Hijab Police

This is a vent and nobody is spared.

Part 1

I've been fairly annoyed lately by some people, including heads of state who should know better, whipping up all sorts of hysteria about women who choose to wear a hijab (headscarf), niqab (face scarf) or burqa. France already won't let young women who choose to wear hijab attend the public schools, which, frankly, is exactly the wrong approach to take if the government's goal is to integrate Muslim immigrants into French society. Now Nicolas Sarkozy wants to "ban the burqa." He's become the darling of those in the West who see Islam as a stain upon society and would like to force it out completely.

Ironically, a study indicates that less than 400 women in France wear the burqa and they're not the stereotypical Arab immigrant:

The reports say most women who wear full veils are under 30 and do so to make a political point. Outraged by what they see as widespread anti-Muslim sentiment, they want to defy society and, in some cases, their own relatives.

French converts to Islam account for around a quarter of wearers, the newspaper said, quoting the reports.

The influential French daily Le Monde suggested in an editorial that the idea of a burqa ban should be dropped. I don't know if the editorial pointed out what usually happens when something is made forbidden, but the typical reaction is that it becomes extremely desirable. A ban might actually inspire more women to don the burqa, which is allegedly counter to what Sarkozy and his government want. (Or do they really want it? Could it rather be an attempt to marginalize those who fail to toe the French secularist line even further? I don't know enough about internal French politics to say. Or maybe my tinfoil hat is screwed on entirely too tight.)

However, we Americans are not innocent in this area. Oregon just passed a law that requires employers to allow employees to wear religious garb, but explicitly exempts teachers, who are covered by a 1923 law that forbids religious dress in the classroom. As one editorial writer pointed out:

Oregon's religious dress ban dates to 1923 and a Ku Klux Klan-led campaign to close all Catholic schools and force nuns and priests from public classrooms. The law, still on our books, was pushed by the same well-meaning, open-minded folks who thought it should be a crime for Japanese people to own property.

Nice to know we've evolved.

There is a feeling among those who would ban the headscarf that they are doing it to "liberate" women. It doesn't seem to have occurred to these people that we women are moral actors and we can make decisions regarding our clothing and headgear on our own. And our decisions should be respected. If I want to wear a gimme cap, nobody's going to say much of anything. However, if I chose to wear an Al Amira hijab (or anything that even remotely resembles a Muslim "headscarf"), no doubt someone around here would come stark staring unglued.

Basically, the hijab has become a symbol of a despised religious belief and opposing the presence of the headscarf in public life has become one of the goals of those who are opposed to Islam. Again, I'd only point out that opposition can make things more desirable and that we women can make our own choices about what we're going to wear on our heads.

Part 2

Or not.

There are a lot of women in the English-language Muslim blogosphere who have wedded themselves to the notion that hijab is the most important marker of Islamic faith for women. It's not the Shahada or salat or fasting in Ramadan or zakat or the hajj--it's hijab. And it's not merely hijab.

In my surfing around I see a lot of posts where pictures of women wearing hijab are put up and then the blog owners shrilly proclaim, "That's not hijab!" Here's one example of what I'm talking about:

"Too much neck, too much bosom, a peep of hair showing, are those her earlobes?, it's too thin, it shows her shape," etc., etc., on and on and on and on. Google finds 274,000 instances of the phrase "That's not hijab" on the Internet. And that's just in English.

Thing is, when one starts digging further into this issue, one finds there is no uniform definition of "hijab." Rather, one discovers a slippery slope just awaiting the obsessive-compulsive new Muslimah who simply wants to practice her deen:

• She wears a headscarf, but her hairline shows. She may be covered from chin to ankle, but her clothes show her shape.
• Then, after a bit of naseeha (advice) from the sisters down at the masjid, she moves over to a combination of scarves and Al Amiras to keep her hair from showing.
• After that, she moves over to long tunic tops that cover her back end so she doesn't offend the sisters who give her more naseeha about her dress.
• Then she starts wearing bell-bottomed pants from Shukr (if she can fit into them--woe unto the fat Muslimah!) with her tunic tops.
• A sister or two may then drop a hint that her colorful hijabs are really not what Allah (swt) intended and that she ought to tone down the color. The flowered scarves and tunics get shoved into the back of the closet and she wears only blues, grays, browns and black.
• It progresses from there to the idea that maybe only wearing black in public is best after all, that's what they do in Saudi Arabia and isn't that where Allah (swt) had the revelation come to (or some other similar reasoning)?
• Then she feels compelled only to wear black in public along with her full niqab. She also wears glasses and sees it as a trial from Allah (swt) to test her faith. (She also really shouldn't be driving.)
• Finally, she gets to the point where she believes that she really should never go into public, that as a woman, her place is strictly in the home, and if she opens the front door to greet someone, she's dressed head to toe in black, her face obscured, her hands covered with black gloves.

First of all, let me state that if a woman makes this decision on her own to do this, that is totally her business and I support her.

However, I suspect in some cases the decision to wear hijab, niqab or the burqa has been made because some Muslimahs feel compelled to do so by peer pressure. Particularly since hijab has been made the first, and practically the ONLY, "pillar" of the Islamic faith for women. And, if you're a convert and wanting to practice your deen to the fullest, it's easy to have someone come up to you with a hadith or a saying from a prominent religious figure (living or dead) and then a word of naseeha--"Don't you want to be doing what Allah (swt) tells you to?"

Again, as in the case of Sarkozy and the annoying band of Islamophobes cheering him on, again we have people who claim to know better telling women how to dress. Isn't this a matter of conscience? Isn't this a decision that women have to make on our own, without the absurd pressure that comes from the notion that the only good woman is a silent woman?

The young women on their blogs who shrilly proclaim, "That's not hijaaaaaaab!" do their sisters no favors. Whether or not to wear hijab should not be made on the basis of peer pressure, it should come from a woman making a decision based on what she believes Allah (swt) would have her to do. Calling someone out, describing her on your websites or putting up pictures and then criticizing her from the crown of her head to her big toes because she doesn't dress like you, well, that's not Islamic sisterhood and it's not naseeha. It's gossiping and cattiness.

I could go on a lot more about this, talk about my experiences with fanaticism, how moderation is a good thing, about understanding those who aren't exactly like you is also a good thing, etc., etc., but seriously, this has gone on long enough. I'm thinking that Muslimahs need to get back to the five pillars of the faith--and hijab isn't one of them. Stop making it an unofficial pillar.

(And you guys, how about you taking responsibility for your *gaze*?)