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The Question of Veil in Islam: Clarifying the Background

Hermeneutics

M Maroof Shah
Konan Bandipore, Kashmir,193502
marooof123@yahoo.com

Abstract
The practice or the institution of veiling women is one of the most contested
institutions of traditional Islam. The present paper explores divergent hermeneutical
grounds for warring interpretation of it in different sections of Muslim community.
Background hermeneutical assumptions of modernist/feminist approach are scrutinized
both in the light of recent developments in linguistic theory and traditional Islamic
scholarship. An argument for allowing different interpretation on the issue of veil is put
forward as limitations of rigid dogmatic and marginalizing interpretations on either side
of the debate ( feminists and ultraconservative orthodox ulama) are foregrounded.
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The Question of Veil in Islam: Clarifying the Hermeneutics

The practice or the institution of veiling women is one of the most contested
institutions of traditional Islam. Modernity’s relentless violence against the traditional
ethos is illustrated in its approach towards this practice par excellence. The veil no longer
signifies or symbolizes what it used ` to for most modern Muslims. Since the perception
of the issue has undergone a frame-shift mutation, the gulf between the traditional
orthodoxy and the modern appropriations of this most important institution has widened
too much to be easily breached. The diverse and contradictory responses and reactions by
Muslims that modernist critique of it have given rise to have served to problematize the
whole foundations of traditional discourse and one is hard put to make sense of the
confusion and chaos . The dogmatic assertions on either side – the traditionists and the
modernists – are difficult to be subsumed/appropriated in a coherent and objective
narrative. What Ismail Ruja Faruqi calls hermeneutic despair is so clearly evident in this
case, despite his claim to the contrary. Modern and postmodern projects have brought
into sharp focus this hermeneutic despair. The need for the Quranic hermeneutics is
increasingly being felt. The enormous impact of feminist movement in both the
modernist and postmodernist guises on contemporary scholarship can’t be ignored. Any
serous reckoning with Islam in contemporary idiom can’t afford to sideline the problem
of hermeneutics. This paper examines diverse strategies of appropriating/ interpreting the
relevance of scriptural material that have a bearing on the question of veil. Our task is to
analyze relevant fatwas of traditional and modern jurisconsults and to clarify contexts and
presuppositions and thus authenticity and legitimacy of their approach. The urgent
challenge for modern Muslim jurisprudence as posed by Muslim and secular feminism
has so far been ignored or appropriated in away that hardly seems to work and has lost
relevance. The defensive apologetics of traditional ulama fail to convince much of the
modern Muslim world. Most Muslim women find orthodox ulama’s position impractical
and have succumbed to “Westoxication” in this connection. Many Muslim and secular
feminists have boldly problematized or rejected the orthodox position. The educated
Muslim elite have either politely distanced themselves from orthodoxy or ignored it as
irrelevant. The feminist movement has won many converts and “fundamentalist” Islam
has come under severe attack from feminist quarters. The fatwas against unveiling
pouring in such a great profusion daily from the Islamist press go unheeded or even
challenged. In its encounter with intellectual modernity and postmodernity the Muslim
orthodoxy seems to be fighting a losing battle if we judge by the statistics. What
traditional orthodoxy would see as a heinous sin of breach of law (i.e., unveiling) has
almost become a norm and the dominant majority of Muslims has adjusted itself
accordingly. The sight of unveiled women no longer raises eyebrows. Taliban
phenomenon appears anachronistic. Most Muslims are quite accustomed to what is
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perceived as major deviation from the orthodox norm by our ulama. Taliban type model
would be actively vetoed out of power by almost all democratic Muslim nations.
Despite the massive campaigns against unveiling and the occupation of public
space by women, modern Muslim women have chosen (or compelled to choose) the
opposite course. Modernity has made deep encroachments in the traditional space of
Islam and this is nowhere as glaringly evident as in the domain of women’s problems.
Total rejection of modernist Muslim feminism from traditional quarters serves only to
alienate both the vast majority of modern Muslim women from traditional Islam and the
ulama from the former and the gulf between the two factions is growing. Making veil a
necessity or precondition for an authentic Islamic identity of women alienates rather than
attracts great majority of modern educated women. The accusation labelled against
modernist scholars by traditional Islamists and the counteraccusations from the
modernists serve only to widen the breach or gulf between the two. The result is almost
schizophrenic psychology of many modern Muslim women who are pulled by
contradictory forces of traditional Islam and the modernist western sensibility. Excepting
a small minority of aggressive extreme secular feminists and still smaller band of
agnostic/atheist women and those who happen to be indifferent to religion, most of
modern Muslim women are conscious of their Islamic identity and try to preserve it.
However, they are unable to authentically connect themselves with what they perceive as
ultra-conservatist fundamentalist, outdated, patriarchal ideological interpretation of Islam
by traditional ulema. The traditional ulema have displayed great rigidity or inflexibility in
approaching such issues as that of veil. They are uncompromising in their demand for
purdah and segregation of women and limiting their primary role to domestic sphere. To
live in the modern capitalist age that is based on individualism, competition, and yet to
abide by the traditional orthodoxy’s norms is too demanding for many modern women.
How can Islam still be a living force and shariah supremely sovereign in modern
women’s lives? Can one be a Muslim and yet be modern with all its demands? What
would be the coordinates of the space inhabited by modern Muslim women? Who can
certify or authenticate her Islamic credentials? What are the qualifications of a modern
Mufti? Is modernity and modern scholarship a big perversion that a conscientious
Muslim must reject for the sake of truth or Islam? Can state be allowed to impose a dress
code or purdah? How could the demand for justice (gender justice here) be realized
concretely in modern nation states? What does veil symbolize in our changed historico-
cultural setup? Is veil Islamic in origin? Or is it an innovation of feudalized Islam, a
conspiracy against women by patriarchal Mullahs? What is the Islamic ruling on feminist
theology that has made a ground in the Christian West? To clarify the background and
various associated dimensions of the issue of veil in Islam and modern and postmodern
appropriations/ critiques of it and then formulate an authentic Islamic critique of the
whole debate we must address the fundamental or core issue—i.e., the problem of
hermeneutics. The contested terrain of Quranic hermeneutics is largely responsible for
the chaos and confusion seen in Muslim and Western appropriations of the problem. To
settle the case in favour of any one the conflicting interpretations and ideologies needs
serious reckoning with the philosophy of interpretation. To retrieve the meaning of
meaning and to interpret the interpretation is the issue at hand. Much of the contemporary
scholarship is devoted to perusal of arguments for or against veil and the Islamic
credential of the institution of purdah but ignores the core issue of the Quranic
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hermeneutics. The underlying hermeneutics of these arguments is not explored. The

opening of the gates of the discipline of the Quranic hermeneutics is a must in this
connection. This alone will enlighten certain controversial areas in the debate on veil.
Since the question of veil is being increasingly politicized internationally and there are
various interest groups or parties that vie with one another in this connection, the demand
for clarification of the relevant hermeneutical principles involved becomes very urgent.
To date, little has been written about the relationship between the Quran as God’s
word and history or about the implicit or explicit ideological assumptions underlying
their theological appropriation – the central concern of contemporary hermeneutics.
Kenneth Crag’s The Event of the Quran laments this state of affairs and challenges
Muslim reluctance to confront these connections in our time. Our discussion will be
focused on reception hermeneutics, the particular stream within the broader discipline
that has a particular relevance in a society perplexed with the meaning of the divine
presence and striving to engage in a struggle for justice. The question of hermeneutics
has traditionally been relegated to what Arkoun would call as the “domain of
unthinkable.” As Farid Esak has noted:

Reflections on the development of the doctrines governing Muslim appreciation of the

Quran display a trend in Islamic scholarship away from openness and pluralism towards
greater theological rigidity and defense apologetics While this rigidity has served to
protect dogma from the encroachments of modernity, it has left Muslims ill-equipped
with the challenges which invariably accompany the encounter with modernity and the
crucial problems of racism, sexism, structural poverty and the environmental crisis. The
myth of Muslims being able to absorb the technological system of modernity while being
immune to its underlying meaning system is no longer tenable. The cake has been baked;
the sugar can no longer be separated from the water nor the flour from the eggs .1

Modernity and postmodernity has forced upon us the awareness that truth,
whatever else it may be, is also a human construction and that our minds are “the tissues
of contingent relations in language.” 2 Postmodernism has especially highlighted
contingent character of all understanding and interpreted the human and subjective
element involved in all objective constructions of the world and our reception of all texts
including scriptures. The narrativist turn in historical scholarship has also served to
problematize our traditional historiography and belief in received version of past (Islamic
past) on which hinges credentials of the traditionist claims, especially the claims and
doctrines that have a bearing on traditional usuli-i-tafsir and usul-i-fiqh. The edifice on
which is founded the “misogynist” “patriarchic” interpretation of Islam has been
interrogated by the discourses of modernity and postmodernity.
We may briefly dwell on the definition of hermeneutics. Palmer has identified
two broad streams in this connection. The first stream regards hermeneutics as a general
body of methodological principles which underlie interpretation while the second stream
views hermeneutics as the philosophical exploration of the character and requisite
conditions for all understanding.3 Braaten encompasses both approaches when he defines
hermeneutics as “the science of reflecting on how a word or an event in a past time and
culture may be understood and become existentially meaningful in our present
situation.”4 It involves, he says, “both the methodological rules to be applied in exegesis
as well as the epistemological assumptions of understanding.”5
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It is the traditional understanding of the idea of supra-historical character of the

scripture and the associated hermeneutical assumptions that are problematic and need to
be addressed. The traditional Islamic picture of women and her rights is closely linked
with such problematic assumptions. Farid Esack has well diagnosed the problem. I again
quote him:

Traditional Islamic scholarship has made a neat and seemingly unbridgeable distinction
between the production of scripture on the one hand and its interpretation and reception
on the other. The latter, it is claimed, is an ‘entirely different, in fact unrelated issue’ from
its genesis. The distinction, if it is to continue as indeed seems to be the case is the crucial
factor in the shaping of Quranic hermeneutics for it implies that the only hermeneutic
which Islam can cope with is that pertaining to interpretation and reception. Whether this
is adequate in coping with the challenges of modernity is doubtful. It would seem,
however, that it will only be a matter of time before Muslims are confronted with the
interconnectedness of these issues.6

