Memories of niqab: What freedom and choice actually meant for these Canadian Muslims

Niqab is not just a piece of cloth. It has complex connotations. Most Canadians see niqab without its socio-political meaning. By recounting their experiences in their countries of origin, these Canadian Muslims put niqab in its context. What do they say? It could be a symbol of extreme piety for some women but it is widely regarded by progressive Muslims as a symbol of Arab radicalism and patriarchy.

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N. Khan
Born in India, lives in Mississauga 

There is nothing religious about the niqab or even the hijab. It has taken me years of learning and then unlearning to realize this fact. My body and soul have been the battleground for this debate, and it has profoundly changed at how I look at myself and the religion I was born into. I wore the hijab (head covering) for several years and then finally removed it because I couldn’t find any religious justification for it after a close reading of the Koran.

I grew up in India in the extremely cosmopolitan city of Mumbai. We lived in an apartment building which was a microcosm of India; there were people from every province and every religion. Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs lived close and such close living inevitably made me more open-minded and cosmopolitan. My mother didn’t wear the niqab. It was a garment we often associated with rural parts of India. In fact, the niqab or the black abaya was something that was part of a Saudi culture and we would get a glimpse of that when someone would come back from the Hajj with pitch-black clothing gifts. My mother did wear an abaya, a loose robe-like dress which doesn’t cover the face. But even the abayas she wore were colorful and vibrant, much like life in India. My father was what you could call a traditionalist but he was certainly not orthodox in his religious views. We took part in inter-cultural and inter-religious festivals and I and my sister were encouraged to take part in swimming and martial arts and we enjoyed music and dance immensely.

I was being told that showing my hair, eyes, dressing up and even listening to music and dancing were something not part of my religion. That narrative slowly started to define me. I remember many times looking at the mirror and feeling guilty about dressing up or trying to set up my hair.

My life changed when my sister had to move from Mumbai to pursue higher education in another city. Suddenly, I had no one with whom I could share my life and that is when I welcomed a friend into my life who opened the gate to a world that would change me so profoundly it would take me years to confront and unlearn what this world had opened up for me. It was a world where music and dance were un-Islamic and wearing the hijab was akin to following the God’s commandment. It was in this new group I met women who would look at me in such a way that would make me feel ashamed that I wasn’t covering my head. I remember a woman telling me, “You are so beautiful. Why are you showing your hair.” I was being told that showing my hair, eyes, dressing up and even listening to music and dancing were something not part of my religion. That narrative slowly started to define me. I remember many times looking at the mirror and feeling guilty about dressing up or trying to set up my hair. I was slowly drifting away from girlfriends who loved music or liked to dance or party even though I knew music was a big part of my identity. In fact, I had even trained in Indian classical music. But this new chapter of my life and people in it convinced me that listening to music was ‘haram’ (something that is forbidden by Islamic law) and to make yourself beautiful before marriage was forbidden too. If a non-mehram (someone not closely related) is attracted to you because of the way you are dressing up, it’s your fault.

Gradually, I warmed up to these views and internalized the reasoning I was being given for covering up my hair. Now I realize that none of the women had even read the Koran. They were simply following the directions passed over by scholars who had stories to explain these hadiths (stories describing the life of Prophet Muhammad) and more stories to justify the rules. I, too, started wearing the hijab although it was a gradual transition. I first started wearing the dupatta over my head, then pinned it and then gradually started to put an extra head cover. A few years later, I was wearing a chador. Later, I started listening to the Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, whose strict, stern message resonated with a favorite uncle of mine who too had given up music. But it wasn’t an easy change. Giving up dancing and singing had almost left me mentally disturbed and I could see that I was becoming radicalized and yet it was as if I was getting high on it. I started feeling like I was close to God and a very good follower even though it meant not enjoying the simple things such as dancing and singing.

