The headscarf is the most visible and most argued-over symbol of Muslim life. The argument is often about politics. The sources are about modesty, and they speak to both sexes.
This article goes to those sources: the two Quranic verses on dress, the hadith (a report of the Prophet’s words or actions) that explain how the first generation understood them, and the range of opinion among the jurists afterwards. It then asks what the principle of freedom of religion implies for a woman who wears the scarf and for a woman who does not. The classical position is stated as it stands, and so are the disagreements.
The verse on dress opens with men: “Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and guard their private parts; that is purer for them.”[1] Only afterwards does it address women. Modesty in the Quran starts with how a man looks and how he behaves, and the Prophet said that modesty is part of faith.[2]
He also gave a concrete rule for the gaze. He told his cousin Ali not to follow one glance with a second, since the first is allowed and the second is not.[3] The jurists added a rule of dress for men: the body from the navel to the knees is to be covered before others, the minimum that the majority of the schools set.
An objector will say that the rule for women is far more extensive than the rule for men, and the classical law does ask more covering of women. One reply is that the Quranic command to lower the gaze and guard modesty is addressed to men first and in the same terms, so the responsibility for conduct falls on them before any question of dress arises.
“Tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts and not display their adornment except what is apparent of it, and let them draw their khimār over their chests.”[4] Another verse tells them to draw their outer garments close so that they are recognised and not harassed.[5] The khimār was a head-cover already worn in Arabia, and the verse tells women to draw it over the chest.
The early community took the verse as a command to cover the head. Aisha, the Prophet’s wife, praised the early emigrant women (the Muhajirat) because when the verse was revealed they tore their wrappers and covered their heads with them.[6] The classical commentators and jurists read the verse the same way.
A few modern writers argue that the verse requires only the covering of the chest, since it says nothing of hair. The reply is the one above: a head-cover that is drawn over the chest is a head-cover, and the first generation, who spoke the language, understood it so.
The classical schools agreed that a woman covers her hair and body in public. They differed on the face and hands: some held them uncovered, others covered. The disagreement is old and is still alive. The phrase “what is apparent” in the verse is the centre of it. A report from Ibn Abbas takes it to mean the face and hands, and the Hanafis and Malikis generally allowed them to be shown.
Within the Shafi’i and Hanbali schools a stricter opinion, that the face is covered before men who are not close relatives, is well documented, next to the view that it may be shown. A report in Abu Dawud, in which the Prophet tells Asma bint Abi Bakr that a woman who has reached maturity should show only her face and hands, is called mursal by its own compiler because the chain is broken. Al-Albani grades it sahih, so scholars weigh it differently, and it supports the permissive view only in part.[7]
The Arabic word also deserves care. In the Quran ḥijāb means a screen or curtain, as in the verse that tells visitors to ask the Prophet’s wives for things from behind one (33:53).[8] Ismail al Faruqi’s glossary defines ḥijāb as the covering of a Muslim woman, the Islamic style of dress for women, and asks English writers to keep the Arabic word and explain it, not to render it “veil”.[9]
“There is no compulsion in religion.”[10] The verse concerns belief, and scholars extend its principle to acts of worship, so that many of them cite it against forcing women to dress a certain way. The practice of some states of enforcing the hijab by police has been criticised by Muslim scholars. The act has value, they say, when it is chosen. A rule imposed by force produces appearance without piety.
The classical law supports the point from another side. It treats the command to cover as an obligation on the believer and sets no fixed penalty (ḥadd) for failing to keep it. A woman who does not cover is, in the view of the jurists, committing a sin, and a sin falls short of disbelief. She remains a Muslim whose account is with God.
The critic’s objection is that a command with no enforcement is only advice. The scholars who take this view answer that the weight of such a command rests on the believer’s conscience before God, and that the worth of the act lies in its being freely done.
Banning the headscarf in a school or workplace is also a compulsion. Muslim women in Europe and elsewhere who wear it say they do so as an expression of faith and identity. Women who do not wear it are Muslims too, and they should not be pressed or insulted for it.
European courts have mostly upheld such restrictions. The European Court of Human Rights accepted a Turkish university ban in 2005 and a French ban on the full-face veil in 2014, and in 2017 the Court of Justice of the European Union allowed an employer’s neutrality policy to restrict a visible headscarf.[11] The courts weighed the interests of the state and the employer against the woman’s freedom to manifest her religion.
The principle holds in both directions: the woman who covers should be free to do so, and the woman who does not cover should be free of insult. The principle of the verse quoted in the fourth entry applies to families, communities and governments alike.
The bottom line
The sources show a command of modesty addressed to men and women, a Quranic instruction to women to cover the head and chest that the first generation and the classical jurists understood as binding, and a long-standing disagreement about the face and hands. They also show that the act is meant to be freely chosen, with no worldly penalty fixed in the law.
A reader who wants to know what Islam teaches should therefore hold two things together: the classical obligation as the jurists stated it, and the Quranic refusal of compulsion. A state that forces the scarf and a state that bans it both overrule the woman’s own act of worship, and neither position has support in the sources.
Notes
- Quran 24:30.
- Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the hadith that modesty is a branch of faith. Sahih al-Bukhari 24 (Book of Faith, “Modesty is part of faith”), report of Abdullah ibn Umar, checked on sunnah.com; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Fath al-Bari (Salafiyya edition), vol. 1, p. 74 (Shamela text).
- Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi, the report of Ali on the second glance. Sunan Abi Dawud 2149 (Book of Marriage, “Regarding the command to lower the gaze”), report of Buraydah, graded hasan by al-Albani; Jami al-Tirmidhi 2777, which sunnah.com shows al-Tirmidhi calling hasan gharib and Darussalam grading weak; both checked on sunnah.com.
- Quran 24:31.
- Quran 33:59.
- Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Commentary, the report of Aisha on the women of the Ansar and Quran 24:31. Sahih al-Bukhari 4758 (Book of Commentary on 24:31), report of Aisha, who prays for mercy on the early emigrant women, checked on sunnah.com; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Fath al-Bari (Salafiyya edition), vol. 8, p. 489 (Shamela text).
- Abu Dawud, the report of Aisha on Asma bint Abi Bakr, with the compiler’s comment on the break in the chain. Sunan Abi Dawud 4104 (Book of Clothing, “What a woman may show of her beauty”), report of Aisha, in which Abu Dawud calls the chain mursal because Khalid ibn Duraik did not meet Aisha, and which al-Albani grades sahih; checked on sunnah.com.
- Quran 33:53.
- Ismail R. al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1986), the entry for Hijab.
- Quran 2:256.
- Leyla Şahin v. Turkey, European Court of Human Rights, Grand Chamber, 2005; S.A.S. v. France, European Court of Human Rights, Grand Chamber, 2014; Achbita v. G4S Secure Solutions, Court of Justice of the European Union, 2017.