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Women in Islam:
Hijab
"In many Muslim societies, for
example in traditional South East Asia, or in Bedouin lands a face veil for
women is either rare or non-existent; paradoxically, modern fundamentalism is
introducing it", writes Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.D.
In the name of Allah the most
Beneficent, the Most Merciful
Literally, Hijab means "a
veil", "curtain", "partition" or
"separation." In a meta- physical sense, Hijab means illusion or
refers to the illusory aspect of creation. Another, and most popular and common
meaning of Hijab today, is the veil in dressing for women. It refers to a
certain standard of modest dress for women. "The usual definition of modest
dress according to the legal systems does not actually require covering
everything except the face and hands in public; this, at least, is the practice
which originated in the Middle East." 1
While Hijab means
"cover", "drape", or "partition"; the word KHIMAR
means veil covering the head and the word LITHAM or NIQAB means veil covering
lower face up to the eyes. The general term hijab in the present day world
refers to the covering of the face by women. In the Indian sub-continent it is
called purdah and in Iran it called chador for the tent like black cloak and
veil worn by many women in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. By
socioeconomic necessity, the obligation to observe the hijab now often applies
more to female "garments" (worn outside the house) than it does to the
ancient paradigmatic feature of women's domestic "seclusion." In the
contemporary normative Islamic language of Egypt and elsewhere, the hijab now
denotes more a "way of dressing" than a "way of life," a
(portable) "veil" rather than a fixed "domestic
screen/seclusion." In Egypt and America hijab presently denotes the basic
head covering ("veil") worn by fundamentalist/Islamist women as part
of Islamic dress (zayy islami, or zayy shar'i); this hijab-head covering
conceals hair and neck of the wearer.
The Qur'an advises the wives of
the Prophet (SAS) to go veiled (33: 59).
In Surah 24: 31(Ayah), the Qur'an
advises women to cover their "adornments" from strangers outside the
family. In the traditional and modern Arab societies women at home dress quite
differently compared to what they wear in the streets. In this verse of the
Qur'an, it refers to the institution of a new public modesty rather than veiling
the face.
...When the pre-Islamic Arabs went
to battle, Arab women seeing the men off to war would bare their breasts to
encourage them to fight; or they would do so at the battle itself, as in the
case of the Meccan women led by Hind at the Battle of Uhud. This changed with
Islam, but the general use of the veil to cover the face did not appear until
'Abbasid times. Nor was it entirely unknown in Europe, for the veil permitted
women the freedom of anonymity. None of the legal systems actually prescribe
that women must wear a veil, although they do prescribe covering the body in
public, up to the neck, the ankles, and below the elbow. In many Muslim
societies, for example in traditional South East Asia, or in Bedouin lands a
face veil for women is either rare or non-existent; paradoxically, modern
fundamentalism is introducing it. In others, the veil may be used at one time
and European dress another. While modesty is a religious prescription, the
wearing of a veil is not a religious requirement of Islam, but a matter of
cultural milieu.2
"The Middle Eastern norm for
relationships between the sexes is by no means the only one possible for Islamic
societies everywhere, nor is it appropriate for all cultures. It does not
exhaust the possibilities allowed within the framework of the Qur'an and Sunnah,
and is neither feasible nor desirable as a model for Europe or North America.
European societies possess perfectly adequate models for marriage, the family,
and relations between the sexes which are by no means out of harmony with the
Qur'an and the Sunnah. This is borne out by the fact that within certain broad
limits Islamic societies themselves differ enormously in this respect." 3
The Qur'an lays down the principle
of the law of modesty. In Surah 24: An-Nur: 30 and 31, modesty is enjoined both
upon Muslim men and Muslim women 4:
Say to the believing men that
they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for
Greater purity for them: And God is Well-acquainted with all that they do. And
say to the believing women That they should lower their gaze And guard their
modesty: and they should not display beauty and ornaments expect what (must ordinarily)
appear thereof; that They must draw their veils over their bosoms and not
display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's
fathers, their sons, their husband's sons, or their women, or their slaves
whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or
small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not
strike their feet in order to draw attention to their ornaments.
The following conclusions may be
made on the basis of the above-cited verses5:
1. The Qur'anic injunctions
enjoining the believers to lower their gaze and behave modestly applies to both
Muslim men and women and not Muslim women alone.
