Week Twelve Blog Post – Purdah Examined
The heated debate and great range of responses from both Muslim men and women to Purdah, literally meaning ‘Curtain’, is astonishing. The wearing of a veil can be seen as a marker of Islamic pride and identity, an imposed governmental regulation as in the case of Iran, a right denied as in the case of France, and a traditional dress mode seen in various other religions viewed as a cultural marker of class.
In Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 ushered in a new era of Islamic fundamentalism. When her mother’s car breaks down she is verbally assaulted by men who tell her that she should be raped and thrown in the garbage for not wearing a veil. Through cartoons Satrapi’s comments on the absurdity of the response, “And so to protect women from all the potential rapists, they decreed that wearing the veil was obligatory. Women’s hair emanates rays that excite men. That’s why women should cover their hair? If in fact it is really more civilized to go without the veil, then animals are more civilized than we are” (Satrapi, pg 74). Within the Qur’an the veil is not specified and purity and chaste behavior is advised equally for men and women, “Tell the believing men to be chaste in their looking and to keep their sexual impulses under control – a restraint that will make to their greater purity. For God is aware of all that they do. And tell the believing women to be chaste in their looking and to keep their sexual impulses under control not parading their charms beyond what is chastely seen but drawing their veils over their bosoms….” (Surah 24:30-31).
Hanna Papanek tells about a very different feeling towards the veil in Afterword Caging the Lion: A Fable for our Time. Papanek tells the story of a Pakistani woman, Hamida Khala, who ultimately gave up on purdah upon the request of her husband and after his death felt that she could not have run her household if she had stayed in purdah. Khala noted the real meaning of purdah, “The real purdah is modesty (haya). If a woman has no modesty, then even in a burqa she is not in purdah. If she has modesty, she is in purdah even without burqa” (Papanek, in Sultana’s Dream, pg. 75).
Canadian Rahat Kurd gives an interesting independent feminist look at the veil as a symbol of Islamic pride and identity in My Hijab is an act of worship, and none of your business. Kurd notes that women should be able to choose to veil or not based upon her own desires, “Dismissing Muslim women’s ability (and God-given right) to speak and act for ourselves is a profound arrogance of which some fundamentalists and some feminists are equally guilty. Thanks to them, the discourse on Islamic dress has become a tragically violent and stupid little war of escalating polarities – it is either an essential social control or a blanket endorsement of oppression: both views are false. Get that. I don’t cover to please any man, and I’m not going to uncover to please any woman….Conversely if all women are forced to cover under threat of penalties imposed by men, my own hijab, an act of worship, becomes meaningless. Female responsibility for the control of male desire in the sphere might be a popular concept but it’s not an Islamic one” (Kurd, pg. 1-2).
My watercolor was influenced by all of these ideas of purdah and that the hijab represents different ideas to different Muslim women. The woman’s headscarf covers her hair completely and modestly but floats freely to one side. It is caught by her hand and returned to her heart where it blossoms as a rose, a symbol of the Prophet. The other end of the scarf floats in the other direction and is tethered to the ground by a round stone that is also shaped like the earth. This represents the opposite vision of purdah – how earthly ideas and the imposed ideas of others can create an unbearable weight and restriction upon women.