Hijab, Muslim Women and the Question of Choice
By
Arshad Alam, New Age Islam
2 February
2022
Many
Muslim Women Reject The Hijab As An Imposition Of Antediluvian Religious
Morality
Main
Points:
1. Through the
World Hijab Day, the veil is being promoted as a question of choice and
freedom.
2. The event
has support of various Islamist organizations.
3. Secular
reasons in favour of the hijab are now being adduced which are all bogus.
4. The prime
reason for the adoption of the veil is religious as it is commanded in the
scriptures.
5. And the
scriptures do not mention the veil in relation to freedom or choice.
6. It is good
that such events are now being resisted by Muslim women themselves.
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February
the 1st is promoted as the World Hijab Day by groups of Muslim women.
Initially, the location of such women was in a couple of western countries but
now the ‘movement’ has acquired a global momentum with women from the Muslim
south also participating enthusiastically in the event. For diasporic women,
the impulse seemed to be to normalize the hijab within western countries. They
argued that women’s bodies should not be policed: that wherein there was a lot
of pressure on European and American women to look and dress in a ‘particular
way’ but then this desire to conform to the male gaze was never being
questioned as an imposition. So, if women were free to choose the bikini, they
should also be free to don the veil. The veil, therefore, got promoted as a
question of exercising choice over Muslim women’s bodies. The numbers that were
advocating for the veil was a miniscule fraction of Muslim women living in the
west. Most ignored the calls or were indifferent to it.
But the
matter did not rest there. Today the event draws thousands of Muslim women
advocating the use of veil by positing it as choice and freedom. But that’s not
all; the event now extends to non-Muslim women too with Muslims inviting them
to experience the ‘freedom’ that comes along with the veil. Today the event
cannot be said to be a quaint little affair which earlier invoked a quaint
curiosity but is now fed by multiple Islamic and Islamist organizations across
the globe who want to promote the “Muslim way of life”. And they think that the
best possible way to showcase this particular way of life is through the veil.
Like any right-wing movement, Islamism also targets women’s bodies and
movements to promulgate their vision of society.
There are a
number of reasons which are adduced in favour of the veil. All of them are
bogus and do not stand to scrutiny. It is said that the veil lends respect and
honor to women by marking them off as someone to be “protected”. On certain
Arabic channels, it is not unusual for men to compare unveiled women to naked
“pieces of meat”. Veiled women are compared to “precious fruits” while unveiled
women are those who have no “value”. But as we can notice, this conversation,
which mostly excludes female voices, is basically about a particular fantasy of
Muslim men rather than about protecting women. Women are desirable only to the
extent that they remain the absolute sexual property of men; therefore only
“they” should see the women according to their desire. What escapes the minds
of these gentlemen that the way in which they are looking at women is itself
problematic. Women do not need to be covered up in order to respected and
honoured. For that to happen, she just needs to be treated as a fellow and
equal human being. It is not the veil which gives women honour; rather those
societies which enforce the veil or burqa also happen to be the most regressive
countries.
Another
argument that is given in favour of the veil is that it protects women from
unwanted male attention and hence is a deterrent against sexual violence. This
kind of reasoning again puts the blame on the victim. Rather than reforming
men, it in fact argues that women invite violence on themselves by being
unveiled. Moreover, there is no evidence to prove that in societies which
enforce the veil or the burqa, there are negligible instances of violence
against women. In fact, the obverse may be true. Violence is so endemic in such
places that women lack the courage to report such instances otherwise they
themselves become the object of ridicule and harassment.
Such
arguments in defence of the veil therefore lack any substance. Instead of
saying clearly and expressly that veil is a commandment of the Islamic
religion, Muslims are trying to find secular reasons to justify it. But it just
doesn’t convince anyone. That the veil is commanded in the Quran can be gleaned
from the following verse:
“And
tell the believing women that they should lower their glances, guard their
private parts and not display their charms beyond what is acceptable to reveal;
they should let their headscarves fall to cover their necklines and not reveal
their charms except to their husband, father, husband’s father, son, husband’s
son, slaves, male attendants who have no sexual desire or children unaware of a
women’s nudity; they must not stamp feet to draw attention to any hidden
charm.” (Q 24:31)
It is clear
from the above verse that women are expected to be “modest” in Islam and the
prescribed way for doing so is to put on the veil. What is also apparent from
the verse and many of the hadiths is that women are considered as the source of
male temptation; that it is they who through their charm entice Muslim men. And
according to the writers of the scriptures, the best way to curb such
temptation was to cover up women. What is the fault of Ashraf Ali Thanwi when
he advises Muslim women in his Beheshti Zewar to talk in hushed tone so that
their voices are not heard by unrelated men and become a cause of temptation!
For this is what the standard Islamic tradition thinks of women: as someone
without any individuality and agency whose sole purpose is to please men and
procreate. The very fact that Islamic jurisprudence considers the testimony of
two women as equal to one man proves that the religion treats them as deficient
and inferior to men.
Coming from
such a theological context, the argument that hijab is freedom and choice does
not seem convincing at all. Moreover, all such women and allied organizations
never argue that Muslims should also have the freedom and choice not to wear
the veil. There is all round silence from such groups when the veil is forced
by Islamic regimes in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran and Aceh.
It is
heartening that Muslim women are themselves resisting such characterization of
the veil and rejecting it as a fabric of oppression and imposition. In contrast
to the ‘World Hijab Day’, we now also have ‘No Hijab Day’ which highlights how
this piece of garment has become synonymous with the docility and sexualisation
of Muslim women.
It is very
convenient for Muslim women located in the west to fetishize and celebrate the
hijab; but a very different story in the global south where hijab and purdah
have become synonymous with masculine Islamist violence.
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A
regular columnist with NewAgeIslam.com, Arshad Alam is a writer and researcher
on Islam and Muslims in South Asia.
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