested perspectives on the issue of veiling does Tarlo highlight in this interview?

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Interview with Emma Tarlo

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Transcript: Interview with Emma Tarlo

Stefanie Sinclair

Would you mind telling us a little bit about your research and the different projects you’ve been involved in please?

Emma Tarlo

Well I got interested in Muslim women’s dress in around 2004 which was just about the time when the French government had said that they were going to ban the wearing of religious symbols in schools.

And so I began to get interested in seeing how people in Britain were responding to that proposition. And at that time I began to realise the extraordinary diversity of different types of Muslim dress that there were in Britain. And the different types of emotional investment that people had in it.

And so I began to start doing research, really, about why people wear what they wear. And I was also interested in the fact that so often that debate is viewed in terms of: is it a question of force or is it a question of choice? And is it right or is it wrong? It’s viewed in these very sort of moral terms.

And I was actually interested in the fact that Muslim women like any other women in Britain are trying to work out how to present themselves in the public space. And there’s all sorts of different issues that come in to play.It may be religion. It may be politics. But it may be family background. It may be cultural heritage but it may also be fashion. It may be your relationship with your peers.

So it can’t just be boiled down to religion or politics. So, in a sense, I just got interested in exploring as an anthropologist. So, exploring, sort of, enthographically through people’s own dress practices and how they understand their own dress practices, looking at what they were trying to do, what sort of new fashions were emerging in this context. So I did research with people, sometimes working in areas with a strong sort of particular ethnic and religious population, like parts of East London where there are a lot of Muslims. But also working with Muslims who are not living in these sort of pockets of concentration like that. And also with university students, with entrepreneurs who were interested in sort of developing new types of Muslim fashion. And also with people who were trading things both in markets and shops. But also online. So I was just sort of interested in immersing myself in that whole sort of area, really, attending Islamic events, looking at those debates online, interviewing people and getting a sense of what was going on in relation to dress.

Stefanie Sinclair

So why do Muslim women actually adopt the hijab?

Emma Tarlo

I think it’s difficult to say there would be any one reason why people would adopt hijab because people may be attracted to it from a variety of different reasons.

But one is trying to practise Islam as part of everyday life and not just as something that you do at the moment of prayer. So it’s part of a kind of incorporating a set of values into everyday life. But it’s also about having an assertive presence and being proud to be Muslim and a kind of badge of identity, if you like, and that’s very important to people. Because there’s a very powerful sense of recognition that people have when they see other people in hijab. They feel a sense of bond towards them.

And so this sense of a kind of bond that extends beyond your immediate family, networking kin, and has this sort of global potential, is really important. And you see it in how people interact. You see it within universities that the hijabi girls recognise each other and they get together quite early on. They feel a sense of affinity with each other. You see it when people travel abroad. And they feel that they can recognise and react to each other: total strangers on the basis of hijab. And you also come across it very strongly on the internet, through the sort of exchange of stories, and all of that.

So that sense of a building of a kind of community I think is really important through this visible self. And I think since 9/11, when there’s been such a focus on Muslims, and a kind of suspicion around Muslims in relation to appearances, that has actually motivated a lot more people to invest in being Muslim in the public sphere in a more assertive way. Sometimes as a gesture of solidarity. They’ll look at sort of a larger scale sort of global political situation. And they’ll feel that Muslims have been treated or stigmatised in a particular way. And they’ll want to identify with that. So that can also be a quite important element of it.

And then, of course, now that the fashion possibilities that it offers is also something, you know, that can be very attractive to people. The great thing about a headscarf is that it doesn’t fit any particular body. It can be given, it can be shared, it’s very cheap to buy. Unlike a lot of other type fashion things. And you can combine it in all sorts of different ways. You can accessorise it with jewellery. You can layer it and you can make all sorts of ensembles with it. So it can become a very glamorous and kind of appealing kind of item to sort of play with, if you like.

And in a sense, I think, in my book, I refer to it as a sort of form of body art in many ways for some women. Because, for a lot of young Muslim women, it’s the most elaborate and most worked part of their appearance. And I’ve interviewed some women who say, well, you know when I get up in the morning, I begin by thinking what I’m going to wear on my head. And what colour combinations I’m going to do. And then I work my way downwards.

