‘It's a part of me, I feel naked without it': choice, agency and identity for Muslim women who wear the niqab

Abstract

In the context of heightened suspicion and anti-Muslim stereotypes in a post-9/11 and 7/7 era, Muslim women who wear the niqab (face veil) are stigmatised, criminalised and marked as 'dangerous' to British/Western values. Several countries have imposed bans on the wearing of face veils in public places based on the premise that the niqab is a 'threat' to notions of gender equality, integration and national security. While the wearing of the niqab has elicited a good deal of media, political and public debates, little attention has been paid to the opinions of Muslim women who wear it. Drawing on individual and focus group interviews with Muslim women who wear the niqab in the United Kingdom (UK), this article places at the centre of the debate the voices of those women who do wear it, and explores their reasons for adopting it. The findings show that the wearing of the niqab emerges as a personal choice, an expression of religious piety, public modesty and belonging to the 'ummah'. It is also perceived as a form of agency, resistance and non-conformity to Western consumerist culture and lifestyle. It will be concluded that wearing the niqab empowers women in their public presence and offers them a sense of 'liberation', which is associated with the notion of anonymity that it provides them.

“Meet my brain”

“…Faelles for forbuddene er, at de bygger på ingen eller sparsomme empiriske analyser om bevaeggrunde og sociale problematikker i forhold til at baere niqab eller burka i Europa (Brems 2014, 2f;Fadil 2014, 252). Det viser sig i flere europaeiske studier, at kvinder, der baerer muslimsk tildaekning af ansigtet i Europa, vaelger denne praksis frivilligt, og at langt størstedelen baerer niqab og ikke burka 1 (Moors 2014, 27f;Østergaard et al 2014, 59;Zempi 2016Zempi , 1742Brems al. 2014, 3f;Bouteldja 2014, 131f).…”

“…Det er et spørgsmål, der er baseret på en teologisk diskussion om, hvorvidt niqab er noget, man kan tilvaelge frivilligt, eller om det er en forskrift og dermed et religiøst krav (Fadil 2014, 141 ff. ;Zempi 2016Zempi , 1743. De kvinder, jeg har mødt gennem interviews og deltagerobservationer, har anset niqab som en prisvaerdig handling og altså en frivillig handling, som de kunne vaelge til.…”

“…Centrale rollemodeller for mange muslimske kvinder er profeten Muhammeds hustruer, og inspirationen til at tildaekke ansigtet kommer også herfra (Zempi 2016(Zempi :1742. Ilham beskriver dem som forbilleder på linje med superstjerner: Ilham sidestiller her profeten Muhammeds hustruers status for niqabklaedte kvinder med popstjernerne Beyoncés og Rihannas status som nogle af de største ikoner i vestlig popkultur.…”

“…sin ydre skønhed. Fra et sådant standpunkt kan niqabben også forstås som en visuel afvisning af den kommercielle industris fokus på kvindens ydre (Zempi 2016(Zempi , 1746. Islam kommer derfor til at repraesentere et modsat fokus, som koncentrerer sig om kvindens indre liv, hvilket Yasmin beskriver som "meet my brain" -altså kvindens intellekt.…”

Negotiating British Muslim belonging: a qualitative longitudinal study

“…The headscarf itself can become a site of struggle around the question of belonging and is often seen as an indication of women's lack of agency. Yet, as Zempi (2016) argues, women's reasons for wearing the hijab or niqab are not usually discussed.…”