The Routledge International Handbook to Veils and Veiling

Anna-Mari Almila, David Inglis, Anna-Mari Almila, David Inglis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317041139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi sull'etnia

Veils and veiling are controversial topics in social and political life, generating debates across the world. The veil is enmeshed within a complex web of relations encompassing politics, religion and gender, and conflicts over the nature of power, legitimacy, belief, freedom, agency and emancipation. In recent years, the veil has become both a potent and unsettling symbol and a rallying-point for discourse and rhetoric concerning women, Islam and the nature of politics.

Early studies in gender, doctrine and politics of veiling appeared in the 1970s following the Islamic revival and 're-veiling' trends that were dramatically expressed by 1979's Iranian Islamic revolution. In the 1990s, research focussed on the development of both an 'Islamic culture industry' and greater urban middle class consumption of 'Islamic' garments and dress styles across the Islamic world. In the last decade academics have studied Islamic fashion and marketing, the political role of the headscarf, the veiling of other religious groups such as Jews and Christians, and secular forms of modest dress. Using work from contributors across a range of disciplinary backgrounds and locations, this book brings together these research strands to form the most comprehensive book ever conceived on this topic.

As such, this handbook will be of interest to scholars and students of fashion, gender studies, religious studies, politics and sociology.

1
INTRODUCTION

The veil across the globe in politics, everyday life and fashion

Anna-Mari Almila

Introduction

Veil – what is it, where does it come from, how and why is it worn, what does it mean? From a minor subject of study, veiling has grown into a significant topic of a field of studies during the recent two decades. Global political changes have contributed to this development, but behind political and legislative battles, there is a whole world of everyday experiences, religious debates and garment markets that increasingly have drawn the attention of those who study veils and veiling practices. As a versatile topic, the veil has also inspired a versatile body of literature, drawing upon philosophy, anthropology, political science, sociology, law, urban geography, gender studies, cultural studies, fashion studies, religious studies, marketing and consumption studies, and history. This handbook aims to do two things: first, show the richness and variation in ways of studying veiling; and second, to present veiling as a global phenomenon, not limited to any specific religion, to one gender only, or to particular garments, styles, or appearances.

While Muslim veiling is the most politically heated topic globally, many Jews (Chapter 5), Christians (Chapter 24), and Hindus (Chapter 20) also practise forms of veiling. Veiling is also a fundamentally global phenomenon today: it is practised in North Africa (Chapter 19), Sub-Saharan Africa (Chapter 12), Asia Minor (Chapters 2, 9 and 16), the Middle East (Chapters 5 and 8), Central Asia (Chapters 3 and 7), South Asia (Chapter 20), South East Asia (Chapter 17), Far East Asia (Chapter 21), Australia (Chapter 10), Latin America (Chapter 15), North America (Chapters 3, 6, 13 and 24), and Europe (Chapters 2, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 18, 19 and 22) in many forms and shapes. Beyond the obvious forms of veiling, other phenomena, such as male facial hair (Chapter 9) and masks (Chapter 23) can also be studied within the framework of veiling. Veiling is a phenomenon that is simultaneously symbolic, material, spatial, gendered and discursive.

This introduction offers an outline of veiling phenomena from three points of view: (1) international and state politics; (2) everyday veiling and its politics; and (3) fashion and fashion industries. In such a rapidly expanding field as veiling studies, such an introduction can never hope to be comprehensive, so what we are seeking to offer is a wider historical and contemporary context in which to locate the individual case studies that follow. Also the case studies are far from covering the whole field of research; instead they are chosen to represent a rich variety of locations – from obvious ones, such as Turkey, Iran and France, to less obvious, such as China, Brazil and Uzbekistan – and approaches. In the end of the book, the reader will find a chapter discussing veiling studies through the lense of globalization studies (Chapter 25).

What is veiling?

In this book, veiling is understood in a wide sense, encompassing material, social, spiritual and spatial elements. Veil and veiling are used as generic terms to describe practices, garments and elements of appearance, which seek to both unite and separate groups and individuals. According to El-Guindi:

the meanings assigned in general reference to the Western term veil comprise four dimensions: the material, the spatial, the communicative, and the religious. The material dimension consists of clothing and ornament, i.e. veil in the sense of [a] clothing article covering head, shoulders, and face or in the sense of ornamentation over a hat drawn over the eyes. In this usage ‘veil’ is not confined to face covering, but extends to the head and shoulders.

