Institution Of Veil In Islam ;A Religious compulsion or Cultural Choice?

 

Introduction 

Although long seen as the most distinctive emblem of Islam ,and the most controversial matter in the wake of faminism" the veil" we often see around on social media pictures of edibles, cars covering or wraping just to emphasize the veil and enforce it on women and what not? I always doubted the understanding of basic and in depth islamic knowledge of such people who budge around every woman and try to degrade her for her veil  dressing choices .And that's why i always wanted to research thoroughly to understand the reality, compulsion and to bust the myths related to veil in islam. I have been reading and researching its been more than a year. For that matter i am going to write down what i have learned and what i could make out from the historical perspective and how it has become a reason to oppress himiliate, judge and victim blaming in our contemporary muslim societies. And i will provide references in the end of this blogpost. 

Background And Adoption Of Hijab

Surprisingly, not enjoined upon Muslim women anywhere in the Quran ,the traditional of veiling and seclusion ( known together as hijab) was introduced into Arabia long before Prophet Muhammad PBUH, primarily through Arab contacts with Syria and Iran, where the hijab was a sign of social status. After all, only a woman who need not work in the fields could afford to remain secluded and veiled. Same is the case now .

In the Ummah there was no tradition of veiling until around 627 C.E. When Prophet married to Hazrat Zainab R.A ,who was the ex wife of Zayd Bin Harith the adopted son of Prophet ,then shortly after that Nikkah ,Verses of the curtain ,which decreed that Muhammad's wives must be secluded from the rest of the umma .Muslim traditions explain the introduction of the hijab ,which is usually translated as the veil in various ways .Some says that it was Umar, who had aggressively chauvinist views, who urged Muhammad to seclude his wives from view by means of a curtain. There had recently been unpleasant incidents when hypocrites had insulted Muhammad's wives from as they went out at night to relieve themselves .Others say that as Muhammad became more important and more aware of life in the civilised countries ,he wanted to adopt the Persian and Byzantine custom of secluding women of the upper classes as a mark of his wives' new dignity. All, however ,point out that sexual morality was lax in Arabia during the pre- Islamic period .There tended to be a great deal of indecent talk and innuendo and a great deal of flirting and propositioning. In traditional society ,a sexual scandal can be extremely serious and arouse strong emotions in community .Muhammad was probably well aware that Ibn Ubbay and his supporters would be delighted to damage the Muslim cause by pointing to a disgrace in his own family.

It is said that at Zaynab's wedding feast ,some of the guests stayed too long and made a nuisance of themselves .This prompted a revealation which put some distance between Muhammad's family and the rest of the umma. So this Ayah is as

'Believers, do not enter the houses of the Prophet for a meal without waiting for  the proper time ,unless you are given leave .But if you are invited, enter ;and when you have eaten, disperse .Do not engage in familiar talk, for this would annoy Muhammad and he would be ashamed to bid you go, but of the truth, ALLAH is not ashamed .If you ask his wives for anything ,speak to them from behind a curtain(hijab).This is more chaste for your hearts and their hearts."

This restriction makes perfect sense when recalled that Muhammad had no room of his own at the mosque; he simply slept in the apartments of His wives ,But as He became more important in Madina his home  inevitably became a public place, as more and more people came to consult him about their personal and religious problems or asked him to arbitrate a dispute. Some muslims used to approach him through his wives ,in the hope of getting his ear ,for example Ayesha was known to have several chats with a particular guy ,which people remembered later when a scandal broke out that threatened to split the Ummah down the middled. The hijab or curtain was  not intended to be an oppressive measure/It was designed to prevent a scandulous situation developing which Muhammad's enemies could use to discredit him. People were constantly coming in and out of this compound at all hours of the day. When delegations from other tribes came to speak with Muhammad ,they would set up their tents for days at a time inside the open courtyard ,just a few feet away from the apartments where wives of Prophet slept. And new migrants who arrived in Yathrib would often stay within the mosque's walls until they could find suitable homes.

