Islam without veil

Imported from The Jakarta Post : Islam without veil

Islam without veil

Al Makin, Yogyakarta | Tue, 07/27/2010 9:36 AM | Opinion

Since the recent controversy surrounding the French government’s ban on total face coverings (burqa or niqab), the head scarf issue has once again attracted the world’s attention.

Indeed, only very few Muslim women cover their face completely, which is a reflection of the attitude preached by Sayed al Tantawi, an imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo, who boldly stated that total face coverings are not in accordance with Islamic teachings.

It is therefore not surprising that the education ministry in Syria, a Muslim majority country, has also issued a ban on niqab in all state and private universities.

Looking at classical Islamic literature, one will discover that this piece of cloth was never a serious subject of discussion among Muslim jurists, historians, philosophers, theologians nor any other thinkers.

There are much more important issues to discuss than paying attention to whether women’s heads should be covered or left bare.

The headscarf issue, which has served a symbol of new Islamic revivalism, is new.

The Koran itself never explicitly mentions that women should cover their hair.  Nor is there clear guidance on what parts of women’s bodies should be covered with what kind of cloth.
Covering women’s heads with only their faces showing, is part of more recent Islamic conservatism, which has recently penetrated almost all aspects of Indonesian Muslims’ lives.
Indonesian women, however, have proven themselves to be creative in making the veil into more of a fashion statement that a symbol of conservatism.

Girls in campuses and malls have combined the article with modern trends. Ironically, some headscarf clad women can be found wearing trendy outfits accentuating the female form.
Those who are in favor of wearing hijab head scarves justify their ideology, which they consider as a religious duty, by exploiting the interpretation of verses 33:59 and 24:31 of the Koran.

The remainder of the argument rests on unclear Prophetic traditions in the Hadith, whose meanings are then violated. The contexts are forgotten and their main messages are abandoned. The focus of attention is paid to whether there is a piece of cloth covering a woman’s head. They are selective in choosing the part of the tradition that supports their argument.

We may question why they are so concerned with two verses out of more than 6,000 verses in 114 chapters of the Koran. Six years ago in Ciputat, Tangerang, Banten, in a conversation my colleague, Prof. Abdullah Saeed, a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia, wondered that Muslims did not pay enough attention to the prohibition of lying which occurs in almost every chapter of the Koran.

Paradoxically, the unclear message of wearing head scarves in only two verses of the whole Scripture becomes a heated subject of debate among Muslims.

Of course, wearing a headscarf is neither a theme of philosophical nor of theological discussion. It can perhaps be inserted in Islamic law, although its place is marginal. Head scarves are certainly items of modern fashion that have become prevalent in Muslim communities.

“Looking at classical Islamic literature, one will discover that this piece of cloth was never a serious subject of discussion among Muslim jurists, nor any other thinkers.”

It is of course a product of culture. Studies show that many women have their own various reasons to wear a headscarf — be they religious, personal, or fashionable. Additionally, wearing a headscarf is obligated by certain institutions, supported by parents, or friends.
On the other hand, covering head is also an old tradition, older than Islam itself. Images of women covering their heads have been found connected to Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek and Byzantine cultures.

Many classical works show that important female figures, such as the Virgin Mary, covered their heads with cloth. Note that men also wore headscarves — a fashion which is less popular now, except in the Arab countries.

Indonesian thinkers, i.e. Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid “Gus Dur”, whom we should be proud of, warned us that we should distinguish between the spirit of Islam and Arab culture, the context in which Islam was born. Sukarno, when he was young, once condemned the segregation of men and women in public forums.

In understanding Islam, Sukarno often called upon Indonesians to take the fire (the spirit), not the ashes (unessential elements).

Without doubt, the headscarf issue is not the fire. It is a part of recent revivalism whose advocates adopted the headscarf as a symbol and “identity”, indicating their unpreparedness in facing the challenge of globalization. They are worried of being lost in the wilds of the global market and feel the need to distinguish themselves.

Since the 1990s in Indonesia, the veil has dominated the public and at times buried our “identity”. In campuses, streets, supermarket, vehicles, the hijab has become a trend.

