Women in niqab unveil reasons for wearing it

Not everyone uses the face veil for a strictly religious reason.

PETALING JAYA: Associated with everything from female oppression to religious piety to extremism, the niqab, a face veil that leaves only the eyes uncovered, is perhaps one of the most controversial dress pieces in these days.

In interviews with FMT, several women gave their reasons for wearing it. Not all these reasons have to do with religion.

Mazratul Abdul Wahab, who owns a niqab boutique, said most of her customers chose it because it made them feel more comfortable.

“I’m sure it must be difficult for a man to understand, but most of my customers say they like wearing the niqab because it gives them a sense of privacy,” she said.

“Some people enjoy more private lives and like the fact that they will not be disturbed wherever they go.”

She said celebrities were among her customers who would use the full face veil for the privacy it afforded. “They enjoy wearing the niqab because people don’t bother them when they go out.”

Nurul Shahirah, a student at International Islamic University Malaysia, said she used the niqab because she was shy. “Since I was little, I’ve been a very shy girl. So the main reason I wear the niqab is that I feel more comfortable in it.”

Nurul is 19 years old and has worn the niqab for two years now.

“I started wearing the niqab when I was 17 after a conversation I had with some of my friends who were guys. They told me what they thought of women who didn’t cover up and that made me feel ashamed. I’ve been wearing the niqab ever since.”

Blogger Aishah Nur Hakim’s reasons for wearing the niqab are more spiritually grounded.

“I started wearing the niqab back in 2009,” she said. “This was during a time when it was quite difficult to find one, unlike today.

“Before I wore the niqab I was very naughty and would travel alone at night and was always commuting from Seremban to Kuala Lumpur. I decided to wear it because I wanted to change and become a better person. I knew it had to be a drastic change or else I’d just revert to my old ways. The niqab was the answer to that and it’s also a strong deterrent against doing naughty things.”

She does not agree that the niqab gives her more privacy because people have looked at her more since she started wearing it, though that bothers her less now.

“I thought if I wore the niqab people would stop bothering me and would look at me less. They have stopped bothering me, but the truth is they do stare more often. Most of the time it’s because they want to see how I do stuff with it on, like eating.”

She said her decision to wear the niqab had nothing to do with attachment to any particular Islamic school of thought.

“I enjoy getting involved in discussions regarding many different schools of thought when it comes to Islam, but I don’t subscribe to any particular one. I just don’t like being labelled a salafi, or a sufi, or a liberal or conservative Muslim. I’m just a Muslim.”

Islamic Renaissance Front director Ahmad Farouk Musa has insisted that Islam does not obligate women to cover their faces.

“Nowhere in the Quran or in any hadith are women instructed to cover their faces with a niqab,” he declared.

He told FMT that his position was the same as that of Nasiruddin al-Albani, a renowned hadith specialist who died in 1999.

Al-Albani was of the opinion that it’s not compulsory for women to cover their hands and faces.

Farouk quoted a hadith in which the Prophet is reported to have said that women were allowed to expose their hands and faces. Al-Albani, in his study of the hadith collection of the classical scholar Abu Dawud, categorised this hadith as sahih (authentic) because one of the chains of transmission goes back to Ummu Salamah, a wife of the Prophet, and this chain does not have dubious personalities in it.

“There’s another transmission of this hadith compiled by al-Tabarani and al-Bayhaqi where the sanad (chain of narrators) is nowhere below the hasan (acceptable) status,” Farouk said.

“With these two supporting evidences, Al-Albani graded the hadith as authentic.”

Farouk also quoted UCLA School of Law professor Khaled Abou al-Fadl on the question of aurat (those parts of the body that must be clothed).

“Prof al-Fadl says texts on ethical conduct often report opinions of the Prophet’s companions and their successors that the covering of the aurat is more of a moral value than a physical measure. For instance, it is reported that safeguarding the aurat entails respecting the privacy and dignity of others and not simply respecting their physical integrity.”

Farouk said speaking ill of people would be a violation of their aurat and “far more serious” than seeing parts of their bodies.

“This again points to the fact that the issues of aurat should not be approached in the formal and mechanical fashion employed by contemporary Muslims,” he said.

“According to Prof al-Fadl, Muslims should be far more focused on comprehending and pursuing the ethical qualities invoked by the aspiration towards modesty, humility and dignity than on the regiment of a dress code.” -FMT