The Hijab
Religion, History or Political Statement? (Part
4)
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
Violence against women and
children is endemic in the modern world and a
great majority of those who have suffered are
Muslim. There are conflicts galore in Asia, Africa
and Europe, fueled by national, ethnic, religious
animosities and external aggression. As we scan
the last hundred years, the two World Wars, the
partition of India-Pakistan, the Japanese invasion
of China, the Indo-China conflicts and the tribal
wars in Africa stand out in their cruelty.
In each of these conflicts, as the men killed
and maimed each other, it was the women and children
who were left behind to endure inhuman atrocities.
Notwithstanding universal human rights declarations
and the pious protestations of individual governments,
violence and abuse of women continue.
The issue may be looked upon from a different
perspective, namely, a dialectic between the state
and the individual. The ability of the state to
inflict injury on the individual has increased
enormously in modern times. One reads of tyrants
in history, of their dismal dungeons and their
gallows, but the misdeeds of these tyrants would
pale in comparison to what modern organized states
inflict on the individual today.
Technology has endowed the state with a power
that not even the cruelest of the despots of yesteryear
could dream of. Worse yet, a whole new language
has been invented to confuse and deny outright
the violence inflicted by the state. We no longer
speak of death and injury to civilians who are
caught up in military conflicts. We call it “collateral
damage”. Dead bodies, broken limbs and shattered
lives get lost in numbers and statistics. Pain
and suffering are mathematically reduced to cost
and benefit analyses.
The threat of violence has an influence on the
practice of hijab. A large proportion of women
who have been the subject of violence in recent
conflicts have been Muslim. Rape has been used
as a weapon to demoralize and destroy opponents
and enemies. Thousands of Bosnian Muslim women
were raped in the early years of the Yugoslav
civil war. Thousands of Muslim boys and men were
murdered even as United Nations troops stood by.
Reports of rape camps in Bosnia and Serbia circulated
for years before NATO intervened and brought an
end to the misery of these hapless women. Similar
reports have circulated about the Darfur region
of the Sudan, the Congo in Africa and Gujarat
in India. The abuse of women in Chechnya goes
unreported. Each of these is a human tragedy but
the fact that the sufferers were predominantly
Muslim women is relevant to the discussion at
hand.
Such widespread abuses, spread over Asia and Europe
have fostered a siege mentality among Muslims.
Asked to justify why they wear a hijab or a veil,
many respond that this is way of protecting themselves.
The inability or unwillingness of the state to
defend and protect the individual, and in some
cases the outright connivance of the state in
the atrocities inflicted on a helpless population
has fostered this siege mentality among many people.
Helplessness has hoisted a minimalist agenda of
survival and family dignity. It manifests itself
in increased isolation, and attire that completely
shields the woman from the public eye. At the
communal level, it encourages the formation of
ghettos.
The Europeans have shown a natural knack for abusing
minorities. For centuries, it was the Jews who
were at the receiving end of European intolerance.
Today it is the Muslims and the Africans. And
there is manifest hypocrisy in how they justify
their intolerance. Insults to the Qur’an
and the person of the Prophet, such as the recent
cartoon affair, are justified in the name of freedom
of speech by the same people who dare not touch
the subject of the Nazi holocaust.
The situation is somewhat different in the United
States. America is the melting pot of nations.
It is a caldron of ideas. This is where all the
sons and daughters of Adam meet in search of a
common destiny. But America is not a homogeneous
society. It is a microcosm of the world. The spectrum
of people in this continental size nation ranges
from the most tolerant to the most bigoted. Sustained
propaganda from sections of the right wing media
has generated Islamophobia that shows itself in
occasional outbursts of hate crimes.
From a doctrinal perspective, there is a difference
of opinion among scholars about the application
of hijab in a specific context. The Qur’an
declares: “And say to the believing women
that they should lower their gaze and guard their
modesty; that they should not display their beauty
and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear
thereof; that they should draw their veils over
their bosoms……..” (24:31). The
emphasis is on modesty, which is prescribed for
both men and women. The injunction is to draw
the veil over the women’s bosoms. It is
directed at the practice of pre-Islamic Arab women
who used to walk around with bare bosoms, a practice
that may still be observed in parts of the world.
Some scholars interpret this injunction in the
minimalist way, namely, that it is specific only
to the covering of the bosom, and does not apply
to the covering of the head or the face. Others
interpret it in its maximum application, namely,
that it covers all parts of the body.
The thrust of the Qur’anic injunction is
the safety and protection of women and the dignity
of womanhood. Even the most conservative of the
ulema would agree that its application is specific
to its context in time and space. For instance,
it is not applicable in times of conflict. It
is narrated by Ar-Rubayyi ‘bint Mu’auwidh:
“We were in the company of the Prophet providing
the wounded with water and treating them…”
(Sahih Muslim, volume 4, book 52, number 133).
In later centuries, Muslim women served as sultans
and commanders in chief as happened with Razia
Sultana of Delhi and Shajarat of Cairo. The strict
seclusion of women is a later historical development.
Culture plays an important part in the observance
of the hijab. It is most strict among the people
of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. It is more relaxed
among the farmers of India and the working middle
classes all over the world. A culture evolves
over centuries. It is not altered overnight by
government dictates or the rhetoric of reformers.
Each culture has its specific social context and
each is valid in its own space. And each culture
exerts a powerful downdraft to conform. One does
not expect a surgeon in Cairo to come to the operating
table with a chador nor does one expect a Pushtun
lady to walk around without a headscarf in a bazaar
in Kabul.
In Europe and America, an increasingly visible
immigrant presence raises anxiety and fear in
societies that are concerned about the dilution
of their own cultures. There is genuine fear of
the threat of terrorism. The aggressive behavior
of some Muslims exacerbates these fears. Is it
reasonable to expect that the Department of Motor
Vehicles will issue you a driver’s license
when you pose for a photograph wearing a full
veil? How do you know who is behind that veil?
Is it not a provocation if you insist on walking
into a classroom with a full veil at a time when
the safety of children is paramount in the minds
of parents? If you are a safety expert, would
you permit a worker wearing a loose jalaba to
work on a lathe in a machine shop?
Extreme behavior elicits extreme reactions. Men
and women who hoist an extremist agenda do a disservice
to Islam. They must be repudiated. The hijab is
a non-issue for Muslims in Western societies.
It is hoisted, as other minutia, to detract from
the more important issues facing the Muslims in
Europe and America such as quality education,
representation, safety, jobs, immigration and
discrimination. It is used to isolate, corner
and marginalize the nascent but vulnerable Islamic
communities.
The beauty of womanhood is not just in her hair.
It is a divine gift that radiates from the soul
and blossoms in its fullness in motherhood. The
gist of religion is moderation. This applies to
hijab as well. It should be observed keeping in
mind the context of space and time. As Islam takes
root in Europe and America, it must evolve a visible
presence that meets its internal requirements
of modesty but is also sensitive to the culture
of its environment. There is an opportunity for
creativity in this space which extends across
attire, art, music, literature, culture and business.
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