{"id":27142,"date":"2013-12-14T10:05:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T15:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=27142"},"modified":"2013-12-14T10:05:24","modified_gmt":"2013-12-14T15:05:24","slug":"islamic-discourses-on-veiling-hijab-burqa-chador-and-covering-a-comprehensive-write-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=27142","title":{"rendered":"Islamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering, a comprehensive write up"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nIslamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Quran<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Quran is the Holy Book of Muslims believed to be the direct and unadulterated word of God transmitted to the Prophet Mohamed (d. 632 C.E), through the archangel Gabriel over a 22-year period, beginning in 610 C.E. The Revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Mohamed is said to have taken place while he was in meditative retreat in Mt. Hira, at the outskirts of Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia. The Quran was revealed in Arabic, hence the prestigious, sacred, position of the Arabic language among Muslims until today.<\/p>\n

The Quran consists of 114 chapters (known in Arabic as suras) and each chapter is subdivided into verses (known in Arabic as ayat).<\/p>\n

The majority of Muslims and non-Muslims believe that the Quran explicitly and unequivocally prescribes veiling upon Muslim women. In this section, we propose to present what the Quran says about veiling.<\/p>\n

In order to learn what the Quran says about veiling and in what terms this Book addresses the question of women\u2019s clothing, we must look at two main types of passages in the Quran:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1.\tEvery occurrence of the term hijab (the Arabic word that is regularly translated as veil in English); and
\n2.\tAll Quranic verses that address the question of Muslim women\u2019s proper attire, even though the Quran may not use the term hijab.<\/em><\/p>\n


\nThe term hijab in the Quran<\/strong><\/p>\n

The term hijab (in bold in the quotations below) is used in the Quran a total of five times (Q 7:46; Q 19:16-17; Q 33:53; Q 41:5; Q 42:51). These passages are listed below for easy reference. The English translations of Quranic verses provided here are by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem in his new translation of the Quran (Oxford World\u2019s Classics, 2004).<\/p>\n

We invite the reader to explore other Quran translations of the same passages to see how the term hijab has been rendered by other translators. The following link gives access to the full Quranic text in Arabic, accompanied by different translations and oral recitation: Multimedia Quran.<\/p>\n

Q 7:46<\/p>\n

A barrier divides the two groups with men on its heights recognizing each group by their marks: they will call out to the people of the Garden, \u2018Peace be with you!\u2019-they will not have entered, but they will be hoping, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q 19:16-17<\/p>\n

Mention in the Quran the story of Mary. She withdrew from her family to a place to the east and secluded herself away. We sent Our Spirit to appear before her in the form of a perfected man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q 33:53<\/p>\n

Believers, do not enter the Prophet\u2019s apartments for a meal unless you are given permission to do so; do not linger until [a meal] is ready. When you are invited, go in; then when you have taken your meal, leave. Do not stay on and talk, for that would offend the Prophet, though he would shrink from asking you to leave. God does not shrink from the truth. When you ask his wives for something, do so from behind a screen: this is purer both for your hearts and for theirs.<\/p>\n

Q 41:5<\/p>\n

They [the unbelievers] say \u201cOur hearts are encased against [the faith] you call us to; our ears are heavy; there is a barrier between us and you. So you do whatever you want, and so shall we.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q 42:51<\/p>\n

It is not granted to any mortal that God should speak to him except through revelation or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by His command what He will: He is exalted and wise.<\/p>\n


\nComment<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interestingly, those Quranic verses that use the word hijab do not address the question of Muslim women\u2019s clothing. In order to continue to explore Quranic discourses on proper Muslim women\u2019s attire, we must look at other Quranic verses that deal specifically with this topic.<\/p>\n

The Quran on women\u2019s clothing<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are three references to women\u2019s clothing in the Quran that are made without the use of the term hijab. All three references listed below. In these three Quranic passages about women\u2019s clothing, the Quran uses the Arabic word khimar to refer to women\u2019s headscarves (Q 24:31), jilbab to their outer garments (Q 33:59), and zinah to refer to their \u201cfinery\u201d (Q 32:33).<\/p>\n