So this thing which, in some ways, is about, sort of, modesty and the idea that you don’t want to be, kind of, at least sexually attractive and assertive at the same time, is also being used as a kind of key item of adornment by a lot of young women.

And then in contrast you have others. Other Muslims who would have a much more sober interpretation of what the hijab should be. And who feel that all this fashion work and this sort of aestheticisation of hijab goes against the essence of what hijab is meant to be. So you’ve got very different attitudes amongst Muslims in Britain and elsewhere in Europe as to what that should be. Those kind of internal debates. And in the world.

And I think those internal debates very often are just not recognised beyond the Muslim community because there’s always this tendency to sort of look at this whole thing in relation to Islam versus the West. That kind of absurd, kind of dichotomisation through which everything’s boiled into. And therefore very often all these kind of nuances of what’s going on and the subtleties of debates that are taking place amongst the Muslims gets completely sort of effaced within the presentation in the media very often.

Stefanie Sinclair

Is the association of Muslim women’s styles of dress with fashion something entirely new or have Muslim women always thought about dress styles and how it would fit into fashion but possibly in different cultural contexts?

Emma Tarlo

Yes, I mean, I think there’s always been a diversity of cloth and textiles and ways of wearing them. And so, in that sense, people have always been interested in fashion. But, I think, what’s happened is a lot of things that were classified as local cultural, regional practices have now become classified as Islamic.

So, you can almost think of it in sort of three parts. You’ve got people wearing local forms of dress, which may have had different fashions in different countries. Then you’ve got a kind of a moving away from that that have emerged very often with the migration process and people wanting to assimilate within European contexts.

And then, in that context, if people started to wear something like hijab or niqab then it was very much associated initially as a religious statement. People perceived it as almost as the opposite of fashion, that you were kind of asserting a kind of pious religious self.

And what has happened more recently is this kind of coming together of this idea of a sort of pious religious self. And a kind of active visible assertion in the public sphere and fashion all coming together.bAnd they want to be modern. And they want to be able to wear jeans. And they want to be able to follow local fashion. But at the same time they want to be able to assert their Muslim-ness. And quite often the older generation are very ambivalent about that. And they’ll say to their daughters, well, do you really have to wear hijab?bThat marks you out in a particular way. Why do you have to make such a fuss about it? Can’t you just sort of blend in more?

So the sort of classic tension you might get, for example, in say a Bengali family would be the mother looking to the daughter and saying, you’re jeans are too tight. And why do you have to wear that hijab, you know. She’s kind of objecting to both those things. And the daughter will be looking to the mother and saying, well, that sari’s cultural dress, it’s un-Islamic, and what I’m doing conforms more to what is appropriate in the Koran.

So you’ve also got this kind of intergenerational conflict. And for the younger generation it can often be a kind of platform of assertion. I can go out. I can be in the public sphere. I can have a job. I can go to university and I can be covered and Muslim. And all of that’s all right. Whereas you, mum, you’re stuck at home, doing what dad says, cooking the chapattis, or something like that. I mean these are these kind of cultural things that are being played out in a sense through dress.

Stefanie Sinclair

The association of the hijab with fashion could be seen as a form of self-expression of women being creative, making the hijab their own?

But doesn’t it also mean that hijab wearing women are increasingly exposed to the pressures of a fashion retail industry that likes to tell women what to wear?

Emma Tarlo

All women are living in a world where they’re kind of encountering that combination of, sort of, commercialisation and pressure. So I don’t think it’s, in an individual women’s life, I don’t think it’s that they sort of started off just doing it as religious and now they’re sort of pressurised into becoming fashionable. I think it’s more that a young woman born today and brought up in a particular sort of multi-cultural context, say in Britain, encounters a whole range of discourses which are fashion, individualism, discourses from their peers, from their family. And they are trying to find something that makes sense of that whole composite mixture.

