The Hijab
Religion, History or Political Statement? (Part
1 of 4)
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
Is the hijab a
religious issue? A safety issue? A security issue?
A political statement? Or, is it a non-issue?
The right wing parties in Europe have made it
a big issue. It is pointed out as a visible sign
of an immigrant population that cannot be absorbed
into the mainstream European milieu. And the knee-jerk
reaction of right wing mullahs has bestowed legitimacy
to this position.
I am of the opinion that it is a non-issue. I
am not convinced that even if all the Muslim women
in Europe stopped wearing the hijab, it will decrease
the animosity against Islam one bit. The right
wing parties have a much broader, long-term, strategic
agenda. They will simply shift their focus to
other visible signs such as race, color, language
or national origin and continue their harassment
of Muslims and of other immigrants from Asia and
Africa.
In this article, I will briefly examine the hijab
from various perspectives in the hope of sorting
out meaningful strategies for the nascent Islamic
communities in Europe and America.
Recently, a hijab-wearing mother of six was shot
dead in broad daylight in Fremont, California,
as she walked to school with her three-year-old
daughter. The authorities maintain it was not
a hate crime. The Muslim community is not convinced
and the perception continues that somehow her
hijab was the magnet for a gun-totting hate monger.
The distraught husband of the slain woman has
since packed up and moved back to Afghanistan.
“It is not worth sacrificing my children
for the comfort of America”, he is reported
to have said.
In Europe, where racial and ethnic prejudice has
a long and often bloody history, the recent immigration
of a large number of Muslims from North Africa
and Turkey has created a wide backlash and the
hijab is looked upon as an expression of cultural
defiance.
Increasingly, the head scarf has become a symbol
of polarization across cultural divides. Nor is
this division confined to Christian Europe and
pluralistic America. In predominantly Muslim but
secular Turkey, a female student is ejected from
a university if she wears a head scarf.
On the other side of the cultural divide, a fringe
group of Muslims aggressively pushes its agenda
on an increasingly impatient secular population.
In England, a teacher of Pakistani descent appears
before a judge arguing that she be allowed to
wear a veil while she teaches her class. The judge
denies her petition.
In Florida, a recent convert to Islam shows up
at the Department of Motor Vehicles covering her
face with a veil and refuses to take it off for
a driver’s license photograph. Her application
is denied.
The hijab is very much in the news in Europe and
America, caught up between a population concerned
about terrorist attacks and an aggressive fringe
minority among Muslims who are intent on making
a political statement at the wrong place and the
wrong time. Moderate Islam, squeezed from both
sides, suffers.
The question is this: Is the hijab a religious
issue, a historical development or a cultural,
social and political statement?
Some definitions are in order at the outset: the
hijab is commonly understood to mean a head scarf
which comes in many different colors, shapes and
sizes. It is used to cover the hair. The veil
(or the niqab) is used to cover not only the head
but also the entire face with slits carved out
for the eyes. Chador is a large sheet that is
used to cover up the entire body. It is black
in the Arab world and Iran. The Indonesians use
a white chador. In India and Pakistan, it used
to be white until recent times. Lately, as a result
of Middle Eastern influence, it has turned black.
As the world shrinks, and a materialist civilization
sweeps across the globe, destroying old cultures
and challenging older civilizations, a reaction
has set in against its cultural hegemony. The
global materialist civilization is perceived to
encourage promiscuity, moral decay and a breakdown
of the family. Although Muslims are in the vanguard
of this resistance, many Christians, Hindus and
Buddhists are also a part of this reaction. Witness,
for instance, the recent protests by right wing
organizations against certain Bollywood movies
in the city of Mumbai, India.
Secondly, there is a wave of religious conservatism
sweeping the earth today. The United States, the
Middle East, Europe and India are all moving in
that direction. The beard and the hijab are the
most visible signs of this conservatism in Muslim
communities.
Third, there is no unanimity of opinion about
the hijab among the Muslims themselves, except
during prayer. The Arabs and the Persians are
most emphatic that covering the head in public
is an essential part of the Islamic faith. The
Turks, Pakistanis, Indians and the Africans are
less sanguine about this issue and their observance
of the hijab varies in degrees. Some women cover
themselves head to toe in a black chador while
others do not cover their heads at all. These
differences are not of recent origin. They are
historical. Ibn Batuta, who traveled widely in
the Islamic world in the fourteenth century (1332-51),
records how women in Seljuk Turkey and the African
sultanates enjoyed a large degree of freedom and
had access to social and religious space. This
was something new to the traveler from North Africa
who was a trained judge (faqhee) in the Maliki
fiqh and he expressed his disapproval of this
openness.
From a historical perspective, the exclusion of
women from public space occurred gradually over
centuries and must be understood in the broader
context of the fragmentation of the unitary Caliphate
and the separation of the masses from the rulers.
Islam liberated women from the constrictions imposed
by pre-Islamic Arab society. It opened up the
spiritual, economic, social and political space
to them. Women were bestowed an individuality.
They were to live with men on a platform of equity
and justice, partners in the creation of a universal
community enjoining what is noble, forbidding
what is evil and believing in God. The Prophet
built such a community in Madina. The focus of
life for this community was the Prophet’s
mosque, built adjacent to his house and it was
from here that he elaborated on religious and
social issues, adjudicated legal matters and discussed
war and peace.
There are three important issues to remember here.
First, there was no distance between the head
of the community and members of the community.
The young and the old, the poor and the rich,
immigrants and locals, Madinites as well as foreigners
had equal access to the leader. Second, the leader
of the community was not just a political and
military figure. He was also the religious and
social authority who led the congregation in prayer
and had responsibility before the Shariah. Third,
the social, political and religious space in the
mosque was open to women. Although congregational
prayer was not obligatory for women, they were
not prevented from praying in the mosque. Women
prayed in the mosque in rows behind the men. They
had equal access to the Prophet to seek counsel
and advice on social, religious and political
matters. (To be continued)
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