Q 24:30-31<\/p>\n

\u201c[Prophet], tell believing men to lower their glances and guard their private parts: that is purer for them. God is well aware of everything they do. And tell believing women that they should lower their glances, guard their private parts, and not display their charms beyond what [it is acceptable] to reveal; they should let their headscarves fall to cover their necklines and not reveal their charms except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands\u2019 fathers, their sons, their husbands\u2019 sons, their brothers, their brothers\u2019 sons, their sisters\u2019 sons, their womenfolk, their slaves, such men as attend them who have no sexual desire, or children who are not yet aware of women\u2019s nakedness; they should not stamp their feet so as to draw attention to any hidden charms. Believers, all of you, turn to God so that you may prosper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q 32:32-33<\/p>\n

\u201cWives of the Prophet, you are not like any other woman. If you are truly mindful of God, do not speak too softly in case the sick at heart should lust after you, but speak in an appropriate manner; stay at home, and do not flaunt your finery as they used to in the pagan past; keep up the prayer, give the prescribed alms, and obey God and His Messenger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q 33:58-59<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd those who undeservedly insult believing men and women will bear the guilt of slander and flagrant sin. Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and women believers to make their outer garments hang low over them so as to be recognized and not insulted: God is most forgiving, most merciful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hadith Tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n

The term hadith refers to the tradition of Sayings by the Prophet Mohamed, and of actions he did. This tradition is viewed by Muslims as a key resource of practical information on how Muslims are supposed to behave on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

There are six canonical hadith collections believed to contain the most authentic reports of the Prophet\u2019s sayings and doings, the most famed being those by Bukhari (d. 870), by Muslim (d. 875), by Abu Dawud (d. 888) and the Musnad by Ibn Hanbal (d. 855).<\/p>\n


\nVeiling according to the hadith tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of the thousands of reports included in the canonical hadith collections, only one can be said to address explicitly the requirement of women\u2019s covering. This hadith is reported by the ninth-century hadith compiler Abu Dawud (d. 888).
\nBook 32, Number 4092<\/p>\n

This hadith is narrated by Aisha (the youngest wife of the Prophet) and reports an incident involving an encounter between the Prophet and Asma who is the daughter of Abu Bakr, the Prophet\u2019s closest friend and first Caliph at the death of the Prophet:<\/p>\n

Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) turned his attention from her. He said: O Asma\u2019, when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to her face and hands.<\/p>\n

This hadith is included only in Abu Dawud\u2019s late ninth-century compilation and is considered to be the single most explicit and authoritative source for the belief that women are required to veil in Islam.<\/p>\n

Islamic Jurisprudence & Law<\/strong><\/p>\n

Islamic law is oftentimes used as a synonym for sharia. However, we must understand this Islamic law to be a law created by men, and not the law of God which itself is perforce unknown and unknowable. In fact, the Arabic term sharia literally means \u201cpath,\u201d and is used in the Quran to refer to God\u2019s law.<\/p>\n

Because God\u2019s law\/sharia in the Quran was not as specific as one may have wished, and once the Prophet was no longer living to interpret the divine laws for the Muslim community, highly educated scholars and jurists were entrusted with the responsibility of elucidating God\u2019s law. It is the body of laws that these ninth- and tenth-century jurists developed that came to be known as Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), a human legal system that stands in contrast to sharia, which is God\u2019s Law. The Arabic word fiqh literally means \u201cunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the end of the eleventh century four schools of Islamic jurisprudence emerged, each named after its leading interpreter: Maliki, Shafii, Hanafi and Hanbali. Each of them struggled to interpret the few Quranic verses on women\u2019s dress and to name with certainty those body parts that were to be concealed.<\/p>\n

Muslim Jurists developed a five-part moral scale to evaluate every conceivable human act from mandatory, to recommended, to morally neutral or permissible, to reprehensible to prohibited. Such a scale was meant to guide humans in understanding which acts they were required to perform and which ones to avoid if they were to obey God\u2019s law.<\/p>\n

