Hijab: an issue of global concern for the Islamic movement

The west routinely accuses Islam of oppressing women, and the issue of hijab is at the forefront of this propaganda attack. AISHA GEISSINGER explores some of the implications of this issue for the Islamic movement.

Nuray Canan Bezirgan, a medical student at Istanbul University, was sentenced to six months in jail last May because she wore a head-scarf to her exams. The sentence was later commuted to a fine. The constant demonisation of hijab in the Turkish media, as well as the expulsion of women wearing scarves from schools and government jobs, has failed to deter educated Turkish women from donning Islamic dress, so the government is raising the stakes further by threatening such women with prison.

Last April, a student in Kuwait was accosted by three men in the street and asked why she was not wearing hijab. When she answered that it was not their business, they reportedly beat her and broke her arm. The Kuwaiti government announced that the vigilantes would be punished, and feminists around the world expressed concern that ‘extremism’ is threatening Kuwaiti women.

The ‘international community’ tends to see the Kuwaiti student rather than the Turkish one as the typical example of the relationship between Islamic dress and ‘human rights’. Hijab is usually represented as a dress forced on women by men, in order to marginalize them. In most cases, when hijab is discussed in relation to ‘human rights’, the issue under discussion is countries or regions where women are either legally compelled to wear it, or are under strong social pressure to do so. Hijab is often portrayed as part of a ‘fundamentalist’ plot to imprison women, starting with an apparently innocuous head-scarf, progressing to black robes and face-veils, going on to severe limitations on education and employment, and ending with virtual house arrest. Apparently, in the same way as children are prevented from playing with matches because they cannot appreciate the danger involved, Muslim women likewise need heavy-handed guidance in order to protect them from hijab.

Muslims have little role in the ‘international community’s’ discourse on hijab. Efforts by Muslims to raise the issue of discrimination against hijab-wearing women tend to be seen as frivolous. It is often implied that Muslim women living in countries where they are not compelled to wear hijab should be grateful and not complain about any discrimination they face. (Such arguments are similar to those used to silence black South Africans opposed to apartheid: look at how much worse off black-ruled states are, and stop complaining.) Muslims are thus put on the defensive and made to feel that they must try to modify the ‘human rights’ discourse to make room for scarved women. Progress has been made in some countries in securing women’s right to wear hijab in schools and the workplace, yet discussion and analysis of the wider picture from an Islamic perspective is not often found.

Any Islamic analysis must begin with the Qur’an. There, hijab is represented as being a code of behaviour and dress that governs both men and women (24:30-31). It goes far beyond clothing and the avoidance of unnecessary mingling of the sexes. Hijab relates to privacy, safety from slander and false accusation, and prohibition of sexual exploitation. It expresses the dignity of both women and men as servants of the Most High: "...and turn to Allah together, O believers, in order that you may succeed" (24:31). Obviously, hijab relates to issues such as refugees’ rights, homelessness, working conditions, government surveillance and prison conditions. Hijab is a practice which has a wide social meaning and impact. The connections become clearer when one looks at the world situation.

In Uzbekistan men with beards and women with scarves are often harassed on the street, and sometimes arrested. In Turkey, scarves are banned in educational institutions and state offices. Students trying to get round the ban by wearing berets are also barred from school. Merve Kavakci was unable to claim her seat in parliament because she wore a scarf, and was deprived of Turkish citizenship on September 9, 1999. In Tunisia, women have lost jobs because they wear scarves. Some have been arrested, and their scarves ripped off by police. Women activists face unannounced raids by police, by day or by night, and are sometimes subjected to sexual abuse. Some women have had their passports confiscated, and face arrest if they try to leave the country. The police can demand such women divulge all sources of income, and anyone giving them financial help can be punished. Some have been compelled to divorce their husbands.

These three governments justify their actions by claiming that beards and scarves are worn by ‘terrorists’ or ‘fundamentalists.’ This not only deflects international criticism, but also implies that any Muslim speaking against these oppressive practices must also be a ‘terrorist’. However, in these three countries, Amnesty International reports that torture and sexual abuse of detainees is practised. Evidently, persecution of hijab-wearers is part of a larger picture of violation of the citizenry, not simply a ‘war against terrorism’ gone awry. Some degree of state interference has been reported in several countries in the past decade. In Malaysia, while wearing hijab is compulsory in the state of Kelantan (ruled by PAS, an Islamic party), the federal government forbids the wearing of niqab (face-veil) by government employees. Egypt experimented with forbidding schoolgirls to wear scarves unless they brought a note from their parents allowing them to do so. In northern Iraq a leftist Kurdish party, PUK, has tried to discourage scarf-wearing in schools in areas under its control. Here again, secular government interference in what women wear is presented as efforts to control ‘extremism’.