2. Muslim women are enjoined to
"draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty"
except in the presence of their husbands, other women, children, eunuchs and
those men who are so closely related to them that they are not allowed to marry
them. Although a self-conscious exhibition of one's "zeenat" (which
means "that which appears to be beautiful" or "that which is used
for embellishment or adornment") is forbidden, the Qur'an makes it clear
that what a woman wears ordinarily is permissible. Another interpretation of
this part of the passage is that if the display of "zeenat" is
unintentional or accidental, it does not violate the law of modesty.
3. Although Muslim women may wear
ornaments they should not walk in a manner intended to cause their ornaments to
jingle and thus attract the attention of others.
The respected scholar, Muhammad
Asad6, commenting on Qur'an 24:31 says " The noun khimar (of which khumur
is plural) denotes the head-covering customarily used by Arabian women before
and after the advent of Islam. According to most of the classical commentators,
it was worn in pre-Islamic times more or less as an ornament and was let down
loosely over the wearer's back; and since, in accordance with the fashion
prevalent at the time, the upper part of a woman's tunic had a wide opening in
the front, her breasts were left bare. Hence, the injunction to cover the bosom
by means of a khimar (a term so familiar to the contemporaries of the Prophet)
does not necessarily relate to the use of a khimar as such but is, rather, meant
to make it clear that a woman's breasts are not included in the concept of
"what may decently be apparent" of her body and should not, therefore,
be displayed.
The Qur'anic view of the ideal
society is that the social and moral values have to be upheld by both Muslim men
and women and there is justice for all, i.e. between man and man and between man
and woman. The Qur'anic legislation regarding women is to protect them from
inequities and vicious practices (such as female infanticide, unlimited polygamy
or concubinage, etc.) which prevailed in the pre-Islamic Arabia. However the
main purpose is to establish to equality of man and woman in the sight of God
who created them both in like manner, from like substance, and gave to both the
equal right to develop their own potentialities. To become a free, rational
person is then the goal set for all human beings. Thus the Qur'an liberated the
women from the indignity of being sex-objects into persons. In turn the Qur'an
asks the women that they should behave with dignity and decorum befitting a
secure, Self-respecting and self-aware human being rather than an insecure
female who felt that her survival depends on her ability to attract or cajole
those men who were interested not in her personality but only in her sexuality.
One of the verses in the Qur'an
protects a woman's fundamental rights. Aya 59 from Sura al-Ahzab reads:
O Prophet! Tell Thy wives And
daughters, and the Believing women, that They should cast their Outer garments
over Their Persons (when outside): That they should be known (As such) and not
Molested.
Although this verse is directed in
the first place to the Prophet's "wives and daughters", there is a
reference also to "the believing women" hence it is generally
understood by Muslim societies as applying to all Muslim women. According to the
Qur'an the reason why Muslim women should wear an outer garment when going out
of their houses is so that they may be recognized as "believing"
Muslim women and differentiated from street-walkers for whom sexual harassment
is an occupational hazard. The purpose of this verse was not to confine women to
their houses but to make it safe for them to go about their daily business
without attracting unwholesome attention. By wearing the outer garment a
"believing" Muslim woman could be distinguished from the others. In
societies where there is no danger of "believing" Muslim being
confused with the others or in which "the outer garment" is unable to
function as a mark of identification for "believing" Muslim women, the
mere wearing of "the outer garment" would not fulfill the true
objective of the Qur'anic decree. For example that older Muslim women who are
"past the prospect of marriage" are not required to wear "the
outer garment". Surah 24: An-Nur, Aya 60 reads:
Such elderly women are past the
prospect of marriage,-- There is no blame on them, if they lay aside their
(outer) garments, provided they make not wanton display of their beauty; but
it is best for them to be modest: and Allah is One who sees and knows all
things.
Women who on account of their
advanced age are not likely to be regarded as sex-objects are allowed to discard
"the outer garment" but there is no relaxation as far as the essential
Qur'anic principle of modest behavior is concerned. Reflection on the
above-cited verse shows that "the outer garment" is not required by
the Qur'an as a necessary statement of modesty since it recognizes the
possibility women may continue to be modest even when they have discarded
"the outer garment."
