By Babatunde Jose
“Even though the hijab is related to religion, its acceptance is up to the individual. There is no compulsion. But if a girl wants to wear it, she should be given the chance to do so.” Syed Hasnain Akhtar, professor of Arabic at Delhi University. Unfortunately, this has not always been the case in many countries.
The perception of the hijab dates back to Hadith when the “verse of the hijab” descended upon the fledgling Muslim community in 627 CE. Now documented in Sura 33:53, the verse states, “And when you ask [his wives] for something, ask them from behind a partition. That is purer for your hearts and their hearts”.
The wearing of the veil has since become a contentious issue as a result of controversial interpretations that has led to its being forced on women in many places and in others, being banned. There is no end to the Hijab War.
In the 1960s and 1970s Western clothing largely dominated in Muslim countries. For example, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, women went out in public without the hijab. This changed following the Soviet Afghan War, military dictatorship in Pakistan, and the Iranian revolution of 1979, when traditional conservative attire including the abaya, jilbab and niqab made a comeback.
After the Iran Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Hijab Law was decreed. It led to protests and demonstrations by women.
However, in Turkey there has been a decline in women wearing the hijab in recent years, although under Erdoğan Turkey is becoming more conservative and Islamic.
Egypt did not pronounce any ban on the hijab, but a movement to rededicate themselves to Islamic values led some college aged Muslims to adopt the jilbab as a dress code. Soon this movement expanded outside of the youth realm and became a more widespread Muslim practice. Women viewed this way of dress as a way to both publicly announce their religious identity as well as a way to simultaneously reject western influences of dress and culture that were prevalent at the time. A case of choice.
Many people, both men and women from backgrounds of both Islamic and non-Islamic faith questioned the hijab and what it stood for in terms of women and their rights. There was questioning of whether in practice the hijab was truly by choice or by force of social coercion.
Today the hijab means many things for different people. For Islamic women who choose to wear the hijab it allows them to retain their modesty, morals, and freedom of choice.
There are a few topics that take a lot of heat when discussed. One such topic is the hijab. Is it a choice? Or a forceful compulsion on Muslim women?
Ms. Neha Saleem, who observed the hijab said: “There is no compulsion in religion. One should not force someone to wear the hijab no matter how old they are, though one can suggest it and tell them how it’s a good thing. Ultimately, though, it is a matter for the people and their own personal choices. I wear a hijab because I like covering myself and I feel protected.”
But society cages women in various lengths of cloth in the name of chastity and dignity. In a few Muslim states, hijab is not mandatory by law, but it is the society that conditions the modesty of the women in the name of the hijab. The cultural concept of hijab or modesty controls the society and freedom of women – this is so badly inculcated in the psyche that there is nothing that can be done to alter it. This cultural concept defines the modesty of women and brings the entire focus to their bodies in exactly the same way as using a woman’s naked body to sell products.
The hijab is currently required by law to be worn by women in Iran, Afghanistan, and the Indonesian province of Aceh. But it is no longer required by law in Saudi Arabia since 2018, although Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has stated that women must still wear “decent and respectful attire”.
In Gaza, Palestinian jihadists belonging to the Unified Leadership (UNLU) have rejected a hijab policy for women.
Other countries, both in Europe and in the Muslim world, have passed laws banning some or all types of hijab in public or in certain types of locales. Women in different parts of the world have also experienced unofficial pressure to wear or not wear a hijab.
The Muslim Reform Movement holds that Quran 53:33; 33:59; 24:30-31 simply meant “barrier” and that it was used in the context of both men and women; the jilbab and the khimar were pre-Islamic clothes and the Quran simply recommended how to wear these, rather than imposing a new clothing requirement.
Turkey had a ban on headscarves at universities until recently. In December 2010, however, the Turkish government ended the headscarf ban in universities, government buildings and schools.
In Tunisia, women were banned from wearing hijab in state offices in 1981 and in the 1990s, more restrictions were put in place.