When I married a few years later, religion was the driving force behind my decision. I wanted a man who was extremely religious, and I found that with my first husband. By this time, I was so radicalized that I even ensured my mother-in-law wore black abayas. Thirsty for knowledge, I attended an Islamic institute where I saw young women who would start wearing hijab within months of joining the school. Those who came wearing the hijab would move on to the niqab in no time. It was here that I saw that a person could be judged merely on a covering. It didn’t matter what our character’s flaws were and no one pointed them either. What mattered was that we were covering our head.
Koran has been a personal guide for me. When something puzzled me, I would turn to the holy book for answers that would speak to me personally. It was this desire for a personal interpretation that took me to colleges where I learned to interpret the Koran literally. And yet something was lacking.

My life started to unravel when I moved to the Middle East with my husband. He was religious but he was cruel and the relationship turned abusive. My faith had taught me that if there was someone you could bow down to after God, it was your husband. Anything that your husband says has to be abided by and I tried to be the good wife and suffer abuse at his hands. But I finally found the courage with the help of friends and family, came back to India, divorced my husband, and took up a job in a city far from my family. It was here that I met my second husband and he seemed to be on a similar spiritual quest. We both were yearning for answers to profound questions about our faith and it took me well over a year to finally know that the head and face covering had nothing to do with my religion.

It’s has been a difficult process of learning and unlearning. I have learned that any such covering is a cultural phenomenon and not a religious requirement for Muslim women. To give just one example, we discovered that the word hijab is not even used for head covering. It’s rather used for a partition, such as the between God and the devotee.

Even after learning about this, it took me well over a year to realize that I must take off the hijab I was wearing. Such was the deep indoctrination that showing the hair was akin to showing a private part. I felt shy to take it off, but I finally did.

I have met women who wear the hijab and then start wearing the niqab because they think it will take them closer to God, but when someone tells me that the Prophet’s wife and the companions wear the niqab, I always ask them if they have any pictures, any art form, and scribbling on the cave to prove this. There are a lot of women who wear it and consider themselves the flagbearers of Islam but that in turns becomes a means to look down at other women and show how Muslim women are better, more modest and pious than other women. From what I have learned, wearing the hijab or the niqab is not a requirement in the Koran. It may be the commandment of people, but it’s certainly not the commandment of Allah. I may wear the hijab as an accessory but I sure do like to feel the breeze in my hair. Years of learning and unlearning from the Koran has left me enlightened and guilt-free of my hair.

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Nasrin Jamalzadah
Born in Kabul, lives in Vancouver

I was born and raised in Kabul, and I did wear the chadori, which is different from the burqa in the sense that it has a fishnet kind of covering over the eyes. It covers the face to the chin, and the rest is a long gown. I just want to mention to begin with that there is a difference between chadori and burqa although both cover the face. The chadori was always part of the culture in Afghanistan, and I know that they were mostly worn by the royal family and higher-class women to cover their face, even though I have heard that underneath the chadori, they were dressed up in a very modern way with the European fashion and knee-high heels. They were wearing it because the royals, or you can say the upper classes, didn’t want their women to be seen that much, or to perhaps they wanted their women to look different.

The face-covering was mostly about culture and not about religion. From what I have heard, Prophet Mohammad’s wife, Aisha Bibi, didn’t cover her face. She wore a shawl or a long cloth.

I grew up in Kabul but I recall that in the countryside, even the villagers didn’t wear any chadori or burqa or any such face-covering. In fact, even the Kochis, the original inhabitants of Afghanistan, never wore any chadori or burqa.

My brother’s wife used to ride a motorcycle and wear helmets and jeans, but she had to cover herself up in a burqa from head to toe during the Taliban. That fear is so deeply enmeshed in her that now she wears a big shawl even though the Taliban no longer control the country.

My mom and my aunts wore the chadori, and I too wore it for some time, but I didn’t wear it for any religious reasons. I would wear it, say, if I had to go and grab some lunch from the grocery store just to make myself comfortable. I remember sometimes me and my girlfriend wore it just for fun, just to tease our friends. I grew up in a very liberal, modern Kabul where no one gave much thought to covering a woman’s face just because she was pretty. Afghanistan was the most modern, liberal Muslim country and as a teenager growing up in the reign of King Zahir Shah, there was absolutely no mandate to cover the women. In high school and in college, I remember European fashion was all the vogue and dating wasn’t frowned upon.

