This is a three part series on the origins of the veil within Islam.  The following are the links for the first and secondposts in this series:

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Part I

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Part II

If Muhammad was not the originator of veiling throughout the Islamic world, then who was? To answer that question we need to look at the Byzantine Empire. Despite what you may have been taught in your high school history class, the Roman Empire did not fall when the City of Rome fell to the barbarian hordes in 476AD. In fact, the Roman Empire carried on for another 1,000 years. Historians refer to the later period in Roman history as Byzantine, hence the name Byzantine Empire. Maybe you have heard of it? The Byzantine Empire is the name modern historians had given to the Christian Roman Empire to distinguish it from the Pagan Roman Empire.

The world in which Muhammad (570-632 AD) lived was dominated by the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire was considered to be the height of civilization for many centuries, and it loomed large in the popular imagination of people everywhere. Think of the Byzantine Empire as the United States of the Dark Ages. The Byzantines had a sprawling empire that extended from one end of the Mediterranean Sea to the other. To give you a sense of how large the Byzantine Empire was, let us take a look at following map which shows the extent of the empire in 600 AD:

The capital of the Byzantine Empire was Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey). Constantine, the first Christian emperor of the Roman Empire, transferred the imperial capital from Rome to the ancient city of Byzantium in 330 AD (and renamed thus after himself). Constantinople was situated at the crossroads of east and west which made the city a prime-trading hub in a network that extended across nearly all of Eurasia and North Africa. Constantinople became a city without rival anywhere in the world. One visitor to Constantinople so impressed with its splendor wrote:

I think myself that in the forty richest cities of the world had there been so much wealth as was found in Constantinople. For the Greeks say that two-thirds of the wealth of this world is in Constantinople and the other third scattered throughout the world.

—Robert of Clari

Constantinople was the preeminent city of the Dark Ages which made it the disseminator of culture for any civilization that came in contact with the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was to the Dark Ages what New York, Paris or Milan is to our world, well you get the picture.

If you want a relevant example of Byzantine cultural preeminence let us take a look at a Byzantine custom of face veiling. The Byzantines were the originators of the face veil for women. The wealthy Christian women of Constantinople wore veils as a sign of high social status and nobility. Women who were unveiled in Byzantine society were looked down upon as lower class. The veiling and seclusion of upper and middle class Byzantine woman was a status symbol for men signifying they were sufficiently wealthy and affluent. If a woman did go outside of the home she had to be accompanied by a male relative, thus protecting her from the advances of strangers.

It was not appropriate for a woman to sit at the same table with men, unless they were a close blood relative such as her father, husband or brothers. Typically, women would eat in separate quarters and spend their days in rooms separated from the men.

Veiling in the Byzantine Empire was a class phenomenon and an urban one. Women living in rural areas or a lower class working women usually had no veil covering their face. Apart from wealth and social standing, the seclusion and veiling of women stems from the notion of male honor. In Byzantine society, the man’s honor is linked with the purity of his women. Therefore, it was a matter of utmost importance for the female behavior to be controlled to maintain male honor.

When we compare Islamic veiling with Byzantine veiling, there are just too many parallels between the two for it to be coincidental. In fact, it was the Muslims who adopted veiling from the Byzantines. If you wanted to figure out how this happened, we need to take a closer look at the period after the initial wave of Muslim conquests.

Muhammad lived in Arabia, which was on the fringes of the known world and was considered by Byzantium to be a backwater place where country bumpkins and uncouth rednecks lived. Despite this isolation, the Arabs were familiar Byzantine beliefs and cultural values. If you cast your mind back to the map of Europe from 600 AD, the Byzantine Empire stood as a giant colossus. It would not be too hard imagine people living in remote lands wanting to emulate in one form or another  the habits of the greatest civilization of the day.

In the context of Byzantine cultural preeminence, we should not find it all too surprising to see Muhammad arriving at the decision to veil his wives. After all, once he achieved a high social standing among his followers, it was only a matter of time before they insisted he veil his wives. As we have already seen, this is exactly what Muhammad did. Veiling your women was the kind of thing you did back then when you wanted to be considered “respectable”.

