The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering (Arabic: jilbāb), plus the head-covering (Arabic: ḥijāb, taking the most usual meaning), plus the face-veil (Arabic: niqāb). The word comes from the Arabic root /r/+/q/+/ʕ/ which means "to patch up" or "to sew up". The face-veil portion is usually a rectangular piece of semi-transparent cloth whose top side is sewn to corresponding portion of the head-scarf, so that the veil hangs down loose from the scarf, and it can be turned up if the woman wishes to reveal her face (otherwise the whole face would be covered). In other cases, the niqāb part can be a side-attached cloth which covers the face below the eyes' region.
The face-veil portion is also called purdah ([pərd̪aː]), a Persian word meaning "curtain".
Origin
The Arabic word 'برقع' refers to a face cover with eye openings. It does not mean the whole black dress called the Abaya.
Further information: Sex segregation and Islam
There is evidence that this type of dress was worn by some Arab and Persian women long before Islam. For example, the Roman African Christian Tertullian, writing in Chapter 17 of The Veiling of Virgins around 200 AD, praises the modesty of those "pagan women of Arabia" who "not only cover their head, but their whole face...preferring to enjoy half the light with one eye rather than prostituting their whole face."[2] Strabo, writing in the first century AD, also refers to covering the face as a practice of some Persian women (Geography 11.13. 9-10). It is conjectured that such pre-Islamic Middle Eastern face veils may have originated as a sort of sand mask in windy conditions. This would be worn by men and women and is still common today.[citation needed] The masking of women's face and body may have been employed to diminish the abduction of women of childbearing age when one group was being raided by another. With all women hidden behind a veil it is argued that the chances of being taken were substantially reduced as the women of child bearing age could not be quickly distinguished from post-menapausal women in the turmoil of fighting.[citation needed] However, this proposed rationale is debatable since face veiling would also make it more difficult for the victims of abduction to be recovered by their own families, since they would be indistinguishable from women not originating from their family or tribe.
Many Muslims believe that the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, and the collected traditions of the life of Muhammed, or hadith, require both men and women to dress and behave modestly in public. However, this requirement, called hijab, has been interpreted in many different ways by Islamic scholars (ulema) and Muslim communities (see Women and Islam).
The Quran has been translated as stating: "O Prophet! Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the faithful to draw their outergarments (jilbabs) close around themselves; that is better that they will be recognized and not annoyed. And God is ever Forgiving, Gentle."
Another verse in the Quran is translated as: "And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their private parts, and not to display their beauty except what is apparent of it, and to extend their headcoverings (khimars) to cover their bosoms (jaybs), and not to display their beauty except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husband's fathers, or their sons, or their husband's sons, or their brothers, or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their womenfolk, or what their right hands rule (slaves), or the followers from the men who do not feel sexual desire, or the small children to whom the nakedness of women is not apparent, and not to strike their feet (on the ground) so as to make known what they hide of their adornments. And turn in repentance to Allah together, O you the faithful, in order that you are successful"
[edit]Namus
Main article: Namus
In the Muslim world, preventing women from being seen by men is closely linked to the concept of Namus.
Namus is an ethical category, a virtue, in Middle Eastern Muslim patriarchal character. It is a strongly gender-specific category of relations within a family described in terms of honor, attention, respect/respectability, and modesty. The term is often translated as "honor".
[edit]Afghanistan and North West Pakistan
Two women wearing burqas.
The full Afghan chadri covers the wearer's entire face except for a small region about the eyes, which is covered by a concealing net or grille. This type of covering is also common in North Western Pakistan close to the Afghan border. It is frequently referred to as "Shuttlecock Burqa" in Pakistan to differentiate it from other Burqa styles and due to its resemblance with a badminton shuttlecock.
Before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the chadri was infrequently worn in cities. While they were in power, the Taliban treatment of women required the wearing of a chadri in public. Officially, it is not required under the present Afghan regime, but local warlords still enforce it in southern Afghanistan. Burqa use in the remainder of Afghanistan is variable and is observed to be gradually declining in Kabul. Due to political instability in these areas, women who might not otherwise be inclined to wear the chadri must do so as a matter of personal safety.
In Pakistan use of the burqa has declined over the time. Cities of Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Multan, Hyderabad, Peshawar and Quetta were overwhelmingly seen as cities of Burqa-clad women at the time of Independence. However burqa use still persists in rural areas of North-West Frontier Province, some adjoining areas of Punjab and Balochistan. Smaller cities like Mianwali in Punjab have exclusive burqa-observance as part of orthodox traditions.
[edit]Cultural dress controversy in Western Europe
Wikinews has related news: Sarkozy states burqa to be "not welcome" in France
Main article: Islamic dress controversy in Europe
Although cultural and not of Islamic teachings, face covering veils have become linked to Islam and its followers. Face-covering clothing has become a controversial political issue in Western Europe, and some intellectuals and political groups advocate prohibition, for various reasons.
This type of dress that covers the face of women is causing controversy in the United Kingdom (see main article at United Kingdom debate over veils). A senior member of the government, Jack Straw, asked Muslim women from his constituency to remove any veils covering their faces during face-to-face meetings with him. He explained to the media that this was a request, not a demand, and that he made sure that a woman staffer remained in the room during the meeting. A media furor followed. Some Muslim groups said that they understood his concerns, but others rejected them as prejudicial.
Wearing the burqa has been banned in French public schools since 2004, as the result of a law that prohibits students to wear any clearly visible religious symbols. This was followed on 22 June 2009, when the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy said that burqas are "not welcome" in France, commenting that "In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity".The French National Assembly appointed 32 lawmakers from right- and left-wing parties to a six-month fact-finding mission to look at ways of restricting its use. On 26 January 2010, the commission reported that access to public services and public transport should be barred to those wearing the burqa. The Netherlands seek to propose a country-wide ban as well. On 29 April 2010, the lower house of parliament in Belgium passed a bill banning any clothing that would obscure the identity of the wearer in places like parks and in the street. The proposal was passed nem con and now goes to the Senate. The BBC estimate that "Only around 30 women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of around half a million."
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