When Muhammad was little more than a tribal Sheikh ,this constant commotion could be tolerated. But by the year 627 ,when he had become the supremely powerful leader of an increasingly expanding community ,some kind of segregation had to be enforced to maintain the inviolability of his wives. Thus the tradition borrowed from the upper classes of Iranian and Syrian women, of veiling and secluding the most important women in society from the peering eyes of everyone else.

That the veil applied solely to Muhammad's wives is further demonstrated by the fact that term for donning the veil ,darabat al-hijab, was used synonymously and interchangeably with 'becoming Muhammad's wife.'For this reason during the Prophet's lifetime ,no other women in ummah observed hijab. Of course ,modesty was both enjoined on male and female believers ,while women in particular were instructed to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet's wives ,And here is the Ayah regarding that

Draw their clothes around them a little to be recognized as believers and so that no harm will come to them(35:59),More specifically ,women should 'guard their private parts' and drape a cover over their breats' when in the presence of strange men (24;31 _32;note that the word used for "cover " is khamr not hijab).

However ,Leila Ahmad a scholar and writer observes ,nowhere in the whole Quran is the term hijab to any woman other than the wives of Muhammad .

We should pause here to consider the question of the hijab ,and the Muslim institution of the veil .It is often seen in the west as a symbol of male oppression, but in the Quran it was simply a piece of protocol that applied only to the Prophet's wives. Muslim women are told to dress modestly ,but women are not told to veil themselves from view, nor seclude themselves from  men in separate part of house .These were later developments and did not become widespread in the islamic empire until three or four generations. In fact veil's were not designed to oppress the wives Muhammad but was a symbol of their superior status. After Muhammad's death ,his wives became very powerful people; they were respected authorities on religious matters and were frequently consulted about Muhammad's perspectives and practice(sunnah).It seems that later women became jealous of the status of the Muhammad's wives and demanded they should also be allowed to wear veil. Islamic culture was strongly egalitarian and it seemed incongruous that the Prophet's wives should be  distinguished and honoured in this way .Thus many of the muslim women who first took veil as per their own will saw  it as a symbol of power and influence ,not as a badge of male oppression. Certainly when the wives of crusaders saw the respect in which muslim women were held ,they took to wearing the veil in the hope of teaching their own men folk to treat them better

Conclusion

It is difficult to say with certainty when the veil was adopted by the rest of the Ummah ,though it was most likely long after Muhammad's death .Muslim women probably began wearing the veil as a way to emulate the Prophet's wives ,who were revered as the 'Mothers of the Ummah'.But the veil was neither compulsory nor for that matter widely adopted until generations after Muhammad's death.Problem is that most religions have been male affairs and have a patriarchal bias, but it is a mistake to take and practice islam as a totally patriarchal business and enforce women to do what is out of context and just to control and restrict them unnecessarily .Today we see many people endorsing veil as only symbol of modesty .It is quite unfair and unjust to see and preach it that if a woman is sexually assaulted and molested in a so-called muslim society by a so-called muslim man and then other so-called muslims come to argue and blame that just because she was not wearing veil so she deserved it. I mean its totally a disgrace in this era of light and knowledge . Arab at the time of Prophet was coming out of Jahaliyah that too very slowly there were plenty of non-muslim uneducated, unreasonable men and women .But do we have those kind of Jungle in our today's muslim societies or we just want it to be like that to serve our interests? The debate would become longer if i start writing further Ayah of Quran where Allah has given instructions to both men and women at a time .Allah has not made it gender specific when it comes to modesty, Taqwa, and practicing Islam and not become judges and God on earths.

So veil ( that shuttlecock suffocating burqa,that's only a cultural dress ) was neither compulsory nor ,for that matter ,widely adopted many generations after Muhammad's death, it only became compulsory and was endorsed when  a large body of male scriptural and legal scholars began using their religious and political authority to regain the dominance they had lost in society as a result of Prophet's egalitarion reforms.

References

Surah 33;53 ,

Ibn.e.Ishaq,  sira 729,P.493

For Muhammad's Reforms aimed at women and the reactions to them ,see Fatima Mernissi. The Veil and the male elite 1991

BOOK 'No God But God' BY Reza  Aslan

A Biography Of The Prophet Muhammad by Karen Armstrong