Niqab was never a part of any Islamic requirements, certainly not in Afghanistan. It was a traditional, cultural thing to do. There is nothing in the Koran that says women have to wear it. When I was growing up, it was a matter of choice and it wasn’t about religion at all. There was no one who could have dictated that you have to wear a chadori when you are going out. That would have been a joke if someone had said that. I’d like to emphasise that it’s not a religious requirement to cover the face. From what I gather, the religious requirement may ask for only the head should be covered but the face should not be covered.

When the Quebec minister said,“I should see your face, and you should see mine”, I think in a way that is right. Also, I think women should realise that they are in Canada, and not in Saudi Arabia, and even there, finally, we have some improvements when it comes to women’s rights. I simply don’t understand why women would like to give the power away of being seen. We are all familiar with what ISIS and the Taliban are capable of doing to women. They have done horrible things to women and diminished their identity by making them invisible in life. My brother’s wife used to ride a motorcycle and wear helmets and jeans, but she had to cover herself up in a burqa from head to toe during the Taliban. That fear is so deeply enmeshed in her that now she wears a big shawl even though the Taliban no longer control the country.

The niqab isn’t about religion. It’s about a culture that is an imposition of men over women, and that is the way it has been for centuries. In the Nooristan province of Afghanistan, for example, women have much more power than men, and they have never worn burqa. I remember the time very clearly when I last wore my chadori and it was while I escaped from Afghanistan to Pakistan because the government didn’t give us visas. I still have the chadori with me at my home, and I have never worn it because I don’t feel the need to wear it here in Canada. In any case, I wasn’t even wearing it when I was in Afghanistan.

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Roksana Nazneen
Born in Bangladesh; lives in Montreal

I was born and raised in Bangladesh and moved to Canada in 1988 for my postgraduate studies. Each time I would visit Dhaka every few years, changes in the way how people looked in the streets were becoming more and more striking. In the early 1990s, I noticed some women wearing hijab in the streets. The same trend was visible here in Canada too. It was not the older women, rather the younger women and girls who were more prone to don hijab. Growing up Muslim in Bangladesh, we never even heard of the term ‘hijab’! All on a sudden, `hijab’ became the symbol of Islam! Very soon, I discovered that many of my younger cousins in Bangladesh were also wearing hijab. Of course, their families and peers were applauding their choice. By mid-2000s niqab appeared in the streets of Dhaka. During my last visit in December 2016, I noticed at least 90 per cent of the women and girls in the streets of Dhaka were either in hijab or the niqab.

I am amazed by the overwhelming opposition to Bill 62 in Quebec and in Ontario from the liberal Canadian intellectuals, feminists and politicians. They always support the Muslim extremists and ignore the moderate Muslims. As a Muslim woman, I see the niqab/burqa as an archaic, misogynistic and oppressive practice. This is not a religious requirement (there is a consensus on that), rather an anti-West political statement.

I also noticed another drastic social change. Women in Bangladesh now go to the mosque to pray, that all mosques have a separate women’s section. It was unheard of thirty years ago. Women are attending halakas (religious speeches) offered almost in all of the neighbourhoods. Women have been bringing their daughters to these sessions as well. Muslims in North America and elsewhere were also adopting these new religious trends at the same time. Here in Quebec, I often see young hijabi or niqabi mothers accompanying their five/six-year-old hijabi daughters.

