Americans’ tendency to judge the traditional Islamic practice of veiling, according to Adiba Ali, secretary of the Boston University Islamic women’s group Sisters United, has left the Muslim faith and those who follow it shrouded largely and literally in mystery.
Ali, 19, a College of Engineering sophomore from Long Island, believes many Americans wrongly judge the traditional Muslim headscarf without understanding its roots or background leading them to associate it directly with terrorism.
But terrorism, she says, is not what Islam or the veil is about.
‘For a lot of Americans Islam is still a mystery,’ Ali said. ‘They might see the headscarf and assume the worst, according to what they know.’
According to Islamic Community Net, an organization that works to prevent media misrepresentation of Muslims, CNN ‘Talk Back Live’ host Leon Harris ridiculed American Taliban John Walker in Dec. 2001 for, what Harris called, converting to a belief that requires women to ‘walk around with rugs covering their faces up.’
Ali believes it is such media ignorance that promotes the wrong image of Islam and the role of the Muslim woman. She argues that most Americans ‘only know what the media portrays.’
‘It has only been in the modern times that some Muslims lacking the proper education are imposing their interpretation of Islam upon women,’ she said. ‘And in most cases, this is a wrong and unjust interpretation … People assume that the veil promotes a patriarchal society, when in fact, that is not the point of the veil.’
In a Jan. 2002 article, National Review Online Contributing Editor Stanley Kurtz said the press has been too busy ‘detailing the horrors of the Taliban’s treatment of women’ to bring any focus to the true meaning behind the veil further enhancing public misconceptions of its value and significance
While Kurtz condemned the Taliban’s oppressive use of the veil as an imposition on Afghan women, he explained why Muslim women choose wear the veil in the first place, explaining that the religious belief behind the veil should not symbolize patriarchal subjugation.
‘Women who cover see it more as a liberation than an oppression,’ explained Sisters United member and School of Education freshman Maria Khwaja, 18, of Chicago.
‘It’s like stating that ‘I am not my body, I am myself.’ That is something a lot of Americans have trouble seeing because [American] culture is so deeply immersed in a woman’s freedom lying in uncovering her body.’
Ali said she did not cover her head until a few months ago, when she felt she had studied enough Islam to fully integrate its beliefs into her life. According to the Hadith, which are the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, she said, a woman should show only her hands and face so she is judged by her intelligence, not her looks and sexuality.
‘It is like an expression of freedom,’ she said.
College of Arts and Science sophomore Dunia Ramadan, 19, from Northboro, Mass., agrees. For her, the veil represents ‘obedience to God,’ as well as freedom to have an individual religious identity.
But this freedom, according to the Muslim Women’s League (MWL), is limited for many women, in what their website describes as a world of ‘Western hostility.’ Afra Jalani, a member of the Los Angeles-based organization, is quoted on the MWL website as saying that Muslim women in North America should keep their headscarves because they represent ‘a spirit of defiance against racism and ignorance.’
According to Shala Haeri, an assistant professor of anthropology and director of Women’s Studies at BU who has extensively studied the role of women in Islam, it is important to recognize the difference between American and Middle Eastern cultures when trying to understand the concept of the veil.
‘We like to think that everyone thinks like an American, and that everyone wants what Americans want,’ she said. ‘But the truth is that these cultures are very different. Everything about them is different our priorities, our traditions, our family lives. I don’t think Americans realize that.’
And to many American Muslim women, wearing the veil is one such priority.
‘The veil cannot be imposed on people,’ Ali said. She believes the decision to veil must come from a personal understanding of Islam and as ‘an act of worship to God, not to a dominating male in your life.’
‘It is really important to remember that the headscarf does not isolate women or deny them rights,’ she said.
‘Islam requires both men and women to become educated, and encourages them to take part in public life, participate in political affairs, etcetera. In the early years of Islam, women were very active in their communities and government, and at the same time they would adhere to the dress code decreed in the Qur’an. This is one of the things I would want to make clear to the people who have misunderstood headscarves.’
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