The traditional Muslims have so far ignored the vital fact that the “scripture,
whatever else it may additionally be, is also an historical phenomenon.” 7 The logical
implications of this important point have not been worked out as orthodoxy has strongly
resisted/opposed any such attempt. Fazlur Rahman and Mohammad Arkoun, among
others, have worked in this direction but orthodoxy has rejected these attempts. The
hermeneutics assumed by our ulema and Muftis that culminates ultimately in sharp
rejection of everything modern and especially modern attitude to women’s issues is poles
apart from that of such modernists as Rahman and Arkoun. These are irreconcilable
apparently, but common ground could perhaps be found if we delve deeper into the roots
of respective hermeneutics. Orthodoxy may need to re-evaluate or question its
background hermeneutical principles, which have questionable or problematic Islamic
legitimacy.
The demand for adopting the contemporary hermeneutic reception (or at least
serious reckoning with it) can’t be dubbed as illegitimate from authentic Islamic
perspective despite the claim of many traditionists to the contrary, as the genres of ilum
al-Quran and usul-al-fiqh do contain theological and juristic precedents for it as Esack
has cogently argued in the paper cited earlier. As Esack had argued that the genres of
naskh asbab-al-nuzul, ilm al-makkiyyah wa-al-madani-yyah and that of tafsir in general
are particularly rich in yielding precedents for the contemporary reception hermeneutic.
However, what needs to be emphasized here is the need for a hermeneutical theory which
enables us to go beyond examining the ‘occasions’ of isolated texts into one which
examines the Sitz im leben of the Quran as an entirety, a task particularly emphasized by
Fazlur Rehman.8
The contemporary reception hermeneutics’ stress on human agency in the
meaning-making enterprise stands in contradistinction to what Arkoun describes as
“essentialist substantialistic and unchangeable concepts of rationality guaranteed divine
intellect” as Esack notes.9 The vast corpus of postmodern literary critical tradition and
postmodernist rethinking of traditional history and our perception of history and its
uncovering of power-knowledge nexus and role of hegemony in the production of
knowledge serves to convincingly problematize traditional notions of innocence and
objectivity and authenticity of traditional scholarship. Almost in the postmodernist vein,
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Aitken has argued that “To write large the significance of human agency is to see that
meaning is itself a contest within power relations; divinity lies within the working of that
contest and can’t be predicated transcendentally outside the contest as the guarantor of a
finally achievable meaning.”10 The question is how can we know the intention of the
author when author is not present? Isn’t the text always in need of an interpretation? Is it
possible to have unmediated access to the original or standard meaning? Is text (the
scriptural text) always and necessarily univocal? Is the goal of univocal final
interpretation possible to achieve or is it even a legitimate goal? Is God’s meaning
accessible to human, all-too-human interpreter in unproblematic manner? Is God’s
meaning not context-bound or culture bound and possible contexts infinite? How can we
access to the truth of history? Do we possess any objective reading of history? Is it
possible to know the past as unproblematically as we know the present? Could we have
an unproblematic knowledge of events? Is not the form of revelation influenced by
spatio-temporal coordinates? How can we ignore the differend, the differance that
threaten to problematize fundamentalist attempt at meaning closure? How can we ignore
(human) prophetic receptacle’s “distorting’’ effect on the revelation? Is it possible to be
omniscient and declare one’s interpretation as final and true for all times and not qualify
one’s interpretation by the clause wallahu a’alam bis sawab (God knows better)? To
guard against unqualified unwarranted dogmatism in interpretation should we veto
Taliban type model of Islamic state that imposes a particular brand of interpretation and
disqualifies other possible and equally warranted interpretations? All these questions
have a bearing on the issue of veil. Who can legislate on this issue? What is the exact
form of Islamic dress for women? How Islamic is the traditional burqa or abayya?
Should hair be veiled? What does veil signify? Could women play football or tennis in
the usually prescribed dress? Could an unveiled woman be allowed to read news on TV
or recite a na’at? Should voice of women also be veiled? Although traditional ulema’s
fatwas on these issues usually go unheeded in practice their significance can’t be entirely
ignored in many quarters of the Muslim world.
The practice of veiling shows extreme heterogeneity. Although a small minority
of women don long burqas and cover even their hands, the majority have abandoned veil
altogether. Not only are their faces uncovered but also their hair and necks. Jilbab has
almost vanished. Fashionable hair cuts are not uncommon in many Muslim countries.
Benazari dupatta is also very common. Even many veiled Iranian women (where veil is
supposed to cover head and not face necessarily) take ample care to expose as much of
hair as possible. The traditional local dresses that Muslim women wear don’t conform to
standard norm of orthodoxy. Many hardly care about it and wouldn’t see much difference
between veiling and unveiling. The model of Islamic women as presented in orthodoxy’s
writings is hardly to be found anywhere in Muslim society. Farid Wajidi’s Mi’rat-al-
Muslima, Moududi’s Purdah and a host of similar writings that argue for the traditional
picture of veil are more or less ignored by vast majority of Muslim women. The
enormous impact of secular modernity in this case is too evident to be discussed. The two
worlds—the traditional Islamic and the modern Western—traditionally conceived as
parallel epistemic and cognitive universes are clashing head on with each other. Those
who argue for some kind of compromise (especially on the issue of women’s rights) are
suspected on orthodox grounds. Muslim feminist movement is rejected as rank heresy.
The result is either the triumph of secular feminism and the alienation of many Muslim
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women from traditional roots or the rise of self-righteous “fundamentalist” patriarchal

ideologies and their violent clashes with each other. The costs of both veiling and
unveiling are sometimes too much to be treated lightly. Veiling/ unveiling may incur a
loss of job, expulsion from school and sometimes even physical injury or death. Thus
there are quite heavy stakes involved. The importance of this extremely sensitive and
politicized issue can’t be over-emphasized and the relevance of the Quranic hermeneutics
is quite evident.
It is the very perception of modern man that has changed with respect to
traditional symbols and their function. The orthodox and the modernists seem to inhabit
quite different worlds and their frames of reference are different and incommensurable.
They seem to be playing incommensurable language games. This causes the confusion
and accounts for misunderstandings from either side. Secular feminists don’t understand
Islamist position and Islamists don’t appreciate Muslim feminist standpoint. Accusations
of false consciousness from both sides serve only to complicate the issue. The
fundamental cognitive and epistemological assumptions differ and the separate cognitive
maps (spaces) have hardly any overlapping points or boundaries. The perceptions differ,
the worldviews differ, the diagnoses of the illness differ and the proposed treatments
can’t but differ. The widely divergent interpretations of the same scriptural sources are
ultimately dictated by divergent hermeneutical philosophical backgrounds. To judge
between them one must note first of all the divergent constructions of this contested
terrain.
The critics of the traditional institution/practice of veil see it as evil and nothing
but evil. It incarnates patriarchal logic. It erases her individuality and identity. It
depersonalizes her. She becomes the other, the marginalized, the oppressed by donning
veil. It is othering and marginalizing strategy of males imposed on women and those who
willfully opt for it are suffering from false consciousness. Veil hinders women from
achieving transcendence and authentic subjectivity. It is a barbaric custom. It humiliates.
It is a symbol of women’s subordination. It is a relic of past, the dark medieval and
feudalistic past. It traumatizes psychic health of women. It paralyzes her. It is an evil on
biological grounds also. It perpetuates oppressive and unjust patriarchal regime. It is a
symbol of male domination par excellence. Some Muslim and secular feminists have
critiqued veil on Islamic grounds pointing out its non-Islamic origins. It is seen as
contrary to egalitarian spirit of Islam. It is attributed to feudalism. Many Muslim
feminists have argued that veil, especially in the form common in South Asia (i.e.,
burqa), is innovation (bidd’at) and is perversion of Islamic injunctions of modest
clothing. It contradicts the very logic of the Quran. Veil in the form of burqa has also
been questioned on moral grounds. It questions women’s moral freedom and integrity. It
proves that women can’t be trusted, that she is seducer, sex maniac. She must be behind
the bars to preserve the purity of sexual ethic in societies. She is by nature temptress and
men must be saved from her viles. She can’t be trusted. Qazi Abdul Gafar has argued
forcefully on these lines in his Laila Kay Khutoot. (Letters of Laila). The misogynist
logic that the critics of burqa have discerned in the practice has been deployed against the
defenders of burqa by many feminists. It is men who are untrustworthy thieves that need
to be veiled. The Quranic injunction of gazzi-basr (lowering the gaze) is pointless or
becomes null and void if women are veiled. The elaborate purdah system finds no
support in the Quran. It is even anti-Quranic. It must be rejected with full forces for the
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sake of Islam. Veil reduces women to 2 nd rate existence, and immanence. Simon de
Beuovaire’s arguments in The Second Sex that show traditional women’s inferior status
apply to veiled women par excellence. Veil has been the prime target of almost all
feminists. Veil isn’t just a harmless piece of cloth on heads or face but is very pregnant
symbol that incarnates the patriarchal misogynist tradition in its most perverse form. The
headscarf or niqab doesn’t incarnate the sacred but the misogynist tradition. Even the
sacred has been misappropriated by the defenders of veil. The sacred has been
traditionally associated with violence and sacrifice and it is these connotations that veil
incarnates/represents. The veil represents the feudalist misogynist patriarchal tradition.
The whole corpus of Muslim traditional scholarship is sometimes vehemently rejected on
feminist grounds. The world of fatwas pertaining to observance of purdah reveals
unmistakably misogynist logic and value system. The oppressive character of law
pertaining to women’s rights in inheritance, divorce, witness is effectively preserved and
continued by veiling women. It is no accident that modern educated women have rebelled
against veiling. She has unashamedly rejected it feeling no qualms regarding the express
breach of the shariah. Modern Muslim women’s disillusionment with veil is not
attributable to fashion or Westoxication. She has come out of the great burden or yoke by
rejecting veil. The first symbolic expression of women’s freedom is rejection of dupatta
for most modern women, as if they have unconscious allergy with it. Their very marrow
is offended by veil. They will do anything but wear a dupatta. The fact that Benazir is
utterly uncomfortable with veil (She has expressed her concern with it and is very
anxious to pack if off when political interests would no longer dictate otherwise) is
representative of a large number of modern Muslim women. The post-Taliban Afghan
women’s rejection of the imposed veil shows how uncomfortable modern sensibility is
with these symbols of “medievalism.” The aversion to veil seems to be in the very
archetypes of modern psyche. The misogynist tradition of which veil is a symbol par
excellence can’t be associated with Islam that affirms the idea of the individual (including
women) as a subject, a free will present in the world, a sovereign consciousness that can’t
disappear as long as the person lives. To be veiled is to crushed and silenced and negated
as monstrosity, an untruth. Muslim feminists are striving hard to “raise the hijab that
covers the mediocrity and servility that is presented to us as tradition.” Thus they see
hijab as a symbol of servility and mediocrity and imprisoning stratagem that derives its
legitimacy neither from God nor his Prophet SAW. Feminists have deplored the fact that
the

Medina of women would be forever frozen in its violent posture. From then on, women
would have to walk the streets of uncaring, unsafe cities, ever watchful, wrapped in their
jilbab. The veil, which was intended to protect them from violence in the street, would
accompany them for centuries, whatever the security situation of the city. For them peace
would never return. Muslim women were to display their hijab everywhere, the vestige of
a civil war that would never come to an end.12

Merenesi finds a precedent for modern resistance to hijab in classical tradition of Islam.
Sukyana resisted hijab and Merenessi portrays her defiant stand in glowing colours.
Praising bayhijabi (rejection of hijab) she says that barza (unveiled) women is one who is
also a woman who has, “sound judgment and someone known for their a’ql (reasoning),
quoting Lisan-al-Arab as an authority. Merenessi, by her reading of Islamic architecture
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and Islam’s negotiation with space, tries to problematize the usual legitimating for veil
and the traditional symbolism of it. She has political implications of hijab in mind in her
critique of veil (and this is true of many Muslim feminists). I quote her again:

In conclusion, we can say that the Prophet’s architecture created a space in which the
distance between private life and public life was nullified where physical thresholds
didn’t constitute obstacles. It was architecture in which the living quarters opened easily
onto the mosque, and which thus played a decisive role in the lives of women and their
relationship to politics. This spatial osmosis between living quarters and mosque had two
consequences that official modern Islam did not see fit to retain or didn’t envisage. The
first is that this equation between public and private facilitated the formulation by women
of political demands, especially the challenge of male privileges concerning inheritance
and the right to bear arms. The second, which was a consequence of the first, is that the
hijab, which is presented to us as emanating from the Prophet’s will, was insisted upon
by Umar Ibn al-Khatab, the spokesperson of male resistance to women’s demands.
Muhammad only yielded on this point when the community was in the middle of a
military disaster and when economic and political crises were tearing Medina apart…. 13

Merenessi also highlights the essentially negative connotation of veil in the civilization of
Islam especially in the context of Islamic mysticism. Discussing the different meaning
spaces or contexts of term hijab in the Quran and Sufism, she concludes:

So it is strange indeed to observe the modern course of this concept, which from the
beginning had such a strongly negative connotations in the Koran. The very sign of the
person who is damned, excluded from the privileges and spiritual grace to which the
Muslim has access, is claimed in our day as a symbol of Muslim identity, manna for the
Muslim women.14

She deplores the perverse evolution/appropriation of the idea of veil in the history of
Islam. “The veil that descended from Heaven was going to cover up women, separate
them from men, from the Prophet, and so from God.” She argues that the verse of hijab
was revealed to demarcate space between men, between the Prophet and the vulgar
public. She discusses in detail its asbabi-nuzul and concludes:

