Hijab (pre-1000 or 1970s?)

[Dave Wilton]

> Karen Armstrong, in one of her books on Islam, (_Mohammed_, I
> think, but it might be _The Battle for God_), provides some
> documentation that the practice of hijab was borrowed from
> Byzantine Christianity around the 9th or 10th c., before the
> Crusades, when Byzantine Christianity was still very
> powerful in the region and practiced head-covering for women.
> When it began to be called "hijab" in Arabic is a separate
> question that I don't know the answer to.  As the NYPost
> article indicates, the practice is not grounded in the Qu'ran
> or the hadith.

In _The Battle for God_, Armstrong discusses the practice of the veiling of
women in general, but she does not distinguish between the different styles
of head coverings and words like "hijab," "chador," and "burka" do not
appear in the book. She does date the practice of veiling to c. 9th century
and it was adopted from Byzantine practice (but she does not provide source
notes for this assertion). The wearing of the veil (in its various forms)
was largely abolished in the 1920s and 30s as part of the move to secularize
Muslim states. The wearing of such clothing was made illegal in many Muslim
states.

The return to the use of the traditional head coverings (at least in the
cities, in rural areas the practice was never stamped out) was in the early
70s and was, interestingly, mostly among university women. Armstrong notes
that the hijab (without calling it by name; I assume that is what she is
referring to) is a modernized version of the attire worn by rural women in
many Muslim countries. Rural women attending university or otherwise moving
to the big city adopted it as a defense against the unfamiliar modernities
they encountered, a way to reconcile tradition with modernity, to hold on to
the traditions of their grandmothers while adopting new ideas about the
place of women in society and other matters.

Armstrong provides no support for the details given in the NY Post article
of how the hijab arose in Lebanon and was inspired by the clothing of
Christian nuns. Only the general date (early 70s) is correct.

So the wearing of the hijab is not a practice that springs up spontaneously
in the 1970s. It is a modernized version of a much older tradition. It is
not grounded in the Qu'ran, but it has been around for a millennium. One can
point to many examples of Christian traditions that are not rooted in
scripture but are quite old and held by many to be central to their faith
(e.g., fasting during Lent, the immaculate conception and perpetual
virginity of Mary).