Everything you wanted to know about the hijab

I found the article quite interesting, but I am skeptical about all religions.

Why is head covering so controversial and what do Muslim women themselves think about it?

There is hardly any article of clothing that causes more heated debate than the Muslim women's head covering. The hijab has never been "just a headscarf", and globalization has turned a piece of fabric into a cultural, religious and political symbol that embodies the Muslim world and, above all, Europeans' ideas about it. In Russia, the federal education minister and the head of Chechnya are arguing passionately about allowing or banning the headscarf - and parents of schoolgirls are challenging the right to wear the hijab in court; in France, the scandals surrounding the ban on the burkini, for which government officials were accused of Islamophobia, have only just died down, and just the other day, Austria decided to ban Abayas and niqabs that cover the face.

While some call for “liberating women of the East” by tearing off their veils, others advocate the right to choose for everyone, regardless of whether a woman wants to sunbathe topless or hide her body from prying eyes. Some secular Europeans are allergic to the hijab (for example, at school) in itself, as a reminder of someone else’s religiosity, and the radical right is simply convinced that complete assimilation is a rule of community life that is not challenged.

At the same time, the Muslim fashion market is growing so rapidly that it is no longer possible to ignore it: Muslim millennials have a huge influence on modern culture, where traditions melt in one pot, but the question of the humanity and symbolic value of the hijab arises again and again.

We figure out what hijab means today and what points of view exist among researchers and believers themselves.

Not just a scarf

Hijab in Arabic means "barrier" or "covering", and this is often the name given to the headscarf that Muslim women use to cover their heads. However, the meaning of the term is much broader: hijab is not only a head covering, but also all clothing that corresponds to Muslim ideas about what a worthy woman looks like (that is, any opaque garment that reveals only the face and hands and does not cling to the figure). There is also an "inner hijab" - this implies spiritual qualities, such as chastity and respect for God, but the "inner hijab", unlike a covered head, is not conspicuous, and therefore does not raise questions.

The basic principles of the Muslim dress code are contained in the Koran and are interpreted quite clearly by theologians. Verse 24:31 states that Muslim women should “protect their private parts,” “cover their chests with veils,” and not show their beauty to anyone except their husbands and other close relatives who are considered mahrams this is the name for all relatives whom a woman cannot legally marry. Verse 24:60 specifies that older women who are no longer planning to get married may not follow the hijab rules so strictly, but it is still better not to deviate from them. And finally, verse 33:59 contains a requirement for a head covering: Muslim women are advised to “draw their veils close to each other” so that other people do not take them for “slaves or harlots,” that is, treat them with respect. Girls are required to wear a hijab from the beginning of puberty their first menstruation.

The Koran does not describe specific types of modest clothing, so both the color of the hijab and the styles vary greatly from region to region. For example, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both men and women dress similarly and cover their heads, but the traditional color of women's dresses is black, while men's dresses are white, which is more suitable for the local climate. There is an interesting version that links this distribution to military history: supposedly battles between Arab tribes often took place at night, and a woman dressed in black could hide unnoticed, while men specially dressed so that they could be seen from afar.

In most modern Muslim countries, the tradition of covering the head existed long before Islam, which appeared in the 7th century. The usual dress only adapted to the requirements of the new religion, without completely dissolving in them, which gave rise to many varieties of national Muslim costume. In Arab countries, women can most often be seen in black embroidered abayas, in India Muslim women wear bright saris or salwar kameez (sets of wide trousers, a long tunic and a scarf or headscarf), and Iranian women from villages around the Persian Gulf cover their faces with beaded or metal masks resembling false moustaches.

Hijab, niqab, burqa and so on are all local traditions: as is customary in the region and as the husband allows. If the husband allows you to walk with an open face, you can, if he allows you to walk in a headscarf and jeans, you can," explains Svetlana Babkina, associate professor at the Center for the Study of Religions at the Russian State University for the Humanities. "Everything depends on the liberalism of the country and the liberalism of the husband within the liberalism of the country.

A symbol of oppression or a feminist gesture

The hijab brings with it a huge baggage of negative associations: it is not surprising that the emancipated West considers a covered head a symbol of the lack of rights in which millions of women still live. In the same Saudi Arabia, female citizens cannot drive a car or appear in public without a male companion, and in Afghanistan you can even pay with your life if you go shopping alone. Western politicians who come to negotiate in Muslim countries have to choose between paying respect to local traditions (Valentina Matviyenko, for example, got herself a green hijab for her visit to Saudi Arabia) or a clear demonstration of European values: Angela Merkel and her German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen refuse to cover their heads even for a meeting with royalty, and, of course, the French representative of the far right Marine Le Pen does the same.