My parents were devout Muslims and they taught their five children how to be good Muslims. They prayed five times a day and observed Ramzan (nowadays called Ramadan due to Arab influence!), so did we. They performed hajj, followed all the Islamic rituals. Yet, they were very progressive and ‘modern’ in hearts. My dad was an engineer. My mom finished her Masters and M.Phil. in Literature from Dhaka University. My dad was always in suits—no beard, no skull cap. In the evening, he would change into his satin dressing gown like a typical Hindi cinema-dad. On the weekends, my mom would accompany him—in her fashionable sleeveless blouses and chiffon sarees—to the club where he would play tennis with his buddies. They enrolled all their five children in the private missionary school which was the best school in town. I remember every morning at the school assembly, we had to pray in front of the statues of Jesus and Mary. My parents had no problem with that. I remember having a copy of Bible at home as well.

We also had a music teacher who came twice every week to give us lessons. The same teacher taught us to play musical instruments such as guitar and harmonium. The Quran-teacher would also come every day in the afternoon. My sister and I would put dupatta over our hair and wore full-length trousers/salwars for Quran lessons. Now, my mother, at the age of 76, puts a dupatta around her face (which shows part of her hair) when she is in a public place. She is still resistant to the concept of hijab, while all her sisters and sisters-in-law are in either hijab or burqa. I also noticed that many of my cousins in Bangladesh and abroad are in hijab now. My younger sister and her eleven-year-old daughter, in Ontario, started wearing hijab six years ago. Now my much younger sister-in-law in Dhaka is also in hijab.

Traditionally, Bengali women were known as ‘progressive’ and cultural. Many women were attending universities in the 1950s and 1960s. These women attended classes in light-coloured sarees, but did not cover their hair. They followed the professor to the classroom and sat in the front on the designated benches reserved for women. Some of the female Dhaka university students even joined the protest marches against the Pakistan Government’s imposition of Urdu as a national language during the Language Movement in 1952. My friend’s parents, both Dhaka University students at that time, were supposed to be married in February 1952. The wedding had to be postponed for a later date as both of them were arrested on 21st February (a few students were shot dead by the police), and spent a few days in the jail. Recently, United Nations declared 21st February as the International Language Day.

When I was attending Dhaka University in the 1980s, only one of our classmates (out of 50+ female students in two sections) used to put a dupatta over her hair, which showed part of her hair. Recently we reconnected on Facebook and I was amused to see her totally free of dupatta! On the other hand, many others embraced hijab in the last ten years or so. No one, from my Dhaka University cohort, has donned niqab so far. But I know many younger females in the family who did.

What happened to the once-vibrant Bengali culture in Bangladesh? What happened is Arabization in the name of Islamization. This is a global process, an attempt to bring all Sunni Muslim communities around the world under the same umbrella of an Ummah to mobilize them as a political force. In order to create this elusive Ummah, regional cultures had to be eliminated. Today’s Bengali Muslims are Muslims first. They do not identify with their ‘Bengali’ identity as the prime ethnicity anymore.

The process of Arabization is quite noticeable in other daily routines too. Khuda Hafez has been replaced by Allah Hafez. For Sunni Muslims, it is almost anti-social to say khuda hafez (a Persian term) nowadays. Even the Bengali wedding rituals have changed drastically.
Nowadays, both in North America and in Bangladesh, the wedding-shower rituals do not include the Gaye-Holud party (the guests rubbing turmeric on the bride’s/groom’s bodies). Rather it has been replaced by a Mehendi (henna) party where only female guests are invited. Mehendi used to be a part of Gaye Holud before, now it is the only ritual to be observed in a gender-segregated venue. Why? Apparently Gaye Holud is a Hindu ritual! In fact, it is not Hindu, rather a traditional Bengali/South Asian ritual.

I am amazed by the overwhelming opposition to Bill 62 in Quebec and in Ontario from the liberal Canadian intellectuals, feminists and politicians. They always support the Muslim extremists and ignore the moderate Muslims. As a Muslim woman, I see the niqab/burqa as an archaic, misogynistic and oppressive practice. This is not a religious requirement (there is a consensus on that), rather an anti-West political statement.
The Saudi Wahabbis, the Talibans and the ISIS enforced burqa/niqab on Muslim women. These women do not have a choice. Many women in the Western countries ‘choose’ to don niqab for various reasons but that does not make them feminists in the same way that many Muslim/non-Muslim women supporting female genital mutilation (FGM) cannot be called feminists. Why do the Canadian intelligentsia tolerate the intolerance?