Now, I think it’s right to say that there are tensions there. And the tension that I think most people live, if they express a tension is that, is, on the one hand, they see being Muslim and wearing hijab in part as a sort of critique of the sexualisation of women of consumerism. And the emphasis on consumerism. But at the same time they are attracted to buying more and more hijabs. And many girls, when they look in their wardrobes, they’re quite shocked if you ask them, oh, can you count how many hijabs you’ve got? And they suddenly find that they’ve got 120, or something. And they’re sort of shocked.

So you get quite interesting debates on the web. I remember one particular debate where someone had, precisely, sort of, found that she’d got over 100 hijabs. And someone else was saying to her, well you know, sister, this isn’t good. You should take some of them to the Oxfam shop immediately. So that sense of being drawn into kind of excess commercialisation, yes, they can feel a tension in that. But I think a lot of people do. I don’t think that’s so different from tensions that somebody might feel as a feminist. But, on the one hand, I don’t feel that I have to look a certain way. But, on the other hand, I don’t want to have hairy legs. You know, that sort of tension.

Stefanie Sinclair

Where does the Muslim modest fashion retail differ from other fashion retail industries?

Emma Tarlo

In many ways, the modest fashion and Islamic fashion on the Internet is not dissimilar from other types of fashion industries. And, quite interestingly, quite a few of the people who are involved in it may have started out in the mainstream fashion industry or been trained through the mainstream fashion industry. And, in many ways, they’re using very similar kind of tropes and metaphors and modes of display and advertising as the mainstream industry. But, they do face this dilemma, which is how you display the objects. Where, on the one hand, making garments sexually appealing, if you like, is very much a mainstream strategy within the fashion industry. And because within these companies they are trying to say that we are not involved in sexualising women, then they, therefore, very often have a quite complicated relationship to how to display the goods.

Now, obviously, they can just display them without bodies in them, which also happens to some extent with mainstream fashion retail. But where bodies are displayed, there is this problem of how to display the bodies. So, some companies, for example, will display the items with bodies inside them, but they’ll be cut off at the head so you don’t see the face. Others will incorporate the face, but they’ll try to be not too made up or this and that and the other. Others will, in fact, use a very mainstream, sort of, sexualised styles of body presentation. So, companies situate themselves very different along the spectrum of in a sense how seriously they want to be taken in terms of religion. Or whether it’s closer to the kind of fashion side, if you like. There is a tension there.

End transcript: Interview with Emma Tarlo

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Interview with Emma Tarlo

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Discussion

Tarlo highlights the wide range of diverse, contested perspectives on the hijab. She argues that media and politics tend to present the issues in terms of a direct opposition between Muslim and ‘western’ points of view and often fail to recognise the nuances and subtleties of internal debates within Muslim communities. Tarlo stresses that there are many contested perspectives on the hijab, and different understandings of notions of modest dress codes among Muslims. Key areas of tension and debate concern issues of migration and the question of whether regional, traditional forms of dress should be lost, preserved or adapted to new cultural contexts, and which styles of dress can be considered to be modest. Another area of tension explored in the interview is the contrast between notions of the hijab as a symbol of modesty and the use of the hijab as an item of adornment and a key fashion item.

4  Case study: Veiling in Kerala

To conclude your work on this course, you are going to explore some of the issues it has raised in relation to the specific local context of the city of Kozhikode (also known as Calicut) in the South Indian state of Kerala, an example of a cultural context that is very different from North America or Europe.

Activity 7

The film ‘Veiling in Calicut’ explores how Muslim women negotiate notions of choice, empowerment, piety, modesty, tradition and fashion in this specific local context. The film also provides some insight into how the local fashion retail industry has responded to the ‘pardah craze’.

As you are watching this film, pay particular attention to how the women interviewed explain when and why they have adopted different styles of hijab or pardah.

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Transcript: Veiling in Calicut

Narrator

Calicut, also known as Kozhikode. Third largest city in India’s southern state of Kerala. Flanked by the Arabian Sea along its western edge, this thriving commercial centre has an average literacy rate of over 95 per cent. It’s a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society where around 40 per cent of the population is Muslim. This has always been a major trading point and cultural hub for Muslims in southern India.

