Jilbab: Between Chastity and Resistance

The public perceptions concerning jilbab (veil) can be approached through exploring the following type of questions. Is it a part of Arabic culture or part of a religious teaching? Is it a symbol of someone’s piety and loyalty towards religious authority or is it a symbol of resistance and affirmation of someone’s identity? Many western-oriented feminists understand it as a patriarchal phenomenon and as an indication of backwardness, and the sub-ordination and oppression of women. For instance, Fatima Mernissi criticizes the veil as merely a barrier which hides women in the public space (Woman’s Rebellion: 1996). But on the other hand, the veil is considered as a liberatory device allowing women room for negotiating public space. Thus debate over the meaning of the veil has provided an arena for contesting interpretations and a power play between normative theologians and liberal feminists over norm’s regarding taboo, aurat, chastity and privacy and also over women’s liberty.

According to Stern’s observation “The prophet Muhammad did not introduce the tradition of the veil” (1939a: 108).  Similarly, Hansen, another author, has written that seclusion and the veil were strange phenomena for Arab society and were unfamiliar in the prophet’s era. (1967: 71).  Moreover, many people argue that the veil only became important in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties (for example, see Marsot 1978: 261-276; Dengler 1978: 229-244; El Guindi 1983: 79-89). Nevertheless, the existence of the veil in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean has been documented by another author Fadwa el-Guindi (1996) and Al-Zarkasyi who also provide evidence that in several important cities in the Roman and Greek periods Muslim women wore costumes which covered all parts of the body except for one eyeball (Al-Zarkasyi: 1970).

An Iranian writer, Navabakhsh, delivers the moderate view that formerly the Qur’an did not determine when women should be isolated from the men’s milieu and that it was not a Muslim tradition practiced at the time of Prophet. Instead, Hijab at that time, was frequently associated with elite farmers and immigrants and was a pre-Islamic tradition in Syria and customary form of dress for Jews, Christians and Sassanian societies (Mustafa Hashem Sherif: 157).

The obligation of the veil is usually based on two passages in the Koran: al Nuur [24]: 31 and al-Ahzab [33]: 59. Those two verses legitimate the veil dresser’s chastity in the private and public space. Regrettably, the social context behind the verse’s revelation is rarely considered, though amongst Koranic interpreters, these two verses are understood to have been revealed after the slander of Aisyah. The slander of Aisyah’s love affair was a sensation in Muslim society in Medina and was ended by the revelation of Q.S., Al-Nur: 31 which was designed to purify Aisyah’s reputation.

Since then, other verses, al-Nur and al-Ahzab, have been shown to reveal information about dress codes in the Prophet family. In these verses, hijab and the tendency of binding the women, particularly in the Prophet’s family seems to be a reflection of the especially difficult circumstances occurring at that time. Medina had been in a long-lasting war in which the Muslims had been defeated in the battle of Uhud. This had doubled the population of widows and orphans – who were, then as now, frequently victims and objects of male desire. It was only the aristocrat women who were protected since they wore veils. Hence the use of the veil at that time was a cultural strategy for preventing the victimization of women.

In the modern context, the veil has become a symbol of identity, status, class and power. According to Crawley, dress is the most distinctive material expression of social stratification and control (Al Guindi 117). In North Africa, for example, the veil has become a means for silencing women in the public area though it also allows rural women to travel outside their home areas. (Sharma 1978: 223-4). In Yemen though, the veil is worn as a status symbol. The aristocratic women wear syarsyaf, a kind of silken, veil while the lower-class women wear plain cloth sitara. In addition, Makhlouf remarks that while the veil acts as a border to prevent communication, it is also an instrument of communication such that while wearing the veil creates an obstacle preventing woman’s free expression as an individual, it also can be used to enhance self expression and femininity (Makhlouf 1979: 31-32).

The veil has also become a symbol of liberation and resistance. As a symbol of resistance, it extends far beyond Middle Eastern society and can be found in modern Muslim societies all over the world. Resistance is a strategy to fortify either individual or communal existence. Cudjoe and Harlow define resistance as an activity planned to liberate society from oppression, and involving all aspects of experience including aesthetics as discussed below (Cudjoe dan Harlow 2000).

In Algeria for instance, the veil played an important role in the independence struggle. The French colonial system did not only suppress Islamic law but destroyed their culture and forbid the people to learn their own language. French immigrants dominated Algeria through holding all upper positions of public office and through controlling the lower sub-ordinate posts. Another strategy was to enculturate the Algerian women by suppressing local cultural practices. In this context, the veil became a colonial target of control in which they sought to force Algerian women to take their veils off in order to modernize Algeria. But this met fierce resistance as in Arabic Algerian traditional culture the family is the center of the social moral world and the women are the family’s sacred centers and sources of an Arab family’s reputation and self-respect. Maternity is viewed as sacred. Hence attacking Muslim women in order to destabilize the core of social-spiritual system met with a type of resistance which only strengthened the importance of the veil as a symbol of the Algerian struggle (El Guindi: 1996).

In Indonesia, the veil is worn by elders, by teenagers, by government officials and ordinary citizens, by actresses and even by prostitutes. Of course, it is a deeply meaningful symbol. On one hand, the veil is a dress code, or uniform worn by religious students especially those who come from Islamic boarding schools. On the other hand, it is a form of dress normally worn while praying, during Qur’anic readings, condolence visits and during weddings though it is not worn in the course of normal daily activities.

In the ‘eighties, thousands of veiled students occupied the streets of big cities to protest the Minister of Education and Culture’s policy forbidding the use of veils in public schools. They wanted to uphold their Islamic identity by instituting the use of the veil as a tradition. For these women, wearing the veil is more than just an obligation—it serves as a cultural symbol which distinguishes their community (santri/religious student) from other communities (abangan and non-Muslim).

The celebrities are especially keen to cover their heads with veils during Ramadan. Surely for them wearing the veil has no relation to religious piety or loyalty because as soon as the holy month is over they take the veil off. For them wearing a veil is arguably a strategy to further their material profit through expressing their spirituality. In Nangroe Aceh Darussalam, the prostitutes hide their identity by wearing veils (Lily Munir, 2002). Considered to be disgraceful, filthy people who spurn morality they seek a symbol to resist these stereotypes. By wearing veils, they seek acceptance and respect from society. As a consequence, it is incorrect to generalize that veiled women are chaste, good mannered and pious and that unveiled woman are dirty, ill mannered, and impious.

To conclude briefly, historically the veil has many meanings. It is more than a mere religious outfit. At times the veil becomes an ideological symbol for a certain community, for example, becoming an indicator of social stratification, a symbol for gender segregation, a symbol for patriarchy, or a symbol of women’s role in society. Thus wearing the veil is a plural phenomenon having several layers of meaning and functioning in many different contexts. The matter of the veil is no longer an issue of something to be allowed or disallowed, wajib-mubah, haram-halal, ethical or not. It is above all an important symbol the meaning of which very much depends on who wears it.

Sri Rahayu Arman, Activist of FAJAR (Front Advokasi dan Jaringan Perempuan), Jakarta.

(Translated by Lanny Octavia, edited by Jonathan Zilberg)