Increasingly often, we hear Muslims trying to explain to us the meaning of the Islamic veil for women. On the one hand, various imams give as their main explanation that the veil represents modesty, while other Muslims who describe themselves as “progressive” or “secular” even insist that the veil was never prescribed in the Quran.
Since we constantly hear both groups declare that “we must understand the context in which the verses of the Quran were revealed” (asbab al-nuzu), we can only oblige them and take a closer look at the verse that prescribes the veil for Muslim women (jilbab): verse 59 of surah 33. Verse 24:31 also prescribes the veil for women, but 33:59 in particular is more comprehensive regarding its implications and ramifications.
“O Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters and the women of the believers to cover themselves with their veils, so that they may be recognised and not be attacked. Allah is forgiving, merciful.” (Quran 33:59)
Surah 33 came during the two years between the Battle of Uhud and the Battle of the Trench. At that time, Muhammad and his followers had settled permanently in Medina, maintaining their aim of increasing their power in preparation for new military campaigns against the Meccans. Alongside this was what Muslims call the period of “social reforms”, some of which appear as “revelations” from Allah in this very chapter of the Quran.
Medina was a city with various tribes and religions, including a substantial Jewish presence.
In this verse, the almighty, wise and merciful God of Islam dwells on what Muslim women must do whenever they leave home in order to be able to go about without being harassed: wear the veil so that Muslims recognise them as believing women and do not bother them.
Indeed, it is extremely clear that, despite his supposed divine authority, Allah himself readily accepts that Muslim men may harass women and chooses to prescribe that the latter cover themselves, rather than teach the former that harassing a woman is absolutely wrong and reprehensible and must never be done for any reason, regardless of whether the woman is Muslim.
None of this is highlighted, because attention is instead paid only to the nature of woman as a “source of temptation and error”, as can also be seen in the final sentence, “Allah is forgiving, merciful”. This sentence is addressed to Muslim women who had not worn the veil before this “revelation”, thus committing a sin. There is not the slightest mention of the seriousness of harassing a woman; instead, the preference is to call upon a revelation to assure them that they will receive Allah’s forgiveness despite having spent years committing the grave sin of not covering themselves.
In line with Islamic ideology, here too the only ones who are wrong and seem to have something to be forgiven for are always women, while there is not the slightest possibility of a warning being addressed to the men who harass them: for “almighty and wise” Allah, it is instead more important to show his forgiveness to those who committed the unforgivable sin of not covering themselves until this “revelation” arrived.
Ibn Kathir’s tafsir on this verse stresses that Muslim women must make themselves recognisable specifically as “believing women”, thereby avoiding being mistaken for slaves or prostitutes and sparing themselves certain “annoyances”. Our Ibn Kathir is decidedly unflattering: if women are veiled, they are virtuous believers; if they are not, they can be nothing other than slaves or prostitutes.
This unedifying line of thought is confirmed in the hadiths that clarify and elaborate on the reasons and circumstances in which Muhammad ordered the use of the veil. Reading the hadiths carefully reveals that the use of the Islamic veil was not even an intuition, if it can be called that, of Muhammad himself, but of one of his closest companions, Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs who succeeded the founder of Islam.
Aishah narrated: “The Prophet’s wives used to go to Al-Manai’, a large open space near Baqi’ in Medina, to answer the call of nature at night. Umar used to say to the Prophet, ‘Have your wives wear a veil’, but the Messenger of Allah did not do so.
One night, Sauda bint Zam’a, the Prophet’s wife, went out after dark, at what is called Isha time, and she was a tall woman. Umar addressed her and said, ‘I have recognised you, Sauda’. He said these words because he eagerly wanted the verse prescribing the hijab for women to be revealed. So Allah revealed the verse of the hijab, covering the body except the eyes.” — Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 1, book 4, no. 146
The same story is also told in Sahih Muslim, vol. 6, book 39, no. 2170 a-b-c-d:
https://sunnah.com/urn/253950
https://sunnah.com/muslim/39/24
https://sunnah.com/muslim/39/25
At nightfall, Umar and his henchmen would roam Medina, ambushing women, often lying in wait in places where it was easier to find women alone and more exposed to their violence, particularly after dark. Such places included the fields where women used to go to relieve themselves.