The Canadians have to decide what type of Muslim communities they want in Canada—the one which is eager to integrate or the one which would ghettoize themselves and would fight integration? As the number of niqabis is increasing, how would we, the tax payers, deal with the enormous social cost? In fact, the most integrated cohort of Muslim Canadians is over the age of sixty (Environics Poll, 2016). One has to ponder why.

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Duygu Kantar
Born in Turkey, lives in North Shore

As you know, Turkey is a Muslim country with 99.8 per cent of the population identifying themselves as a Muslim—and yet, the social and cultural life that we lived in the secular, modern Turkey of the 80’s is nearly the same as the life we enjoy here in a modern, democratic Canada. I wore short skirts, loved biking and lived a life that would mirror the life of any teenager growing up in 21st century Canada. And our family wasn’t the only one living this life. All across the country, families imbibed and enjoyed the secular modernity that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk embedded in our society. That secularism is now under a grave threat from a narrow Islamic nationalism being promoted by the current regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a man who passionately seeks to reverse the gains made by Turkey for the better part of the last century and undermine the secular legacy of Ataturk.

Actually, in the 80’s, the head scarf was banned in government offices along with schools and hospitals and other public places. The niqab and the hijab were virtually absent from society. I grew up to become a political journalist in Turkey and the law strictly prohibited women from wearing any head dress.

It was because of that secular upbringing that niqab was an alien garment for me, something that wasn’t even part of our conversations in any meaningful way when I was growing up. My mom covered her head but she wasn’t fanatic about it at all. Yes, she took part in the Ramadan. Yes, she performed the namaz. But there were no rules around the religion that we were required to follow. I remember my mom telling me that I had the option to perform the namaz or be part of the Ramadan, but I never recall a time when were asked to wear the hijab or niqab as a testament to our faith. It was never part of our identity in any way—religious, social or cultural—even though it may have been for some families. If memory serves me right, I can only think of one family which was so religious that the women wore the abaya but even that particular garment doesn’t cover the face. Other than that, I can’t think of anyone who wore the niqab in my school, neighbourhood or in extended family.

Actually, in the 80’s, the head scarf was banned in government offices along with schools and hospitals and other public places. The niqab and the hijab were virtually absent from society. I grew up to become a political journalist in Turkey and the law strictly prohibited women from wearing any head dress. In fact, you couldn’t make a speech if you were wearing the hijab or the niqab in the parliament. It went without saying that any confident, educated, modern women would choose not to wear the head dress. But we are talking about the past.

The situation in Turkey is changing for the worse now. The rise of Erdogan has meant a more conservative bend of Islam seeps into the social fabric of the country and slowly erases the gains made by decades of secularism. With numbers on his side in the parliament, Erdogan is changing the constitution and reordering the society to fit his Islamic agenda. In 2013, Turkey decided to relax the restriction on wearing the hijab in government institutions. This February, Turkey lifted the ban on hijab in the military. Of course, who could argue against the assertion that it should be a matter of choice for women to wear or not wear the hijab but that would be too simplistic an argument because history has shown women often tend to suffer under a strict Islamic rule. More changes that affect women negatively in Turkey are coming, and it doesn’t take these social or cultural changes to morph into law. As reported in newspapers, Erdogan has encouraged women to become more religious, to marry and have at least three children. He has infamously called women who prioritise career over work as “half-women”. He finds supports among hardliners and from more conservative segments of population. The changes underfoot in Erdogan’s Turkey don’t bode well for women’s rights.

Indeed, women are fighting back against the policies that seem to reverse the freedom we took for granted growing up in the 80s. In July this year, it was widely reported that hundreds of women marched in Istanbul against this forced conservatism that seeks to limit their role in the public sphere.

