The Veil, from classical to modern
In order to understand the modern shari'a, and its considerable divergence from the classical world, perhaps better example exists than that of the veil. The veil in the modern world as anyone who has been paying attention knows, is sort of the centerpiece of the Islamic revivalist movement, the symbol of Islamicity in our times. There is almost nothing that is more important in the rising religiosity than the wearing of the veil. Go to a Shi'a mosque in Ashura, the Imam will at some point urge the women who don't cover their heads outside the mosque to redouble their religiosity, to put on the veil, because this is what the martyred Hussein and his sister Zainab want to see, as devotion to their cause. Head over to Australia, and the titular head of Australia's largest Islamic organization once compared unveiled women to "uncovered meat" and suggested an analogy between the sexual assault of said women to the attraction that flies have to uncovered meat. Go to Iran or Saudi Arabia, and the veil is imposed by law. Go to Basrah, Kerbala, Falluja, Sadr City, and it's enforced effectively by quasi-law. Look at the women in any Islamic party, and you'll be hard pressed to find unveiled woman. It really is the essence of Islamic authenticity, which doesn't mean women can't be unveiled and religious (of course they can), but that these unveiled women are likely to be receiving comments in any Islamic gathering they go to respecting the importance of getting the veil on themselves sooner rather than later.
The irony being, go to the classical texts, and very little of this is present. There are rules on all sorts of stuff, pages and pages on trades of this thing for that thing, or acquisition of slaves, or conduct of jihad, and no section called "women's dress." That's not to say the classicists never thought of women, they did, but the general idea was that they should be "secluded", not veiled as we understand it. Kept in homes or wherever, not seen publicly, not running around entering markets or engaging that extensively outside. There's not a hard and fast rule about this--much of it is class driven. Shafi'i for example distinguishes between the purer women in the home and, in language I see as dripping with contempt, refers to those who have defiled themselves by going out onto the street and engaging in common affairs. But that's not really something he's describing as punishable, just undesirable and base. And certainly neither he, nor any other classicist I can think of, develops a distinction solely on the basis of dress.
But in the modern world, so much of that has changed. Yes there are remnants of the notion of seclusion certainly in much of the Muslim world. The Taliban restrictions are reminiscent of this,throughout the Muslim world, certain places are regarded as inappropriate for women. It's not hard to find markets from Pakistan to Falluja where you never see women, anywhere in sight. But the burgeoning revivalism of our times is not based on such notions, clerics aren't out agitating for that. Islamist women demonstrate, they organize, they form associations and unions, and the Islamists support that. so long as they wear the veil. Entry into society is no longer the problem, what you wear when you enter it, is. Egyptian women sue in the Constitutional Court, not because they have to go to school, but because they can't cover their faces when they voluntarily go to college. The suit is precisely on the basis that public participation is a good thing. The premier Shi'a revivialist in Iraq, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, had a sister just as active as he was promoting the Islamic agenda among Iraq's women, Bint al-Huda was her name. Probably the most well known woman's name in Iraq's south remains hers. And she was certainly not secluded.
To be clear, no I'm not suggesting that Islamists have progressive views towards women, but I am suggesting that Islam has changed with the times. Western influence, state requirements on education, political, social, economic necessities, tapping into a potentially huge resource of recruits that clearly Western influences were reaching, all of this led to very different notions of Islamicity as the previous century unfolded. We were different, but not because you couldn't
The latter factor in particular can scarcely be gainsaid, MB Sadr (not the present dude) in the 1970's was watching his society's loyalty to its clerics disintegrate before him, he saw them growing less and less enthused with antiquated rules. He saw the cultural encorachments of the West and Marxism. In shaking up Shi'a Islam to respond, the idea of engaging women who were previously ignored no doubt appeared attractive, no doubt his sister, born in these turbulent times, saw it this way as well, no doubt their own understandings of Islam's mulitfaceted and complex history and foundational texts, shaped in their own times, based upon the needs and necessities of those times, led to very different conclusions on the role of women in the ideal Muslim society than those of the clerical forebears. And so with her brother's encouragement Bint al-Huda left her home and took to the streets, to lead an unprecedentedly powerful, public Islamic movment composed exclusively of women whose reverberations have lasted three decades now in Iraq and show no signs of abating.
Though before walking out the door, she did put a veil on her head.
HAH
The irony being, go to the classical texts, and very little of this is present. There are rules on all sorts of stuff, pages and pages on trades of this thing for that thing, or acquisition of slaves, or conduct of jihad, and no section called "women's dress." That's not to say the classicists never thought of women, they did, but the general idea was that they should be "secluded", not veiled as we understand it. Kept in homes or wherever, not seen publicly, not running around entering markets or engaging that extensively outside. There's not a hard and fast rule about this--much of it is class driven. Shafi'i for example distinguishes between the purer women in the home and, in language I see as dripping with contempt, refers to those who have defiled themselves by going out onto the street and engaging in common affairs. But that's not really something he's describing as punishable, just undesirable and base. And certainly neither he, nor any other classicist I can think of, develops a distinction solely on the basis of dress.
But in the modern world, so much of that has changed. Yes there are remnants of the notion of seclusion certainly in much of the Muslim world. The Taliban restrictions are reminiscent of this,throughout the Muslim world, certain places are regarded as inappropriate for women. It's not hard to find markets from Pakistan to Falluja where you never see women, anywhere in sight. But the burgeoning revivalism of our times is not based on such notions, clerics aren't out agitating for that. Islamist women demonstrate, they organize, they form associations and unions, and the Islamists support that. so long as they wear the veil. Entry into society is no longer the problem, what you wear when you enter it, is. Egyptian women sue in the Constitutional Court, not because they have to go to school, but because they can't cover their faces when they voluntarily go to college. The suit is precisely on the basis that public participation is a good thing. The premier Shi'a revivialist in Iraq, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, had a sister just as active as he was promoting the Islamic agenda among Iraq's women, Bint al-Huda was her name. Probably the most well known woman's name in Iraq's south remains hers. And she was certainly not secluded.
To be clear, no I'm not suggesting that Islamists have progressive views towards women, but I am suggesting that Islam has changed with the times. Western influence, state requirements on education, political, social, economic necessities, tapping into a potentially huge resource of recruits that clearly Western influences were reaching, all of this led to very different notions of Islamicity as the previous century unfolded. We were different, but not because you couldn't
The latter factor in particular can scarcely be gainsaid, MB Sadr (not the present dude) in the 1970's was watching his society's loyalty to its clerics disintegrate before him, he saw them growing less and less enthused with antiquated rules. He saw the cultural encorachments of the West and Marxism. In shaking up Shi'a Islam to respond, the idea of engaging women who were previously ignored no doubt appeared attractive, no doubt his sister, born in these turbulent times, saw it this way as well, no doubt their own understandings of Islam's mulitfaceted and complex history and foundational texts, shaped in their own times, based upon the needs and necessities of those times, led to very different conclusions on the role of women in the ideal Muslim society than those of the clerical forebears. And so with her brother's encouragement Bint al-Huda left her home and took to the streets, to lead an unprecedentedly powerful, public Islamic movment composed exclusively of women whose reverberations have lasted three decades now in Iraq and show no signs of abating.
Though before walking out the door, she did put a veil on her head.
HAH
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