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Last Saturday, The Independent published an article by the commentator Deborah Orr concerning her perception and dislike of the nikab or face veil worn by some Muslim women. Over the week since then, the newspaper has been printing letters to the editor concerning this article, many of them agreeing with the author, but others – as was the case yesterday – putting across either the view of Muslim women or views sympathetic to them. One letter yesterday was a response to a Muslim’s letter earlier in the week about how women in hijab are judged merely on the basis of their intellect and personality, not according to their looks: the purpose of the response was to allege that this is not born out in the real world. Both points of view may be seen as exaggerations of reality in fact, for there are many Muslim women with PhDs in Muslim countries, many who are doctors, writers, teachers and politicians, including the famous Turkish MP who was actually stripped of her citizenship because she dared where her headscarf in Parliament – but there are also many other women who face very real discrimination. In any case, it is a very interesting debate and the content of Deborah Orr’s article has been taken up on the weblog Indigo Jo Blogs on two occasions during the week. What follows are some of the thoughts I added to the comments under his second post…

Before I became Muslim 8 years ago I never had an issue or a problem with Muslim women wearing a hijab / headscarf, but I must be honest: it took me a long time to accommodate the concept of nikab, even after I became Muslim. No doubt this was a cultural concern which was based on assumptions, not on any particular reasoning. I would never have denied a woman the right to wear the nikab if she so chose, but it did make me uncomfortable. From my perspective, what was the issue? It wasn’t fear. I guess it would have something to do with being brought up in a fairly feminist household, with my mother being amongst the first women to be ordained priest in the English Anglican Church. It would be the feeling that women in nikab were being forced to dress this way in an attempt to make them invisible, to deny their very existence.

My first encounter with the nikab was at university. In September ’97 when I went to register for my second year after the summer break I was standing in line behind a young woman dressed completely in a loose black garment, her face veiled behind nikab. By that time my general respect for women in hijab had extended to an acceptance that the nikab was a mere extension of that choice… but this illusion was just about to be shattered. This woman was angry – either because the queue was moving too slowly in the intense heat or because she had forgotten some crucial documents – and I was shocked and appalled by her words, as she repeatedly uttered the F-word quite loudly. If such impiety and immodesty could slip from a person’s tongue, I told myself, my previous conclusions about the mode of dress were clearly false. Thus, I asked, was she really wearing those garments out of personal choice as a mark of modesty, or rather because she was forced to do so? And perhaps this was one source of my early perception of nikab. I began to ponder – in paranoia – on the laughter of the young ladies in black for this kafir geek over the previous year during my run-in with some non-practising Muslims. Later, after I became Muslim, it was the harsh words some of these women had for other sisters who were considered not to be wearing hijab properly. I guess all of these things fostered a prejudice inside which said, “If these people do not have modesty in their hearts, the reason that they wear those garments must come from somewhere other than their heart.” Nonsense really, but this is the nature of prejudice.

But look, this was the view of one who became Muslim – someone who has an interest, a love for Islam: someone who was sympathetic to Islam and who took up this path. I guess what I’m trying to say is, we need to give more thought about how we communicate with non-Muslims and deal with the assumptions which come up. Remember that we often make assumptions about non-Muslims too – like those sisters in hijab who concluded that I hated Muslims when I wouldn’t look at them before I became Muslim, whilst I thought that lowering my gaze was expected of me. These days, through my writing relationships, through professional relationships, through friends, I know of many women who choose to wear nikab, those who follow the Shafi’i madhab, those who consider themselves Sufi and those who consider themselves Salafi. Nowadays I am not opposed to nikab for those who choose to wear it, but it took me a long time to get to this point. I’m not going to dishonestly say this was always so, and I’m not going to start pointing fingers at non-Muslims who continue to find it difficult.

In the particular case of the Independent commentator, Debra Orr – perhaps we have to bare in mind the backdrop against which western feminists often write. They are not writing on the basis of their experience of the Muslim context, but are rebelling against the heritage of our own society, i.e. its Christian traditions. The veil or the headscarf reminds them of the words of the evangelist Paul, who is often identified as a misogynist by European feminists, and thus it is associated directly with his words instead of with the teachings of Islam. In his first letter to the Corinthians which is found after the Gospels in the Canonical Bible, Paul instructs his followers that “every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head” (1 Corinthians 11:5). These words are in turn related to other sayings of Paul concerning women such as, “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” (1 Corinthians 11:3-16). Later in the letter he goes further, seemingly contradicting the allowance that a woman might prophesise, saying, “Let the women keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a disgrace for a woman to speak in church.” (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

I have no doubt that this backdrop plays a major role in the perception of the hijab amongst educated feminists. While Islam has a tradition of female scholarship, feminists view church history as largely misogynist, particularly in light of the later theological debates concerning whether women have a soul, and so on. Thus this very potent distrust of religion persists in the minds of many concerning the role of women. It is not prejudice against Islam per se, but more generally prejudice against religion and against their own religious tradition in particular. The Eurocentric mindset of many of these people prevents them from seeing difference in the context of a much more diverse world history.

I think Muslims need to be more intelligent in confronting such perceptions. It is not good enough to constantly repeat the refrain “it’s Islamophobia / anti-Semitic” – we need to get to the root of the matter, to find out what’s really behind the concerns. Is there anything we can do to help? Do we need to explain matters better? Do we know enough about the societies and communities we find ourselves amongst, about their histories and traditions? Do we know why people may react a certain way, or are we just making assumptions of our own? These are some of the things we should be thinking about… in my opinion.