The Qur'an itself does not suggest
either that women should be veiled or they should be kept apart from the world
of men. On the contrary, the Qur'an is insistent on the full participation of
women in society and in the religious practices prescribed for men.
Nazira Zin al-Din stipulates that
the morality of the self and the cleanness of the conscience are far better than
the morality of the chador. No goodness is to be hoped from pretence, all
goodness is in the essence of the self. Zin al-Din also argues that imposing the
veil on women is the ultimate proof that men suspect their mothers, daughters,
wives and sisters of being potential traitors to them. This means that men
suspect 'the women closest and dearest to them.' How can society trust women
with the most consequential job of bringing up children when it does not trust
them with their faces and bodies? How can Muslim men meet rural and European
women who are not veiled and treat them respectfully but not treat urban Muslim
women in the same way? 7 She concludes this part of the book, al-Sufur Wa'l-hijab
8 by stating that it is not an Islamic duty on Muslim women to wear hijab. If
Muslim legislators have decided that it is, their opinions are wrong. If hijab
is based on women's lack of intellect or piety, can it be said that all men are
more perfect in piety and intellect than all women? 9 The spirit of a nation and
its civilization is a reflection of the spirit of the mother. How can any mother
bring up distinguished children if she herself is deprived of her personal
freedom? She concludes that in enforcing hijab, society becomes a prisoner of
its customs and traditions rather than Islam.
There are two ayahs which are
specifically addressed to the wives of the Prophet Muhammad (S) and not to other
Muslim women.
These are ayahs 32 and 53 of Sura
al-Ahzab. ".. And stay quietly in your houses," did not mean
confinement of the wives of the Prophet (S) or other Muslim women and make them
inactive. Muslim women remained in mixed company with men until the late sixth
century (A.H.) or eleventh century (CE). They received guests, held meetings and
went to wars helping their brothers and husbands, defend their castles and
bastions.10
Zin al-Din reviewed the
interpretations of Aya 30 from Sura al-Nur and Aya 59 from sura al-Ahzab which
were cited above by al-Khazin, al-Nafasi, Ibn Masud, Ibn Abbas and al-Tabari and
found them full of contradictions. Yet, almost all interpreters agreed that
women should not veil their faces and their hands and anyone who advocated that
women should cover all their bodies including their faces could not face his
argument on any religious text. If women were to be totally covered, there would
have been no need for the ayahs addressed to Muslim men: 'Say to the believing
men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty.' (Sura al-Nur,
Aya 30). She supports her views by referring to the sayings of the Prophet
Muhammad (S), always taking into account what the Prophet himself said 'I did
not say a thing that is not in harmony with God's book.'11 God says: 'O consorts
of the Prophet! ye are not like any of the (other) women' (Ahzab, 53). Thus it
is very clear that God did not want women to measure themselves against the
wives of the Prophet and wear hijab like them and there is no ambiguity
whatsoever regarding this aya. Therefore, those who imitate the wives of the
Prophet and wear hijab are disobeying God's will.12
In Islam ruh al-madaniyya (Islam:
The Spirit of Civilization) Shaykh Mustafa Ghalayini reminds his readers that
veiling pre-dated Islam and that Muslims learned from other peoples with whom
they mixed. He adds that hijab as it is known today is prohibited by the Islamic
shari'a. Any one who looks at hijab as it is worn by some women would find that
it makes them more desirable than if they went out without hijab13. Zin al-Din
points out that veiling was a custom of rich families as a symbol of status. She
quotes Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Maghribi who also saw in hijab an aristocratic
habit to distinguish the women of rich and prestigious families from other
women. She concludes that hijab as it is known today is prohibited by the
Islamic shari'a.14
Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali in his
book Sunna Between Fiqh and Hadith 15 declares that those who claim that women's
reform is conditioned by wearing the veil are lying to God and his Prophet. He
expresses the opinion that the contemptuous view of women has been passed on
from the first jahiliya (the Pre-Islamic period) to the Islamic society. Al-Ghazali's
argument is that Islam has made it compulsory on women not to cover their faces
during haj and salat (prayer) the two important pillars of Islam. How then could
Islam ask women to cover their faces at ordinary times?16 Al-Ghazali is a
believer and is confident that all traditions that function to keep women
ignorant and prevent them from functioning in public are the remnants of
jahiliya and that following them is contrary to the spirit of Islam.