The hijab-literally “curtain”-“descended”, not to put a barrier between a man and a

woman, but between two men …… The verse of the hijab “descended” in the bedroom of
the wedded pair to protect their intimacy and excluded third person—in this case, Anas
Ibn Malik, one of the Prophet’s companions. Anas was excluded by the hijab as a witness
and the symbol of a community that had become too invasive and it was this witness
himself who reported the event.”15 She reads much subtler nuances of the hijab:
“Protecting women from change by veiling them and shutting them out of the world has
echoes of closing the community to protect it from the West. Only by keeping in mind
this double perspective-women’s body as symbolic representation of community—can
we understand what the hijab signified in year 5 of the Hejira (the year when hijab
descended on Medina) what stakes it represented, and what stakes it brings into play in
today’s explosive, passionate and sometimes violent debates.16

The great significance of the concept or institution of hijab is recognized by

feminists as well as traditional ulama, although it is being appropriated for very different
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ends by them. It isn’t just a scrap of cloth but signifies much more than that and
permeates almost every aspect of Islamic civilization. Merenessi rightly says:

So we see that the concept of the hijab is a key concept in Muslim civilization, just a sin
is in the Christian context, or credit is in American capitalist society. Reducing or
assimilating this concept to a scrap of cloth that men have imposed on women to veil
them when they go into the street is truly to impoverish this term, not to say to drain it of
its meaning, especially when one knows that the hijab, according to the Koranic verse
and al-Tabari’s explanation, “descended” from Heaven to separate the space between two
men.17

Cognizing the enormous significance of hijab orientalists, feminists and modernist

Muslim scholars have tried to give account for its persistence throughout the history of
Islam. The secularist account of religious history leads logically to very different
perception of its symbolic or functional significance. Modernity too has emptied
traditional religious symbols and practices of their traditional significance. Modernity’s
desacralized perspective that tries to account for everything in “horizontal” terms
severing reference to the sacred—the vertical reference—has precipitated the
demythologization movement in recent times and attempts to strip veil of any sacred or
transcendent connection may be understood in this context. The perennialist perspective
(championed by such imposing figures as Frithjof Schuon, Rene Guenon, Titus
Burckhardt and others) challenges almost every assumption of modern secularist
worldview and sees veil in very different light. The veil reveals very different symbolic
significance from their perspective and most objections of feminists could be easily
appropriated. Even postmodern difference feminism and recent discussions on the ‘sacred
and the feminine’ converge with the perennialist approach to the problem. This will be
discussed in detail later.
Nazire Zainudin’s (Lebanese Muslim feminist) following observations (written
1928) on the conception between progress, advancement or modernity and unveiling may
appear naive but they represent perception of many modernists on the issue.

I compared opposites, the numbers of the veiled and the unveiled. I found that the veiled
are not more than a few million Muslims living in towns. Those in the villages of the
Islamic world and more than 1700 million in other nations aren’t veiled. They have
rejected the veil they had previously worn. I have noticed that the nations that have given
up the veil, are the nations that have advanced in intellectual and material life. The
unveiled nations are the ones that have discovered through research and study the secrets
of nature and have brought the physical elements under their control. But the veiled
nations have not unearthed any secret and have not put any of the physical elements
under their control but only sing the songs of a glorious past and ancient tradition.
I have seen many intellectuals of the nations where women are still veiled
advocating unveiling, but I haven’t seen anyone in the unveiled nations advocating or
preferring the veil…. It is inconceivable that we claim to be defenders of honor while the
veil is our strongest shield. We must understand as everyone else does that honor is
rooted in the heart and chastity comes from within and not from a piece of transparent
material lowered over the face.
We have to realize, as the advanced unveiled world does, that good behaviour
and honour come from sound upbringing grounded in noble principles and virtues. We
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are shortsighted if we think that the veil keeps evil away from women and that those in
the rest of the world exceeding one and a half billion are all in the wrong while we are in
the right.

She writes, under the subheading: “The Veil (Niqab) is an insult to men and
women.”

It is not beneficial to men and women that men should just support women physically
and financially nor is it beneficial that man rule over those whom the Shari‘a [Islamic
Law] didn’t give him the right. It greatly harms the two sexes that every man continues to
insult his mother, daughter, wife, and sister, suspiciously accusing them of bad morals
and keeping them confined to a cage, as the venerable Qasim Amin said, ‘With their
wings cut off, heads bend down, and eyes closed.’ If the veil implies the inability of the
woman to protect herself without it, it also reveals that man, however well brought up
and in spite of supporting the women, is a traitor and thief of honor, his evil should be
feared and it is better that the woman escapes from him.18

Jamal Khawja in his Quest for Islam has argued that “purdah obstructs the full
development of the personality of the woman. The restriction on freedom of movement
on profession and on other opportunities generates a self image of inferior status. She
may even be led to regard herself as a thing rather than as a person.” 19 He criticizes
purdah on the grounds that it necessitates arranged marriage that encourages purchase of
bridegrooms by the girl’s parents from the marriage markets. 20 He also writes “The
underlying aim of the protagonists of purdah—the promotion of chastity and modesty—
is laudable. But the means are wrong. Maturity of character and balanced personality
development are the real promoters of chastity, and these prerequisites are not fostered
but hindered by purdah.”21 Fazlur Rehman in a similar vein unqualifyingly declares:

The Quran advocates neither veil nor segregation of sexes, but insists on sexual modesty.
It is also certain on historical grounds that there was no veil in the Prophet’s time, nor
was there segregation of sexes in the sense that Muslim societies came to develop it later.
In fact, the Quranic statements or modesty itself imply that neither veil nor segregation
for if there were segregation of the sexes, there would be no point in asking the sexes to
behave with modestly.22

Amina Wudood similarly argues that the traditional form of veil is only a culturally
determined manifestation of principles of modesty (and thus relative to 7 th C.E Arab
culture). Amir Ali has argued that purdah and segregation of sex were not intended only
as temporary measures for emerging Muslim society. He fully concedes the Western
criticism of purdah and tries to interpret scripture accordingly. Pluralism in
interpretation, cultural relativism and modern notions of democracy, egalitarianism and
human rights form the background theoretical assumptions of modernist feminist critics
of veil. The dominant perception of the issue in the modern age dictated by the modern
Western sensibility is almost fully shared by them. This colors their interpretation of
Islamic sources and its history.
The protagonists of veil not only claim for its purely Islamic origin or sanction or
legitimacy but also see it in very different light than that of the critics. It is a symbol of
dignity and honour. It protects women. It gives them a distinct identity of their own. It
 12

protects the moral fibre of society. It ensures decency in conduct and guards her private
space. It marks her off from non-Muslims. It is Muslim women’s I.D. Modernity is to be
blamed for trying to co-opt, marginalize, silence and negate the other and breach
inviolable sacred space through various strategies. Unveiling is one of its important
stratagems. The feminine (symbolized by veil) is intimately connected with the sacred.
The feminine has traditionally been revered as the other (not in the Simon de Beovairian
sense of the term other); its irreducible otherness wasn’t subsumed and appropriated so as
to lose essential otherness and sanctity. The other, the alterity, the altarity and the
exteriority have primary religious significance and as women incarnates this otherness,
she too is sacred, the very life according to Islam. She must be separate and not
subsumable in the categories of male reason, language and public space. She doesn’t
want to become man, like man or equal to man, as Derridean feminism also argues from a
different standpoint. By being considered as the other, the inviolable other, she is
respected and her private space, her separate personality or identity isn’t negated or
compromised. She isn’t thereby marginalized, suppressed and negated or silenced as the
void, the monstrous, the thing, the untruth, the writing as in the phallogocentric discourse.
Muslim women’s hijab signifies precisely otherness and preserves and sanctifies this
otherness. The Quran gives precisely this reason for it (33:59) incarnating this otherness.
Muslim men must encounter them in almost Levinasian ethnical sense; their otherness
putting a great ethical demand on man as it is man who is the manager of affairs
(Qawwam) and charged with the responsibility towards family. Man has been put at the
service of women, as one author has put it. The very question of androcentrism and
gynocentrism doesn’t arise in the Islamic perspective as both women’s and men’s identity
is subtended by the divine and that forms their basic identity. The transcendent
connection dissolves their separate “conflicting” worlds or identifies. Veil has been seen
by its critics as a symbol of male domination. And modern feminist movement is a
reaction against the latter. However, the traditional Islamic perspective can’t be identified
with the Western phallogocentrism and the question of feminist revolt needn’t arise and
the latter in a peculiarly or uniquely Western phenomenon. Maryam in Islam (and in
traditional Christianity also) represents the female complement of active, masculine
Logos.23 It is the desacralized secularist sensibility of the modern West and modern
feminism that finds Islam’s juxtaposition of the sacred and the feminine (and its concrete
manifestation in veil) a problem, and dubs it anachronistic and fundamentalist, although it
is Islam that has the answer to crisis in both modern as well as postmodern feminist
project. It is Islam only that can nurture true feminity and “feminism.” “Feminism” is on
securer grounds in Islam as it is grounded in “feminist” metaphysics where even the
clothes have the sacred character or incarnate sacredness. Its anti-idolatrous genius
doesn’t allow the other being reduced to an object, to thing, to be manipulated and
appropriated into male image and its subjectivity isn’t modeled on the male subject. Veil
ensures all this effectively in the traditional world of Islam.
It is only when we commit projective fallacy and ignore the respective
worldviews that give context and meaning to their institutions and symbols that veil
appears problematic. The traditional universe can’t be grafted on modern western
epistemic and cognitive universe; both could be understood from within. They are
incommensurable phrase regimes or language games. The fatal error of modernist lies in
trying to change the very symbols and their meaning spaces, to demythologize what can
 13

be demythologized only at the cost of its life. He tries to appropriate/subsume the

traditional world in the modern Western framework. This amounts to distortion of both.
The traditional symbols and institutions (especially those that have religious connection)
can’t be translated in terms of modern Western categories. Their respective logics are
poles apart, incommensurable and even contradictory. It is modern man’s vain
assumption despite his self-avowed loyalty to relativism and pluralism, that he can
somehow transcend history and his own historically, that he can be objective and his
reason could have unmediated access to truth, that he can be the judge of past tradition.
Eurocentrism and the grand narrative of Western modernism and progress, trying to co-
opt all previous traditions and traditional civilizations are to be blamed for
misappropriation of latter. Modern man has severed his traditional roots and it is his
alienation from it that makes tradition such a veiled or opaque thing. He can’t feel its
vibrations, its symphony. He beats on very different frequencies. Traditional authorities’
sometimes too commit projective fallacy, projecting traditional contexts, notions and
symbols on to the modern world. Wahidudin Khan has critiqued this method of
comparative analysis that compares degenerate form of Western institutions with ideal
Islamic ones. Traditional institutions can’t be grafted onto the Western body. There is no
absolute framework or metaperspective from which the cultural practices could be
evaluated in absolutely unproblematic manner. Traditional ulama and critics of such
Western practices as unveiling seem to ignore such facts as cultural relativism. These
critics don’t understand even religious pluralism (or at least the pluralism in Shariah of
which Maulana Azad spoke) that has become so entrenched in the modern and
postmodern West and is unambiguously stressed by the Quran. It could be easily shown
that veil was not universally observed by other religions or the people of the Book.
Unveiling is not peculiarly Western phenomenon; the crude binary opposition
Westernization vs. Islamization applied as a hegemonic stratagem to close off the debate
on many issues (e.g., on veil) is being resorted to by the ultraorthodox. Focauldian and
Gramscian frameworks applied by certain postmodern Muslim feminists like Izza Karam
could be powerfully deployed against neofoundationist conservatist thesis. The rationale
of veiling/ unveiling can’t be the sole criterion to be appealed to. Even rationality is not
univocal or monovalent; there are different rationalities that could be appealed to by
contending parties. This will be discussed later in detail.
Could veil be made an issue? Making it an issue is precisely the point that many
modern Muslim women resent. What difference does a scrap of cloth make? Why should
be it politicized and made a matter of state policy. Islamist neofoundationists or the
“fundamentalists” are very serious about it. They make it an integral part of Islamic
identity; it is very I.D. of Muslim women. It isn’t a matter of choice. There can be no
compromise on this part. Unveiled woman can’t be accommodated; she must be
excluded. To be with us (Muslim) means to be veiled. Not to be veiled is to be against
Islam. Despite the protest of feminists against this hegemonic, exclusionary and othering
stratagem that denies otherwise conscientious Muslims Muslim identity or credentials the
neoconservatist Islamists have not budged. Prophetic traditions are quoted to the effect
that unveiled women is of the devil’s camp and that for exposing hair she will be tortured
by serpents in hell. She is temptress. She will be denied the vision of God. There is a
specific punishment in the grave for not covering hair. Unveiling is a grave sin and
Islamic state must enforce veil (as Taliban did). Feminists and modernists reject all this
 14