The Prophet’s wives were among them, and their presence could get in the way of the “activities” carried out by Umar and his followers, quite apart from the possibility that one of them or another “virtuous” Muslim woman might accidentally fall victim to violence by Muslims. Umar knew this and thought of warning Muhammad, asking him to require Muslim women to cover themselves so that they could be recognised. The prophet of Islam, however, was reluctant to accept the request, probably because he did not intend to satisfy an explicit request from one of his followers through a specially tailored revelation.
One night, Umar and his friends encountered Sawdah bint Zamah, one of Muhammad’s wives, as she was preparing to relieve herself. Sawdah was a woman of considerable build and was easy to notice, as recounted in several hadiths, including those cited above.
Umar did not hesitate to take advantage of the situation, telling her loudly that both he and his companions had recognised her, implying that she had only been lucky because of her size, but could have suffered an attack by Muslims since she had not covered herself with the veil as Umar had previously instructed his prophet to order. In this way, Umar hoped finally to obtain what he sought: an identifying device for Muslim women that would leave Muslim men free to concentrate on other women without harming Muslim women, including their prophet’s wives. And that is exactly what happened: Sawdah told Muhammad what had happened, and he finally agreed to receive the “revelation” specifically concerning the veil.
Umar had a certain influence on Muhammad’s decisions, and he flaunts his importance in “high places” in this hadith, recalling that the various “revelations” received at his request included the one prescribing the veil for Muslim women.
Umar ibn al-Khattab narrated: “My Lord accepted my invocation concerning three things: the second concerned the verse prescribing that women wear the veil. I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah! I wish you would order your wives to cover themselves before men, because both good and bad men might approach them’. So the verse prescribing the veil for women was revealed (24:31, 33:59).” — Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 1, book 8, no. 402
We can observe a certain confidence in Umar, to the point of exercising outright intimidation towards women who refuse to wear the veil: disreputable men might approach women with attitudes that are not exactly “courteous”, just as Muslims considered themselves entitled to do with any woman they regarded as a prostitute or a slave because she was not veiled.
Does this remind you of anything? How often are Islamic religious leaders caught referring in their sermons to kafir women as “prostitutes”? And what about the attacks by Muslims on Western women during the 2016 New Year celebrations in Cologne and other cities?
A Muslim might object that the prescription in this verse refers to unbelievers who harassed Muslim women, who for that very reason were forced to cover themselves for protection.
This makes no sense for at least two reasons. First, if the unbelievers had really behaved so wickedly towards women, a veil would certainly not have been enough to deter them, especially when such a peculiar and selective prescription was conveyed by a man whose authority as a prophet the unbelievers certainly did not recognise.
Second, if Muslim women in Medina had really been harassed by the unbelievers there precisely because they were Muslim, it would have made no sense to make them even more recognisable and therefore more exposed to danger. It would have been completely counterproductive, because this measure would only have made Muslim women an even easier target thanks to the identifying veil. On the contrary, blending in would have been the most sensible choice for protecting their safety.
Another objection from a Muslim might be that the prescription of the veil was merely “facilitated” by Umar and that Allah then made it “official”. This makes no sense, because there is nothing divine about the whole episode: we see Umar consulting Muhammad so that he will approve the veil for Muslim women, but Muhammad refuses; Umar then blackmails Muhammad’s wife, and finally Muhammad gives in and agrees to “reveal” 33:59. Well, the prescription of the veil that Umar wanted was so “inspired” that Muhammad had initially rejected his companion’s request. How is it possible for a prophet not to recognise the “divine character” of a prescription from the outset, but instead to need to be subjected to blackmail by one of his companions? A very strange concept of “divine revelation” in Islam indeed. This sequence of events shows beyond doubt how fraudulent the idea of Muhammad as a “prophet” capable of conveying supposed divine revelations from Allah is.
The Islamic veil is nothing more than a sort of double pass, precisely because wearing it allowed Muslim women to be spared harassment by Muhammad’s followers, who in turn, identifying their “sisters” through this symbol of recognition, could calmly devote themselves to harassing the unbelieving women of Medina.
Consider the present situation in Western countries, where Muslim women who wear the hijab continue to do so in complete safety, while it is often non-Muslim women who, lacking the “pass”, are the targets of harassment or violence rooted in Islamic ideology.
It is clear that the hijab and other types of Islamic veils were not prescribed by chance and do not represent modesty at all. The veil women wear represents men’s refusal to control their instincts towards them, as well as women’s acceptance not only of visibly carrying the weight of “guilt” on their shoulders, but even of becoming an instrument for marking territory in Islamic terms.
