Lam 1

THE POWER OF THE VEIL

I. INTRO
It liberates, it oppresses, it protects, it validates, it hides, it strengthens. The veil is
arguably one of the most controversial and tangible symbols of Islam, often associated with
Muslim women who wear the veil on their heads. However, it is much more than a garment that
is simply worn; in contemporary debates, the veil has been at the center of the biggest political
stages and international dialogues. The veil has an intricate nature of endless symbolic purposes
and meanings, and it is this multifaceted aspect of the veil in which makes it so controversial.
The veil has instigated endless questions and dispute over Islam’s integral pillars, such as the
interpretation of the Qu’ran and more importantly-- how it affects the status of women in Islam.
From a Western perspective, the veil has been often misinterpreted and stereotyped as a
symbol of Islamic oppression of females. This is the antithesis perspective of Muslim women
who interpret the veil as a manifestation of liberation-- yet this empowering interpretation is not
universally shared among other Muslim women who choose to unveil. Regardless of the
perspective, every veil shapes one’s identity and reveals a meaningful narrative and purpose
behind wearing it. Hence, it is astonishing to consider that a piece of fabric is so deeply
intertwined in the roots of Islam and holds such a substantial amount of jurisdiction and
influence beyond the sphere of Islam. To understand the extent of significance, meaning, and the
controversy surrounding the veil, I will first dispel the “popular” narrative and then contextualize
the identity of women in the world of Islam. Then, I will explain why the veil is so controversial
by analyzing the various meanings and interpretations of the veil. Next, I will discuss the first
debate of the Western versus the Islam perspective of the veil. Afterward, I will introduce the
second debate of to veil or to unveil. Finally, I will delve into a more personal analysis which
emphasizes the dynamic nature of the veil, and its potential to produce both individual and
societal value.
Veiling is closely integrated as part of a female’s identity and status in Islamic society.
But how are women regarded in the world of Islam? The misguided, popular narrative that Islam
is an inherently misogynistic religion may explain why there is a pervasive Western notion that
the veil is a symbol of female oppression. However, it is critical to dispel that negative notion
regarding Islam and women’s purpose in society. According to the holy text of Koran, the two
sexes were “created from one soul, and from that soul I created its mate so that you may live in
 Lam 2

harmony and love”1. Thus, in God’s eyes, the two sexes are equal and there is a complementarity
element. Specifically, in the seventh century, women fled from the tribal society of Mecca to
enter Medina, where Islam flourished and it promised “equality and dignity for all, for men and
women, masters and servants. Every woman who came to Medina when the Prophet was the
political leader of Muslims could gain access to full citizenship”2. In other words, women were
distinguished for their contributions to Islamic society and shaped their own identities in the
desire to serve their communities.
However, the status of women, even in premodern Islam, adhered to established
patriarchal values instead of Quranic principles3. This is problematic, as women are then
acquiesced to preserve the status quo of the patriarchal culture-- there are restrictions on their
statuses in areas such as education, polygyny, and physical appearance. This alludes to the idea
that the patriarchal interpretation of Islam is defined by the traditional and second-class status of
women. Consequently, this exacerbates the conflict in which women are caught between the
modern desire for reformed equality and conserving the traditional Islamic patriarchy. The
struggle of Islamic women’s search for greater autonomy, public participation, and improvement
in their social statuses is, in reality, reflective of the greater issue at hand: Islam’s post-colonial
identity crisis in the modern, globalized world. It is important to emphasize that as modernization
and reformation is often associated with the West, the traditional Islamic faith seeks to assert its
antithetical identity through the traditional status of women. Thus, in the search for liberation and
empowerment, it is fundamental to understand how a female can manifest her identity through
veiling in both the reformed and patriarchal societies.