“obsession with the female body.” They too make it a point, as a reaction, to reject veil.
To be veiled is to be backward looking, change denying conservative. To be veiled is to
be oppressed. Veil is against modern enlightenment and progress. Feminism or
movement for women’s rights must make it a point to reject veil and advocate unveiling.
The secularist modernist feminist circles will deny veiled woman entry in their camp. The
gulf between the two groups—two sensibilities—seems too wide to be bridged. This
tension is illustrated in Benaziri dupatta. Benazir is both veiled and unveiled. Feminists
criticize her for donning veil and Islamists reject her for being improperly veiled. She
pleases none. Many modern women have adopted this “half-veil” to the dismay of both
secularist feminists as well as Islamists. It shows their divided loyalties or schizophrenic
personalities. Veil implies taking sides as it becomes as much a symbol of political
struggle as anything else. The authors of In the Shadow of Islam inform us:

In three historical moments the chador (the veil) was turned into a symbol. At the Time
of Reza Shah’s compulsory unveiling, for a women to appear without it symbolized
modernity and change; during the Revolution of 1979, wearing it symbolized resistance
to the Shah; and finally at the time of construction of the Islamic Republic, its imposition
symbolized progress for the Islamic side and regression for others. At other times
wearing or not wearing the chador was a matter of personal choice, whether for reason of
religion or poverty, habit, convenience and so on. It didn’t imply taking sides, whether
ideologically or politically.24

Muslim feminist (as opposed to Islamist and secularist feminist) standpoint on

veil is, however, now gaining popularity. They see veil divested of its political and
religious overtones. For them it should be optional and a matter of personal choice. It
isn’t the I.D. of Muslim women, neither is it a symbol of medievalism and conservatism.
However, it is the impact of modernity that has diluted traditional zeal for veil. This is
true of many traditional practices also. The modernity makes redundant what was once
perceived so vital for religion. Modernity needn’t snatch veils from women as did
Ataturk and Amanullah Khan. It will disappear or wither away on its own as socio-
economic base of society changes. Capitalist forces are sufficient to erode traditional
authorities and symbols. There is no need of violence or force to be used against the
tradition. The global triumph of modernity has made traditional forces increasingly
irrelevant. It is the changed perceptions—perceptions that modernity has changed—that
basically accounts for shift of focus or of perspective on such issues. One no longer needs
preach or advocate need of equality of sexes or women’s rights. It has become part of
modern consciousness. Onus seems to have shifted on traditions to prove their relevance
for modern age and its demands rather than vice versa. Background philosophies and
methodologies have changed; the very ethos has changed and arguing for tradition with
all its problematic contexts is indeed a difficult task. Now we will be examining in some
detail certain background assumptions of modernist framework that have a bearing on the
question of veil. It is ultimately the question of interpretation that is of central concern in
the whole debate and that has led to such a chaos and confusion. The need for the
Quranic hermeneutics will be highlighted in this context. Postmodernist
(deconstructionist) way of negotiating the issue of interpretation will be specifically
explored in this connection. We will first take Amina Wadud’s hermeneutical model.
 15

Wadud starts by pointing out that no method of Quranic exegesis is fully

objective. Each exegete makes some subjective choices. Some details of their
interpretation reflect their subjective choices and not necessarily the intent of the text.
She argues that traditional tafasir (exegeses) don’t apply any hermeneutical principle and
that a “methodology for linking similar Quranic ideas, syntactical structures, principles or
themes together is almost non-existent.” She reiterates the basic feminist claim that
traditional tafasir were written exclusively by males.

This means that men and men’s experience were included and women and women’s
experiences were either excluded or interpreted through the male vision, perspective,
desire, or needs of woman. In the final analysis, the creation of the basic paradigms
through which we examine and discuss the Quran and Quranic interpretation were
generated without the participation and first hand representation of women. Their
viocelessness during critical periods of development in Quranic interpretation hasn’t gone
innoticed, but it has been mistakenly equated with voicelessness in the text itself .

Her own method, that she calls holistic as against the traditional and the reactive
methods (of secularist feminism), consists in reconsidering the whole method of Quranic
exegesis with regard to various modern social, moral, economic and political concerns.
She makes a sharp distinction between the text and its interpretation and criticizes
secularist feminism for not keeping this point in the mind. She asserts that “Because I am
analyzing the text and not the interpretation of that text, my treatment of the issue differs
from many of the existing works on this topic.” The questionable or problematic statue of
this claim from deconstructionist point of view will be discussed later. She explains the
hermeneutical model adopted by her. She thus explicates her model:

A hermeneutical model is concerned with three aspects of the text, in order to support its
conclusions (1) the context in which the text was written (in the case of the Quran, in
which it was revealed; (2) the grammatical composition of the text (how it says what it
says); and (3) the whole text, its weltanschauung or worldview.

Adopting double movement methodology of Fazlur Rahman, she is concerned with the
“spirit” of the Quran. She emphasizes importance of prior text in interpretation. This
prior text is the language and cultural context, in which the text is read and it adds
considerably to the perspective and conclusions of the interpretation. She allows different
possible interpretation of the same text. She argues against the position that there is only
one interpretation of the Quran as it limits the extent of the text. The universality of the
Quran demands accommodation of innumerable cultural situations. She argues against
privileging of any single cultural perspective and even the cultural perspective of the
original community of the Prophet. Regarding the prior text of gender-specific languages
she argues that divine text must overcome the natural restrictions of the language of
human communication and that each use of masculine or feminine persons in the Quran
isn’t necessarily restricted to the mentioned gender from the perspective of universal
Quranic guidance. She makes many specific claims (although they aren’t unique and
have been made from various quarters) and problematizes the assumption that there are
essential distinctions between men and women reflected in creation, capacity and
function in society. Any distinctions are culturally determined and functional ones. She
 16

argues that with regard to some practices the Quran seems to have remained neutral
(against those who would argue that Quran endorses them). These include social
patriarchy, marital patriarchy, economic hierarchy and the division of labor between
males and females within a particular family. All these have a bearing on the question of
veil. She argues that many of today’s realities aren’t taken account of in the traditional
picture. The ideal scenario of traditional Islam that establishes an equitable and mutually
dependent relationship isn’t realized in practice in modern world and doesn’t allow for
many of today’s realities. She gives example in this connection. “What happens in
capitalist societies like America, where a single income is no longer sufficient to maintain
a reasonably comfortable life style? What happens when a woman is barren? Does she
still deserve qiwama like other woman? The question is can a veiled women (that implies
segregation also and even economic dependence in case of many modern professions)
live in such a society without severe limitations? Is not veil a handicap in such a
scenario? The issue of veil is intimately connected with other signs of the traditional
Islamic system. Veil could be understood and appreciated only within that paradigm.
Outside this paradigm (modernity is outside it par excellence) veil doesn’t make much
sense and it is not surprising that it appears anachronistic, an allograft. This alien tissue
would be automatically rejected by modern society that has its own peculiar problems to
confront. Modern educated women living in contemporary socio-economic conditions are
compelled to reject the veil, especially the type of purdah and purdah system prevalent in
Indian subcontinent. Iranian variety of veil is unacceptable to mere conservative ulama of
India. Veiled women would hardly get adjusted in 90% of careers that modern women is
compelled to undertake e.g., career in journalism, media, business, management, and
even teaching and nursing aren’t conducive to her traditional feminity or feminine image.
The fact can hardly be denied that the traditional practices and ethos can’t be grafted to
the modern Western worldview. They are bound to clash. They are as different as
feudalism and capitalism; they can hardly coexist. Traditional Islamic institutions and
practices can’t be made part of the contemporary reality. The failure of the Taliban model
is a case in point. One can’t live in isolation and compete in the modern world. One can’t
be both modern and traditional at the same time. It is in this context that Wadud remarks:
“The Quran must eternally be reviewed with regard to human exchange and mutual
responsibility between males and females.” She interprets the Quranic terms in this
regard (like qawwam, daraja, faddala) from a feminist perspective. She concludes on the
subject of veil, applying her methodological insights:

In Arabia at the time of the revelation, women of wealthy and powerful tribes were veiled
and secluded as an indication of protection. The Quran acknowledges the virtue of
modesty and demonstrates it through the prevailing practices. The principle of modesty is
important—not the veiling and seclusion which were manifestations particular to that
context. These were culturally and economically determined demonstrations of modesty.
Modesty isn’t a privilege of the economically advantaged only: all believing women
deserve the utmost respect and protection of their modesty—however, it is observed in
various societies.
Modesty is beneficial for maintaining a certain moral fibre in various cultures
and should therefore be maintained—but on the basis of faith: not economics, politics or
other forms of access of coercion. This is perhaps why Yusuf Ali (1872-1952) translates
Sura 24, verse:31 “What (must ordinarily) appear” (with regard to uncovered parts), to
indicate that (ordinarily) there are culturally determined guidelines for modesty.
 17

She concludes that “interpretation of the Quran can never be final.” Thus she explains
away the veil as well as seclusion. The question is, as Montogmery Watt says, how to
define modesty. This is precisely the point of contention between the protagonists of veil
and its critics. We will postpone our critique of Wadud’s position till we examine
hermeneutical assumptions of another modernist Muslim feminist, Asghar Ali Engineer
who sums up views of and builds upon other modernist writers in this connection.
Engineer thinks that the traditional gender laws are products of either tribal or
feudal societies where the woman had a subordinate role and that traditional societies
were patriarchal and that patriarchy is one of the greatest obstacles in the way of
achieving gender justice.27 Identifying himself with the new breed of feminist
theologians, he tries to clear grounds for Muslim feminism. Comparing the status of
women’s rights in Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia he notes how religion has been
appropriated for different ends in these different countries. Commenting on this state of
affairs he says, “These differing laws from one Islamic country to the other clearly show
that much depends on the socio-political circumstances than on ‘divine injunctions’ and
that divine scriptures can be differently interpreted by human agents.” 28 He approvingly
quotes the feminists who argue that the divine scriptures must be reinterpreted in the light
of our own experience and historical circumstances. Scriptures are often couched in
symbolic language in order to impart a permanent relevance. Also in these verses and
injunctions there is embedded a degree of ambiguity which makes them more flexible
and amenable to creative change. This is an important aspect of theological methodology
to bring about any relevant change in the laws.
Another important aspect of this methodology is that the understanding of these
divine verses is influenced by one’s own circumstances, perceptions, perspectives and
inclinations and while verses are divine, the understanding and interpretations are human.
The laws, thus formulated, will be partly divine and partly human. Even in the early
period of Islamic history there were different interpretations of the Quranic verses. There
was no unanimity in accepting the hadith also.29
It is the hadith literature that has been mainly controversial in feminist circles.
The tradition of misogyny is traced in hadith literature. Seemingly antifeminist verses of
the Quran have been appropriated by Muslim feminists without great difficulty but hadith
literature has resisted the feminist appropriation. So Muslim feminists have generally
ignored/ bypassed or rejected hadith literature on various grounds. Amina Wadud Muhsin
builds her case for the feminist interpretation on the basis of the Quran only, ignoring
Prophetic sunna. Merenesi censures the whole corpus of hadith for its supposedly
misogynous elements. Authenticity and orthodox warrant of Muslim feminism becomes
very questionable for this heterodox stance on hadith. Engineer presents the case against
the reliability/authenticity of hadith having feminist concerns in the background. He
points out:

Now what is important to note is that anyone who even met the Prophet once is given the
status of a companion and he becomes entitled to report or narrate what he heard from the
Prophet. There were many who either had their own prejudices or limited memory or
limited understanding. Many were illiterate Bedouins who perhaps were not even able to
comprehend what the Prophet said. There were even instances of having heard partially,
out of context, and reporting the hadith…. Even a companion like Abu Hurayra once
 18

narrated a hadith, which he had heard partially from the Prophet. What he heard was
highly derogatory of the status of women. Fortunately, Hadrat Aisha, wife of the holy
Prophet, corrected him. In many instances, perhaps there was no one to correct and the
hadith circulated.30

He thinks that many amongst the narrators had imbibed their own social
prejudices against women from their own circumstances. The holy prophet had great
sympathy with the cause of women. He empowered them with rights not appreciated by
many men around him. Some of them even protested. When such people reported these
traditions they must have been coloured by their prejudices. 31 He attributes lowering of
status of women to the prejudices, conventions, customs and tradition of neighbouring
locales like Syria, Egypt, Persia and other regions of Central Asia which affected Islam
after they got converted. Patriarchal and feudal values affected the interpretations of the
Quran.32 He argues that such a hadith as that the majority of hell’s inmates are women as
they are temptresses should have been judged in the light of the spirit of the Quran which
gave such an exalted status to women.33 He also points out that all Muslims weren’t
united on many vital questions pertaining to women e.g., the Qaramites, an Ismaili sub-
sect, banned veil.34 The Sufis didn’t consider the biological need more important than the
spiritual and thus gave central place to women among their tribe. 35 Apart from the Quran,
he doesn’t unproblematically accept any other traditional source of law. He doesn’t think,
like other modernists, that sharia is immutable. He argues for the reconstruction of fiqh
and theology in the light of modern experience. He builds upon Maulana Azad’s
approach to pluralism in sharias to come to terms with modern sensibility. However,
what is most important from the point of view of hermeneutics is his application of
modern critical tools (higher criticism) to our understanding of the Quran. This is
necessary for the feminist interpretation of Islam. Summarizing the views of Ahmad
Amin in Fajr al Islam, he says:

…the whole Quran wasn’t within the reach of all the companions of the Prophet. They
couldn’t understand it, neither in its overall sense nor in detail except that they heard it.
Ibn Khaldun isn’t correct when he says that ‘the Quran wasn’t revealed in the language of
the Arabs and in their style so they all understood it and knew its meanings—of
individual words as well as compound words.’ The fact that the Quran was revealed in
Arabic does not mean that all the Arabs would understand its words as well as
compounds. And proof of this is our observation that any book written in a certain
language does not necessarily mean that all the people of that language would understand
it. The understanding of the book does not depend on language alone; it also depends on
the degree of one’s intellect and how far it conforms with the intellectual status of the
book. This applies to the Arabs as well as the Quran. All of them did not necessarily
understand it fully. They differed in their understanding of it …. In fact most of the
companions were content with the overall sense of the verse. They hardly bothered to go
into the details of its meaning.36

He cites many modernist and orientalist arguments against hadith, their

authenticity and importance in law making. He concludes “any hadith even if most
authentic can’t be an eternal component of shariah.” It is hadith literature mostly that has
been deployed against the feminist approach to Islam.
 19

He also makes another modernist argument against the traditional approach to the
question. Hence, the true potentialities of Islamic teaching couldn’t be realized in the
classical or golden age of Islam—the age of the Prophet and pious caliphs. He says that
the ideal of sexual equality couldn’t be realized under the prevailing conditions of Arabia.
The prevailing conditions affected the content of revelation and prophetic practice.

Thus the elevated principle of equality had to be toned down, in view of the concrete
conditions…. The real intention of the Quran was to accord equal status to both the sexes.
Firstly, women, like men, are human beings and all human being are equally honourable
in the eyes of Allah. Secondly, the Quran also separately declared the principle of
equality of sexes, “Walahunna mithl al-ladhi-‘alayhinna (i.e., women’s rights are the
same as their obligation in just manner; 2:2 28). But in view of the prevailing conditions
and social context, sexual equality wasn’t achievable, so the Quran had to add that “and
men are a degree above them”. Without men being given a slightly upper hand, they
would not have accepted the Islamic ideal of equality in that society .37

He tacitly bypasses the third source of shariah that could have been (and has
been) deployed against Muslim feminism. Quoting Shaukani he says that ijma can’t stand
by itself. It must be based on the Quran or sunnah. He also quotes Ibn Hazm to the effect
that ijma has to be based on what can be established from the Quran—or sunnah38.
Having problematized the traditional methodology of interpreting these sources, ijma gets
similarly problematized, as a source of Islamic law. He also approvingly quotes Iqbal’s
The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam to the effect that modern parliament
can constitute a body which can play the role of ijma and further elaborates that such a
body can bring about changes in the shariah codified by the great jurists.39 He also quotes
Maulana Ala’i to the effect that the sharia injunctions are based on causes, when they
(the causes) changes injunction also change. 40 Whereas the orthodoxy privileges religion
(shariah) over culture and believes that the former should override the latter and models
the latter in accordance with the former, Engineer reverses the hierarchy. “If the social
context changes and if women also begin to earn (and there is nothing in the holy book or
in the prophetic sunnah preventing women from earning their livelihood or that of the
family) and look after the family, there will be nothing to prevent them from acquiring
either equal status or even a degree of superiority over men.” 41 His methodology involves
careful sorting out the “contextual” from the “normative” in the Quran as well as in the
sunnah.42 This proposed distinction between the normative and the contextual is itself
very problematic as we shall see later in this paper.
The relevant Quranic verses which are cited by traditional Muslims in favour of
the veil (rather its necessity) are as follows:

And say to the believing woman that they lower their gaze and restrain their sexual
passions and don’t display their adornment except what appears thereof. And let them
wear their coverings over their bosoms, and they shouldn’t display their adornment
except to their husbands or their fathers, or fathers of their husbands or their father; or
their brothers, or their sons or the sons of their brother’s sons, or their sister’s sons, or
their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or guileless male servants, or the
children who know not woman’s nakedness and let them not strike their feet so that the
adornments that they hide may be known. (24:31)
 20

“O prophet, tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of believers to let down
upon them their over garments. This is more proper, so that they may be known, and not
be given trouble. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful.” (33:59)

Another verse, usually called the verse of the hijab, is as follows: “And when ye ask of
them (the wives of the prophet) anything, ask it of them from behind a curtain. That is
purer for your hearts and for their hearts” (33:59).
Now the orthodox position is that the veil is the Quranic injunction and those
women who don’t observe the veil are guilty of a serious breach of Islamic law. Although
they too concede that the Quran isn’t explicit in advocating niqab, it has been generally
defended on the ground that in an age of fitna (that our age is par excellence) niqab or
burqa becomes obligatory. Hair is to be covered necessarily. Women can’t be allowed to
move unaccompanied by a muharrum lest she be teased. Women can’t appear on T.V.,
even if veiled. Even her voice is under purdah. Strictly speaking, she can’t recite even
na’at. She can’t be expected to play cricket, or tennis and most other games that
necessitate unveiling. Women can’t be allowed to wear any makeup in public. Her veil is
meant to restrict her entry in public space. Islamic dress code should be imposed in an
Islamic state (as in Taliban, Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia have done). Women
(especially if unveiled) can’t be allowed to work in 95% of modern professions. They
traditional veil alone satisfies the Quranic injunctions regarding modesty. Even Benazari
dupatta can’t be tolerated in an Islamic state, let alone women who wear no scarves at all,
cut their hair and don’t know what Jilbab (overgarment) is. Unveiling implies co-culture
and free mixing of men and women and this too can’t be allowed in an Islamic State
where traditional law (shariah) reigns supreme. Against all this, modernists and
liberalists argue that traditional purdah and purdah system hasn’t much to do with Islam.
Islam demands modesty only but the parameters of modesty are culturally determined.
Not only can the face be uncovered but also the hair. Jilbab too can be dispensed with.
Dupatta is optional. Confinement within home is not demanded from women. Women
can wear light make-up, cut her hair and leave it uncovered. Half sleeves aren’t
unislamic. Purdah system as observed by middle class Muslim women in Indian
subcontinent is purely non- religious social custom. No dress code can be imposed. Veil
can’t be made an issue. It isn’t an integral part of Islamic culture or shariah. Modern
age’s sensibilities must be respected in any interpretation of Islam today. Shariah isn’t
wholly divine. It isn’t immutable. Even if scripture speaks for inequality of sexes and
veil, modern Islam must reconstruct/reinterpret such injunctions. The question isn’t only
whether the Quran demands veil but also whether modern age is compatible with it.
Modernity and its demands can’t be ignored in any appropriation/interpretation of
tradition. Tradition isn’t sacrosanct. Ijtihad must be exercised to allow feminist
interpretation of Islam. The hermeneutic principles and assumptions to which modernists
appeal in this connection have already been discussed and now their concrete application
by them, as revealed in their interpretation of the above quoted verses, will be discussed.
Commenting on 33: 53, and the oft quoted phrase “what appears thereof,” Engineer,
summarizing modernist position, writes:

Firstly, in this verse the context is clear from the portion underlined. There were
hypocrites and anti-social elements who used to tease Muslim women and when caught
and reprimanded would maintain that they didn’t know that they (that is, Muslim women)
 21

were Muslims. In order that the Muslim women be recognized, they were instructed to
draw their cloak closer to the face. The main intention of this verse, according to
Zamakshari, the great Mu’tazilite commentator of the Quran, is to distinguish hurrah
(free woman) from amat (slave woman) so that free women is recognized and not
harassed or teased. Zamakhshari maintains that the emphasis is on being recognized.
Thus the real intention of drawing the cloak closer is to be recognized as a free woman.
The context of the verse is thus very clear; first, there is no mention of veiling the face
and, secondly, it isn’t an obligatory order for all time to come. If the context changes, the
reason adduced disappears; it would not longer be binding. 42

Commenting on verse 24:31 he says:

Here also there is no mention of veiling the face. The whole emphasis is on modesty and
avoidance of unnecessary beauty and adoration in order to attract a man’s attention. To
use the modern feminist’s jargon, women shouldn’t be made an object of lust…. Imam
Fakhr al –Din Razi, another celebrated commentator of the Quran, also maintains that
there is no veiling of face required as hands and face remain exposed by way of natural
habit…. The Quran requires both men and women to be modest. It was only male
domination which put women under the veil and confinement without corresponding
rigorous sexual behavior on their part.43

Against the assertions of traditional ulama who would give an impression of

unanimity of interpretation in classical age of Islam so that there is not much scope for
flexibility in such issues as veil, modernists cash on and point out differences of opinion
and interpretation. As Engineer points out:

But, like other Quranic verses, this also has been variously understood by different
theologians. Let alone other theologians, there were differences in understanding it even
by the companions of the Prophet…. The key word which is controversial in
interpretation Ma Zahara minha i.e., what appears thereof. The real controversy is about
what part of a woman’s body could be allowed to be exposed. Tabari gives eight different
interpretations quoting eminent companions of the Prophet. Some companions felt that
only her external clothes could be exposed and everything else i.e., the entire body
including her face, hands, etc, should remain hidden. Another opinion is that she could
expose the collyrium (of her eyes), her ring, her bracelets, and her face. Yet according to
another opinion, she could expose her collyrium and her cheeks.44

He then quotes other opinions also that allow face and palms to be exposed. He also
quotes from Razi’s Tafsir al-Fakhral-Razi in this connection and writes:

He also holds the opinion that a believing woman can expose her face and two palms. He
thinks that one must distinguish between a slave-girl(amat) and a free women (hurrah).
According to Imam-al-Razi, while for a hurrah it is permissible to expose her whole
body except what is between her navel and thighs as she is required to be exposed for
sale in the market….. Imam Razi thinks that a free woman (hurrah) can keep her face and
two hands open as she has to do so for buying and selling and for payment i.e., it is
functionally necessary.45

Elaborating the sabab-i-nuzul of verse 33:59 he writes:

 22

It should be noted here that some of the slave girls in Arabia at the time used to indulge
in prostitution as their masters would coerce them to do so and hence many people often
teased them. But it was very humiliating for the free woman at that time to face such a
situation. It is for this reason that the Quran required the believing women to cover their
faces with their jilbab so that they could be recognized as free women (hurrah) and
wouldn’t be teased.46

He says that Imam Razi makes it clear that here it is required to veil the face only for
recognition and not that her face is not to be revealed and is to be treated as part of satr.47
Muhammad Asad, noted modern commentator, has also argued that woman is not
required to observe the veil. 48 Engineer quotes his interpretation “What may be apparent
thereof” in detail and is reproduced below, along with his translation of verse 24:31:

And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity, and
not to display their charms (in public) beyond what may [decently] be apparent thereof;
hence let them draw their head coverings over their bosoms….” My interpretation of the
word ‘decently’ reflects the interpretation of the phrase illa ma zahara minha by several
of the earliest Islamic scholars, and particularly by Al-Qiffal (quoted by Razi) as “that
which a human being man openly show in accordance with prevailing customs (al-‘adah
al-jariyah)’ Although the traditional exponents of Islamic law have for centuries been
inclined to restrict the definition of ‘what may [decently] be apparent thereof’ to a
woman’s face, hands and feet—and sometimes even less than that—we may safely
assume that the meaning of illa ma zahara minha is much wider and that the deliberate
vagueness of this phrase is meant to allow for all the time bound changes that are
necessary for a man’s moral and social growth. The pivotal clause in the above injunction
is the demand, addressed in identical terms to men as well as to women, to ‘lower their
gaze and be mindful of their chastity’ and this determines the extent of what, at any given
time, may legitimately—in consonance with the Quranic principles of social morality—
be considered ‘decent’ or ‘indecent’ in a person’s outward appearance.50

For Asad the Quran is primarily particular about not uncovering the breasts and
he says that the Quran makes it clear that a woman’s breasts aren’t included in the
concepts of “what may decently be apparent” of her body. 51 This conception of veil that
allows prevailing custom (and fashion) to determine limits of modesty will hardly be
incompatible with highly Westernized Muslim Women’s outlook. Traditional veil is
almost liquidated out. Burqa or scarf or full sleeved dress is not required at all. What else
is demanded by a Westernized woman?
Mohammed Ali discussing the issue of veil concludes: “This settles conclusively
that Islam never enjoined the veil or covering of face.” 52 Engineer argues for
permissibility of uncovering hair also. He writes:

However, it is also obvious that any scriptural text is read within one’s socio-cultural
context. An almost unanimous opinion of all classical commentators indicates that in
their socio-cultural context, keeping the face and hands open was considered permissible.
The Prophet also advised accordingly. Keeping the hair exposed was perhaps considered
sexually inviting and hence prohibited. But the Quranic verse doesn’t expressly state this.
It has been deliberately left unspecified. However, if one takes a dynamic and growing
view of society and also tries to situate a signification and meaning of scriptural text in
 23

the socio-cultural specificities thus exposing hair mayn’t be considered sexually inviting
in some socio-cultural contexts. But uncovering of the bosom is universally considered,
at least in all non-tribal societies, as sexually inviting and hence the Quran specifically
requires women to cover their bosom with what it calls khimr i.e., a piece of cloth
generally worn by women and slung across their shoulders. 53

He closes off his discussion on veil with the following words:

The Quran, however neither requires “woman to be veiled, nor confined at home. She is
free to work outside her home and take part in all public activities. She isn’t required to
be a role-model as a mother though to be mother is her biological destiny…. However
she shouldn’t try to become immodest and dress in a way which ignores the sexual
sensibilities of her socio-cultural context.54

Before proceeding to discuss the hermeneutical assumptions that inform

modernist appropriation/critique of veil, we shall, for the sake of contrast quote Frithjof
Schuon’s (Isa Nuruddin) presentation of perennialist traditionalist position (which is
primarly metaphysical rather than theological/juristic in character so needs not to be
confused with the approach of ulama or neofoundationists or what we have referred to as
the traditionists though it resembles the latter in rejecting modernism) on veil. Schuon
writes:

Islam makes a sharp separation between the world of man and that of woman, between
the community as a whole and the family which is its kernel, between the street and the
home, just as it sharply separates society and the individual or exotericism and
esotericism. The home, and the woman who is its incarnation, are regarded as having an
inviolable and so a sacred character. Woman even in a certain manner incarnates
esotericism by reason of certain aspects of her nature and function: ‘esoteric truth’, the
haqiqah, is ‘felt’ as a ‘feminine’ reality, and the same true of barakah. Moreover the veil
and the seclusion of women are connected with the final cyclic phase in which we live
and they present a certain analogy with the forbidding of wine and the veiling of the
mysteries.55

Amina Wadud’s methodology and hermeneutics may be critiqued on not only

traditional grounds but on other grounds as well (such as deconstructionist grounds). Our
traditional authors and ulama generally reject historical and higher criticism that is behind
the plea for the Quranic hermeneutics. It appears that their point of view could be
justified in this connection on the grounds of tradition itself. However, this would be
dubbed as circular reasoning or petitio principi by modernists. However if there are
independent grounds for tradition and its sovereignty, we can’t lightly discredit it.
Modernity has, however, problematized the claims of tradition (not to be identified with
the metaphysical conception of Tradition propounded by the perennialists), especially as
reflected in socio-cultural and economic and political spheres. Traditionists must now
reckon with the modernist approach. Modernist’s “archeological’ approach criticizes
tradition on the grounds of that tradition itself would seem to uphold. Modernists have
argued that they are closer to the Quranic spirit and its value system. The fossilized
tradition has only distorted the pristine face of Islam. Tradition far from being sanctified
and authenticated by God, or wholly divine in origin, has been distorted by feudalist
 24

patriarchal and other power structures. Modernist’s endeavor to sift the divine and sacred
from the human, the mundane and the profane in what is called as tradition or shariah.
Thus modernism tries to authenticate itself by appeal to tradition—purified tradition—
itself. So ultimately the problem boils down to the question of interpretation or
hermeneutics—the different hermeneutical assumptions behind the
conservatist/fundamentalist and the modernist/ secularist fundamentalist (secularism too
can be dogmatic fundamentalist when it absolutizes its own viewpoint to the exclusion of
other perspectives) positions.
Wadud’s pluralism will be open to those objections that have been raised against
all relativist pluralist approaches. It self-deconstructs. If we can’t disallow other
interpretations than our own, traditionist/fundamentalist interpretation can’t be vetoed
and latter by definition rejects other interpretations and the principle of pluralism. An
Islamic State like Taliban wouldn’t allow modernist feminist interpretation. So either one
has to reject traditionist/ fundamentalist approach on a priori grounds to get a space for
feminist interpretation, allow it on pluralist hermeneutics. Thus modernist plea for
pluralism in interpretation faces the charge of self contradiction; it rejects its own
principles when it either accepts fundamentalist interpretation or rejects it. Because by
rejecting it and not possibly allowing for it, it goes against pluralist premises and by
accepting it, as possibly true interpretation it loses all ground for its own feminist
interpretation because the latter is antifeminist. Taliban forcefully imposes veil; they
can’t be critiqued on the fashionable postmodernist pluralist grounds. Pluralism, to be
really consistent, lands in postmodern relativism, the antidoctrine that all interpretations
are misinterpretations, equally valid because equally false. Absolutizing the relativist
position implies this and modernist and postmodernist approaches can’t escape these
implications. However the grounds on which she problematizes traditional patriarchal
interpretation/ exegesis are quite strong. Her assumption that gender necessarily colors
interpretation could be granted but the feminist interpretation by women of the same text
is equally liable to the same charge of subjectivist interpretation. Women’s interpretation
can’t be objective and undistorted by female vision, perspective, desire and needs. More
logical standpoint could be to take standpoint approach of certain literary theorists.
Women can’t claim to transcend their subjective biases and unearth the reality or
objective truth that has otherwise been obscured/distorted by male exegetes. This point is
implicitly conceded by Wadud herself, as her following remarks suggest. “No method of
Quranic exegesis is fully objective. Each exegete makes some subjective choices. Some
details of their interpretations reflect their subjective choices if not necessarily the intent
of the text.”56 However she tries to maintain that her own analysis of the text (which is
her own feminist interpretation and not just an objective analysis) necessarily reflects the
intent of the text. She assumes as if facts—the text could be totally looked when isolated
and divorced from interpretation itself. We can’t analyze a text without making prior
subjective interpretative choices. We can not have unmediated access to text. Text
doesn’t exist apart from interpretations of it. There can’t be completely objective analysis
of a text. She is right in making a distinction between text and interpretation while
critiquing secularist and traditionalist/fundamentalist position that identifies their
interpretations with the text itself. However, her essentialist belief in the text ‘out there’ is
questionable. There can be no metaperspective from which to judge/evaluate/analyze
text. There are countless contexts. Belief in the presence of objective text that
 25

unproblematically means what it says and says that it means and could be
unproblematically, unequivocally appealed to by the contending parties has increasingly
been questioned in our postmodern age. The way she interprets or constructs the Quranic
text and its meaning space is easily problematizable or doconstructable. This will now be
discussed in detail.
Wadud rightly recognizes the shaping influence of what she calls prior text in
one’s understanding and interpretation of text. However, postmodernists would extend
the influence of prior text to far greater extent and even argue that one can’t escape the
influence of prior text at all and that there could be no access to text that is not
determined by prior text; text is constituted or constructed by prior text. Wadud herself
does recognize the potential of relativism latent in her hermeneutical model and tries to
avoid it by making the distinction between fundamental and unchanging principles of the
scriptural text and the changing capacity and particularity of understanding and reflection
of the principles of text within a community of people. Since the cultural perspectives are
different the interpretations will change but the principle of continuity and permanence in
the Quranic text itself guards against relativism. However, her distinction between the
immutable and mutable elements of the text is too vague and too equivocal to be
unproblematically applied in practice. Traditionists and fundamentalist claims to know
these universal principles and also their right to be sole interpreters or best entitled to
interpret these universal principles and apply them in concrete cultural situations.
Tradition pertains to these universal principles and it is only those who are trained in
traditional uloom and who reject modernist historical and higher critical canons in
interpretation—who don’t look at the text through modern secularist Western spectacles.
Jamal Khawaja, a very uncompromising modernist, applying modern critical
methodology and hermeneutics to interpret universal values or principles of the Quran
arrives at very different historicist-conclusions regarding women’s rights (and veil) in
Islam. The question is how to interpret these universal principles and how to separate
contextual from normative, the mutable from the immutable, the fundamental and the
derivative in the Quran. Here the hermeneutic despair is so strongly felt between rival
interpretations. This is exactly the point of contention between fundamentalists and the
moderates or secularists— or the advocates of Islamic state and that of modern nation
state. Both the camps recognize validity of distinction between the contextual and the
normative, or fundamental and the derivative, the spirit and the letter of the text or law.
But still there is no agreement between them on certain crucial questions such as the issue
of feminism. Both the parties, for instance, agree that the fundamental principle is
modesty that needs to be realized in every culture. However the agreement ends here. The
question is how to define modesty from Islamic perspective? Can Islam itself define
modesty or is it culture that may define it? Here comes the disturbing question of culture
vis-à-vis religion. Difference of approaches leads to such divergent interpretations—one
considers it a grave sin to compromise on niqab and even advises covering hands and feet
and the other may not find Sania Mirza’s dress much objectionable on Islamic grounds.
Sometimes there may not be agreement on where to draw the boundary between the
principle and its particular contextual manifestations. Wadud’s following distinction
could be accused of confounding the two and unwarrantedly bracketing off the principle
in the manifestation. “The principle of modesty is important—not the veiling and
seclusion which were manifestations of particular to that context. They were culturally
 26