Fewer people wear traditional ethnic clothes even in ceremonies. We often see weddings with grooms and brides who preferred “religious dresses” to traditional ethnic garb.

In fact, to wear veil, or not to wear veil, does not indicate the quality of our piety. It is purely fashion. Traditionally, Indonesian Islam was never hidden behind a veil.


The writer is a lecturer at the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta.

To veil or not to veil

Imported from The Jakarta Post

To veil or not to veil, Islamic women face tough choices

Dina Indrasafitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 08/26/2010 9:40 AM | National

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When Wina decided to shed her jilbab, the headscarf symbolizing, for most people, a woman’s commitment to Islam, her husband commented, “It’s up to you, but it’s degrading.”

She said some of her colleagues at work started gossiping and were cynical toward her following her decision to remove the scarf after three years wearing it.

Wina, a thirty something Jakarta resident, had been one of the subjects in the book “Psychology of Fashion”: Fenomena Perempuan Melepas Jilbab (Psychology of Fashion: The Phenomenon of Women Removing Their Jilbab), launched Tuesday in Jakarta.

The author, Juneman, a psychologist from the University of Persada Indonesia, interviewed three other women who also decided to shed their headscarves.

The choice was often met with shock and criticism — some soft and others openly harsh — from their friends and family.

Intan, a citizen from West Java, said she had a long argument with her mother after deciding to take off her veil and said her mother accused her of being “wishy-washy”.

In the book, Intan recalled her mother’s words: “See? I told you so. You didn’t have to [wear a jilbab] now you’re embarrassed, right?”

The book revealed that social institutions and peer groups often play a large part in influencing a woman’s decision to wear the Islamic head-scarf. And they are quick to react to women’s decision to remove it regardless of the fact that such a decision is a private one.

“I often get comments on my Facebook page, saying that I would look prettier in a jilbab ,” said Tia — not her real name — who attended the book launch.

The woman in her thirties said that despite similar nudges from friends and colleagues, she would still put off donning a scarf.

Four of the women in the book said they were encouraged to wear the head scarf by institutions such as religious organizations and schools, and by male figures.

Intan in particular recalled her public junior high school teacher teaching students that women who refused to wear the jilbab were bound to hell.

The women interviewed in the book shared their various reasons behind their decision to remove their jilbabs. Tari from West Java was disillusioned by the election process for the head of the women’s division of her campus’ religious group. She said rumor was rife that candidates had to wear the very conservative hijab, which covers more than just the head and shoulders.

“This is not right. How come a woman’s worth is judged by the size of her jilbab,” she said.

Lanni from East Java said that one of her reasons was having her heart broken by the man who encouraged her to wear a jilbab. While for Intan, studying Hindu and Buddhist philosophy during college had been one of the antecedents.

Juneman said the reason to shed the jilbab fell into two categories: the feeling that one is not “enlightened” or pious enough to wear one, or, on the contrary, feeling that they are already enlightened thus felt that the attire was unnecessary.

Three of the women said they felt more comfortable after taking off their jilbabs, and two said they may return to wearing the headscarf again in the future.

All of the four women had finished undergraduate degrees and were living in major cities when Juneman conducted the book’s research in 2007. When he first announced he needed subjects for the research over the Internet, more than 10 women expressed their interest over the one month waiting period.

“The nature of this research [qualitative], is not a representative one,” Juneman said.

Siti Musdah Mulia of the Conference For Religion and Peace said that it was only after the 1980s
that jilbabs became a major phenomenon in Indonesia, and the movement had grown more significantly in public schools rather than religious ones.

“For pesantren [Islamic boarding school] students, the headscarf was just considered as part of the uniform, there were no talks of hell for those not wearing jilbabs there,”
she said.

Siti added that there were other changing habits regarding how people viewed religion. For example, in the past there were no unwritten rules that lectures should pause during the call to prayer.

She illustrated less rigid methods of wearing jilbab that she encountered during her student days at a university in Cairo.

“Some female students only put on their scarves in class,” Siti said.

Some regions, which won autonomy since the fall of Soeharto’s centralist government, have imposed Islamic dress codes on women.

In some regions, such as several parts of Aceh, failure to adhere to these codes can lead to punishment under sharia law.