In 2017, Tajikistan banned hijabs. Under existing laws, women wearing hijabs are banned from entering the country’s government offices.
On 15 March 2004, France passed a law banning “symbols or clothes through which students conspicuously display their religious affiliation” in public primary schools, middle schools, and secondary schools.
On 13 July 2010, France’s lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill banning wearing the Islamic full veil in public. It became the first European country to ban the full-face veil in public places, followed by Belgium, Latvia, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark and some cantons of Switzerland in the following years.
In 2016, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s supervising judicial authority upheld a ban on wearing Islamic headscarves in courts and legal institutions, despite protests from the Muslim community that constitutes 40% of the country.
The blatant sexualization of the body in both cases causes women to be perceived as nothing more than a source of temptation, pleasure, and sin. Owing to such notions, when a girl is little, she has to be dressed in a ‘modest’ way, during her adolescence she is forced to wear a dupatta and finally as a grown woman, she knows her position lies behind the hijab.
Considering the verse in Qur’an 24:31, which states that they should cover their “adornments” and not show them to strangers outside the family, it can be thought that the Qur’an introduces a new scale of chastity in the public sphere. This has become a veritable weapon in the hands of Talibanic Islamists who now interpret it as Allah’s enforcement of the hijab on women: A practice which Afghanistan and Iran have today carried to a notorious level, abridging the fundamental rights of women. A sad irony to a supposed religion of peace, equality, and freedom.
In India, Muslim women are allowed to wear the hijab and/or burqa anytime, anywhere. However, in January 2022, a number of colleges in the South Indian state of Karnataka stopped female students wearing hijab from entering the campus following the state government circular banning ‘religious clothes’ in educational institutions where uniforms are prescribed. This led to the celebrated Karnataka High Court case of 15 March 2022. The Court, in a verdict, upheld the hijab ban in educational institutions where uniforms are prescribed, arguing that “the practice is non-essential in Islam.”
Among the issues raised are: What is the ambit and scope of essential religious practices? Is the wearing of a headscarf an essential religious practice? An essential part of a religion means the core beliefs upon which a religion is founded. It is upon the cornerstone of essential parts or practices that the superstructure of a religion is built, without which a religion will be no religion. If taking away that part or practice results in a fundamental change in the character of that religion or in its belief, then such part could be treated as an essential or integral part of the religion. We may then ask: Is the wearing of the Hijab an essential part of the religion of Islam? This is the litmus test.
Wearing a hijab may be a practice, it may be an ideal or a permissible practice, but to raise it to the level of an essential religious practice, something more is required. It has to be shown that if the headscarf is not worn, the identity of the person as a believer in the faith itself would be jeopardized.
It could be argued that wearing of a headscarf may be a religious practice but is not essential to the religion as non-following of such practice would not lead a believer to be non-Muslim. The essential religious practices are those practices, if not followed, would render the person religion-less.
In this vein, it is worth considering the issue of wives for example. The Muslim law permits marrying four women. Personal law nowhere mandates or dictates it as a duty to perform four marriages. No religious scripture or authority provides that marrying less than four women or abstaining from procreating a child from each and every wife in case of permitted bigamy or polygamy would be irreligious or offensive to the dictates of the religion.
The Five Pillars of Islam are: Profession of Faith (shahada). The belief that “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God”; Prayer (salat). Alms (zakat); Fasting (sawm) and Pilgrimage (hajj).
We must not end this sermon without reference to what is happening in Afghanistan. Today, nobody would call what is going on in Afghanistan Sharia, the dictates of hadith nor define it as based on any known Islamic injunction. It is not only a blatant travesty of Islam but also an abuse of fundamental human rights of the female gender.
How can they be more Muslim than the holy Prophet? Afghanistan is everything bad about Islamic fundamentalism. It is not Islam, but religion gone awry.
The veil by whatever name it is called should be by choice and not by force. Secondly, being a choice, society should stop making political weapons out of it by banning it in whatever guise.
Barka Juma’at and happy weekend