What does Islamic law say about Muslim women\u2019s proper dress?<\/em><\/p>\n

The Hanbali and Shafii schools, the most conservative of the four, required Muslim women to cover their entire body, including their face and hands.<\/p>\n

Most Maliki and Hanafi jurists believed that the entire woman\u2019s body, except for the face and hands, had to be covered.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the juridical discussion of women\u2019s attire did not treat the specific question of hijab, or appropriate Islamic dress to be worn by women in public. Muslim women\u2019s dress was understood to be part of Islamic etiquette and not of required Islamic behaviors.<\/p>\n

This means that in traditional Islamic law, the whole debate over clothing fell into the legal categories of appropriate Islamic conduct (wajib and adab), rather than mandatory behaviors (fard) such as praying, fasting during Ramadan or giving alms to the poor. From the perspective of early Islamic law, and in contrast to the way many Muslims continue to assume, failing to cover one\u2019s private parts (Arabic awrah) constitutes only a minor sin for Muslims, not a major sin. Donning hijabcan thus only be a \u201crecommended\u201d action, not a \u201crequired\u201d behavior.<\/p>\n

The only element debated by Muslim jurists was whether a woman\u2019s hands and face were to be concealed or whether they could be left uncovered. On this specific matter, the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence differ. (See the examples with the two photos above.)<\/p>\n


\nImplications for Muslim women today<\/strong><\/p>\n

Muslims are expected to follow the rituals and adopt the practices (including those related to veiling) of the Muslim-majority society they live in. These practices are defined by the particular school of Islamic law that the country observes.<\/p>\n

The Hanbali school, like the Shafii, urge the Muslim communities living within their jurisdiction, to follow a more conservative dress code than the Hanafi and the Maliki. And this is one of the primary reasons Muslim women living in Saudi Arabia or Indonesia dress differently from those in Egypt or Morocco.
\nDistribution of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence<\/p>\n

The Hanafi school is the most prevalent one in Muslim-majority societies, with followers in about one-third of them, including:
\nIndia
\nPakistan
\nBangladesh
\nAfghanistan
\nCentral Asia
\nThe Caucasus
\nThe Balkans
\nTurkey
\nParts of Iraq
\nEgypt<\/em><\/p>\n

The Hanbali, the most conservative school of Islamic jurisprudence, has most of its adherents in Saudi Arabia.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Maliki school, the second most-dominant school, prevails in countries such as:<\/p>\n

The Arabian Gulf States (Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi)
\nEast and West African countries (upper Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Senegal, Mauritania)
\nSyria
\nYemen<\/em><\/p>\n

The Shafii school is widespread in countries such as:<\/p>\n

Indonesia
\nMalaysia
\nSingapore
\nSri Lanka
\nMaldives
\nPalestine
\nJordan
\nLebanon
\nYemen
\nEast Africa (Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania)<\/em><\/p>\n

Interpretations<\/strong><\/p>\n

The information about veiling that is gleaned from Islamic religious texts (the Quran or the hadith), is ambiguous and open-ended. In fact, whether or not veiling is required in Islam, and the extent of that veiling, depends primarily on the interpretations of religious texts by Islamic scholars, as well as on the particular country a Muslim lives in.<\/p>\n

We provide here an overview of the traditional interpretations of Islamic texts, and of the more progressive interpretations of these same texts are they are developing today.
\n
\nTraditional interpretations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traditional interpretations of the Quranic verses treating women\u2019s clothes were developed from the ninth to the thirteenth century, that is two to six centuries after the Prophet\u2019s death. These interpretations were made by Quranic scholars, the most important of whom are undoubtedly Al-Tabari (b. 839, Iran); al-Razi (d. 1209); ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200). This tradition of Quranic exegesis is known in Arabic as tafsir.<\/p>\n