and economically determined demonstrations of modesty.” Schuon, on the contrary,

seems to elevate veil and seclusion to very important constituent or principle of Islam and
not just culturally and economically determined manifestation of principle of modesty.
The symbolism of veil is so important for perennialists. It is an integral part of Islamic
cosmos and identity. Islamic space and seclusion and veil are indissolubly linked.
Wadud’s unwarranted privileging of modernist culture and modern sensibility
over the traditional one could be challenged by traditionists and traditionalists. We can
reverse the hierarchies and then feminist interpretation gets problematized. A traditionist
will not perhaps agree with the following remarks of Wadud: “With regard to some
practices, the Quran seems to have remained neutral: social patriarchy, marital patriarchy,
economic hierarchy, the division of labor between males and females within a particular
family.” Traditionists and fundamentalists would not perhaps agree with her diagnosis of
neutrality. For them these hierarchies have been implicitly endorsed by the sacred text.
These practices aren’t incomparable with the Quranic weltanschuaang and value system.
By not explicitly critiquing the socio-economic base of traditional Arab culture, the
Quran could be seen to endorse these traditional structures. It is not for nothing that some
women activists today openly question this neutrality. Wadud’s answer to them is not
quite convincing. Perhaps the answer lies at a very different plane, a plane where the
question or problem of feminism doesn’t arise, a plane in which the question of
phallocentrism and gynocentrism are equally irrelevant. Another relevant question, that
any hermeneutics must answer, is how far can a text—any text whatsoever, divine or
human, transcend the culture and the dominant power structure and dominant episteme.
Author as well as the reader is situated in history because the words and meanings can’t
be totally transhistorical and readers are never omniscient, never completely able to
transcend cultural conditioning.. The human receptacle of the Prophet “distorts”
revelation as the great perennialist author Schuon admits. The problematic question of
authorial intention also needs to be discussed. Modernist scholarship has simplistic
notions of author and authorial intention. Structuralist and post-structuralist questioning
of the traditional notion of author must be seriously reckoned with, especially in the case
of a divine text where the author couldn’t be conceived as present/acessible in the usual
sense of the term applied to human authors. The Prophet’s authority that has been
traditionally invoked to delimit or freeze the play of signifiers and draw the boundaries of
traditional meaning space couldn’t be unproblematically appealed to from a modernist
framework. Most modernists bypass and ignore sunnah and thus are not very
unjustifiably accused of indulging in the heterodox practice of tafsir birray (unwarranted
whimsical interpretation). Wadud’s approach is undeniably heterodox and could be
rightly suspected on traditional grounds. She bypasses hadith in her feminist
interpretation of Islam or the Quran. There is an unbridgeable gulf between
modernist/postmodernist hermeneutics and the traditional hermeneutics applied by our
ulama in the exegesis of the Quran and hadith. While there are many problematic areas in
traditional hermeneutics, we can’t but feel its logical consistency and self-legitimating
closed universe. Rejecting the traditional framework and the hermeneutical principles
that inform it and opting for modernist and postmodernist hermeneutical approaches
creates almost irresolvable paradoxes and dilemmas for their practitioners. Combining
the traditional and the modern/postmodern hermeneutical paradigms leads to no fruitful
synthesis. Faruqi is correct in his declaration that Islam avoids hermeneutical despair if
 27

he implies that there is a logically consistent, permanent and continuing tradition in it

that, following its own logic and laws. However some modernists have dubbed it as self-
legitimating self-perpetuating closed autonomous universe that is impervious to outside
attack—in Wittgenstein’s terms as “groundless” language game. The great flexibility or
resilience as evidenced by the coexistence of alternative systems that all qualify as
orthodox within the broader framework of tradition is in sharp contrast to modern and
postmodern relativistic and chaotic anti-tradition. Within the broader framework of
tradition we could develop feminist orthodoxy of a sort—perhaps on the lines of
difference feminism. Muslim feminism must be able to contextualize itself within the
authentic Islamic tradition. The belligerent and cold or indifferent attitude towards
tradition—the prophetic and “feudalist” “patriarchal” tradition may be accommodated
within the modernist tradition but not the traditional Islamic tradition. The death of the
author poses very serious problems for modernist and postmodernist scriptural exegesis.
Modernist’s appeal to elusive authorial intention and the spirit behind the letter that the
supposedly specially knows is difficult to be sustained after advent of post-structuralism
and postmodernism. Traditional belief that that the actual meaning is God’s meaning
does not lend itself to deconstructionist attack because no exegete can ever claim to know
it; traditional exegete always qualifies his exegesis by wallahu alam-u-bisawwab (God
knows better). However this belief isn’t in the deconstructionist vein either as it does
posit a transcendental signified to freeze the play of signifiers and that there is meaning, a
transcendental Meaning that, if not absolutely knowable, still is approachable as an ideal.
It serves as corrective against all dogmatist and totalist ideological interpretation of the
sacred text. The sacred text always shakes our complacency and we must approach it in
all humility and not with the playfulness of Derrida. The distinction between meaning
and significance that Hirsch makes is perhaps helpful in understanding this point also.
However when supposed authenticity of a tradition has itself been challenged or
problematized one is really at a loss to arbitrate between the rival power structures’ will
to knowledge. The question of sovereignty remains problematic as ever. These who claim
to speak on behalf of the sovereign must prove their credentials. Since the last prophet
also has gone and man is left to his own resources, anyone claiming to speak on God’s
behalf must prove his/her credentials as His spokersperson. Theocracies have been
critiqued on the grounds that the interpreters of divine will are human, all-too-human and
thus fallible creatures. The issue is not the sovereignty of God (many Muslim critics of
theocracy do concede His sovereignty) but the sovereignty of fallible human interpreters
who is the vicegerent of God. Taliban’s imposition of veil or hijab has been critiqued on
this point i.e., the ulama of Taliban usurp sovereignty of God by imposing their
exclusivist inflexible interpretation. Democracy or people’s sovereignty is not
irreconcilable with the principle that ultimate sovereignty belongs to God alone.
Advocates of veil suppose that they alone are believers or at least good believers.
However, it appears that they are fighting not for the text but their own interpretation of
it, for the hegemony of a particular interpretation. This is equivalent to assuming
lordship, in Quranic phrase, and dogmatism plain and simple. Many critics of Taliban,
criticizing its exclusivist interpretation of the sacred text, point out that it is injustice to
attempt meaning closure, to bracket off the differences, to delimit the Quran’s essential
polysemy and polyvalence, to clearly define what has been deliberately left vague. No
human reading of the divine text could exhaust its infinite resources. The Quran has
 28

explicitly rejected any monopoly on its potentially infinite meaning space. God’s words
(or potential meanings) can’t be written off even if all the oceans become ink and all the
trees pens. All interpretations are potentially doconstructable because the truth, the whole
truth is known to God only and as the Quran says over every knower is another more
knowledgeable person. However the traditionist would reject this possible
problematization of its traditional interpretation by claiming that their interpretation is
privileged because of God’s sanction or seal on it. This claim is not very difficult to be
contested but the opposite claim would lead to deconstructionist license in interpretation
that is not tenable on various grounds including the explicit warrant against this in the
Quran itself. However we could perhaps accommodate moderate versions of
deconstruction without falling in the abyss of relativism, to counter the dogmatist
tendency in fundamentalist approach. From traditionism to fundamentalism and
fanaticism there needs only one step to be taken. To counter this danger, some version of
deconstruction may profitably be explored. Mystical tradition itself offers a similar
antidote to theological and legalistic hegemonizing and totalism.
Modernist feminist project in Islam needs to be scrutinized for its philosophical
foundations. Its fundamental assumption is that the Enlightenment project and the project
of modernity are not fundamentally or foundationally flawed, especially from the Quranic
perspective. The question of human rights and democracy and belief in reason and overall
secular orientation of this project are uncritically shared by most feminists. Modern
project is guilty of the sin of humanization of the divine. Feminist project could not be
carried out in isolation—isolated from the modernized world view. Despite the attempts
at religious appropriation of the project of secular modernity, the fact remains that the
philosophical foundations and underlying assumptions of secular modernity and
traditional religions are not reconcilable. There is an unbridgeable gulf in foundations,
methodologies, means as well as ends between the traditional and the (secular) modernist
(feminist) worldviews. They are separate epistemic and cognitive universes. There may
occur convergence on certain points but the great divergence at their bases can not
thereby be appropriated. It is supposedly male God that has been revealed different
religious scriptures. The feminist theologians, feminist psychoanalysts and feminist
postmodernists have lashed on traditional God who appears to them to have been
constructed in male image. The sacred, the domain of tradition has usually been very
badly appropriated from the feminist perspective. Fatima Merenessi isn’t comfortable
with “very mysterious and dangerous link between the sacred and women.” 57 According
to her

All the monotheistic religions are shot through by the conflict between the divine and the
feminine, but none mere so than Islam, which has opted the occultation of the feminine,
at least symbolically, by trying to veil it, to hide it, to mask it. Islam as sexual practice
unfolds with a very special theatricality since it is acted out in a scene where the hijab
[veil] occupies a central position.58
Feminism, as a modern movement originally conceived in secular soil of the
West, can’t comfortably be grafted to the native tradition of Islam. This necessitates
massive reconstructionist efforts, a rejection of much of tradition. Very sensibilities have
to be changed. This needs ijtihad in the traditional conception of revelation and function
of the Prophet and our construction of history. The ambivalent relationship to feminist
religious tradition could easily slip into aggressive antagonistic stance vis-à-vis religion.
 29