When the Muslims burst onto the world stage in the 7th century, they swept almost everyone before them. In just a few short years, Muhammad had transformed the Arabs from an undisciplined rabble, into one of the most potent forces the world has thus far seen. After Muhammad died in 632AD, the Muslims embarked on a wave of conquest that would see them vanquish the Persian Empire and nearly overwhelmed the Byzantine Empire. The scales of the Muslim conquests were breathtaking. By 650 AD, the Muslim conquests extended from modern-day Tunisia to the borders of India.

Not only were the Muslims able to create a vast empire but they were savvy enough to hold onto their new territories permanently. Unlike many of their modern counterparts, the Muslims of this era were highly tolerant toward their new found subjects. In fact, most of the recently conquered Christians and Jews found Muslim rule to be preferable to that of their former Byzantine masters. It is hard to imagine today any non-Muslim preferring to live in an Islamic controlled state, but this was actually the case. It was this tolerance that was the key element enabling the Muslims to create the brilliant Islamic civilization that these conquests would soon become.

Through their conquest of vast swathes of Byzantine territory, the Muslims came into intimate contact with Byzantine/Greco-Roman civilization and immediately fell under its spell. Apart from the Byzantines, the Muslims of the Dark Ages were excellent preservers of Greco-Roman literature and culture. Our modern world owes an immense debt to the early Muslims for preserving much of the knowledge we have today about our Greco-Roman heritage.

It is often said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. The Muslims vacuumed up Byzantine/Greco-Roman ideas and knowledge with relish enabling them to build the greatest civilization of the Dark Ages. Once such notion that the Muslims became very fond of was the Byzantine custom of veiling. It was during this time that face veiling spread throughout the Muslim world. Just like in the Byzantine Empire, Muslim veiling was primarily limited to the upper and middle classes as a sign of social standing. It would only happen in latter centuries that the practice would filter its way down to the lower classes. Given the Muslim admiration for Byzantine/Greco-Roman civilization, it only made sense for them to adopt veiling. Veiling would elevate Muslims over their subjects thus giving themselves and additinal measure of  “respectability”.

Reflecting on the origins of the veil, one cannot help but be confronted with the realization that veiling is a social custom invented by men for their own social prestige and egos, rather than an instrument of divine law for the so called “protection” of women. The Muslims gladly copied the Byzantines custom and then made it into divine law. The rest is history as you might say. Given the current debate over veiling, one wonders would the Muslims be so steadfast in the veil’s defense if they realized their ancestors adopted this custom from the West in the first place.

This is a three part series on the origins of the veil within Islam.  The following are the links for the first and third posts in this series:

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Part I

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Part III

If you wanted to try to figure out where the veiling phenomenon began, the most obvious place to start would be Islam and its holy book the Quran. You may have heard of it? Muslims believe the Quran to be a book of divine guidance for mankind, and consider the Quran to be the final revelation from God. The Quran was compiled by Muhammad’s followers shortly after his death in 632 AD. Unfortunately, the Quran does not provide any clear-cut answers on the necessity for veiling as one would hope. The Quran does address the issue of modesty with the following verse which, has often been interpreted by Muslim clerics, as a requirement for women to wear a veil over their face:

And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women; and let them not strike their feet so that what they hide of their ornaments may be known; and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.

—Qur’an 24:31

While the above passage can be easily understood as a commandment for women to be modest, it does not explicitly order women to wear a face veil. Early on in Muhammad’s prophet career the veil was a not a requirement. Mohammad had many wives and none of them wore veils, nor did he prescribe other women to do so. Muhammad was a bit of a social engineer who came up with all kinds of ideas that were considered wild and wacky for his day. Moroccan sociologist and researcher Fatima Mernissi, would even go further suggesting that:

Muhammad sought an ideal society, one that would have been revolutionary by seventh century standards, one in which men and women shared greater equality, where women were considered valuable and had more freedom to control their lives. Muhammad’s own wives enjoyed a great deal of freedom and authority, which would have been contrary to the established practices of society at the time.