The ‘Don’t Mess With My Outfit’ march saw women marching through the city carrying denim shorts on hangers in a symbolic act of defiance against the onslaught of Islamic forces that mistakenly portray the head dress as a symbol of piety. In June this year, a young woman named Asena Melisa Saglam was attacked by a man on a bus in Istanbul because she was wearing shorts on Ramadan. I fear such attacks on women will only increase as the government promotes conservative dressing for women.

I often meet women in Canada wearing the niqab, and I can respect their choice of wearing the garment, if indeed it’s their choice but there is no way I can see the niqab as a feminist symbol or as a symbol of freedom. In a democratic country like Canada, we can allow the niqab because there are other safeguards but in countries defined by Islam such garments can severely restrict the freedoms women so often take for granted here.

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Poran Poregbal
Born in Iran, lives in North Shore

Growing up in Iran, I recall being part of a family and a society that had very liberal and modern views on the role and place of women in society. My parents gave me a very liberal upbringing as I attended private schools and learned English education.

In the Iran before the Islamic revolution, niqab or even hijab was never part of our religious, social or cultural upbringing. Yes, there were some women who chose to wear chador, a long cloth that covers the body except the face. I do remember some women wearing chador but it was highly unusual for women to wear niqab.

Niqab was something that would reduce a women to a thing that has to be covered up, not a person who is capable of emotion and cognition. Anyone looking for the history of body and face coverings in Iran can’t gloss over the fact that the former Shah of Iran, Reza Shah Pahalvi, banned all veils in the 1930’s

There is one incident I recall from my childhood about niqab. There was one woman, someone from the extended family, who wore niqab and there was a sentiment in the community that she was wearing it because of her husband’s insistence. Rather, it was an imposition by her husband. I remember my grandma telling me that this women had to wear the burqa wasn’t happy about but she had to wear it because her husband thought she was too beautiful and had to be kept hidden from the world.

Niqab has always been an alien garment for us in Iran and it was always seen as something that came from the Arab world where women wore it to protect themselves from the sun and dust. Growing up in Iran, we would always see this as an oppressive garment yet something that came by choice, as we were growing up in a very open liberal society at that time.

In my view, niqab was something that would reduce a women to a thing that has to be covered up, not a person who is capable of emotion and cognition. Anyone looking for the history of body and face coverings in Iran can’t gloss over the fact that the former Shah of Iran, Reza Shah Pahalvi, banned all veils in the 1930’s. Pahalvi saw the covering of women as regressive. His sons and his wife, Farah Pahalvi, were pioneers in helping women make their own free choices.

Before the Islamic revolution, I remember a time when the dress in our school was jeans and a blue shirt. Now when I look back I remember an Iran that was really modern and comparable to any modern European country.

The Islamic revolution of 1979 changed all that. The liberal, modern life I was used to changed abruptly and women bore the brunt of the changes brought forward by the mullahs. I was 16 when the revolution took control of my life and forced me to wear hijab when venturing out in to the public.

The privilege of defining who I was and what or what not could be worn was instantly taken away from me and hundreds of thousands of women who were now forced to wear the hijab.

I remember being part of the protests against it. We went out and screamed that “no, we don’t want to wear the hijab”. I was one among the thousands of voices against the state imposition that still echo in my head after all these years. The Islamic regime’s repression was brutal. Women who refused to wear the hijab were beaten and forced to wear it.

I remember one incident that happened to me very clearly. It was 1983. I was driving when I noticed that a car had been following me around. I was wearing a long jacket but I remember I had it rolled it up to above my arms. I wasn’t wearing any socks and, of course, my hands were bare. I was stopped by the police car and remember vividly two really nasty-looking guys and a women questioned me on why I didn’t have any socks on and why my hands were uncovered. They started to be rough but I quickly apologised and they let me go but not without a warning: This is the last time such behaviour would be tolerated. I still have nightmares from that encounter and from the imposition of hijab that we were forced to wear. I remember thinking I looked so ugly wearing hijab.

