Aliran Media Statement

Why A Law To Cover Muslim Women's Hair Is Not Necessary

Upholding Modesty: This virtue cannot simply be reduced to the wearing of a headscarf

The Terengganu state government's move to make wearing the head-scarf or tudung into a law demonstrates that women are easy subjects for control. That something so personal such as forms of dressing should be subjected to law also signals that not much of the private lives of Muslim citizens will now be left untouched and unregulated by the powers of the state.

A law on head-scarf is unnecessary because more and more Muslim women are already willingly wearing the head-scarf as their commitment to Islam. The overall principle here according to the Qur’an is upholding modesty. However, this virtue cannot simply be reduced to the wearing of the veil or the scarf over the head.

The verse from the holy Qur’an from which this edict is derived, reads, "And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husband's fathers …...And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment." (Surah An Nuur, verse 31, from Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, 'An English Translation of the Glorious Qur’an').

If we were to exercise a little bit of reason it should be clear from the verse that it is really showiness particularly the display of ostentatious adornments that it is abhorred by Islam, rather than merely dressing 'wrongly'.

We cannot deny that throughout the ages, Malaysian Muslim women have abided by this strict Islamic tenet of displaying modesty. Whether it is the baju kebaya labuh or the baju kurung or the selendang over their shoulders, all of these forms of clothing have been fashioned to convey modesty onto the wearer. In dressing, Malay tradition has cleverly and elegantly fused Islamic doctrines to make Islam practicable, humane and genial for the daily practice of the faith. Past generations of Malay women have paid less attention to head cover but have been consistent about valuing humility and propriety. Surely they could not have been less Islamic or have 'sinned' more than the present generation?

The wearing of the tudung is an extension of the principle of maintaining modesty and every Muslim woman is rightly obliged to adhere by this rule. However, this phenomenon has evolved into society's obsession with the 'hair' when nowhere is it explicitly stated in the Holy Qur’an that hair is the single concern of the command.

Making a law that focuses on the conditions of head covering will bound to bring out many anomalies. For instance would Muslim women who wear tight tee-shirts and jeans with a head-scarf on their heads be considered more modest than someone else clad in a baju kurung but without a tudung? Should the tudung be long enough to cover the entire upper part of a woman's body or would a loose selendang draped over the head with a little display of forehead hair be acceptable too?

A law cannot possibly capture the variances and the nuances of dressing. In the end a simplistic legislation trying to regulate a complex action will only be subjected to arbitrary interpretation and enforcement. We do not want groups of religious vigilantes roaming about to 'target' women without the tudung. They might be using shaming devices and perhaps also violence to state their point. Islam as an enlightened religion is surely not meant to be this way. Hence, why the need for a humanly faulty piece of legal device that will never be able to perfectly enforce divine stipulations?

If Muslims want to promote and propagate the wearing of the tudung it should be their right to do so, but resorting to legislation to do this, is like doing it the 'short-cut' way, which is always treacherous. Muslim women who proudly wear their tudung as their mark of true piety should be respected, as also all other virtuous Muslim women who choose to do it in some other ways.

Ultimately, a religion is proved superior if people truly embrace it with their hearts and not through fear, compulsion, intimidation, humiliation and threat of demeaning punishment.

Dr Maznah Mohamad
Executive Committee Member
25 March 2000