Across the Muslim world, the controversy over female attire is creating a deep divide: one side encourages less extreme positions on the traditional burqa, and another side wants to uphold religious views on covering women head to toe. Digital Journal explores the contentious issue.
Digital Journal — In Lahore, Pakistan, the government has banned a play. But this isn’t just any piece of theatrical expression; Burkavaganza satirizes the misuse and double standard of the burqa, the thick outer garment cloaking a Muslim woman’s body. The Pakistani government denounced the play, claiming it infringed upon the Blasphemy Law.
But the theatre group fought back against the ban. “Such moves give extremist elements in society more room to continue their subversive activities,” it said in a statement.
The ongoing Burkavaganza issue is merely one example of what kind of freedoms are at stake with how women are clothed in Muslim society. What is often taken for granted in North America — the ability to wear what we please — has divided countries, neighbours, opinions.
An article from the Economist highlighted the perspectives from both camps:
Turkey and Tunisia are at one end of the Muslim spectrum; both ban female civil servants, as well as students in state schools, from covering their hair. One Turkish judge was nearly assassinated after decreeing that teachers could not wear scarves even on their way to work. But in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the rules go the other way. No woman may appear in public with more than face and hands exposed.
The author pointed out how Iran is busy with its spring campaign to enforce dress codes by prowling parks and shopping malls. The crackdown comes at a time where Iranian women are relaxing the rules of what they wear: female trousers are getting shorter, and some women have been spotted wearing make-up under the coat covering their upper body.
The enforcement is heartily supported by the Iranian government. The head of Women’s Affairs in Education Ministry, Zahra Soweizi, recently said: “Those who leave the cycle of Islamic dress and veiling are in the territory of animals.”
Why such extreme positions? One editorial suggests the body-covering mandate “is not about militancy or oppression as it has been argued in the Western world. Rather it is about love for God, personal piety and a focus on spiritual self-development.” The editorial goes on to explain how clothing like the hijab makes it clear “women are very precious creatures” who only display their beauty for their loved ones:
Just as a short skirt can send the signal that the wearer is available to men, so the hijab signals, loud and clear: I am forbidden to you.
The female headdress is also dividing Turkey, whose potential First Lady never takes off a headscarf in public. Hayrunisa Gul, whose husband Abdullah Gul was picked as the ruling party’s choice for President, is being critiqued for reversing Turkish law reform that saw its extreme position on female attire soften. This time, wearing a headscarf all the time is fuelling anger and controversy.
As Euronews.com reports,
Analysts say Mrs Gul’s insistence on wearing the headscarf is a ‘going back’ on reforms spearheaded by Turkey’s secularist founder President Mustafa Atatürk in the 1920s to encourage women to discard the veil and enter public life.
It’s difficult to trace exactly what sparked religious fervor over the burqa and hajib. Some people point to a passage in the Koran that reads:
Enjoin believing women to turn their eyes away from temptation and to preserve their chastity; not to display their adornments (except such as are normally revealed); to draw their veils over their bosoms and not to display their finery…
Does “finery” extend to wrists and ankles? Should a woman “preserve her chastity” by wearing black cloaks in the dead of summer? Or is this one of last vestiges of religious sanctity upheld by a culture aiming to preserve its history?
Those questions will continue to rumble through the Middle East, continuing to quake over the earth of women and modernizing times.