The drastic changes in Iran after the Islamic revolution wasn’t only fixated on hijab. In fact, many women were fired from their job or forced to resign because of hijab or if they refused to pray during the office time. My mom resigned from her job working for a large departmental store and our family finally moved to Sweden from where we migrated to Canada.

It has taken me years to recover from the encounter with the religion police and left me traumatised, depressed and anxious and my role as a clinic counsellor speaks to that inner turmoil that I have experienced. I wish that most women who wear niqab could have a free choice and if they chose to cover up that much then we understand. However, the danger is that when you force young girls to wear niqab from early age, they may never taste what it is like to not be without this garment. I really question it and in my view, there can be nothing empowering about wearing niqab. If you ask a majority of women and if they were truly able to speak freely, I think they would tell you there is nothing religious or empowering about covering your face and being faceless and anonymous to the world around you, at least not in 21st century Canada.

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Farangis Hassaninejad
Born in Iran, lives in North Shore

My father worked as a transit driver in an oil company in southern Iranian province of Khuzestan, and I studied in a school that was supported by the company. We lived in the houses provided by the oil company. It was an idyllic, carefree time. I recall a childhood that wouldn’t be out of place for any teenager growing up in the west. We had freedom to play with boys. We went to movies, enjoyed the swimming pool and went to co-education schools.

The forced unveiling of women in Iran disturbed many women who saw it as an affront to their lifestyle and that is one reason I’m uncomfortable in government launching edicts over how a woman should dress. Perhaps there is a cultural transition that needs to happen before women can be asked to remove niqabs

Iran had made a tough transition from a feudal society to a capitalistic one and it was trying to create a sample of a western secular society in the Middle East. Unveiling of women was part of that reordering of Iran.

The forced unveiling of women in Iran disturbed many women who saw it as an affront to their lifestyle and that is one reason I’m uncomfortable in government launching edicts over how a woman should dress. Perhaps there is a cultural transition that needs to happen before women can be asked to remove niqabs. However, there is no doubt in my mind that niqab is a symbol of patriarchal rule, a Saudi import that hasn’t anything to do with religious belief and lot to do with a patriarchal oppression of women in the Islamic world.

It’s hard for me to imagine how girls can be brainwashed into believing that this will prevent them from being treated as a sexual object. Niqab was never a part of my life when I was growing up in Iran and it was never considered a part of our social and cultural fabric, much less religious faith. Yes, my mother and grandmother used pretty small scarfs to cover their head but it was never a part of their identity. I distinctly remember wearing short skirts and sports clothing in a very progressive, modern Iran. But the Islamic revolution of 1979 changed all that very dramatically.

This new revision brought segregation between men and women and, of course, it brought hijab, a garment we were only vaguely aware of. But now it was an obligation and we had to wear it.

One of my most powerful memories is hundreds of thousands of women protesting the hijab in the streets of Teheran. I remember feeling very angry, very fearful and suffocated. I wasn’t free and I felt imprisoned. But then there were dire consequences of not wearing it.

I know stories of women being bullied, threatened, beaten, being labelled as a whore, and even imprisoned for not wearing hijab. The new Islamic rulers lectured a lot about social justice and rights for citizens but they didn’t say a thing about women’s rights. If anything, the new rules made life difficult for many women. Everything was now the husband’s property, and the rights of the custody of the children was substantially curtailed.

I remember when we finally moved to Canada and lived a life without having to cover the head. There were times when I used to look for hijab before going out and then I would abruptly realise that I’m in Canada, not in Iran. It was liberating to know and feel the freedom that was finally mine.

Iranians may have a history of hijab, but niqab was never worn in the country. It was never part of our faith. It’s segregating, suffocating and demeaning. It’s the practice of al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS to disempower women.