Zubair Hadawi

The Arabs came here for the trade, and it seems even before the time of the prophet, Islam came in the age of the prophet himself. And since then, one of the major parts of Calicut is that Hindus and Muslims, and recently Christians are also living, and you can see in and out of Calicut city, a lot of temples, mosques, situated together. In Calicut, all the Muslim organisations, Muslim people, they have all their offices, everything is centred in Calicut.

Narrator

We’re here to discover what veiling means to the Muslim women of Calicut. Who wears what, and why?

Moly Kuruvilla

All kinds of dresses we can see in the campuses, and on the streets in the town. Everywhere. But the Muslim people mostly wear hijab.

Narrator

Hijab could be a scarf that covers the head and neck, or a loose outer garment called a ‘hijab coat.’ But there are lots of names for what is essentially the same thing. ‘Muftah’ is another word that’s used for headscarf. ‘Purdah’ is a general term. Like ‘hijab,’ this could refer to a coat-like layer, but it may also mean to conceal, using clothes or anything else. Whatever the label, one thing is certain. A lot has changed when it comes to veiling in Calicut.

Abida Rasheed

When I was young, when I was in school, or maybe in college days, I never saw people veiling like this, wearing the hijab. I didn’t see my mother veiling, because she always covered her hair with the sari. She always covered her hair, my grandmother. She always covered her hair with that purdah, what we call. It’s a veil. It’s a very thin texture of cloth, what they used to wear.

In this picture, this was a wedding picture taking from my best friend’s wedding, which happened in 1982. And here everybody’s wearing sari, and you don’t see anybody wearing a black hijab, or totally covered. Whereas now when you take a wedding photo, most of the people will be wearing, will be sitting at the wedding, also, with the hijab.

Narrator

Today, purdah and hijab are a common site on Calicut’s streets. It’s the long and often loose fitting garments combined with the head scarf that most distinguishes Muslim women from Hindus and Christians. What’s come to be known as a purdah craze began about two decades ago, with many factors contributing to this upsurge in formal veiling. One key influence was a wave of migrant workers seeking opportunities in the Gulf during the early 1990s.

Moly Kuruvilla

With the gulf migration, especially from Calicut to Malaparamba, you can see at least one man from every family in Gulf or some other Persian countries, along with this Gulf migration, there’s an influx of new fashions and new styles of purdah.

Narrator

Razeena Ayesha is managing director of an academic book business, and mother of three. Razeena didn’t veil before she got married, but all that changed when she started to see the increasingly widespread use of the black abaya, a long cloak-like dress that’s used by many Muslim women.

Razeena Ayesha

Slowly, when I came to high school and I realised people are wearing these kind of abaya, and I thought maybe once I get married, I’ll have to wear this. These thoughts were there in my mind. Then came marriage. When I was 17, I got married. So my husband, he didn’t force me to wear this. Yeah, but I had in my mind that I’ll have to wear it. Because what I’m seeing is my cousins, once they get married, they’re wearing it.

Auswaf Ahsan

I was more worried about how to live after marriage, rather than what she is wearing. I don’t feel dress is something different that I should force on her, and make her dress in a particular way that my religiosity, or my beliefs, or my politics will be reflected on her.

Narrator

Razeena chose to veil. Her marriage to Auswaf marked the beginning of a long period of experimentation in how best to cover up.

Razeena Ayesha

This is called an ‘abaya’ in here. Common people here, commonly known as ‘purdah.’ You wear it like this. This … I pin it here. Then I take this and put it through here, like this.

Ali Ahsan

When I was in my school in Manipal, I was the only guy who was a Muslim in class. When I went, there was a parent teacher meeting and all. You know, I didn’t want my mom to come to the school with a hijab on, because I thought I would be not quite differentiated among my friends. But then as I grew up, I wanted our identity to be there: that we are Muslims, and that hijab is what we wear.

Narrator

Today, Razeena’s wardrobe tells the story of numerous shifts in veiling style that took place as her children were growing up.

Huda Ahsan

When I was born, she was wearing this black burqa. And then she started with her whole pink, because my sister was in UAE, and she used to send scarves all the time. That’s when I got interested with all the scarves and brooches. And then she changed into cream coats.

