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| A colorful array of hijabs |
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Something to Ponder...
I wanted to do a separate post about this, because it doesn't relate to food or to either of the two adventures I wrote about in the post below. It is just something that came up in class this week that has really made me think. It was a question posed by one of the girls in my program and I'm interested to hear anyone and everyone's thoughts on this. The issue came up while talking about the practice of wearing the hijab, a cultural norm which most women here partake in. Especially in Cairo, but also here in Alex, the women are extremely fashionable and wear some incredibly beautiful and elaborate outfits. Their hijabs often match perfectly the other clothing they have on, no matter if their top or skirt has the most specific and difficult to match shade of blue or purple one can imagine. Often these headscarves are decorated with bright colors, loud patterns, big flowers, and/or sparkling thread or beads.
The point of wearing the hijab is that the Qur'an instructs that women (and men for that matter) should be dressed modestly. The idea is that seeing a woman's long hair and the form of her body might excite men and plant dirty thoughts of the woman in their mind. Setting aside the issues I have with the idea that it is the woman's job to control men's perverted thoughts, a more basic question has been bothering me since before I left. Namely, what is modest dress? Obviously western concepts of modesty are different than eastern, but does simply covering the skin and the form make something modest? More specifically: if I am dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt and loose slacks or a long skirt, but have my hair exposed, am I less modestly dressed than a woman in a bright pink, red, yellow, orange, teal or purple outfit complete with a sparkly hijab?
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I think you are seeking rational structure in the context of cultural standards... always a losing proposition!
ReplyDeleteI am surrounded by women in hijabs every day in the West Bank of Minneapolis, and have come to the conclusion that lovely adornments in the form of any kind of clothing usually only adds to the attractiveness of a person. If anything, I think hijabs only enhance the mystery of what beauty lies within, which actually can be very sexy. In other words, "perverted" thoughts will never be denied with mere cloth!
I think this is an excellent question, Liana. I remember standing outside the gates of Cairo University wearing baggy pants and a baggy long-sleeved shirt but no covering on my head. The women walking in to the university wore tighter pants and shirts than I would consider wearing even in the U.S. And as you point out, their colorful hijabs perfectly matched their outfits. These women were gorgeous! But I would not describe them as modestly dressed.
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