A number of words have been banded around over the last couple of weeks and if you are like me you may not be really sure what they mean.  In some cases we’re not even sure we’ve heard them right, partly because those using the words are also confused themselves.  They are different ways of describing different forms of veil worn by Muslim women.  Is it a hijab, a niqab, a burka, a chador or a khimar?  Actually it is all of these and it just goes to show that we don’t know what is being talked about half the time.  We are familiar with what counts as traditional dress differing between countries and areas of the world, and this is no different for Muslims.

The ‘hijab’ is a simple head scarf covering the hair but leaving the face clear.  It comes in a variety of colours and styles.  The word appears in the Qur’an several times, but to refer to a curtain to provide privacy, not to a dress code.  You will see head scarves in plenty on the sea front at Scarborough on a windy day!  There is nothing particularly unusual about it.

The ‘niqab’ is a fuller garment, covering the whole face except for the eyes.  It is common in the Middle East and also has become popular among Muslim women in Western countries.  This is the garment that the teaching assistant in Dewsbury refused to remove.

The ‘burka’ is the most concealing of all veils.  It covers the entire body and the eyes are concealed by a finely-woven mesh screen. It is rarely seen outside of Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India, though I have seen it in Leeds. 

There are other cape-like veils that cover the hair but not the face.  In Iran this is called the ‘Chador’.

None of these are prescribed as such in the Qur’an.  What the Qur’an does urge is modesty and it lays this requirement on men and women, though in different ways.  The forms of dress are cultural ways of expressing this modesty.  There are similarities here with the bible which also encourages modesty and humility.  Many Muslim women describe covering themselves as being part of their subservience to God, not to human beings, though it would be naïve to suggest that it is never used as a mode of discrimination and it carries assumptions about property rights over people that we in the West no longer accept.  That said some are very quick to point out that forced uncovering is also a tool of oppression and they have a point!  Before we get too superior, there are apparently more women members of the Iranian parliament than the US senate and I dare say our own parliament, so equality is more complicated that it appears at first.

It has taken us the best part of a century to get to a situation where equality between the sexes is more or less achieved, though there are regular reminders that this is not always adhered to.  Some of this equality is very recent.  Independent Taxation only came into effect in April 1990, before then married women’s earnings were regarded as being their husband’s and I can remember having to include Susan’s earnings on my tax return.  It is very rare today for women to include the word ‘obey’ in their marriage vows - they just don’t believe in it.  Most, though, are given away by their father or another male in the family to their husband, but very few actually believe they are someone’s property!  It always strikes me as being one of the more nonsensical aspects of marriage customs, but then weddings are full of trappings that no longer have any meaning or are confused.  So many of the changes over the last 100 years, from voting to career prospects, even to women not having their heads covered, are just taken for granted now.  It is only in the church that we still have arguments over a woman’s place, though this year a young woman was ordained who had never known a church without women priests.  Time has moved on.

The flip side of this is that there seems to be a backlash and there is a genre of pop song that treats women as men’s play things and commodifies them.  The worrying thing is that many young women seem to go a long with it.  I sometimes wonder whether some of the problems people have forming relationships are to do with this commodification of others, treating people as objects in a consumer way.  A number of young women in this city have worked out that they can cancel out student debt by working in lap-dancing clubs and pole dancing.  Remove the ethic of modesty and this is not surprising.  Muslim women who chose to emphasise modesty seem to be more in line with our spiritual heritage than many who object are.

I mention all of this because we could be forgiven for believing that our way of life is under attack from foreign elements.  But actually it is not.  Christian Britain is under attack from those who don’t care about it.  And it is Muslims who to our shame draw our attention to those who would secularise our culture.  The drive for a question on the 2001 census form about religious affiliation came from Muslims.  It showed that over 70% of the country regarded themselves as Christian, but of course very lightly.

Today is Bible Sunday.  It is a day that we are encouraged to celebrate the book that feeds and inspires our faith.  It is the book that tells us about the two Covenants.  The first is the covenant with Abraham that he would be the father of many nations.  This covenant gives us a special standing with our creator.  Interestingly, Abraham is seen as the spiritual ancestor for Jews, Christians and Muslims.  As our Lord Mayor said to me earlier in the year, we are cousins.  We are together inheritors of this covenant relationship.  The New Covenant is the one brought through Christ and this fulfils the first one.  In Jesus any gap between humanity and God is bridged.  We share in his divinity and are called to be saints, people who live lives that honour the purposes of God.

That Bible shapes how we approach everything.  Of course we need to be intelligent about how we understand it and the Anglican tradition gives us the three pillars of Scripture, Tradition and Reason.  Holding these in balance is how we determine truth and set our vision for society.

There are some differences in how we see the world and how Muslims see it, but there are also great similarities.  If we are going to engage in any meaningful way we need to look more deeply at veils.  In part, they have a common ground behind them, that of modesty and humility.  They also express a difference in how we see our relationships, but before we go off the deep end on this one, equality is more complicated and our Muslim sisters with their veils actually challenge the commodification of people more than we do.  The real threat comes from those who would try to short circuit debates about diversity and difference through imposing a rigidly secular agenda.  That secular agenda has a much more fundamental difference behind it, namely leaving no space for God or how we see ourselves in relation to the spiritual, which for us is surely foundational.

So as we are encouraged to celebrate the Bible, “words for training in righteousness”, as our first reading put it (2 Timothy 3:16), we are reminded to be conscious of the faith that shapes us.  It is from being secure in the base of who we are that we are able to engage with those who see things differently, and also see when we are standing on common ground, even if we are dressed differently.

© Ian Black 2006

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