Al-Ghazali says that during the
time of the Prophet women were equals at home, in the mosques and on the
battlefield. Today true Islam is being destroyed in the name of Islam.
Another Muslim scholar, Abd al-Halim
Abu Shiqa wrote a scholarly study of women in Islam entitled Tahrir al-mara'a fi
'asr al-risalah: (The Emancipation of Women during the Time of the Prophet)17
agrees with Zin al-Din and al-Ghazali about the discrepancy between the status
of women during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the status of women today.
He says that Islamists have made up sayings which they attributed to the Prophet
such as 'women are lacking both intellect and religion' and in many cases they
brought sayings which are not reliable at all and promoted them among Muslims
until they became part of the Islamic culture.
Like Zin al-Din and al-Ghazali,
Abu Shiqa finds that in many countries very weak and unreliable sayings of the
Prophet are invented to support customs and traditions which are then considered
to be part of the shari'a. He argues that it is the Islamic duty of women to
participate in public life and in spreading good (Sura Tauba, Aya 71). He also
agrees with Zin al-Din and Ghazali that hijab was for the wives of the Prophet
and that it was against Islam for women to imitate the wives of the Prophet. If
women were to be totally covered, why did God ask both men and women to lower
their gaze? (Sura al-Nur, Ayath 30-31).
The actual practice of veiling
most likely came from areas captured in the initial spread of Islam such as
Syria, Iraq, and Persia and was adopted by upper-class urban women. Village and
rural women traditionally have not worn the veil, partly because it would be an
encumbrance in their work. It is certainly true that segregation of women in the
domestic sphere took place increasingly as the Islamic centuries unfolded, with
some very unfortunate consequences. Some women are again putting on clothing
that identifies them as Muslim women. This phenomenon, which began only a few
years ago, has manifested itself in a number of countries.
It is part of the growing feeling
on the part of Muslim men and women that they no longer wish to identify with
the West, and that reaffirmation of their identity as Muslims requires the kind
of visible sign that adoption of conservative clothing implies. For these women
the issue is not that they have to dress conservatively but that they choose to.
In Iran Imam Khomeini first insisted that women must wear the veil and chador
and in response to large demonstrations by women, he modified his position and
agreed that while the chador is not obligatory, modest dress is, including loose
clothing and non-transparent stockings and scarves.18
With Islam's expansion into areas
formerly part of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, the scripture-legislated
social paradigm that had evolved in the early Medinan community came face to
face with alien social structures and traditions deeply rooted in the conquered
populations. Among the many cultural traditions assimilated and continued by
Islam were the veiling and seclusion of women, at least among the urban upper
and upper-middle classes. With these traditions' assumption into "the
Islamic way of life," they of need helped to shape the normative
interpretations of Qur'anic gender laws as formulated by the medireview
(urbanized and acculturated) lawyer-theologians. In the latter's consensus-based
prescriptive systems, the Prophet's wives were recognized as models for
emulation (sources of Sunna). Thus, while the scholars provided information on
the Prophet's wives in terms of, as well as for, an ideal of Muslim female
morality, the Qur'anic directives addressed to the Prophet's consorts were
naturally seen as applicable to all Muslim women.19
Semantically and legally, that is,
regarding both the terms and also the parameters of its application, Islamic
interpretation extended the concept of hijab. In scripturalist method, this was
achieved in several ways. Firstly, the hijab was associated with two of the
Qur'an's "clothing laws" imposed upon all Muslim females: the
"mantle" verse of 33:59 and the "modesty" verse of 24:31. On
the one hand, the semantic association of domestic segregation (hijab) with
garments to be worn in public (jilbab, khimar) resulted in the use of the term
hijab for concealing garments that women wore outside of their houses. This
language use is fully documented in the medireview Hadith. However, unlike
female garments such as jilbab, lihaf, milhafa, izar, dir' (traditional garments
for the body), khimar, niqab, burqu', qina', miqna'a (traditional garments for
the head and neck) and also a large number of other articles of clothing, the
medireview meaning of hijab remained conceptual and generic. In their debates on
which parts of the woman's body, if any, are not "awra" (literally,
"genital," "pudendum") and many therefore be legally exposed
to nonrelatives, the medireview scholars often contrastively paired woman's'
awra with this generic hijab. This permitted the debate to remain conceptual
rather than get bogged down in the specifics of articles of clothing whose
meaning, in any case, was prone to changes both geographic/regional and also
chronological. At present we know very little about the precise stages of the
process by which the hijab in its multiple meanings was made obligatory for
Muslim women at large, except to say that these occurred during the first
centuries after the expansion of Islam beyond the borders of Arabia, and then
mainly in the Islamicized societies still ruled by preexisting (Sasanian and
Byzantine) social traditions.