(El-Guindi 1999, 6)

But the word does not come without problems. According to Allievi (2006, 120), ‘[t]he word veil itself dramatizes the debate [happening in Europe], referring at least implicitly and certainly psychologically to something that separates, conceals, masks, or blocks the view’. Scott’s (2007, 16) analysis of the French usage of ‘voile’ seems to make a similar point:

Muslim women in France wear what they refer to as a hijab; in French the word is foulard; in English, headscarf. Very quickly, this head covering was referred to in the media as a veil (voile), with the implications that the entire body and face of its wearer were hidden from view.

Admittedly, to use the word veil is to introduce a potentially Eurocentric, Western viewpoint. As Neuburger points out, ‘[h]istorically, the concept of the “veil” has been and remains the quintessential metaphor for all that the “East” purportedly represents in contrast to a “Western” norm’ (2014, 253). The term is also very generic, risking the blurring of differences between garments and phenomena.

Today Muslim women often refer to their veils and veiling practices as ‘hijab’. Hijab can mean a barrier, something that prevents, conceals, covers or protects. In the Qur’an, it has both positive and negative connotations; it may refer to a metaphoric obstacle or division, as well as spatial separation, but it is actually not used to refer to women’s dress codes (Ruby 2006, 55–6). Another related term, common in Central and South Asia, is ‘purdah’. Purdah means ‘curtain’, and it is the word most commonly used for the system of secluding women and enforcing high standards of female modesty in parts of Asia. Purdah is an important part of the life experience of many South Asians, both Muslim and Hindu, and is a central feature of the social systems of the area (Papanek 1973, 289).

Both these terms have their own specific problems as well, for they are associated with a certain religion in the case of hijab, and geographic area in the case of purdah. As Ruby (2006, 56) points out, ‘the distinction between the words veil and hijab is important, as the latter has Islamic association that differentiates it from the former term’.

Therefore veil as a term allows for certain possibilities that these two terms do not. It allows the crossing of geographical distances, and it allows for seeing similarities and differences between practices in different parts of the globe. To talk about ‘veils’ is not intended to blur differences and generalize, but is instead meant to help the reader to see the enormous richness and variation that is associated with veiling across the globe.

Veiling in Abrahamic religions

The holy scriptures of the three Abrahamic religions – the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an – all contain phrases that indicate veiling, or at least have been interpreted as either recommending or ordaining veiling for women. In the Torah, Rebecca veils herself when she first sees her husband-to-be Isaac (Genesis 24:65), and therefore Jewish women from sects often considered ‘orthodox’ cover themselves when married. According to Rabbinic interpretation, this usually means wearing a wig to cover one’s hair, and a dress that covers the body so that the collar bones, elbows and knees are covered. Headgears and veils are worn by some in addition to wigs (Carrel 2008), and also more covering dress styles, including face-veils, appear, but particularly face-veils are often condemned by religious patriarchs (Vakulenko 2012). The male orthodox dress is far more stylistically restricted than the female dress, and the doctrinal restrictions of it come in an extremely detailed form (Carrel 2008).

In the New Testament, Paul touches upon the topic of veiling, stating that women should cover their heads when praying or prophesying (1 Corinthians 11:4–5). Paul also recommends women’s veil as a sign of hierarchical status where women are categorically lower than men, and a woman’s unveiled head shames her husband. Elsewhere in the Bible, women are instructed to ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5:17). When taken together, these statements have been taken by some Christian groups to mean that women should cover their heads constantly. Christian theologians of the early Church elaborated upon the topic of veiling. Virgins had been exempt from the veiling requirement, highlighting their high spiritual position in the early Church. Tertullian took an issue with this practice in the third century CE, and by the fourth century, veiling had come to be associated with virginity, and women’s opportunities to gain spiritual position within the Church had been weakened (D’Angelo 1995). While Christian veiling is today far more limited a phenomenon than Muslim veiling, there nevertheless are groups, old and new, who practise forms of it (e.g. Cameron 2013; Graybill and Arthur 1999; Hawley 2008; Lafontaine 2008).