II. THE VEIL

Because the nature of the veil has so many intricacies, hence there are many
misconceptions surrounding the veil. One of the most misconstrued views of the veil is to

1 Bunting, Madeleine. “Can Islam Liberate Women?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Dec.
2001, www.theguardian.com/education/2001/dec/08/socialsciences.highereducation.
2 Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003, www-fulcrum-org.libproxy.scu.edu/epubs/n009w255c?
locale=en#/6/194[xhtml00000097]!/4/1:0.
3“Women and Islam.” Oxford Islamic Studies Online,
www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2510.
 Lam 3

diminish the value of the veil as a scrap of cloth that is imposed on Islamic women. To demystify
any preconceived notions, a veil (specifically a hijab), in its most rudimentary Islamic meaning is
a curtain or separation. But the hijab was never intentionally aimed to describe a veil covering
for women, as it remains a gender-balanced term. Because of the Western perspective that the
veil symbolizes violence or oppression, the veil tends to have a negative connotation. Yet the
definition of veil itself offers no inclination towards a positive or negative undertone, it is left to
the interpretation in which positive or negative connotations can manifest. Nor is the veil
predisposed towards a particular sex, as according to the Qu’ran:

[Prophet], tell believing men to lower their glances and guard their private parts
(furuj): that is purer (azaka) for them. God is well aware of everything they do.
And tell believing women that they should lower their glances, guard their private
parts (furuj), and not display their charms (zinah) beyond what [it is acceptable] to
reveal; they should let their headscarves (khumur) fall to cover their necklines and
not reveal their charms (zinah) except to their husbands, their fathers, their
husbands’ fathers, their sons….(The Qur’an 24:31-32)4.
These verses emphasize the importance to cover the impure or sinful parts of the body.
But the Qur’an verses here also allude to two important distinctions regarding the veil of Islam:
First, it does not specifically refer veiling as the covering of the face. Secondly, the concept to
cover for modesty reasons was not strictly designated for women; men are also expected to
uphold the responsibility to cover their private parts and maintain modesty to prevent
vulnerability of corruption and adultery.
The hijab veil is a multifaceted symbol that has intangible characteristics tied to it. There
are three main dimensions: the visual, spatial, and ethical dimensions. The visual dimension
refers “to hide something from sight”, “the spatial dimension refers to separate, to mark a border,
to establish a threshold”, and the ethical dimension belongs “to the realm of the forbidden”5.
Thus, there is no singular meaning or definition for the hijab, as demonstrated by the various
dimensions that the hijab can adapt and take form in.
4 Wortmann , Kimberly. “Re-Claiming the Veil: A Historical and Literary Study of How Islamic Feminists
Have Appropriated the Veil Symbol as a Hermeneutical Tool in the Study of Islam.” Macalester College,
Religious Studies Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester, 2008, pp. 2–47.
5 Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003,
 Lam 4

Another example of a more profound interpretation of the hijab veil is the Sufism
perspective, in which the Muslim Sufis infer the hijab not as a curtain, but as a “negative
phenomenon….one who is trapped in earthly reality, unable to experiment with elevated state of
consciousness”6. The Sufis interpret the spiritual journey as one with access to boundless
spiritual perimeters, and every man should aspire to gain this access. However, the “veiled”
individual thus is negatively connotated as having disabled senses in which he or she is incapable
of perceiving God. Thus, this veiled individual has limited potential to transcend the physical
world towards the aspiration of reaching Heaven.
The veil also has a positive interpretation, in which the hijab is the curtain that separates
an individual from a sacred caliph: “The caliph, considered as the hypostasis of the Active
Intelligence of the world, was almost the object of worship. Because of this, he was expected to
hide himself as far as possible from the eyes of his faithful follower, who were thus protected
from the radiance of his countenance”7. Thus, one can see how the veil takes on a broad
spectrum of interpretation in the world of Islam: There is positive connotation as exemplified
with the individual veiled from the caliph should be respected, whereas the negative connotation
that veils the individual from God should be destroyed.
Another highly significant interpretation of the veil is to trace its usage back to the
beginning of Islam during the time of Prophet Muhammad. In verse 53 of sura 33 in the Qu’ran,
the veil describes a curtain in which the Prophet separates himself from a man near the entry of
his nuptial chamber8. The significance in this Qu’ran narrative is that in the modern age, the veil
is often associated as a barrier between the female and male as an emphasis of modesty to protect
from corruption. However, this verse revealed in year 5 of the Hejira signifies how the hijab had
its roots in a barrier between men, and thus the veil is not a symbol that only has meaning if
applied to the female sex.
It is also fascinating to observe that this verse proves that the veil in verse 53 is
“understood to be a separation of the public from the private...but which was to turn into a
segregation of the sexes. The veil that descended from Heaven was going to cover up women,

6Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003,
7 Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003,
8 Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003,
 Lam 5

separate them from men, from the Prophet, and so from God”9. This perspective raises a key
point that the veil was symbolized as a separation between public and private, and how history
has transformed the meaning of the veil into the modern debate of sexuality (between female and
male) in the Islamic world. The evolution of how the veil is manifested reveals how religion does
not dictate how people live, but instead, there are other societal and ethical factors in which
influence Muslim societies.
The myriad interpretations of the veil reveal why it is critical not to impoverish the depth
and narratives of the veil as simply a piece of garment in which the patriarchal men have thrust
onto the women of Islam. The veil is a dynamic idea, taking on both tangible and intangible
meanings over the span of centuries and numerous regions. For this reason, that is why the veil is
so controversial in the world of Islam and beyond. The veil has a different purpose depending on
the wearer of the veil, how it is worn, and in greater detail, the specific fabric and texture-- thus a
room in which there are thousands of individuals wearing the veil could mean that there are
thousands of subjective interpretations of the veil. However, it should be emphasized that the
universally accepted notion that the veil is meant to be “an act of faith and as such must remain a
matter of free choice” in one’s spiritual journey as a practicing Muslim10.

III. THE VEIL: A SYMBOL OF OPPRESSION

Beyond the world of Islam, the veil has sparked and been the center of international
debates, court rulings, protests, and presidential speeches. What does the veil represent and
symbolize in the eyes of a non-Muslim individual? Perhaps one of the most universally known
perceptions of the veil is the most unsophisticated view: The veil symbolizes Islam’s oppression
of women. This view is exchangeable for the perspective that the veil symbolizes patriarchal
oppression in a backward society. Proponents of this traditional view reason that Muslim women
are forced to cover their bodies and heads, as they supposedly bear no autonomy to choose11.
Thus, the veil is a symbol of inequality, as women are seen to be subjected to second-class

9 Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003,
10 Ramadan, Tariq, and Fred A. Reed. Islam: the Essentials. Pelican, an Imprint of Penguin Books, 2017.
11 Wortmann , Kimberly. “Re-Claiming the Veil: A Historical and Literary Study of How Islamic Feminists
Have Appropriated the Veil Symbol as a Hermeneutical Tool in the Study of Islam.” Macalester College,
Religious Studies Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester, 2008, pp. 2–47.
 Lam 6

citizenship. Both of these views are constructed on the primitive Western stereotypes that the
Islamic and Arabic world is backward, barbaric, oppressive, and tyrannical. This crude
perspective of the Islamic world is especially fuelled by the oversaturation of contemporary
media revealing only the radical terrorism dimension of bombings and hostages in the Islamic
world. Therefore, this alludes to how Western feminists and media justify their interpretation of
the veil because they perceive Islam world as inherently inferior to the Western civilization.
In France, there was a national controversy over former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s
aspiration to ban the burqa, as he reasoned that “In our country, we cannot accept that women be
prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity”12. This
presumptuous notion of the burqa is not at all representative of the real reasons why Muslim
women choose to veil. There is irony in Sarkozy’s statement, as he lacks the consciousness to
understand that the veil manifests a female’s identity. For those Muslims who see religion as the
key to liberation, then Sarkozy is depriving countless females of their identity, livelihood, and
dignity. Furthermore, Sarkozy’s based view is then,“underpinned by an unconscious adherence
to liberalism and modernization theory, compounded by an ignorance of any actual details about
Muslim women’s lives” 13.
To further investigate another example of a naive perspective, it is necessary to take into
account how the influence of traditional Christian faith imposes a disillusioned view of the veil
and its symbolism as sexual oppression. It is commonly known that Christianity holds sexuality
in disdain, whereas Islam has always preached the tolerance and acceptance of human sexuality.
Thus, Western feminists and media are in reality “subconsciously reacting to the Judea-Christian
concept of the veil –– the symbol of woman’s subjection to her husband” 14. Although the
Christian faith shuns the idea of open sexuality, it is interesting to consider that the overall
Western culture of interaction and self-expression values open-communication. Thus, one can
interpret how the veil over the face is problematic and consistent with the controversy of the
desire to ban the veil in Western societies.

