Hijab Hijab is not a measure of a woman’s dignity, it is a woman’s slavery. -Dr. Homa Darabi In 1990, I visited Iran after some fifteen years. During my stay (about ten days, as long as I could stand the hijab) I asked for a meeting with the president of Tehran University. My purpose was to offer sending them used books from U.S. if they be willing to pay for the shipping charges. A male business acquaintance who had arranged for the meeting accompanied me to the meeting. Behind the president’s secretary’s desk was a short and chubby elderly woman rapped in 50 yards of black fabric. She had long sleeve black shirt, a black trousers, heavy black socks, a black skirt over the trousers, a black robe, a black maghnae (head scarf) and a chador. I witnessed her clothing when she left her desk to inform the president of our arrival. I was quite taken by the amount of clothing this woman was wearing in this office. I asked my escort “why is this woman so wrapped up in so many layers of black fabric? Isn’t the office of the president of a prestigious university safe enough for a woman to feel secure with one layer of fabric in this warm weather?”
My escort replied, “frankly I can’t understand it either. In addition I bet you if this woman would be bare naked standing in front of the Tehran Bazaar she would not make the heads turn.”
So if no one would pay attention why do Muslim women cover themselves in so many layers of black fabric?
During the same trip I heard other explanations for the hijab. A family member explained it in terms of financial obligations. He stated that Iran has to sell a lot of crude oil to China on barter exchange and China is the world producer of fabric. Iran has to import fabric to sell oil. The government makes dressing in layers of black fabric mandatory for women so they can collect the oil money to pay the government workers. Another explanation was from Mr. BaniSadr, the Iranian president. Women hair propagates a certain signal that when it hits a man’s eyes, he becomes irrational and would want to attack the woman. The best way to protect the woman is for her to be covered up in layers of dark fabric. But as my sister used to say none of these are rational explanation for hijab. The rational explanation for the covering of women is for men to control women. And for women is the ability to disguise. I believe that many women like the privacy of the tent not because it protects them from unwanted looks of strangers but because they like not to be identified. My sister, Dr. Homa Darabi, used to say “a woman without hijab cannot do much but under the tent of hijab she can do everything even carrying arms and bombs.” When I was growing up in Tehran I learned the importance of the hijab for women. As a small child I always wondered why our female relatives, friends and neighbors who did not were chador (the cover all for women in Iran) regularly would all of a sudden wear one and leave their house for a few hours. I learned as a teenager that they wore the chador to visit with their lovers. Under the privacy of the black tent they could hardly be recognized therefore the extramarital affairs would stay a secret. I have always been uneasy with women wearing hijab. One reason is because one can never be certain that indeed there is a woman walking under the black tent. Especially under a burka (cover all for women in Afghanistan) or abaya and neghab (cover all for women in Saudi Arabia). I once asked my father how men married women they had never seen before just by the words of their mothers and sisters. He explained it to me that they got to see their future wives by disguising as women wearing hijab and entering all women gatherings. Since no one forced them to take off their chadors they could sit and watch the women dance, joke and just be women. And that is how they would choose their future wives. Many of the Iranian men condemned to death following the 1979 revolution were able to flee from Iran by disguising as women wearing the hijab. Secondly, every time I see a woman covered in Islamic hijab I ran as fast as I can. I have grown a phobia about what they are carrying under their tent. As a child I attended an Islamic preschool with an Islamic head mistress, named Kobra Khanoum. She was so wrapped up in her quest to achieve an stake in Islamic heaven that she did not understand that her pupils were young children more interested in discovering the world they had been born into than the afterlife she was trying to pursue. Now I understand why I used to ran away from the school after one hour of her class. My religious teacher was a cold and stern woman with a purpose, cold as ice. She always carried a stick under her chador and lashed us if we laughed or giggled. As Ayatollah Khomeini stated following the establishment of the government of God in Iran, “there is no joy in Islam.” Like my teacher, Kobra Khanoum, there is also no joy or emotion in women wearing hijab either. As I remember Kobra Khanoum was always wrapped in black from head to toe, always reading the Qur'an and preaching Islam and the joy of afterlife in a heaven full of fruit and flowers, wine running in its rivers and were men are given 72 virgins. We were never told what women got when they went to heaven. Later I discovered that according to the prophet majority of women never make it to the Islamic heaven (“I was standing on the edge of the fire (hell) and the majority of the people going in were women,” Prophet Muhammad). After all why should they? Why in the hell would a woman want to go to heaven after a life of sharing her husband with three other women permanently (and under Shiite Islam with as many on a temporary basis) and witness the orgy of her husband with 72 virgins. But why do some women want to be