There are three Qur’anic lines associated with veiling, one of which specifically refers to the wives of Muhammed, who should talk to the believers from behind a curtain (hijab) (Qur’an 33:53, see e.g. Mernissi 1991 for a discussion of the circumstances related to the revelation of the verse). Elsewhere, all believers are ordained the following advice:

Say to the believing men that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions. That is purer for them. Surely Allah is Aware of what they do.

And say to the believing women that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual passions and do not display their adornment except what appears thereof.

(Qur’an 24:30–1)

A further statement tells women to draw their cloaks (jilbab) around their bodies ‘so that they are recognized and thus not harmed’ (Qur’an 33:59). Thus the Qur’an gives very little guidance as regards female dress. Also the hadiths (oral tradition of Muhammed) have little to say about women’s clothing: their dress focus is on male garments and materials considered appropriate for believing men rather than women (El-Guindi 1999, 135).

Veiling is not restricted to Abrahamic religions only, nor is veiling practised by women only, or by all women who identify as Jews, Christians or Muslims. Sikh men cover their heads with turbans (Walton-Roberts 1998), Muslim Tuareg men practise veiling (Murphy 1964), Hindu women veil and follow related spatial customs (Abraham 2010). Also within Abrahamic religions there are disagreements about veiling. Catholic nuns were allowed to unveil only in the 1960s, but some nuns rebelled against their convention’s order to unveil (Lafontaine 2008). Some Jewish women practise face-veiling despite the condemnation of such a practice by rabbis and family members (Vakulenko 2012). Muslim scholars and individual Muslims alike are engaged in debates as to whether veiling is necessary at all, and if it is, to what degree women should veil. In what follows, we seek to show some very general trends that veiling phenomena have followed throughout history. Such approach allows for little detail, but detail is exactly what all the other chapters in this book offer.

Politics and law: A struggle over female bodies

It is nothing new that dress is regulated by law or religious doctrine. History knows a number of attempts to stop lower classes wearing garments ‘above their station’, and clerical orders to restrain cross-dressing (Ribeiro 2003 [1986]). Veiling is no exemption, nor is it a very special case until relatively recently. The veil has been legally and socially regulated for thousands of years in different contexts, but it only emerges as a powerfully political symbol since late colonial and post-colonial times. Veiling is strongly connected to gender and the regulation of sexuality at the individual level, and reproductive capacity at the collective level, categories of regulation that communities, states and institutions have been keen on controlling throughout human history (Turner 2008 [1984]).

The veil before the twentieth century

Veiling goes back a long time in history. Practised in a number of cultures, kingdoms and areas, the veil was no property of a specific religion. While, for example, both Jews and early Christians practised veiling in ancient Rome, so did Romans more generally follow certain veiling customs (d’Angelo 1995; Levine 1995). The veil in its early history tends to be linked to urbanization, and is aimed at making two specific distinctions. It separates gender, creating women as different from men (and often also spatially separating these groups), and it distinguishes ‘honourable’ women, that is, women belonging to free men through marriage or kinship, from slaves and prostitutes, that is, women sexually available to any man (Ahmed 1992). The distinction of veiling between slaves and free women, whereby slaves were forbidden to veil, survived at places in Africa until the late nineteenth century when slavery was formally abandoned (Fair 2013).

Therefore the veil was for a long time fundamentally linked to social status and social standing, and was a privilege. So, for example, Assyrian law stated heavy punishments to women who wore the veil without being entitled to it, and to men who allowed them to do so (Ahmed 1992). In the Christian Middle East, veiling was well established by the time of Muhammed. Veiling did also not come to be widely practised among Muslims during Muhammed’s life, but was rather established afterwards. By the medieval era, gender seclusion had been established in Muslim urban centres (Hämeen-Anttila 2004), and while elite women rarely left their domestic dwellings, and if they did, did so fully veiled or in closed carriages, lower-class and rural women often practised less restrictive forms of veiling (Sedghi 2007).

During the colonial times, new discourses about veiling emerged, first prompted by representors of colonial power who used their views of ‘women’s position’ as proof of inferiority of local cultures. Veil in such arguments played an important part as a visible marker of ‘oppression’, a theme that is powerfully and repeatedly reproduced today. Yet, while these male advocates of unveiling claimed to liberate Muslim women, they we...