12 Murphy, Caryle. “Behind the Veil: Why Islam's Most Visible Symbol Is Spreading.” The Christian
Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Dec. 2009, www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-
East/2009/1213/Behind-the-veil-Why-Islam-s-most-visible-symbol-is-spreading.
13 Bullock, Katherine. Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern
Stereotypes. International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2010.
14 “Why Hijab?” Al-Islam.org, www.al-islam.org/hijab-muslim-womens-dress-islamic-or-cultural-sayyid-
muhammad-rizvi/why-hijab.
 Lam 7

IV. THE VEIL: A SYMBOL OF LIBERATION

For the Muslim female, what does the veil symbolize? It has an enriching purpose and
value depending on the individual’s interpretation-- it symbolizes modesty, identity, a pious
devotion for God, religious expression, autonomy, and other forms of empowerment15. For most
Muslim women, they agree that sexuality plays a huge role in wearing the veil. One can perceive
how wearing a veil “desexualizes” or lessens a female as a sex symbol, and instead allows her to
simply be human and identified as a Muslim. That is another fundamental misconception to point
out: Muslim women, unlike Western feminists, maintain that sexuality should be contained in
privacy in an intimate relationship. Thus they do not desire to flaunt their sexuality in public in
the need to reclaim their bodies. As Islamic feminist Fatima Mernissi points out, “Islam always
understood that women's sexuality was active”16.
Therefore, Western feminists wrongly assume that Muslim women are shameful of their
bodies-- because in reality, their aspiration is to simply claim privacy over their bodies without
being perceived as sex symbols. As sexism is an obstacle for women’s liberation in the Islamic
world, it is their freedom of choice in which leads to finding empowerment in a patriarchal
society. The veil safeguards a woman to protect her dignity, to emphasize her character and
personality rather than the physical appearance of the face and body. Furthermore, the veil is
subtly a female’s firm assertion to truly be herself in an open environment, without being
subjected to unwanted attention or criticism of physical appearance. Ultimately, as the renowned
Islamic feminist Fatima Mernissi expresses:

“I am definitely of the perspective that religion is the key to liberating women — that
feminist purpose was its very objective in revelation. Religion does not belong to men,
it simply needs to be reclaimed by women to be employed for the very cause that it was
introduced: to free the oppressed and bring peacefulness and goodness.”17

15Ingber, Hanna. “Muslim Women on the Veil.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Dec. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/world/muslim-women-on-the-veil.html.
16 Bunting, Madeleine. “Can Islam Liberate Women?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Dec.
2001, www.theguardian.com/education/2001/dec/08/socialsciences.highereducation.
17 Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library Resources Proxy
Server - Login, 2003, www-fulcrum-org.libproxy.scu.edu/epubs/n009w255c?
 Lam 8

In the eyes of women in the Islamic world, the veil is more than just individual identity--
it encompasses national identity in the political sphere. The veil also symbolizes a rejection of
westernization or “an act of liberation from cultural imperialism, and a challenge to Western
cultural and aesthetic values”18. It espouses nationalist values of patriotism and solidarity, and
thus the veil produces a fundamental social value. The feminist Fatimah Jasim argues that the
veil uplifts the women’s position in society from ideological subjugation to foreign influences
and consumption of cultural imperialism. Ultimately, the veil is an integral component of
Muslim civilizations as it provides structure and solutions to contemporary social issues.

V. TO VEIL OR UNVEIL?

Another area of ceaseless debate over the veil is to contextualize its role as a politicalized
symbol. To contrast Muslim women who experience liberation and empowerment in wearing the
veil, there are Muslims who question the paradoxical nature of the veil. One of the biggest
proponents is Fatima Mernissi, who finds that the politicalized veil derives from an intrinsic
patriarchal desire to resist liberation, to “divert the masses from raising the issues of democracy
and freedom of participation in the socio-political arena”19. She argues that concealing women by
veiling symbolizes the fundamental identity crisis of the Islamic world: to conceal the
civilization from the West.
Another proponent of unveiling is the scholar Shabaan, who questions, “How can a
society trust women with the most consequential job of bringing up children when it does not
trust them with their faces and bodies”20? Thus, Shabaan challenges the veil as a means of
liberation, as she interprets the veil as a source of confinement. Her perspective alludes to the
distrust between men and women, and consequently, the dignity of Muslim women is