covered? Even some Western women born and raised in open societies who have married Muslim men, why do they go under the tent? There are many explanation one can name, such as duty to a foreign born husband, not having a great looking face and body, having insecurity complex either in oneself or one’s marriage. I heard one in Iran which is worth mentioning here. When I went to Iran in 1990, I met at a party with some 10 or so highly educated and progressive women, almost all of them physicians. They were all friends and classmates of my sister, Dr. Homa Darabi. Following the dinner we all gathered in a room for women only and I asked them why do they wear the hijab? They gave me many reasons, privacy, solidarity with men to overthrow the Shah, religion, but one that all agreed with was that they did not have to compete with younger women who were so skinny and good looking. And their husbands would not be tempted by those young women. The insecurity of these women bugle my mind. Women so educated and advanced and at the same time so insecure and backward. Many women claim that when they wear the hijab they feel that in their dealing with men they do not have to worry about their looks. Men then would listen to what they are saying without thinking of them as sex objects. Again insecure and backward women who have nothing to say and perhaps make them feel good by blaming it on their looks and sex appeal. Men apparently have no problem listening to women such as Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer and millions of women who work with men every day of their lives. Muslim women who cover themselves suffer from deep insecurity in themselves and their marriage. History Hijab is the covering of women under Islamic Laws. Majority of Muslims believe that hijab for women was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed in Nur revelation, Koran 33:31. “And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess (slaves), or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women, and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.” However, the truth may be quite different. In the first years of Islam there was no change in the way women presented themselves in public. As a matter of fact women accompanied men in wars. Even prophet Mohammed would take one or two of his wives with him when he went to war. Following the death of his first wife and his trip from Mecca to Medina, the prophet began accumulating wives and had all his wives to live in one house in separate rooms. The Prophet used to hold services in the yard of his home and when men came to visit him they would flirt with his wives. Some out of jealousy and envy. Since he was the only man in Islam that the law of four permanent wives did not apply to. Mohammed could have as many as his heart desired. The prophet did not appreciate that his male visitors flirted with his wives so he made a decree that men and women must be segregated and they could only speak to each other with a curtain in between. It was quite convenient then that the Sura Nur, Ayeh 31 was revealed to him telling women that they must cover their bosoms with their head covers. However, there is no mention of women wearing a tent over themselves while in public. It also states that women do not have to cover themselves in presence of those whose right hand posses which means the slaved ones. There are different forms of hijab. In some Muslim countries like Afghanistan women have to wear burkas which is really a tent or as Bill Maher calls it Bee Keeper Suits. There is only a small mesh in front of the eyes for getting in touch with the outside world. In Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait, women must wear an abaya which covers their head and body and some have to wear a nighab which covers their face with just small openings for the eyes. And in some countries such as Iran, Indonesia, Egypt and others women wear outfits which covers all their bodies except their face and hands. Why is hijab necessary in Islam? We understand why it was necessary to segregate prophet’s wives from the men during the Mohammed’s time. He did not want any other man to have a glimpse of what he called his property. Ali Dashti in his book, 33 years states that Abdollah b. Al-'Abbas is reported to have said that a man went to see one of the Prophet's wives, and the Prophet ordered him not to do so again. The man protested that she was the daughter of his paternal uncle and that he and she had no wrong intentions. The Prophet replied, "I am well aware of that, but' there are none so jealous as the Lord and myself." The man took umbrage and walked out, muttering "He forbids me to speak to my cousin. Anyway I shall marry her after his death.” It was then that the revelation of verse 53 of Sura 33 took place. “33:53. O you who believe! do not enter the houses of the Prophet unless permission is given to you for a meal, not waiting for its cooking being finished—but when you are invited, enter, and when you have taken the food, then disperse—not seeking to listen to talk; surely this gives the Prophet trouble, but he forbears from you, and Allah does not forbear from the truth. And when you ask of them any goods, ask of them from behind a curtain; this is purer for your hearts and (for) their hearts; and it does not behoove you that you should give trouble to the Apostle of Allah, nor that you should marry his wives after him ever; surely this is grievous in the sight of Allah. So this man married all these women, kept them on a leash and made it impossible for any of them to find happiness after him. None had a child from him. And we call this Allah’s justice! Hijab is nothing but subjugation of women.
Parvin Darabi
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