Razeena Ayesha

And, for this, it’s the same way … These kinds.

Auswaf Ahsan

I feel it’s culture, more of culture. And of course, you cannot say, you can’t classify, or water-tight compartments … You can’t say there is no religion at all. There is some part of religion, but it has become more of a cultural issue, though.

Razeena Ayesha

These are the ones I wear now. I’m more comfortable with salwah kameez. And then these two shelves, full of salwahs, because I use it now.

Huda Ahsan

Even though my mom kind of hints on the hijab, she has never actually made me, I mean, forced me to do anything like that. She has never told me to go and wear it, or don’t come out. Nothing of that sort.

Razeena Ayesha

These are for prayer. I use it for prayer. Here in [INAUDIBLE], we call it [INAUDIBLE]. It’s tradition kind, like we were brought up like that. While praying, we wear all this white. But it’s not necessary. My parents, you know, my mother, my grandmother, they all prefer white while praying.

Moly Kuruvilla

Actually, the veiling, that means something that covers. And the particular thing, veiling, it is a very sensitive issue. Some parents have told me that we insist our daughters to put on muftah or purdah just because we don’t want our girls to be stared at by others. So they have to wear it just for the parents’ sake. They have to wear it. And they have found a way out to wear it fashionably, stylishly.

Zubair Hadawi

Now, you see all different varieties. You can find there are body shaped dresses. And even some women you can find in Calicut itself … you can find many women wear the black purdah, the body shaped one. They will not cover their head, even. They’ll just use the shawl.

Narrator

Here at Kerala’s biggest purdah manufacturer, business is booming. Honrulyn produces the local style of purdah, a floor-length coat worn over other clothes. This is the most sought-after brand in the state, and prices range from 200 to 5000 rupees. That’s between 2 and 60 pounds for a purdah.

Rasool Gafoor

This business started 15 years before. It started with only one machine. Now we’re using 200 machines working. Starting at 1 purdah per day. Now, 500 pieces of purdah per day manufactured.

Narrator

Stylish, intricately crafted purdahs can command top prices. There’s stiff competition to produce the perfect purdah.

Rasool Gafoor

There are many companies which produce daily. So they have research and development units. All the purdah companies, they have their own research wing, which on the daily basis, they make and research new trends.

Narrator

Like many women in Calicut, Marwa, who’s a second year medical student, wears an all black purdah. She began veiling when she left her home in Qatar to study here in Southern India.

Marwa Ayoob

I sort of feel protected wearing this. First of all, it’s not revealing. And my figure is not revealed. And everything of me, except my face and my hands are covered, so nothing is really shown. When I wear this, it’s complete, what I am. I’m a Muslim, and I’m dressed perfectly. So, now I can do what I want to do. I get this feeling of confidence, freedom to do anything I want to do.

Moly Kuruvilla

In the globalised world, women’s bodies are increasingly becoming objectified and commodified. But if you are in purdah, it means … it implies don’t look at me. So the very dress itself is good safety and security.

Narrator

Marwa doesn’t always wear purdah. There’s a time and a place when she gets to dress up with her friends and family.

Marwa Ayoob

Where I live is in a hostel. It’s an all-girls hostel, so the only people I’m exposed to is girls. And that’s why I get to wear what I want, and wear normal, casual clothes. So basically, there’s nothing like I miss the enjoyment of showing it off.

And there’s my family, who sees, I mean, for me, what matters is people who matter to me should find me beautiful. They should accept me, and they should see the best of me. So it’s my family and my closest friends, and in the future, my husband.

Ali Ahsan

I find a girl more beautiful if she wear a hijab. I don’t judge people by whether they wear this or not. But something charming about that veil …

Moly Kuruvilla

From all my experiences, my interactions with all these men and women, when it comes to their daughters or wives, they become traditional. It can take any form, or any fashion, or any state. That much lenient, they are become.

Narrator

For Dr Asma Rahim, there were no such pressures. This associate professor of community medicine at Calicut Medical College seen here at the local orphanage was free to choose when it came to adopting the veil.

Asma Rahim

It was my decision to wear this. Nobody compelled me. I just read the scriptures. I thought to be complete, it would be better. When I started practising after my internship, that is when I became a full-fledged doctor, that time I started wearing the headscarf.