Most feminists are uncompromisingly secular and reject any reference to religion for the
cause of feminism and perceive it as important threat or enemy. Most feminists in Islam
eschew any reference to Islam. They would better leave it alone and resist its integration
in the state’s constitution. Dominant majority of westernized elite women are secular
feminists, rejecting the option of both Islamist and Muslim feminisms. Perhaps secular
feminism is more consistent in a sense. It clearly perceives that traditional “medievalist”
religion couldn’t go hand in hand with modernist and postmodernist feminism. Feminism
—thorough going consistent feminism both modernist and postmodernist—does clash at
many points with the Islamic tradition. Orthodox feminism is an offshoot of the
emancipatory metanarrative of Enlightenment modernism. Islam for all practical
purposes appears as a metastory in its own right and this metastory (if it is one) can’t
entertain any other metanarrative’s claims from within. Whether it is a fight for abortion
legislation, legal and financial equality, Islamic law isn’t cut to feminist’s desire and it is
a moot point how far it could be reconstructed or adapted to this end and could the
guardians of tradition allow it at all. So far the traditionist scholarship has actively
resisted feminist voice, be it that of secular feminism or Muslim feminism. For feminist
interpretation of Islam one needs to carry serious debate on modern western socio-
cultural and economic realities. Capitalist industrialist economy along with certain
modern developments forms the immediate context that is usually taken as for granted, a
priori and not subject to thorough scrutiny; it is assumed that Islam must somehow
accommodate itself to changed “realities” of modern age – the realities that might
themselves be based on nefarious power games, ruthless exploitations, marginalizations
and exclusions and suppressions. So when one talks of justice and human rights one must
be able to demonstrate their unproblematic character and postmodernism has alerted us
regarding the problematic character of these constructions in capitalist modern societies.
The very foundations of Enlightenment modernist metanarrative have been shaken by
postmodernism. Modernist feminists have uncritically accepted the given, the “revealed”
character of modern constructions (e.g., its construction of the self or Man and human
rights and identities). Traditionalism would object to all this modernization or
westernization (and Westoxication). It defines the self from a very different perspective
and the questions of identities and rights and justice are very differently approached. It
has the merit of not uncritically accepting modernist assumptions—its philosophical
foundations and socio-economic base. One could easily deploy postmodernism (and
postmodern feminism) against the grand narrative of feminism. The epistemic
sovereignty of this grand narrative has been challenged on non-traditionalist grounds
also. It is the claim of traditionalism that the objectives of feminism such as demand for
gender justice could be achieved in the traditional framework that rejects all major grand
narratives of modern era and isn’t vulnerable to postmodern critique also. It is ultimately
in the women’s interest that traditionalism is waging a holy war against the
Enlightenment modernism and the metanarrative of feminism. Veil definitely appears
barbaric custom and hurdle to progress and a symbol of voicelessness and oppression to
capitalist secular modern sensibilities. It has lost much of its symbolic aura that it used to
have in the traditional world of Islam. Capitalist economy necessitates removal of veil, at
least in its orthodox form. Secular man’s/woman’s vision is cut off from the transcendent
and the sacred and thus necessarily alienated from the traditional well springs. Veil
appears alienating symbol to dominant secular sensibilities. It smacks of tradition and
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medievalism. And not surprisingly appears out of fashion in modern secular capitalist
state. Veil symbolizes rejection of modernist mindset and much of its value system. It is
loaded or charged traditional symbol with very clear political overtones. Only traditional
Islam can provide a space for hijab and the latter could be fully justified within the
traditional civilization of Islam. It justifiably appears dangerous to modernist secular
states; there can’t be much space for it in secular modern educational institutions. Islam
can’t allow for the separation of religion and state as modern secularism demands. This
Western heresy (and it is not compatible with Christianity either) is foreign to the
traditional Islamic sensibility. The context alone makes text comprehensible. In the
modern secular states it is the context that traditional world provided that has almost
disappeared. There appears to be no sababi-nuzool for the verse of hijab in modern élan.
Reason (illat as our fuqaha call it) and the context have almost disappeared. The
traditional institutions that alone provided the context and the space for veil and seclusion
have almost disappeared and succumbed to modernization. Now the public interest
(masalah-e-marasala) may demand drastic change in the traditional practice of veil and
seclusion. So veil has lost its traditional justification in modern times where the discourse
of secular modernity reigns supreme, its numerous ills not withstanding. But that doesn’t
mean that modern discourse itself—within which veil appears unjustified couldn’t be
challenged on various grounds, the most importantly the tradition, the perennialist
metaphysical tradition.
Now we will further discuss Engineer’s hermeneutical background assumptions,
some of which have already been examined in our critique of Wadud Muhsin. He
attempts to problematize the central assumptions of orthodox or traditional approach. He
attempts to show that the classical age of Islam was not necessarily the golden age also
and thus a fit model for all times to come. Foregrounding dissident and marginalized
heterodox opinions, (e.g., the Batini ban on veil) he tries to disprove monolithic,
homogenous, static and revealed or divine character of what goes by the name of
tradition. His questioning of the original audience’s (Companions) credentials to fully
understand and rightly interpret the Quran goes to the heart of the matter. It disposes off
the central argument of Muslim orthodoxy. Problematizing traditionalist account of
history, especially the history of early Islam, he is in a position to delegitimize central
core of traditionism. The tenability of all these criticisms isn’t an issue here but how they
inform his own exegesis of the relevant verses of the Quran. The modernist account of
Islamic history is itself challengeable on its own terms; the typical modern way of
looking at history has been critiqued by postmodern philosophies of history. The typical
projectionist fallacy is committed by Engineer and other modernists who view traditional
civilizations from very anti-traditional modern spectacles. It constructs sacral history in
its own image, explaining away on this or that ground what doesn’t squarely fit that
perspective. The secularized modern sensibility is constitutionally incapable of objective
outlook on traditional history. Engineer says that “The true potentialities of Islamic
teaching could not be realized in that period. The question of sexual equality also falls
into this category.” Here he is using modern constructs of notions of equality and
women’s liberation to pass beyond traditional scriptural exegesis. He also assumes that
revelation was conditioned by spatio-temporal factors, that the Quran somehow tried to
woo its addressees and compromised on certain essential principles. Modernists are
unable to negotiate with the text as it stands; they use various stratagems to fit text into
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certain preconceived patterns. The Quran could, on these modernist premises, be

justifiably accused of giving too many concessions to male vision, needs and desires and
thus its claim to universality gets problematized. It is quite right to assert that the Quran
wasn’t revealed in vacuum and that revelation can’t but be affected by particular spatio-
temporal contexts. But one has to be very careful while speculating on such issues. The
question is how far such a context can determine the content of the text. One must respect
critical consciousness of the Prophet. It is blasphemous to attribute lie (or what amount to
it) to the Prophet. Traditional account of the Prophet has it that he never kept silence
while seeing something contrary to the letter and spirit of Islam. His critical
consciousness never faltered. He never let wrong and evil proceed uncensored. One can
always, unwarrantedly, attribute this or that intention to the author of the scripture (God)
and in the name of the elusive authorial intention and the spirit of revelation interpret the
text as one wish. It is postmodernism that carries certain modernist assumptions to their
logical end and dissolves text by overemphasizing context. Modernist foregrounding of
the temporal and the contextual (at many times at the cost of the eternal and the
normative) may easily slip into the Derridean formulation that there is nothing outside the
context. Modernist unduly extends the privilege of judging retrospectively. Its
complacent stance on its own methodology and hermeneutics has been quite rudely
shaken by the advent of postmodernism. Its claim to know the truth of history, to sift the
temporal and the relative from the eternal and the absolute, and its attempt to situate itself
out of history and thus claim a privileged status to its naïve belief in modern project,
can’t go unquestioned today. It also assumes, quite unwarrantedly, that revelation doesn’t
interfere in prevailing socio-economic context and culture and that revelation allows
history to take its own course, and its critical consciousness doesn’t extend to prevailing
socio-cultural conditions. If revolutionary religion like Islam passes blindly over the
prevailing socio-cultural and economic realities, it could be critiqued on typical Marxian
grounds. Here one could easily point out contradictions in modernist perspective. On the
one hand they present Islam as a revolutionary egalitarian movement that aimed at
complete overthrow of oppressive socio-economic structures, but also assert that the
Quran remained neutral to certain really unjust practices that were going on at that time,
and that revelation told a “lie” and compromised on its essential principles, on the other
hand. My point is that there is no set and consistent methodology with modernists to
discriminate or differentiates between those dimensions of socio-economic realities that
were taken for granted and those that were intended to be replaced or changed by the
revelation. The selective reading of historical material and the selective interpretation of
certain verses is seen in modernist approaches. Which part of the verse is pivotal or
emphasized depends on interpreter’s subjective choice. For them the Quran emphasizes
that part of the verse that is in consonance with modernist spirit. Reader’s hegemony and
his role in the construction of meaning space are thus quite evident. Reader Response
theories could be deployed to critique modernist reader/interpreter’s claim of objectivity
and his charges against traditionalist reading of the scripture. Modernist interpretation
may be right, especially as it concerns necessity of the traditional form of veil, but they
have hardly the right to reject orthodox approach to the question. Their attempt at
meaning closure could be contested on both the postmodern as well as the traditional
grounds. We can’t isolate culture and history of Islam from Islam itself. Modernist’s error
lies in ignoring concrete manifestations of Islam in history and jumping from the
 32

Prophets’ age to the present age. We can’t ignore the historical development of Islam
while interpreting the Quran in modern times. The meaning of a verse is the history of its
meanings. One can’t explain all this away on the basis of typical modernist prejudices.
The Tradition is a force to be reckoned with and its continuing presence means modernist
and feminist grand narratives may be at fault. Veil or hijab can’t be explained away as
some quirk of Islam’s history, some accident of history, as alien or feudalist conspiracy.
Feminism too can’t be rejected as imperialist and capitalist conspiracy, as aberration or
perversion, as a totally misconstrued movement of the infidel West. Accusing modern
feminist of false consciousness will not do. Feminism has somehow to be appropriated;
mere negative critique will not help. Feudalism and traditional patriarchy can no more
claim allegiance of modern man. It seems unlikely that woman can be forced to return to
burqa and total seclusion in the name of Islam. Thus to conclude we can say that neither
the ultraliberal modernist feminist nor the extreme conservative position vis-à-vis veil is
unproblematic and there is ample scope for tolerating both these versions as well as
certain “moderate” responses. The accusation of false consciousness, westoxication or
conservatism, and misinterpretations from either of the sides are quite problematic from
the hermeneutical methodological grounds. While the metaphysical core of Islamic
tradition transcends history as rightly emphasized by the perennialists the role of human
interpretation or spatio-temporal socioeconomic realities in influencing the concrete
manifestation of it and its expression in the vicissitudes of history needs to be emphasized
for which modernists can’t be censured.

Reference:
1 Esack, Farid, “Quranic Hermeneutics: Problems and Prospects” The Muslim World,
LXXXIII:2,1993, pp.118-141.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Quoted in Esack, Farid, op. cit.
11. Merenessi, Fatima, Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry,
trans. Mary Jo Lakeland, Blackwell publishers, 1991,p. 194.
12. Ibid. 191 She thinks that perhaps hijab is nothing but the expression of the
persistence of the pro-Islamic mentalities, the jahiliya mentality that Islam was
supposed to annihilate.
13. Ibid., p. 114.
14. Ibid., p. 97.
15. Ibid., pp.85- 86.
16. Ibid., p. 100.
17. Ibid.,p. 95.
18. All these excerpts are from Charles Kurtzman’s edited book Liberal Islam,Oxford
University Press,Oxford,1998, Ch: 11.
 33

19. Khawja, Jamal, Quest for Islam, Allied Publishers Pvt. Ltd.,1977p: 221.
21. Ibid., p. 221.
22. Rehman, Fazlur, “The Status of Women in Islam: A Modernist Interpretation” in
Separate Worlds by? Ch: 11.
23. Schuon, Frithjof, Dimensions of Islam, trans. P.N. Townsend, George Allen and
Unwin Ltd.,London,1969,p.96.
24. Tapari, Azar and Yeganah, Nahid. In the Shadow of Islam – The Women’s
Movement in Iran, London, 1962.
25. All the quotes from Amina Wadud Muhsin are from her Quran and Woman,
Kaulalampur, Malaysia, 1992 p: 1-10 and 64-74. excerpted in Charles Kurtzman’s
Liberal Islam
26. Watt,Montagmary, Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity, London and New
York, Rutledge, 1988 p. 125.
27. Engineer, Asgar Ali. The Quran, Women and Modern Society Sterling Publishers
Pvt. Ltd. 1999, New Delhi, p. 4.
28. Ibid, p. 5.
29. Ibid, p. 5.
30. Ibid., p. 6.
31 Ibid., p. 7.
32 Ibid., p.7.
33 Ibid., p.7.
34 Ibid., p.9.
35 Ibid., p.9.
36. Ibid, pp. 18-19.
37. Ibid, pp. 24-25.
38. Ibid., pp. 26-27.
39. Ibid., p. 27.
40. Ibid., p. 27.
41. Ibid., p. 32.
42. Ibid., p. 38.
43. Ibid., pp. 38-39.
44. Ibid., p. 67.
45. Ibid., pp. 67-68.
46. Ibid., p. 69.
47. Ibid., p. 69.
48. Ibid., p. 70.
49 Ibid.,p.71.
50 Ibid.,p.71.
51 Ibid.,p.71.
52. Ali, Maula Mohammad, The Holy Quran, Lahore, 1943, p. 685.
53. Engineer, Asgar Ali, op.cit., pp. 73-74.
54. Ibid., p. 74.
55 Schuon, Frithjof, Understanding Islam, trans., D.M.Matheson, George Allen and
Unwin Ltd.,1963.,p.37.
56 Wadud,Amina, op. cit.
57 Merenessi, Fatima,op. cit.81.
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58 Ibid.