Representation image

 Women in Iran were the torchbearers of the revolution: they marched ahead of their men to throw off the dictatorial Shah and his corrupt regime. The expectation was that the revolution will bring more freedoms to the people, both men and women alike. But much to their chagrin, Muslim women today realise that the Islamic revolution utterly failed them. Although they have much more freedoms as compared to women in many other Muslim countries, but the law requires them to be covered at all public spaces and treats them like children and commodities; prohibiting them from enjoying the normal rights of citizenship.

The very fact that there are Iranian Mullahs who are shouting from the rooftops, periodically, against this decline of ‘Islamic values’ is proof enough that the old regime is tottering.

Once again, it is the women who are the leading force of this change. The regime knows that once the demands for rights start, it does not stop at just one set of rights. So we have men who are now supporting the rights of women to throw off the veil. We have other political actors who are demanding greater political transparency in the way in which elections are conducted in Iran and all of them have lent their support to the women’s cause.

The recent announcement from the top leadership that they are considering a referendum to decide the necessity of the veil is just a big nonsense. Either they are really seriously thinking about the issue of women’s freedom or they just want to manipulate the referendum to their advantage. The idea of a referendum itself is problematic because when basic rights are at stake, we do not need a referendum. The freedom of women in Muslim societies is a basic right and therefore should be non-negotiable.  

Feminists who defend the veil have much to learn from these Iranian women. Of late there has emerged a discourse in the west which tries to defend almost all the regressive practices within Muslim society in the name of diversity and pluralism. The cultural otherness of the Muslims therefore becomes a value which needs to be defended at all costs. The problem with this form of political correctness is that it de-humanizes those whom it seeks to defend. Who are the western feminists to defend the Burqa when it is under attack by Muslim women themselves? Also, western liberals fail to understand that Burqa or the veil is mostly forced on Muslim women by Muslim men. Even if it is not forced then young girls as little as eight are encouraged to wear them as a sign of modesty. After they grow up, they do not know any other way to dress because the Burqa becomes part of their flesh.

There is a very miniscule section of Muslim women who wear the veil out of their choice and that choice should be defended and respected. Making laws against it will never help. But to defend the Burqa as a religious and cultural marker of Muslim culture is simply erroneous to say the least. 

But this is not just the story of Iranian women. Women all across the Islamic world are supposed to cover themselves ‘appropriately’.

This covering up is mostly dictated by the cultural traditions of different places which can range from the veil to the chador to the Saudi-Talibani Burqa. But in all cases, it is legitimized by arguing that it has been commanded by Allah in the Quran. The problem again is that we need to understand how just one interpretation of Islam becomes the dominant narrative within Muslim societies.

The Quran and the verse which supposedly commands Muslim women to cover themselves have been interpreted variously. One interpretation is that the verse specifically refers to cover the bosom which was supposedly left bare during the times of pre-Islamic Arabia. Thus the express command of the Quran is to cover the breasts and not to cover up everything from head to toe. Commentators of the Quran tell us over and over again that the text of the Quran is transparent and obvious. If that is the case then why it is that the Quranic verse in this case did not give the express command of covering the face or the head or the hair? According to one interpretation, the verse in Quran clearly stipulates only the covering of the breast.

Yet another interpretation talks of the veil to understand it not as a piece of garment but as a boundary between the public and the private. The particular verse is interpreted as signifying the separation of spaces where the normative behaviour expected of Muslims should be different. Rather than being a separation between male and female, it is more of an exhortation to respect the private sphere such as the domestic household. Such interpretations never become the normative understanding because the conservative Ulama have institutional control of Islamic societies.

But then we must also ask what if the Quran had actually mandated the wearing of the veil or the Burqa? Should Muslims then blindly follow what is written in the scriptures? ‘Modesty’ of dress, particularly for women, is common to all Semitic religions. There is even the mention of chastity belts for Christian women. But then, these communities have since consigned such commands to the dustbins of history. Shouldn’t Muslims not march with the tune of history and proclaim that these verses have become redundant today as they do not suit the needs of the contemporary times? Iranian women possibly have started to articulate such a view. When will the rest of the Muslim world follow up?

Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com

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For some classes, it is a symbol of fashion, faith, and modesty

In the 1980s, when I was growing up in Dhaka, hijab-wearing women were a rare breed. Even the number of women wearing the burkha was minimal.

But these days, if you get out on the city streets for a walk, you may come to believe that virtually half of Bangladeshi women have taken up the veil. All sorts of Islamic veils are evident these days — abaya, niqab, chador, khimar, burkha, and of course the hijab.

Until only a few years ago, the trend of Bengali women wearing the hijab was pervasive merely in adults, but now it has reached out to the youngsters, pre-teens, and even to pre-school girls. There is also another increasing number of ultra-conservative Muslim women, who cloak every inch of their bodies in black, while they hide their hands and feet in gloves and socks.