When this headscarf, and hijab and all came in, I think we women over her, we came out with our own kind of dress code with the sari and the hijab. It’s not a specific style, but we working women, we find this kind of dressing comfortable.

Zubair Hadawi

Generally, when they go into a job wearing religious corrected dress, the opinion from the religious people, oh, they say it’s OK, it’s fine. It’s helped them a lot to do work.

Narrator

By combining her veil with a sari, Asma has, like Razeena, in her salwah kameez, adapted local styles to conform to Muslim dress codes and notions of modesty.

Razeena Ayesha

We love to experiment with our dressing. And since in Kerala and Calicut it’s a lot of democracy, we are at an ease, and we can try out different combinations. Maybe that’s why you see so many permutation combinations of this here.

Marwa Ayoob

What’s happening at present is there’s a lot of mixture of culture. Because current Islam, you can do anything. I mean, you can wear whatever you prefer. You just have to cover everything except your face and forehead.

Zubair Hadawi

There is not a cultural order that you should wear this dress. The religious order is only that you have to keep this meaning: that you have to cover your body parts.

Marwa Ayoob

So, at present, what’s happening is people want to follow Islam, but at the same time, they want to be stylish. Just a lot of mixture of culture.

Zubair Hadawi

It is fashion for many. It is religion for many people. It’s a trend for many people. They saw their religious meaning in the newly spending fashion, so they adapted it in different ways. So fashion plus religion, I say.

Razeena Ayesha

As long as the person who’s wearing it has done it out of her choice, then if it’s fashion, it doesn’t matter.

Moly Kuruvilla

If it is against one’s choice, it shouldn’t be imposed on them. Because such rare instances are also happening in Kerala context, where girls are being pressurised.

Abida Rasheed

For me, I don’t think it’s important that I want to wear a purdah. But I don’t want to be revealing. I want to wear the typical Indian … I live in India, and I would love to wear Indian clothes. And I want to cover my head when the necessity is there. Maybe when I told you my mother wore only sari, so I also wore sari. If my mother was wearing the veil, I would have also gone through that.

Narrator

Abida belongs to one of the oldest Muslim communities in Calicut. Though rarely seen today, this light cotton veil was once widely worn by Moplah, also known as Malabari Muslims, part of an age-old veiling tradition.

Abida Rasheed

See the women, I think this is my grandmother. See the women in this photograph? This was my friend’s wedding. See the women all in the typical, traditional dress. This is what I saw my grandparents wearing. The Malabari, the Malabaris. The Calicut Muslims wearing.

Narrator

Back at Kerala’s biggest purdah manufacturer, preparations are underway for the launch of something new. This is India’s first denim purdah, the latest trend in veiling that’s set to go global very soon.

Zubair Hadawi

From whatever a new trend, an imitable trend comes in. It will spread all over the world.

Moly Kuruvilla

There will be new forms, further new styles, new colours.

Rasool Gafoor

This is the best industry, best future. A lot of people are getting a job, also.

Marwa Ayoob

Of the future, I can’t really say 100 per cent how I see myself, because we have this thing of husband’s wishes. So if he is somebody who doesn’t like me wearing abaya, maybe if he’s totally against it, maybe I would have to restrict to a certain extent.

Razeena Ayesha

I think I’ll be like this forever. But it’s not my last word.

Asma Rahim

From my point of view, being an Indian, being in India, I would be very comfortable that if I could adapt the Indian way of dressing in a modest way.

End transcript: Veiling in Calicut

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Veiling in Calicut

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Discussion

The women interviewed mention a range of different motivations for adopting different styles of veiling. Razeena says that she felt she should adopt a stricter dress code when she got married because she saw other women doing this. Razeena’s husband Auswaf argues that veiling is more of a cultural than a religious issue. Asma, by contrast, explains that she started wearing the hijab because she ‘read the scriptures’. There is reference to the fact that some women are pressurised or forced by their families to veil, but all of the women interviewed stress that this was not their experience and that donning the hijab or pardah was their own decision. Marwa argues that wearing the black pardah makes her feel protected, safe, confident and free. Asma finds wearing a hijab as a working woman ‘comfortable’.

