What is the meaning of Hijab in British culture?

The aim of this essay is to look at the meaning or meanings of Hijab in British culture. As such this discussion will look at the context of Hijab within Muslim cultures both in the past and today. It will look at the feminist issues surrounding the adorning of the Hijab both from the male and the female perspective, as well as exploring the various meanings Hijab holds in the minds of non-Muslims.
Before we can begin to understand the meaning of Hijab in British culture we need to understand what it means and has meant in Muslim cultures since that is where this particular form of veiling originated.
The term ‘hijab’ actually has three meanings. The first and more obvious is that it is a term used to describe the veil that covers a Muslim woman’s head and bosom, which will sometimes include the face. It is also used to describe the act of covering one’s head or face.
Its final meaning, which is linked into the reasons why Muslim women cover up their heads or faces, is modesty or privacy. It is the fact that these meanings are so intrinsically linked that gives it meaning within its native Muslim culture as well as within British culture.
In its simplest terms Hijab existed within Muslim society since the first teachings from the Qur’an and the Hadith, otherwise known as the ‘tradition of Mohammed’. These texts are to Muslims what the Bible is to Christians. Like the Bible, the Qur’an and the Hadith have had a massive impact on the developing socio-religious structure of Muslim life. However, its teachings have been far more vital to the development of Muslim society than perhaps the Bible has been to Christianity.
The great difference is that, as a Western religion, Christianity has allowed Western and British culture to at least appear more open and more liberal because of its apparent absorption of new changes from the West. Given our ongoing relationship with America and the West it is unsurprising that Britain as a nation has succumbed to the modernisation or development from the West. We have been ‘Westernised’.
It is arguable that Muslim communities, however, have been, for many centuries, and continue to be, very enclosed. In a brief interview with the BBC, pharmacist Saba Naeem said that “the hijab had many benefits, such as bringing communities together and being identified and greeted by fellow Muslims all over the world.” This statement alone suggests an almost ‘club’ or elitist atmosphere about the culture and does suggest, as argued, that Muslims as a community are to a certain degree an enclosed one. On a more negative note, Malise Ruthven argues this point by describing the impact of print technology. Upon its introduction, print technology had a massive impact on religious life in the West. It allowed it to spread further and at a faster rate than it had ever done so before. Muslim communities in Europe, however, rejected the new technology because of its ability to infiltrate their culture with new alternative faiths and customs, thus developing an ongoing fear of religious and social dilution from the West.
However, by rejecting new technologies, like print, Muslims began to realise that they may fail as a community to develop because they fail to modernise. As such, Bernard Lewis argues that Muslims began to distinguish between Westernisation and modernisation, where Westernisation was development that was neither useful nor necessary and may merely have been viewed as frivolous. One of these major developments of course was the emancipation of women, according to Lewis, which may go a long way to explaining why the original traditions on the behaviour of women still remain and why the adorning of the hijab remains a major part of Muslim social and religious life. It may also explain why British culture depicts the hijab as being strange and excessively modest, as it has appeared to remain so entrenched in the social and religious psyche of the Muslim community.
Therefore given the enclosed nature of the Muslim community, both socially and religiously in the past, it is understandable why many of its other socio-religious customs, like the adorning of the hijab in order to preserve personal modesty, is so deeply rooted in modern everyday Muslim life.
It may also be a contributing factor, despite Islam being the second largest religion in the United Kingdom (according to the 2001 Census, which tells us that 1,591,000 Muslims live in the United Kingdom and constitutes 2.7% of the population), why Muslims have remained isolated within British culture. As Saba Naeem stated earlier, she felt her attire distinguished her from the crowd and in particular made her identifiable to other Muslims. Their physical appearance automatically sets them apart from other British citizens.
As such, its meaning in British culture is usually negative. In particular, Hijab is seen as restricting and the fact that it is largely associated with one gender, namely female, often means Hijab has come to be associated with the oppression of women.
It may largely be considered in this way because of the historical development of Muslim women within their own culture. As Lewis points out according to “Islamic law and tradition there were three groups of people who did not benefit from the general Muslim principle of legal and religious quality – unbelievers, slaves and women.” Fatima Mernissi also commented that “the external aspects of women’s liberation, for example, the neglect of the veil for Western dress…[made it seem that]…women’s liberation was readily identified as succumbing to foreign influences.” In other words, because women began to shed their veils in favour of Western clothes, not long after being colonised by the British and other Western cultures, the colonists perhaps made the assumption that they had liberated these women from some kind of oppression.
It is not surprising then that the meaning of Hijab in British culture is linked, perhaps naively, to the oppression of women. The veil itself is seen as a set of hand-cuffs or a ‘ball-and-chain’. Furthermore, this may be heightened by arguments such as that from Lewis, who shows us that to Muslims, the emancipation of women was Westernisation because it was unnecessary development.
Britain therefore as a culture has been raised to believe that women within the Muslim community are oppressed and have associated that oppression, whether it is wrong or not, with the apparent ‘uniform’ they are supposedly forced to wear. Likewise these meanings and associations have been heavily entrenched in the British psyche because the custom of Hijab is seen to be so deeply rooted in Muslim communities, as apparently evident by the lack of change in their socio-religious customs. In a similar argument to Mernissi, this has probably been heightened by some Muslim women’s comments that they migrated to Britain originally because the democratic culture allowed them to succeed professionally, and in areas they were otherwise expected to avoid, whilst still being able to wear their hijab.
However, though many British non-Muslims may view it as an emblem of female suppression, many Muslim women argue that the meaning of Hijab has been misinterpreted and that the treatment of women in their culture has been likewise.
Many Muslim women merely find it displays their devotion to their religion physically. In fact they have felt so strongly about this that when Germany and France introduced hijab bans the Pro-Hijab group formed in Britain in attempts to dissuade the British government from following suit. Fundamentally, Muslim women largely agreed that the hijab ban was not only disrespectful to their culture and their religion, but was also evident of a ‘decline in democracy’ the reason for which they apparently moved to Britain in the first place.
But it appears the true meaning of Hijab lies in the third definition for most Muslim women in Britain. It is a need for modesty that encourages most Muslim women to wear the hijab. “Hijab protects women from the male gaze” which was its original purpose in Muslim social and religious culture, but further to this it “allows them to become autonomous subjects.”
Alternatively, it allows Muslim women to desexualise or disengender themselves in order to preserve their modesty. Moreover, through this many Muslim women have said they obtain a certain strength as women because they are not judged on their physical appearance but on their intellect. For example, Rumaana Habeeb said in an interview that “the hijab allowed interactions between men and women to be free and safe. Relationships can then be based on intellect and nothing else.”
Many would argue that by desexualising themselves they are not recognising themselves as women and as such cannot be oppressed, yet at the same time not be appreciated as women. She has to deny her femininity to feel like an equal and in order to do this she must observe Hijab.
The fact is that it largely appears that the majority of British citizens are being wrongly educated either through the media or other sources about other cultures. The main issue here is that the true meaning of Hijab is not fully understood and has perhaps been lost amongst a lot of speculation and competing developing cultures. The enclosed nature of Muslim communities has perhaps led to the ill-education of non-Muslims about the customs of the Muslim community and as such the meanings of things like Hijab have not only been misinterpreted historically and culturally, but are also numerous given the diversity of the British culture.