While Mohammad did come up with many revolutionary ideas that would change the course of world history, there were still limits to what he was genuinely willing to change. The change in Muhammad’s stance regarding veiling would come later. Muhammad came under attack for his social engineering experiment and was pressured by his supporters to veil his wives. Omar, Muhammad’s close and chauvinistic confidant, encouraged him to isolate his wives from everyone else and limit their role in his life.

It seems that Muhammad caved under Omar’s pressure and shortly thereafter conveniently produced the “revelation” of the curtain. This is the Quran’s only explicit mention of veiling, and it relates only to Muhammad’s wives. The following is the relevant passage, best known as the Verses of the Curtain:

Believers, do not enter the houses of the Prophet for a meal without waiting for the proper time, unless you are given leave. But if you are invited, enter; and when you have eaten, disperse. Do not engage in familiar talk, for this would annoy the Prophet and he would be ashamed to bid you go; but of the truth God is not ashamed. If you ask his wives for anything, speak to them from behind a curtain. This is more chaste for your hearts and their hearts.

—Sura 33:53

This requirement for veiling was only limited to the wives of Muhammad and was NOT extended to all Muslim women. Let me repeat that again in case you missed it, the Quaran does not contain any explicit, easy to understood instructions that commands Muslim women to have their face veiled. Now this is where things get kind of interesting. While the Quran says virtually nothing about veiling, there is a body of Islamic literature called the Hadith that says a whole lot. The Hadith are oral traditions relating to the thoughts and actions of Muhammad that were written down and gathered into large collections between 100 and 200 years after his death. While the late composition of the Hadiths do not exactly lend themselves to accuracy, its transmitters could easily put words into Muhammad’s mouth retroactively to justify their own opinions, they are regarded by many Muslim scholars as valuable tools for determining how a Muslim should live. The following are some Hadith passages that have been used by Muslim scholars to justify face veiling:

The Prophet said: Allah does not accept the prayer of a woman who has reached puberty unless she wears a veil.

—Abu Dawud (2:641)

Muhammad is asked whether it is right for a young woman to leave her house without a veil.  He replies, ”She should cover herself with the veil of her companion.

—Bukhari (6:321)

If you take these instructions at face value, they seem to suggest that Muhammad had some pretty clear ideas on how women should dress. While these instructions form the foundation of veiling within Islam, they may not necessarily reflect what Muhammad actually said. Let us also remember that the Quran, which was composed immediately after Muhammad’s death, said virtually nothing on veiling. Its seem the authors of the Quran forgot to mention Muhammad’s supplemental instructions regarding veiling. I suppose they just not worth mentioning at this stage of the game.

After Muhammad passed away in 632 AD, the world would be in store for some dramatic changes. In the years after the prophet’s death, the Muslims embarked on a wave of conquests the likes of which the world has not seen since the days of Alexander the Great. In a period of less than 20 years, the Muslims managed to seize the Persian Empire and nearly overwhelm the Byzantine Empire. It was after these conquests that the Muslims first came into contact with a Byzantine culture that had a popular and prominent tradition of veiling. Coincidentally, it was also during this time that the practice of face veiling became widespread throughout the Islamic world. It seems that the Muslims developed quite a penchant for veiling, seeing how well it worked for their conquered subjects, and decided to take up the practice themselves. Since the Hadith veil passages were composed between 100 and 200 years after Muhammad’s death, they come across as retroactive commandments put in Mohammad’s mouth to justify a veiling practice that became very popular throughout the Islamic world. In my next post in this series, I will delve into the origins of Byzantine veiling and why the Muslims would want to adopt a habit from a conquered people.

This is a three part series on the origins of the veil within Islam.  The following are the links for the next two posts in this series:

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Part II

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous – Part III

If you look at human history, there is one theme that never seems to go away and that is our obsession with the lives of the rich and famous. We seem to be attracted to wealth and are riveted by mouth-watering glimpses of how they live. Many yearn for wealth and fame, but secretly believe such lifestyles are beyond their means. Instead, people try to emulate their lives by acting the part and purchasing knock-offs and poor imitations of the real thing. Our mass consumption society is a symptom of our desire to live the high life.