Many of the women say that they have experimented with and adapted different styles of veiling, finding different ways of combining their wish to follow Islam and dress modestly with being stylish and with ‘the Indian way of dressing’ (Asma). Most of the women interviewed explain that they have gone through numerous shifts in their veiling styles, which were often prompted by entering a new stage in their lives, such as getting married (Razeena), going to university (Marwa), or qualifying and working as a doctor (Asma).

From the film, it also becomes clear that the women adopt different styles of dress in different social situations. There are, for example, special occasions, such as being at prayer, or attending a wedding, where special outfits are worn. The women also wear different clothes and do not wear a mafta (headscarf), pardah or hijab when they are at home with their family (without the presence of a film crew) or among female friends.

Conclusion

The study of veiling practices and dress styles adopted by Muslims in different parts of the world gives us important insights into how religion is lived and translated into everyday practices. It has become apparent that there are many different and contested perspectives on veiling practices, both among Muslim women and in relation to them. Attitudes towards veiling do not only differ between and within different geographical regions and social groups, they have also changed considerably throughout history (not just within Islam). It is not unusual for different veiling (or indeed unveiling) practices to be adopted by different generations within the same family, or even by the same person at different stages in their lives or on different social occasions. There are multiple and complex reasons why Muslim women adopt different veiling practices. These practices can have very different meanings for different people in different social, political, cultural, geographical and historical contexts: ‘in one context [it] can be a radical gesture, in another a practical garment for protection and in another environment [it] can be a sign of orthodoxy’ (Maynard, 2004, p. 201).

Changes in veiling practices and in the meanings assigned to different styles of veiling can be related to a range of cultural, political and historical developments and to a number of contested religious interpretations of the concept of hijab. Though it is a controversial practice, it has a long tradition within Islam (and beyond), bearing in mind that styles and practices of veiling have changed considerably and have been interpreted in a wide range of different ways.

Muslim women and men across the world have found many different ways of negotiating and reconciling contested interpretations of the notion of hijab with complex and diverse social and cultural influences, pressures and expectations, legal constraints, practical challenges and the desire for creative expression. This has led to the development of a vast range of different styles of veiling that have been invested with multiple, complex and contested meanings. This great diversity makes it very difficult, or perhaps impossible, to ‘pin down’ or neatly define ‘Islamic’ veiling practices and to clearly distinguish ‘religious’ factors from other social, political and cultural factors that influence veiling practices. As Reina Lewis concludes in her preface to the book Veil: Veiling, Representation and Contemporary Art:

Glossary

veiling

See Figure 2 and ‘Terminology’ (in Section 1) for a description of different styles of veiling.

mafta

a term used in Kerala for a headscarf worn by Muslim women.

pardah (purdah)

From the Persian word for curtain, pardah refers to the practice of separating male and female space and to various forms of modest dress for women.

salwaar (shalwaar) kameez

This is a style of traditional dress worn by many Muslim women in South and Central Asia, though it is also worn by Hindu women in areas most affected by Muslim influence. ‘Salwaar’ refers to the trousers, and ‘kameez’ to the long shirt or tunic whose side seams are typically left open beyond the waistline. This style of dress is also worn by men; it may also be referred to as kurta-pajama. (For an example of a salwaar kameez, see Osella and Osella, 2007, p. 238, Figure 2.)

sari

This is a traditional garment worn by many Hindu women, but is also frequently worn by women of other religious groups from the Indian subcontinent. It consists of a long piece of cloth (of varying materials and colours) which is draped around the body in a number of different styles. It is now usually worn on top of a blouse or bodice and an underskirt.

References

Acknowledgements

This free course was written by Stefanie Sinclair.

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.

The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:

Course image Charles Roffey in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence.

El Guindi, F. (1999) Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance, Berg Publishers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Shaheed, A.L.F. (2008) ‘Dress codes and modes: how Islamic is the veil?, in Heath, J. (ed.) (2008) The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore, and Politics, University of California Press, pp. 290–3, 295, 303.

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