Your hair is naked, your arms are naked; according to God’s law, you are naked.
Mona Eltahaway, in a New York Times opinion piece today, discusses her history with the hijab. Her family's move from Egypt to Saudi Arabia necessitated her adoption of the suffocating garment:
Almost immediately, I missed the wind in my hair. When I caught my reflection in a window, I did not recognize myself. I wanted to reconcile the internal and external me, but I was to discover that choosing to wear the hijab is much easier than choosing to take it off.
However, it took her a while to remove the offending garment.
How the world of Islam changed in that interval, below:
I am very sorry. I do not understand how hair can be naked.
Dear Islam. You desperately need a Reformation. Royally.
You need a bunch of Lady Godiva sorts of mythology.
Now there was a brave lady who used her naked hair as a hijab -- astride a naked horse.
Godgifu, Gebedda of Leofric, Earl of Mercia.
Back to Mme. Eltahaway and her struggle with the hijab:
To write about the hijab is to step into a minefield. Even among those who share my cultural and faith background, opinions veer from those who despise it as a symbol of backwardness to those for whom religion begins and ends with that piece of cloth. And while a majority of women in Egypt today are veiled, that hasn’t always been the case: The pendulum swings.
When I was a child in Egypt, none of my aunts wore head scarves. Photographs from family weddings in the 1970s show aunts with bare heads and dresses, at times standing next to belly dancers who sparkled in beaded bikinis and gauzy chiffon barely covering their legs. In today’s weddings, most of my aunts and their daughters are covered up, and there are no belly dancers.
And, I must add:
Those who hate humanity cover women's faces ... Gabrielle Marsden, December 9, 2011.
and:
India is a paradise after Pakistan, and soon after passing the India-Pakistan border, I meet an exotic woman clad in beautiful shawls who spontaneously wishes me good luck on my journey. This makes me strangely happy. It's been a long time since I saw a woman. In eastern Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, I saw only men, and now, when a woman on the street even smiles at me, the whole world looks better. The landscape is the same as Pakistan, but still, so much more beautiful.... Goren Kropp in Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey, 1997
The face of a woman is
the face of humanity.