Women wearing the Arabic veil, especially the adoption of hijab, started to appear in the country in the early 1990s. The minds of Bangladeshi Muslims have heavily transformed over the last decades, they have grown more conservative, more religious.

An astonishing fact is that it is largely the middle-class women who have morphed their traditional Bengali way of dressing. But the attire of working class women has scarcely changed. The nascent hijab revolution has little effect on them. 

There are a few garment factories where I live in Mirpur in the north Dhaka. Every morning, the neighbouring streets get swarmed with garment girls going to work. It is such a spectacular scene to watch. For 10 minutes, everything in the neighbourhood gets eclipsed by the rising tide of some hundred girls hurrying towards the factory buildings.

Whenever I run into the flow of these walking women on the streets, I try to see whether any of them are wearing the hijab, or if someone has wrapped a long scarf over her nose and mouth in the vein of the niqab.

Curiously, I have never spotted any. Not a single girl. Of course, some are seen covering their heads with their ornas in a U-shaped drape way.

Some months ago, I asked one of my acquaintances about this, someone who owns three garment factories on the outskirts of the capital. Did he ever notice any girl with Islamic headscarf on his factory floors? He responded: “No.”

Bangladesh’s RMG industry is the country’s sole biggest foreign exchange earner. As of 2018, Bangladesh is the second largest apparel exporter in the global market, only after China. In fiscal year 2017, the country’s export earnings from the apparel sector stood at $34.83 billion, contributing over 80% to Bangladesh’s total exports. 

Since the mid-1980s, the garment factories began to boom in Bangladesh. Once the poor country in South Asia which stemmed from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh is now on the brink of getting on the list of the developing countries by 2021. More than two million female workers are working in this industry, which makes up 60% of the total RMG labour force. 

Why are these young women in the Bangladeshi garment sector not tempted by the hijab?

The answer isn’t hard to imagine. In a country where the weather is hot and humid, these disadvantaged working class women work roughly 12 hours in harsh, hasty conditions. How could the women of manual labourers, if favoured to wear extra body covering, survive such terrible long hours underneath veils? There might be a pretty good chance of getting a heat stroke. 

It’s true enough that, for the first time in Bangladesh’s history, women have become a massive part of the nation’s workforce. These women have long been vilified and anathematized by Islamist groups. But the devout men forget that these garment girls play a tectonic role behind Bangladesh’s current prosperity. 

Hefazat-e-Islam took shape in 2010, in opposition to the government’s initiative to give women equal rights of inheritance. On May 5, 2013, the Islamist group organized a protest where hundreds of thousands of supporters gathered at the commercial district of Motijheel in Dhaka. 

They placed 13 demands before the government, including a ban on the free mixing of men and women in public.

Needless to say, this segregation would have cost women their bread and butter as the restrictions would limit their free movement rights, which will eventually cripple the country’s economy. 

Conservative Muslims forget that we are not Saudi Arabia. We do not have the oil money so we may keep our women home just to cook and take care of our children.   

Like the vast women labour force in the RMG sector, other working-class women in Bangladesh are engaged in a wide range of jobs. They work side-by-side with men as day labourers, street sweepers, and even as street-vendors. They do not bother about keeping purdah. The actuality is they cannot.

The manual work they are into leaves them with least choice to enjoy that religious delight. Plus, since their lives are plagued by ample problems in this life, since they hardly make their ends meet, since they have not in the slightest time for themselves, they surely cannot afford to think about the afterlife much.

Work, home, and sleep — that’s their way of life for survival. 

The same survival theory applies to the lives of the country’s disadvantaged garment workers. The majority of these garment girls hail from villages and poor families. Though their work is often described as a kind of women’s empowerment, the unpalatable reality is they are overworked and underpaid.

Wearing the hijab or maintaining Islamic veils has become a symbol of fashion, faith, and modesty for a certain class in society. It is definitely not a practice seen among the poor young women who are the driving force in Bangladesh’s RMG industry. 

Rahad Abir is a writer. He is finishing his debut novel.

Courtesy: Dhaka Tribune

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Video grab above shows a young Iranian women removing her hijab and waving it as a flag in Tehran in last month.
Click here to watch her waving the hijab. Courtesy: The Independent

TEHRAN — Climbing atop a five-foot-tall utility box in one of Tehran’s busiest squares on Monday, an Iranian woman removed her head scarf, tied it to a stick and waved it for all to see.

It was no small feat in Iran, where women can be arrested for publicly flouting the Islamic requirement that they cover their hair.

But there she stood, her curly hair blowing in the breeze. No one protested. In fact, she was applauded by many people. Taxi drivers and older women took her picture. The police, who maintain a booth in the square, either did not see her or decided not to intervene.

She was not alone. On Monday several other women, a total of six, according to social media accounts, made the same symbolic gesture: taking off their head scarves in public and waving them on a stick, emulating a young woman who climbed on the same sort of utility box on Dec. 27 and was subsequently arrested. Activists say she has since been released, but she still has not resurfaced in public.

