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THE MUSLIM VEIL

SUNDAY BRUNCH | Culture Watch
The Veil: Meaning and Misconception
By JOSEPH HANANIA, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Los Angeles Times Sunday June 14, 1998
Home Edition Life & Style Part E Page 1 View Desk
19 inches; 645 words

Growing up in Cairo, Ola Hafez had wanted to wear the traditional
veil. Her parents forbade it.

"They wanted to make sure I understood the commitment I was making,"
she explained. Wearing a veil, they said, was not a rite of passage to be
taken lightly only to be discarded later.

So it wasn't until 15 years ago, when she was 20, that Hafez started
wearing a veil as a way of maintaining the appropriate modesty prescribed
by her religion and culture.

Hafez, a lecturer in the English department at Cairo University, was
among speakers at a recent UCLA forum, "On Veiling and the Media,"
sponsored by the Middle East Centers at UCLA in cooperation with New York
and Columbia universities.

The forum's purpose: to critique the Western media's often-simplistic
portrayals of the Arabic veil.

Among these portrayals is the stereotype of the veil as "the perfect
symbol of [repressed] sexuality," said Sondra Hale, adjunct professor of
women's studies at UCLA. That image and its counterpoint--the unveiled
Muslim female as "a fallen, salacious woman . . . tells us more about
Western values than about the Middle East," Hale suggested.

The truth about the veil is quite different, conferees agreed.

* The veil is not a one-size-fits-all uniform, Hafez said. Rather, it
may be anything from a scarf tied over the hair to a full-length robe, or
chadour, which nearly covers both face and body.

* Worn primarily in the Arabic-speaking world, in part as protection
against the often-harsh climate, the veil has waxed and waned in
popularity. Over time, it has become associated with the region's
predominant religion, Islam.

* Wearing of the veil, however, is by no means universal practice
among Muslim women, Hale said. The majority remain unveiled.

* Historically, the veil has also been worn by non-Muslims. Classical
statues of Greek women often portray them wearing veils, said Afaf
Marsot, professor of Middle Eastern history at UCLA, while Christian and
Jewish women in the Middle East wore veils as protection against dust and
sandstorms.

During her childhood in Egypt, Marsot added, poorer women wore veils
while wealthier women preferred hats. Thus, wearing a veil had "an
economic, rather than a religious, significance," she said.

* The Koran, the Muslim holy book, does not require women to wear
veils. On the contrary, said Marsot, "it says that during the Haj [the
holy pilgrimage to Mecca], both men and women must face God, face to
face." The Koran also teaches that both men and women should dress
modestly, with women hiding their cleavage--which the veil did before the
invention of buttons.

Stigmatization of the veil in the West--where there is no stigma
attached to other traditional head coverings, such as nuns' habits or the
elaborate wigs worn by English judges--has exacerbated an identity crisis
among American Muslims wishing to avoid scorn, said Salam Al-Marayati.

Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los
Angeles, explained, "We are struggling to identify who we are. The lack
of identity [fostered by the stigma] creates a vacuum. Stereotypes fill
in that vacuum. So, we need to identify ourselves and not let others
define us." Muslims wear the veil, in part, to proclaim their religious
and cultural identity, he said.

True, the veil has had a visible resurgence since the late '60s in
much of the Muslim world. But, said Hafez, that resurgence stems less
from a rising religious fundamentalism than from the increasing number of
Muslim women joining the work force. As once-isolated homemakers joined a
traditionally male work force, wearing a veil was "a compromise," a way
to maintain apartness and minimize sexual harassment.

In discussing the veil, Marsot cautioned, it is important to keep in
mind that Muslims are one-fifth of the world's population and "you can't
extrapolate from one country to another. Egypt is very different from
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country. And they are different
from Morocco or Pakistan or Algeria."

She pointed out that in countries bordering the Persian Gulf,
including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen, even non-Muslim women (including
visitors) must almost always wear veils; those who do not risk
antagonizing powerful religious as well as closely allied secular
authorities.

Growing up in Iran, said UCLA graduate student Elham Gheytanchi, 25,
she watched her friends protest having to wear a veil by "deliberately
letting a little hair out." Many Iranian women have begun fighting for
equal social and professional rights, she added, but they are not yet
ready to take on the more deeply entrenched issue of the veil.

PHOTO: In Tehran, Iranian schoolgirls are initiated in the wearing
of the chadour. The practice, associated mainly with Islam, is often
misunderstood by Western cultures, some experts say.
ID NUMBER: 19980614hls0101



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