locale=en#/6/194[xhtml00000097]!/4/1:0.
18 Abu Shehab, Amina Abdullah. WOMEN, ISLAM AND MODERNITY. ProQuest LLC , 1992.
19 “Fatema Mernissi: The Pride of Islamic Feminism in Modern Times.” Reset Dialogues on Civilizations |
a Venue for All Tribes, www.resetdoc.org/story/fatema-mernissi-the-pride-of-islamic-feminism-in-modern-
times/.
20 “Fatema Mernissi: The Pride of Islamic Feminism in Modern Times.” Reset Dialogues on Civilizations |
a Venue for All Tribes, www.resetdoc.org/story/fatema-mernissi-the-pride-of-islamic-feminism-in-modern-
times/.
 Lam 9

marginalized. Moreover, the negative implication of the veil conveys the reinforcement of the
backward patriarchal society with the “immodest women” fulfilling their traditional role.

VI. CONCLUSION AND ANALYSIS OF THE VEIL

In contextualizing my position on the morals and symbolism of the veil, I find it

undeniable that the veil in all its intricacies, offers infinite meanings and perspectives for each
individual. There is no singular definition or symbol in which truly captures its enriching
potential across the spiritual, psychological, social, and political spheres. Therefore, it is too
rudimentary to simply associate the veil as a symbol of Islamic oppression. This stagnant, one-
dimensional symbolism is not a refined reflection of the globalized, dynamic 21st-century world
in which we live in. Furthermore, that veil interpretation fails to take into account the dynamic
history of the veil. For instance, on one hand, the 20th-century secular Turkey utilized unveiling
as a way to modernize the country. On the other hand, Algeria practiced veiling as a means of
cultural preservation to liberate Muslim women of imperial colonialism. Beyond the political
sphere, it symbolizes a reaffiliation of spiritual faith, self-expression, liberation, autonomy, and a
wide spectrum of identity markers which empowers on two different levels; on the individual
level, the veil empowers women especially, and on a greater platform, the veil uplifts the
society. By the virtue of its dynamic nature to satsify all walks of life, the veil will remain
controversial and will continue to be of utmost significance to the world of Islam and beyond.
 Lam 10

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bunting, Madeleine. “Can Islam Liberate Women?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8
Dec. 2001, www.theguardian.com/education/2001/dec/08/socialsciences.highereducation.

Mernissi, Fatema. “The Veil and the Male Elite PDF.” Santa Clara University - Library
Resources Proxy Server - Login, 2003, www-fulcrum-org.libproxy.scu.edu/epubs/n009w255c?
locale=en#/6/194[xhtml00000097]!/4/1:0.

“Women and Islam.” Oxford Islamic Studies Online,

www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2510.

Wortmann , Kimberly. “Re-Claiming the Veil: A Historical and Literary Study of How Islamic
Feminists Have Appropriated the Veil Symbol as a Hermeneutical Tool in the Study of Islam.”
Macalester College, Religious Studies Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester, 2008, pp.
2–47.

Ramadan, Tariq, and Fred A. Reed. Islam: the Essentials. Pelican, an Imprint of Penguin Books,
2017.

Murphy, Caryle. “Behind the Veil: Why Islam's Most Visible Symbol Is Spreading.” The
Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Dec. 2009,
www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2009/1213/Behind-the-veil-Why-Islam-s-most-visible-
symbol-is-spreading.

Bullock, Katherine. Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern
Stereotypes. International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2010.

“Why Hijab?” Al-Islam.org, www.al-islam.org/hijab-muslim-womens-dress-islamic-or-cultural-

sayyid-muhammad-rizvi/why-hijab.

Ingber, Hanna. “Muslim Women on the Veil.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21
Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/world/muslim-women-on-the-veil.html.

Bunting, Madeleine. “Can Islam Liberate Women?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8
Dec. 2001, www.theguardian.com/education/2001/dec/08/socialsciences.highereducation.

Abu Shehab, Amina Abdullah. WOMEN, ISLAM AND MODERNITY. ProQuest LLC , 1992.
 Lam 11

“Fatema Mernissi: The Pride of Islamic Feminism in Modern Times.” Reset Dialogues on
Civilizations | a Venue for All Tribes, www.resetdoc.org/story/fatema-mernissi-the-pride-of-
islamic-feminism-in-modern-times/.