Read the full New York Times report.
 

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Rio 2016 is proving not just to be a platform for sporting prowess, it is also helping to shake up some traditionally-held cultural misconceptions too.

In the West, many regard traditional Muslim dress like the hijab as a sign of oppression, with women forced to wear the garments by men. But it is not as simple as that: many women choose to wear the hijab as a sign of faith, feminism, or simply because they want to.

Recently, 19-year-old Egyptian volleyball player Doaa Elghobashy’s decision to wear a hijab while competing against Germany caused a stir. Her and partner Nada Meawad’s team uniform of long sleeved tops and ankle length trousers were already a “stark contrast” to the German competitors' bikinis, yet it was Elghobashy’s hijab that media attention focused on.
 

Doaa Elgobashy at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Reuters

Elgobashy and Meawad were the first team to represent Egypt in volleyball at the Olympics and, in the words of Elgobashy, the hijab which she has worn for ten years “doesn’t keep me away from the things I love to do”.

The determination and sporting prowess that Elgobashy displayed is a polar opposite to the assumption that all hijab-wearing Muslim women are passive and oppressed. The support and celebration that Elgobashy’s hiajb has also received is in direct contrast to the banning of burkinis in several French towns – though to look at both outfits, they cover the same amount of the body.

Many Muslim women today are wearing hijabs and other traditional dress to challenge the assumption that these are symbols of control. In fact, there are several revealing truths about Muslim dress that society must hear.

1. Women are not forced to wear hijabs

Some women choose to wear the hijab because it is a national tradition of their country of origin, or because it is the norm in their local area, city or country. Others wear it to demonstrate their commitment to dressing modestly and for religious reasons. Like any item of clothing, some women wear the hijab for specific occasions, such as for family or community events, or during particular times of day but take it off at other times, such as wearing the hijab to and from school or work but taking it off while studying or working.

A very small minority may claim to be forced to wear the hijab. However, many studies show that in fact Muslim women choose to wear the hijab as a way of showing self-control, power and agency.

2. You’re not sexually oppressed

Many hijab wearers have said that they wear the veil not as a symbol of control by a man, but rather to promote their own feminist ideals. For many Muslim women, wearing a hijab offers a way for them to take control of their bodies and to claim a stance that challenges the ways in which women are marginalised by men.

Research has shown that for young Muslim women, wearing a hijab says little about the likelihood of them having a boyfriend or participating in a sexual relationship. Indeed, some young women have said they would wear the hijab to give them more space to engage in such activities.
 

Pakistani activist, Nobel Prize laureate and hijab-wearer Malala Yousafzai. Niall Carson / PA Archive/Press Association Images

3. You’re not more likely to be linked to terrorism

Since 9/11, negative media coverage of Muslim communities, alongside government counter-terrorism policies in many Western countries, has further demonised Muslims. British research has shown that government policies have resulted in Muslims receiving unjustified attention in airport security, for example. They have also been shown to have created extra tensions and divisions between Muslim communities and the police.

For some hijab wearers, the hatred towards Muslim communities pushed them to stop wearing the veil after terrorist incidents, like the 7/7 London bombings, in order to minimise the chance of them experiencing racism. However, at the same time others started to wear the hijab to show their commitment to their religious faith. The hijab therefore cannot be a fixed symbol, but is far more flexible and changeable – and certainly cannot be deemed a marker of terrorism.

4. It’s not a ‘West versus rest’ division

There are many different styles, colours and shapes of hijab including different ways of wearing it. There is also a rising transnational Muslim fashion trade focusing particularly on younger women. In many respects, the hijab is similar to any other item of clothing with businesses marketing different styles and brands in order to maximise sales.
 

Patriotism, politics and hijab combine at a US democratic rally. EPA

This global fashion trade transcends national and regional boundaries. It is about maximising the market rather than reinforcing divisions between the West and the Muslim “rest”. Rather than asking why a women is wearing a hijab to reinforce difference, we should ask what high street store or online retailer she purchased her clothing from and what attracted her to this brand. For some wearers, this is far more pertinent and telling of their personality.

5. The hijab is not something to be feared

A recently published report of anti-Muslim abuse in England found that more than 60% of victims are women, and 75% of these women were visibly Muslim so were likely to be wearing some form of head-covering.

Women were also more likely than men to suffer anti-Muslim attacks on public transport or when shopping. The vast majority of the perpetrators in these incidents were white men, motivated by stereotypes. So rather than being feared, it’s more likely that women wearing hijab might fear others.

Muslim women wear the hijab for many different reasons all of which can change over time. This applies if the wearer is a community activist, an Olympic athlete like Elghobashy, a PhD student, a mother of young children or some or all of these. Any assumption that society attaches to the veil will never be right for each individual wearer, and it is for that very reason that we need to start changing the way we view it.

(Peter Hopkins is professor of Social Geography, Newcastle University).

This story was first published on The Conversation.

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