With the rise of the Iraq-based
Abbasid state in the mid-eighth century of the Western calendar, the
lawyer-theologians of Islam grew into a religious establishment entrusted with
the formulation of Islamic law and morality, and it was they who interpreted the
Qur'anic rules on women's dress and space in increasingly absolute and
categorical fashion, reflecting the real practices and cultural assumptions of
their place and age. Classical legal compendia, medireview Hadith collections
and Qur'anic exegesis are here mainly formulations of the system "as
established" and not of its developmental stages, even though differences
of opinion on the legal limits of the hijab garments survived, including among
the doctrinal teachings of the four orthodox schools of law (madhahib). 20
Attacked by foreigners and
indigenous secularists alike and defended by the many voices of conservatism,
hijab has come to signify the sum total of traditional institutions governing
women's role in Islamic society. Thus, in the ideological struggles surrounding
the definition of Islam's nature and role in the modern world, the hijab has
acquired the status of "cultural symbol."
Qasim Amin, the French-educated,
pro-Western Egyptian journalist, lawyer, and politician in the last century
wanted to bring Egyptian society from a state of "backwardness" into a
state of "civilization" and modernity. To do so, he lashed out against
the hijab, in its expanded sense, as the true reason for the ignorance,
superstition, obesity, anemia, and premature aging of the Muslim woman of his
time. He wanted the Muslim women to raise from the "backward" hijab
into the desirable modernist ideal of women's right to an elementary education,
supplemented by their ongoing contact with life outside of the home to provide
experience of the "real world" and combat superstition. He understood
the hijab as an amalgam of institutionalized restrictions on women that
consisted of sexual segregation, domestic seclusion, and the face veil. He
insisted as much on the woman's right to mobility outside the home as he did on
the adaptation of shar'i Islamic garb, which would leave a woman's face and
hands uncovered. Women's domestic seclusion and the face veil, then, were
primary points in Amin's attack on what was wrong with the Egyptian social
system of his time.21 Muhammad Abdu tried to restore the dignity to Muslim woman
by way of educational and some legal reforms, the modernist blueprint of women's
Islamic rights eventually also included the right to work, vote, and stand for
election-that is, full participation in public life. He separated the
forever-valid-as-stipulated laws of 'ibadat (religious observances) from the
more time-specific mu'amalat (social transactions) in Qur'an and shari'a, which
latter included the Hadith as one of its sources. Because modern Islamic
societies differ from the seventh-century umma, time-specific laws are thus no
longer literally applicable but need a fresh legal interpretation (ijtihad).