According to most traditional scholars, the Quran explicitly and unquestionably requires that Muslim women cover their entire bodies with loose fitting clothes and that they only leave their faces and hands uncovered. This interpretation of the Quranic verses continues to have a number of followers today, as can be observed by the way many Muslim women wear hijab around the world.<\/p>\n

Some traditional Islamic scholars have opted for an even more extreme interpretation of the Quranic verses on women\u2019s attire and asserted that the entire woman\u2019s body ought to be covered, including hands and face. Some Muslim women feel swayed by this interpretation and dress in a manner consistent with this traditional view. Some Muslim rulers also have adopted this interpretation and required that women living in their country, whether Muslim or not, dress in this most conservative style. This is how we may interpret Muslim women\u2019s adoption of a niqab (a veil that covers the face but not the eyes) or a burqa (a veil that covers both the face and eyes).<\/p>\n


\nProgressive interpretations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Progressive Muslims is a group of pious Muslims from around the globe who are seeking to reinterpret Islam and core religious texts from an egalitarian, socially inclusive perspective. They believe that Islam, as is practiced around the world today, has been hijacked from the egalitarian spirit that was the core of the message that the Prophet received and preached in the seventh century. Their goal is thus to peel away the layers of interpretations that have been imposed on the Quran over the centuries and that have closed off the more open ended and fluid message of the Holy Book.<\/p>\n


\nProgressive interpretations of the Quran<\/strong><\/p>\n

Progressive Muslims\u2019 engagement with the Quran and with its exegetical tradition has led to the following conclusions:
\n\u2022\tThe Quran does not prescribe a specific dress code for women. Rather, it invites both men and women to observe culturally appropriate codes of modesty.
\n\u2022\tThe notion that Muslim women are required to veil is an interpretation of the Quran, rather than a prescription explicitly enjoined in the Quran. This interpretation has been superimposed on the Quran beginning in the ninth century by exegetes who read the Holy Book from the perspective of their own socio-cultural traditions.
\n\u2022\tThe only women who were required to veil during the Prophet\u2019s time were his wives. In fact, in the seventh century, the verb \u201cto veil\u201d was synonymous to \u201cbecome the wife of the Prophet\u201d.<\/p>\n


\nProgressive interpretations of hadith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Progressive Muslims are also engaged in a rigorous examination of the hadith tradition and especially as it relates to Muslim women\u2019s proper attire.<\/p>\n

Progressive Muslims have called into question the reliability of Abu Dawud\u2019s hadith and challenged the authenticity of his hadith based on their research into the massive scholarship of the hadith tradition. They have observed:<\/p>\n

\u2022\tAbu Dawud\u2019s hadith is not reliable because it is cited only in this one collection and is not attested anywhere else. It thus exhibits the very feature marking possible fraudulent reporting according to the complex evaluation system of authentification developed by classical hadith scholars themselves.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tAbu Dawud\u2019s hadith is not reliable because it is not supported by an unbroken chain of reporters going all the way back to the Prophet to guarantee its authenticity as all hadiths are supposed to be. It is cited only by Abu Dawud who lived in the ninth century, that is two hundred years after the Prophet\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tAbu Dawud\u2019s hadith is unreliable because the female body parts that ought to be concealed are not contained in the Prophet\u2019s own words, but are specified by the hadith reporter himself, in this case, Abu Dawud.
\n
\nConclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

For these reasons, progressive Muslims have concluded that Abu Dawud\u2019s hadith is unreliable and cannot be considered an indisputable proof that Muslim women are required to veil their entire body, except for the face and hands, as some Muslims continue to believe.
\n
\nCOURTESY :WORLDMUSLIMCONGRESS.COM<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Islamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering. The Quran The Quran is the Holy Book of Muslims believed to be the direct and unadulterated word of God transmitted to the Prophet Mohamed (d. 632 C.E), through the archangel Gabriel over a 22-year period, beginning in 610 C.E. The Revelation of the Quran to …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Islamic Discourses on Veiling, Hijab, Burqa, Chador and covering, a comprehensive write up’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27143,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27142\/revisions\/27143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}