In France, the wearing of headscarves by schoolgirls was banned in 1994. It was later ruled to be "not incompatible with secular norms" and individual schools were allowed to decide whether or not to allow it. The Interior Minister denounced scarves in February 1999, claiming that they mark women as "inferior" and make integration into French society difficult. This year, several French Muslims living abroad have had difficulty renewing their passports because they submitted photos in which they were wearing scarves.

In many countries all over the world, Muslims wearing Islamic dress face problems in educational institutions, at work, in the court system, and on the streets. Problems with employment have been reported from countries as diverse as Canada, the United States, Britain, Germany, Denmark and Sri Lanka. Scarves and beards may be banned by individual schools or work-places in various countries with the excuse that they are: dirty, dangerous, against the dress code, or tend to alienate other people. Public harassment is also very common. Children may face bullying at school, which can include having their scarves pulled off.

In most such countries, Muslims are seen as an undesirable minority that does not really belong. As such, they should be unobtrusive, not conspicuous. While state laws ostensibly allow freedom of religion, in practice people often have to fight individually to be allowed to wear Islamic attire. In general, only the highly-motivated do so.

Another concern is that the discrimination hijab-wearing women face at school and in the workplace encourages the Muslim community to see the home as the only suitable place for them. A few Muslims even claim that women should live in purdah in order to avoid harassment from non-Muslims. Predictably, there is a continuing shortage of Muslim female teachers and medical personnel.

In other areas, which tend to be highlighted in the West, the wearing of hijab is compulsory. These include Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Zamfara State (in Nigeria), and Kelantan State (in Malaysia). Attacks on unscarved women have also been reported in Kuwait, Algeria and Egypt. Feminist activists in North America have focused on Afghanistan in particular. The burqa is represented as symbolizing ‘gender apartheid’, because the Taliban compel women to wear it while barring them from work and study. This symbolic misrepresentation of the burqa fosters hatred of Muslim women who wear hijab, and its effects will remain long after the West has forgotten where Afghanistan is on the map. For this reason, Muslims like to avoid this issue: why discuss it at all when everything you say will be used against you?

There is, of course, a double hypocrisy in the West’s attitude. The first is of ignoring the parallel situation of Muslims in countries that actively persecute women for wearing hijab; and the second is that Afghanistan and Iran are targeted on this issue because their governments are politically unacceptable to the West, while a similar situation in Saudi Arabia is ignored because it is an ally of the West.

In no part of the world is the right to observe hijab, as Qur’anically understood, secure. In many countries, people who dress Islamically are marginalized in education, work, and even on the street. This tends to be linked to racism or prejudice against Muslim minorities, but it also relates to anxieties about proper gender roles. In the West, and therefore in Muslim countries that aspire to be western, a woman’s role is to be on display, and women who refuse this role are viewed with suspicion. In some nations, most notably Turkey, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, the right to wear Islamic attire is limited by the state, and those who dress Islamically can be labelled as ‘fundamentalists’ and deprived of rights that other citizens enjoy. Such oppression usually occurs in a context of general repression.

In yet others, attempts are made to compel citizens to observe Islamic dress. More attention is given to appearance of being an "Islamic state" than actually enabling people to observe hijab in a holistic way, because hijab is seen primarily as a woman’s clothing rather than an approach to human relationships which preserves the dignity of all as servants of Allah ta’ala. So social issues such as homelessness, or sexual abuse of female servants, or prison conditions, along with political concerns about government invasion of people’s privacy, are regarded as peripheral, if they are regarded at all.

These are issues that the Islamic movement needs to address. The (unIslamic) view exists among some Muslims that unscarved women invite harassment (or worse). This is obviously contrary to the Qur’anic teaching that every person is individually responsible for his or her behaviour. In May of this year, a police chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, reportedly warned female students to cover their heads and avoid smiling when in the market in order to deter "criminals". When the police openly put the onus on women to avoid harassment, what message does this give to men? Many seem to think that it gives them a carte blanche to misbehave: all they need to do is find a victim whom they can accuse of being provocative.

Such attitudes put every woman under suspicion (whereas the Qur’an forbids accusation of anyone without proof). Any woman who is harassed or abused is made to feel that she caused it somehow, even if she was veiled in black from head to toe. Women’s ability and opportunities to contribute to Muslim public life become severely limited. Hijab in the fullest sense of the word becomes an expression of a favoured status intended only for a few fortunate women, while marginalized women, those who beg or are homeless or get arrested, are seen as undeserving of such respect and are therefore vulnerable to abuse by citizens and the police. Another point which needs attention is that compulsory hijab is not often accompanied by adequate educational, medical or worship facilities for women.

The Islamic movement needs to affirm that hijab is not a shelter for the privileged. Hijab needs to be considered in the social and political context of justice and dignity, and needs to be understood as something which sets limits on the behaviour of both men and women. Rather than retreating in the face of anti-hijab prejudice, and rationalizing this cowardice with claims that women belong at home anyway, it is vital to stand for the rights of women to study, work and use public space.