What matters is to safeguard "the public good" (al-maslah al'-amma) in
terms of Muslim communal morality and spirituality. 22
In The Veil and the Male Elite:
A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam, the Moroccan
sociologist Fatima Mernissi attacks the age-old conservative focus on women's
segregation as mere institutionalization of authoritarianism, achieved by way of
manipulation of sacred texts, "a structural characteristic of the practice
of power in Muslim societies." In describing the feminist model of the
Prophet's wives' rights and roles both domestic and also communal, Mernissi uses
the methodology of "literal" interpretation of Qur'an and Hadith. In
the selection and interpretations of traditions, she discredits some of textual
items as unauthentic by the criteria of classical Hadith criticism. In
Mernissi's reading of Qur'an and Hadith, Muhammad's wives were dynamic,
influential, and enterprising members of the community, and fully involved in
Muslim public affairs. He listened to their advice. In the city, they were
leaders of women's protest movements, first for equal status as believers and
thereafter regarding economic and sociopolitical rights, mainly in the areas of
inheritance, participation in warfare and booty, and personal (marital)
relations. Muhammad's vision of Islamic society was egalitarian, and he lived
this ideal in his own household. Later the Prophet had to sacrifice his
egalitarian vision for the sake of communal cohesiveness and the survival of the
Islamic cause. To Mernissi, the seclusion of Muhammad's wives from public life
(the hijab, Qur'an 33.53) is a symbol of Islam's retreat from the early
principle of gender equality, as is the "mantel" (jilbab) verse of
33:59 which relinquished the principle of social responsibility, the individual
sovereign will that internalizes control rather than place it within external
barriers. Concerning A'isha's involvement in political affairs (the Battle of
the Camel), Mernissi engages in classical Hadith criticism to prove the
inauthenticity of the (presumably Prophetic) traditions "a people who
entrust their command [or, affair, amr] to a woman will not thrive" because
of historical problems relating to the date of its first transmission and also self-serving
motives and a number of moral deficiencies recorded about its first transmitter,
the Prophet's freedman Abu Bakra. Modernists in general disregard hadith items
rather than question their authenticity by scrutinizing the transmitters'
reliability.23 After describing the active participation of Muslim women in the
battlefields as warriors and nurses to the wounded, Maulana Maudoodi24 says
" This shows that the Islamic purdah is not a custom of ignorance which
cannot be relaxed under any circumstances, on the other hand, it is a custom
which can be relaxed as and when required in a moment of urgency. Not only is a
woman allowed to uncover a part of her satr (coveredness) under necessity, there
is no harm."
In the matter of hijab, the
conscience of an honest, sincere Believer alone can be the true judge, as has
been said by the Noble Prophet: "Ask for the verdict of your conscience and
discard what pricks it."
Islam cannot be properly followed
without knowledge. It is a rational law and to follow it rightly one needs to
exercise reason and understanding at every step.25
Read other articles by Dr. Ibrahim B.
Syed, Ph.D here.
REFERENCES
1. Cyril Glasse. The Concise
Encyclopedia of Islam. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1989, p. 156
2. Ibid, p. 413
3. Ibid, p. 421
4. Translation by Abdullah Yusuf
Ali. The Holy Quran (Amana Corp., Brentwood, Maryland), 1989. Pp 873-874
5. Riffat Hassan. Women's Rights
and Islam: From the I.C.P.D. to Beijing. Louisville, Kentucky, 1995. pp. 65-76
6. Translated and explained by
Muhammad Asad. The Message of the Qur'an. Dar al-Andalus, Gibraltar. 1984. p.538
7. Bouthaina Shaaban.The Muted
Voices of Women Interpreters. In
FAITH AND FREEDOM: Women's Human
Rights in the Muslim World, Mahnaz Afkhami (Editor). I. B. Tauris Publishers,
New York, 1995. p.68.
8. Nazira Zin al-Din, al-Sufur
Wa'l-hijab (Beirut: Quzma Publications, 1928), p 37
9. Bouthaina Shaaban, op.cit. P.69
10. Nazira Zin al-Din, op.cit.pp.
191-2
11. Ibid, p.226
12. Bouthaina Shaaban, op. cit.
p.72
13. Shaykh Mustafa al-Ghalayini,
Islam ruh al-madaniyya (Islam:
The Spirit of Civilization)(Beirut:
al-Maktabah al-Asriyya,
1960) P.253
14. Ibid, pp.255-56
15. Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali.:
Sunna Between Fiqh and Hadith
(Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1989, 7th
edition, 1990)
16. Ibid, p.44
17. Abd al-Halim Abu Shiqa.:
Tahrir al-mara' fi 'asr al-risalah
(Kuwait: Dar al-Qalam, 1990)
18. Jane I. Smith.:The Experience
of Muslim Women:Considerations
of Power and Authority. In The
Islamic Impact. Haddad, Y.Y. (Editor), Syracuse University Press. 1984. Pp.
89-112
19. Barbara Freyer Stowasser.:
Women in the Qur'an, Traditions, and Interpretation.Oxford University Press.
1994. P. 92
20. Ibid, p.93
21. Ibid, p.127
22. Ibid, p.132
23. Ibid, p.133
24. Syed Abu Ala Maudoodi. Purdah
and the Status of Woman in Islam. Islamic Publications. Lahore, Pakistan. 1972.
P.215
25. Ibid, p.203
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