On Niqab

An argument I had years ago – while I still wore hijab - on the Cairo subway with a woman who wore niqab helped seal for good my refusal to defend the niqab.

The woman, dressed in black from head to toe, began by asking me why I did not wear the niqab. I pointed to my headscarf and asked her “Is this not enough?”

I will never forget her answer.

“If you wanted a piece of candy, would you choose an unwrapped piece or one that came in a wrapper?” she asked.

“I am not candy,” I answered. “Women are not candy.”

 

Faith is dressed in tribal garb as Muslims debate British ruling on niqab

 

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Many such arguments are taught to girls in schools in Saudi Arabia. For example, a woman in a “veil” (which in Saudi is defined as totally covered in black) is like a pearl, protected and hidden below the sea water and hard to get, while a woman not wearing a veil is like a flower that anyone can enjoy looking at and anyone can pick, enjoy for a bit, then throw away. I believe the metaphor and the argument behind it are valid within the frame of mind and set of assumptions that these educators are working, i.e. women’s role and purpose in society. But as Eltahawy says: “Women are not candy”! Once we change the assumption of the source of a woman’s value to who she is as a person (i.e. we start assuming she’s a person and measure her value as that), whether she’s a hidden below the sea or not becomes irrelevant. It is only relevant whether or not she’s hidden if, like our educators, we assume that women are there to be enjoyed by men. They say that Western cultures degrade women because it makes them objects to be enjoyed by men. Well, those educators are making the same mistake and making the same assumption! A woman is not a piece of candy, she is not a pearl, and she is not a flower; she is a person!

 

I had an argument the other day with my mother about this particular issue. She was saying that acceptable norms of clothing in Islam depends on society and so in a place like Saudi woman must wear niqab or cover their faces and wear abbayas where as in the US they only have to cover their hair (I call this the Subjectivity argument). Ok, I will not dispute the idea that Islam is flexible and its laws change with time and situation. However, in this particular instance, there is a clear circularity in the argument. Why would Saudi society assume (and be used to) women covering their face if women weren’t required to in the first place. One might point that it depends on culture, i.e. in Bedouin culture woman cover their faces and Saudi culture is based on that norm and so Islam follows that. Under this argument, women in the US shouldn’t cover their faces. The problem is Saudi-exported interpretations of Islam tells women to cover their faces in the US. So why is the same argument used in Saudi (to cover women from head to toe) but isn’t used with women in the US? Maybe it’s just hypocrisy. I may use the same argument to wonder why do women have to cover their hair in the US when, if anything, a woman covering her hair gets more attention than a woman that isn’t, everything else being equal. I could argue that it is haram because everyone would be looking at her and she would draw so much attention that she would be a “flower” when covering her hair and a “pearl” without the cover.

 

There are many reasons why it is better for society to ban face covers. The clearest of these reasons is for security! How in the world am I supposed to know who’s under that cover? If I am a police officer and there’s a female serial killer and someone saw her face and gave descriptions, how am I supposed to find her if every woman is covering her face?

 

I’m not debating whether or not women should cover their hair in Islam, I’m just saying that the Subjectivity argument is flawed, at least the way it is used. I am also saying that a lot of the arguments being made are based on false assumptions and we often start debating the argument and forget about the assumptions, such as the “flower & pearl” case. And I am also saying that it’s not only wrong and degrading to woman to require them to cover their faces, but it is also dangerous. It is so dangerous, I believe, that it should be illegal.