Introduction to Headscarf and Veiling

Signs, 2008

2017

Chapter 1: Law, power and the Muslim female dressed body…………………..………………15 1.1 The veil and Islamic law………………………………………………………….………………………………20 1.2 The Veil and Muslim cultures…………………………………………………….…………………………..33 1.3 Imagining nations, imagining women: the regulation of female clothes in the era of nations………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………..44 1.4 Regulating clothes, regulating subjectivities……………………………………….………………….59 Chapter 2: Setting the scene: Unveiling 'political Islam'…………………….……………………..72 2.1 Shari'a Law and Islamic legal sources……………………………………………………………………..78 2.2 Islamic law and the assimilation of the monotheistic frame of mind………………………85 2.3 From Imperial Islam to Islamist movements: towards a 'secularization of Islam'……98 2.4 The dissimilar mirror of the West……………………………………………………….……………….114 Chapter 3: The 'humanity' of the secular legal subject ……………………………………………125 3.1 The western/Christian/secular subject of law……………………………………………………….130 3.2 The 'humane' subject of law………………………………………………………………………………...139 3.3 Revealing paradoxes: Sahin, Dahlab, Shabina and the others…………………….…………151 3.4 Reconfiguring religion and religious practices in the secular space………………….……170 Chapter 4: The veil that reveals………………………………………………………………….…………..179 4.1 On Freedom and Agency: an East/West Perspective….…………………………………………185 4.2 The Symbology of 'otherness'………………………………………………………………………………209

An Indian-born American writer argues that a Muslim woman’s headscarf, or hijab, is a symbol of male oppression and “obsession with virginity.” The writer appears to me to have picked up this Islamophobic prejudice in the West. Head covering, I point out, was in vogue among Persian and Byzantine women long before the birth of Islam. Middle Eastern women have been wearing the hijab since time immemorial because it protects their long hair from being messed up by desert sand, and their faces from getting burned by extremely hot sun. Arab women continued this practice under Islam, making it part of the Islamic dress code. Also, many Muslim women around the world wear the hijab as a symbol of their Muslim identity and pride in the Islamic civilization. Western colonialism, continual Western invasion and occupation of Muslim lands, and Western support for repressive Muslim autocracies have heightened Muslims’ sense of identity and self-worth. Increasing use of the hijab and other Islamic symbols reflect this consciousness.

2008

This article is based on a monographic field study, which was conducted in October 2007. In addition, the results of other studies on the headscarf issue conducted at different times between 2003 and 2007 have also been used to follow the development over the course of time. The study found that the headscarf prohibition has no strong social basis. As it would be a mistake to see the headscarf prohibition as an element of the secularism project, defining an ideology on the basis of the headscarf, an important religious symbol in Turkey, presents a risk to the progress of democracy, and only serves to increase political polarization. Formulating public policies on the basis of the headscarf prohibition will only help destroy social peace. Social engineering projects which aim to change or destroy political, religious and ethnic positions of citizens are not permitted in Western-type contemporary democracies. There is no headscarf problem in Turkey in a sociological sense, the real problem lies in the totalitarian/authoritarian approach which stems from groundless fears and/or ideological choices of the social elite or economic power centers. JEL Classification Codes: D71, D79. there is at least one woman wearing headscarf in 77.2% of families; 64.2% of women aged 18 and above cover their heads in social life and the number of women wearing headscarf increases considerably in older age. 2 Nilüfer Göle claims that discussions regarding the relationship between the public sphere and Islam are conducted around the issue of women's place in society. 3 Debates on the headscarf or hijab cover a wide variety of aspects: religious obligation, oppression of women, religious extremism, political symbolism, evidence of the failed integration of immigrants, the relationship with terrorism, human rights perspectives, freedom of religion, political rights and civil freedoms, gender discrimination, minority rights and cultural rights, and secularism and neutrality are the most prominent debates.

Del Fabbro, Roswitha, Frederick Mario Fales, and Hannes D. Galter. ‘Headscarf and Veiling Glimpses from Sumer to Islam’. Antichistica 30. Venezia, 2021

The discussions about the use of headscarves and veils shape the living conditions of Muslim women in the Middle East and in Europe to this day. To overcome this situation, a thorough and dispassionate documentation of the cultural history of veiling is necessary. This paper will give a short overview of the long history of veiling and it will deal in detail with five different aspects of this phenomenon and with the various connections between Europe and the Middle East: the relationship between death and the veil in the Ancient Near East; the veil in early Christianity; the hair as an erotic symbol in the Ancient Near East; the traditional costume of the Transylvanian Saxons as a European example of the use of veils and the veil of mystery.

Abstract: The hijab controversy is really about the ‘choice’ of wearing the hijab for a Muslim woman and perhaps why she cannot be trusted to make this decision herself. One has to understand the religious significance of the practice including what is written in the Quran and then how it is widely interpreted including Sharia Law and second, depending on one’s own particular stance on the world, one then has to weigh in with cultural, political and personal viewpoints that can influence the debate. If feminism is about empowering women to make their own choices, when then have some ‘progressive’ cultures taken her right to decide away? One can only speculate that these North American and European cultures must not actually believe their women are capable of deciding for themselves. Meanwhile, researches indicated that the media bombards the public by constantly emphasizing the difference between Western and Islamic cultures, using the headscarf (hijab) as a main symbol of the culture clash. Because this particular practice in Islam appears to centre on women, it is easy to focus on the status of women in Islam as the main issue, especially because it varies so widely across the world. Key words: (headscarf), Islam, Sociology of religion, Muslim women, Islamic culture, feminism

New Perspectives Quarterly, 2008

İhya Uluslararası İslam Araştırmaları Dergisi- İhya International of Islamic Studies, 2022

The headscarf, as a visible symbol of Islam, has aroused a great deal of scholarly investigation and debate about the meaning of the headscarf and veiled women's experiences. However, there have been few studies related to the headscarf and Muslim women on university campuses in the United States. This study focuses on veiled Muslim female students from different nationalities attending the University of Houston. The study examines the main reasons related to the students' decision for wearing the headscarf and the effect cultural background has on this decision and their experiences. The interview data of 28 veiled Muslim students of different nationalities indicated that although religious belief contributed as a main factor in the decision to wear the headscarf, for many participants' cultural background and social environment played significant roles in both their decision and conceptualization of wearing the headscarf. Full article: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ihya/issue/68088/1013255