According to historical accounts the veil predates Islam by many centuries. Assyrian kings introduced it in the Near East, along with the seclusion of women in the royal harem.

It was only in the second Islamic century (which ended in AD814) that the veil became common. It was first used among the powerful and rich as a status symbol — then only “common” women would be seen in the streets unveiled. Later the Koranic instruction to “tell the believing women to lower their gaze and protect their private parts and not to show off their adornment except that which is apparent, and to draw their veils all over their bosoms” was taken by some as a ruling to veil one’s hair, neck and ears. For a woman to assume a shielding veil and stay inside the house was a sign of status: it showed that her family had the means to enable her to do so.

Throughout Islamic history only certain sections of the urban classes were veiled and secluded. Rural and nomadic women — most of the population — were not. Iran’s ancient indigenous tribal women rarely adhered to the revolutionary rules for women and could be observed riding their horses into town when urban women could be flogged or imprisoned for riding bicycles.

March 8, 2004

Why is it that women in villages are so much freer in comparison with our urban women (at least when it comes to choosing what they wear)? It’s incredible but they are not only freer in how they dress, but also in their activities and movements. Why is it that they don’t “endanger Islam” by not wearing headscarves, as they freely mingle, laughing and chatting with the menfolk? Is it due to their heavy participation in work? Or is it that work will be stopped without women? God forbid!

E-mail: bamdadz@yahoo.com

http://bamdad.blogspot.com

For “Muslim feminists”, donning the “revolutionary hijab” was the equivalent of Western feminists of the 1960s and 1970s burning their bras. Young women who take up the hijab are rejecting the approach of their parents’ generation, which tried to assimilate, and rebelling against a Western society that they feel has rebuffed their parents’ efforts. But Iranian women did the revolutionary hijab thing a quarter of a century ago, and to judge from most public images of young women in Iran, many of them no longer have any faith in the revolutionary hijab ideals of the Muslim feminists.

May 29, 2002

What would happen if you were no longer legally required to wear the veil? Just imagine if our women were free to wear whatever they wanted; if mixed bathing on the beach were allowed . . . would this be culturally tolerable to Iranians? You — would you have any objections to your wife or your girlfriend in public dressed in a miniskirt, T-shirt and no bra with her nipples showing through? Or you, a woman who lives in Iran, are you prepared to go public in full view of our men, who get so worked up by just glimpsing an inch of ankle underneath your robes that they need to masturbate? Reform has to come from the bottom up. People have to change gradually, as our culture cannot change overnight.

E-mail: baakereh@yahoo.com

http://baakereh.blogspot.com

May 30, 2002