While, I am not going to write a post where I drool over the lives of the rich and famous, their lifestyles did get me thinking about what I want to write about today. I will be discussing the strange custom of veil wearing and why it is so taboo for women in some cultures to uncover their face. You most likely have been confronted at one time or another with one of these Islamic women. They have their entire body and face covered with a veil, save for a narrow slot for the eyes. Our first reaction when having to deal with such women is usually awkwardness and discomfort. You may even wonder how is it possible that in the 21st century we still have to deal with a misogynistic relic of the ancient past? You are probably wondering by now what on earth does wearing a veil has to do with the lifestyles of the rich and famous? As it turns out, the ironic social origin of the veil was once used as a mark of power and prestige by the wealthy rather than as a form of oppression for the masses.

There is one distinction I would want to make before I go any further, just so we are all on the same page. There is wearing a veil and then there is dressing modestly. One creates a wall of separation while the other sets boundaries while still allowing interaction. The purpose of the veil is to create separation and to minimize communication between the wearer and the outside world. In all practical purposes, the veil creates a wall between women and the rest of society. On the other hand, dressing modestly still requires women to wear non-revealing clothing, but her face is not hidden allowing her to interact with the outside world. Occasionally, I work in the Oil and Gas industry where I interact with some female Muslim Engineers (yes, they do actually exist). While, these women dress modestly and wear a headscarf, I can still have a normal professional and friendly relationship with them. This style of relationship would be impossible if the women would be wearing a veil. For the purpose of this discussion I will be focusing on the veil and the separation created by it.

If you talk to the Islamists, they will tell you that the veil is a divinely inspired article of clothing that all reputable Muslim women must wear to save themselves from fires of hell. The threat of Hell is often used as the argument of last resort, but I digress! Is it truly the case that the powers on high condemned Muslim women to cover their face? Despite what the Islamic fundamentalist tell you, the Quran does not explicitly tell women to wear the veil. Rather, if you dig deep enough, one will find the veil is a custom the Muslims adopted from the upper classes of Byzantine society and made their own.

Nothing seems to get people more fired up than when the issue of veil wearing gets public attention. The wearing of a veil is probably the most visibly contentious sexual identity issue around. For many Westerners, the veil is a symbol of oppression and the misogyny. For the followers of Islam, the veil is a symbol of empowerment. The wearing of the veil has become the single most potent representation of Islam with its explicit rejection of Western ideology and its implicit value as a status symbol. Emotions on both sides of the issue can get quite excited with opinions getting mean spirited and crude. Just take a look at the following comments below:

Until the Imperialists invaded Muslim Countries and the Muslims started mixing with non-believers, all our Muslim women walked in this world with great respect and dignity. The non-believers were finding it very difficult to come anywhere near the border of our Muslim sisters purity. The Hijab (Islamic dress for women) did not only protect them from those evil eyes of non-believers but also gave them freedom and independence from being misused by them. The non-believers planned to destroy their barrier through removal of Hijab (Hejab, Hijaab) and unfortunately, many of our sisters, without realizing what shame and destruction they were bringing to themselves, removed the Hijab (Muslim Veil) and exposed themselves.

—Akramulla Syed

If Muslim men are so keen on seeing their headscarf introduced into Irish society, they should wear it as well as their women. Let them cover up, too. Otherwise there must be no place for the hijab in civic life here. Not in banks, hospitals or libraries, not in the guards or civil service and most definitely not in schools.

—Martina Devlin

And my personal favorite:

If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.

—Taj El-Din Hilal

The current debate over the veil is the battle ground for our clash of civilizations. However, I do not intend to delve any deeper into the current controversy because the veiling in the 21st century has almost nothing in common with ancient custom of veiling. Rather, I will explore the origins of veiling and how it gained prominence in the Islamic world in my next post in the veil series.