Many women in the west have been brainwashed to think the niqab is empowering or it’s feminism and even part of the Islamic faith, but I think it’s an insult to women and even to men. I have had that discussion with many of my colleagues from Canada and they think that niqab is a symbol of freedom but I told them it’s not. I told them that I am the one who has lived in a male-dominant culture, and I have experienced the oppression.

Niqab is not about rights and women are being suppressed and oppressed based on the Sharia law. I don’t think this is a symbol of choice or of feminism. I told them that you would never experience the oppression that I did. It’s not a symbol of freedom. May be some kind of extreme or fundamentalist Islam may require a women to cover her face, but not the Islam I know. In fact, my awareness of niqab came only from documentaries about Taliban and their oppression. In Canada, where we strive for gender equality, the idea that merely looking at a woman is violating her is insulting. It’s not right and it’s insulting for both men and women.

 

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A Muslim man’s view: ‘No reason to not show our faces to each other’

When Mohammad Afsar’s family moved from Pakistani Punjab to Karachi, his mother also packed with her a distinct style of burqa called the Peshawari, worn by women in the neighbouring province of Peshawar. But as the family immersed themselves in the metropolitan city of Karachi, she never wore it. It was for the Afsar family a foreign piece of clothing to begin with. Where Afsar originally grew up, in the Hazara district of the Punjab province, women rarely wore anything that veiled their face. They wore a dupatta to cover the hair and sometimes the upper body but a niqab as a piece of dress was about as foreign to them as it would be to most people in Vancouver.

Afsar says niqab was imported into Pakistan as a cultural item in the 70s when Pakistani families went to Saudi Arabia chasing petro dollars and brought niqab into mainstream Pakistan

“No one wore niqab in our villages and town in Punjab because we are close-knit communities and there is simply no reason to not show our faces to each other,” Afsar, who lives in Lynn Valley, says recalling his childhood. When people did see a woman with niqab, they might presume she was more pious but there was nothing religious about it at all, he says. Barring a few provinces close to Afghanistan, niqab wasn’t worn by a large number of Pakistani women. Niqab, he says, was imported into Pakistan as a cultural item in the 70s when Pakistani families went to Saudi Arabia chasing petro dollars and brought niqab into mainstream Pakistan.

“Some people saw it as a sign of piety but we never really thought of it much except that it was mostly driven by Middle-Eastern culture and I have a problem when someone says it’s something that is religious,” Afsar says. He says he has studied the issue closely and there is ample evidence put forward by eminent Islamic scholars that there is nothing in the Quran that would require you to cover your face if you are a woman. “Even at the Mecca, Islam’s holiest city and the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad, the women don’t wear any veil as they pray to God.”

While the import of niqab in Pakistani was partially driven by migration of Pakistanis to the Middle-East, it was also aided by an influx of Saudi money into Pakistani madrassas, many of whom subscribe to a rigid, Wahabi version of Islam.

Afsar says even though Pakistan is a considerably diverse country with strong secular and liberal influences too, there has been an increase in Islamic fundamentalism and its roots lie in the rigid control and re-ordering of society by General Zia-ul-Haq, a ruthless military dictator who ruled Pakistan for a decade and is known for introducing Sharia law.

“If you read the history and do research, you will find out that the culture of wearing niqab actually started from the Middle-Eastern countries,” he repeats.

Aghast at the niqab issue being painted as a matter of religious belief, Afsar says he was disappointed at judgement which allowed Zunera Ishaq to take oath as a Canadian while she was wearing a niqab.

“The niqab goes against the values of gender equality enshrined in our charter and to claim that it’s a religious belief is simple a pretense in my view,” he says.

He is now equally upset at the attempts to portray niqab as a matter of choice and individual freedom. “I find it very troubling that this is being made out to be a human rights issue. If covering the face is a human rights issue, then I would say that it’s a human right issue for me as well because this could pose a challenge of security as you can’t say who is behind the niqab. It’s my human right to feel safe in Canada,” he says. Branding niqab as an issue of women’s right is an affront to Canada and is a subterfuge to abuse the Canadian system, he says.

—Gagandeep Ghuman