I am living/working in a western-friendly Arab state where a steady and significant stream of ex-pats inhabiting the place have prompted the indigenous women to cover up with the black abaya and sometimes the niqab as an expression of preserving their national identity and culture. There is an ongoing, passionate debate regarding women's dress in some parts of the Arab world, with the unfortunate recent example in Khartoum of women prosecuted for wearing offensive trousers that apparently revealed too much of the female form; they were sentenced to 20 lashings each. Britney would have a tough time in those parts.
In a recent issue of The Economist, there was a short report about the contentious issue of the niqab.
. . .
No shame in showing your face
Oct 15th 2009 | CAIRO
From The Economist print edition
An argument that never ends
IN EGYPT’S 100-year-long debate over female head-coverings, the veil has been put off and on as fast as hemlines in Paris have gone up and down. Feminists in the 1920s threw it off; by the 1970s so had most Egyptian women. But it has crept back, as a wave of religiosity has prompted many to embrace a more distinctively Muslim look. Most Egyptian women are again under cover, but adopt a range of styles, from the black niqab, often worn with gloves, leaving just a slit for the eyes, to the shoulder-enveloping khimar, to lighter novelties such as a colourful Spanish-style scarf wrapped around hair tied in a bun, leaving a jaunty fringe dangling to the neck.
Despite the argument’s longevity, the passions it stirs remain strong. In July this year proponents of the veil gained a boost by proclaiming their first martyr. Marwa Sherbini, an Egyptian immigrant, was stabbed to death in a German courtroom by the man she had brought to trial for insulting her as a terrorist, because she wore a headscarf.
But this month the veil’s opponents claimed a victory, won by no less a personage than Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, Cairo’s 1,000-year-old Islamic university. While touring one of hundreds of girls’ schools that al-Azhar also runs, he happened to spot an 11-year-old student wearing the niqab—and lost his famously short temper. Not only did he order her to remove it on the spot. His university issued a blanket rule banning the niqab in all its girls’ schools, on the ground that the full face-covering is an innovation that represents too extreme an interpretation of Islamic modesty.
This was not the first attack on the niqab, a fashion widely seen as an expression of Salafism, a rigidly orthodox interpretation of Islam promoted by Saudi-owned satellite-television channels. In recent years Egyptian universities and government offices have sporadically banned niqab-wearers, citing security. But the abruptness of Sheikh Tantawi’s order, and the fact that it came from Egypt’s highest seat of Islamic teaching, stirred an outcry both from conservatives and from campaigners for civil liberties.
That storm has quieted. The sheikh now says he is not against the niqab but just sees it as unnecessary in all-female institutions. Egypt’s religious-affairs ministry says it is printing 100,000 copies of a leaflet called “Niqab: Custom Not Worship” to assure Muslims that exposure of a woman’s hands and face is not shameful.
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I have been keenly interested in the behavior and dress of my indigenous colleagues. I was initially stunned by the number of abayas in the office and while I work on another floor, the majority are on the first floor working across all departments; some wearing the veil and others the niqab. There are a few extra modest women that keep the door closed at all times so that they are not in the constant view of the men. When you enter those offices, there is usually incense burning (hence the disabled smoke detectors throughout the building). The incense is burned for purity - of the person and the work - it's also a symbol of hospitality.
From a vanity perspective, the burning incense serves the same purpose as the Celtic pommander, a locket filled with potpourri as perfume before the days of commercial deodorant. The Bedouin have likewise burned incense for many generations to dispel the heavy odor of nomadic life in the intense heat of the desert. Despite the convenience of climate control, the incense tradition remains intact in the modern workplace.
I am always looking at the hands. The henna designs applied to the hands is another art form, like calligraphy. It is applied for festivals (Eid) and special occasions like weddings. I try to remember who turns up with a fresh application, because I enjoy observing it fade and transform to a washed sepia.
The shape of the head under the veil is always interesting as many women have long hair but wear it piled on their heads, under the veil. These protrusions of stacked hair evoke further intrigue and mystique as one wonders about the texture and color of so much hair and what it might look like.
I was at an IT meeting a few weeks ago and the Deputy Director of IT, a local woman, with two members of her team seemed to float into the meeting with their black robes swishing into the room, sleeves glinting from the gold embellishments and colored sequins. They made an entrance, of sorts, not because they were chairing the meeting but because of the elegance of the entry and the individuality of each abaya's embellishment. I have noticed that the women tug on their veils which are often trimmed in decorative and opulent embellishments, pushing it forward on their hairlines or refastening it, much like a western woman that tucks her hair behind the ear or twirls a strand around a finger as a nervous tick or unconscious habit.
The retail assortments in the stores address the abaya-wearing consumer. Since the only thing that shows are the shoes, the handbag and the sunglasses, there is an inordinate quantity and range of these items, particularly obscenely expensive bags and sunglasses in the stores with big, gaudy logos. I've been encouraged to buy an abaya to have it handy as it is so convenient to throw over jeans and go out when you don't want to dress. I've been doing that my whole life with a t-shirt, flip-flops and baseball hat.
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