Hijjab Hype absent in Quran !

Muslim women’s veil as a topic is still today at the heart of the feminist debate as well as in all the debates on modernity, freedom and the place of religion in our contemporary societies.

As for the Islamic vision, it perceives "veiling" as the essential marker of an Islamic identity that is very fragile and constantly threatened by the "unveiling" of a spreading Westernization. The "veiling" in the Islamic imaginary is the continuity, the safekeeping and the preservation of the normative Islamic identity space and its perpetuation.

During 90s we saw an resurgence of Hijjabi Culture -The spread of the "hijab" phenomenon was the product of the cooptation of the veil’s issue by both political Islam and the conservative religious discourse that made this symbol a strategic question in their "dawa" or sociopolitical proselytism.

1) Ghad y Bassar and Hafd el faraj (Quran 24: 30-31): Tell the believing men to restrain their looks (ghad el bassar), and to guard their private parts (hafd el faraj)…” “Tell the believing women to restrain their looks, and to guard their private parts…”.
It's critical to understand this

Its important to understand that -the Holy Quran

It is about "restraining their looks" and "protecting the private parts of their bodies" for women as well as for men, which is to say that it is a question of keeping a certain modesty of gaze and avoiding the body’s nudity for women as well as for men.

2) Khoumourihina (Quran 24:31) is the plural of khimar which etymologically corresponds to a kerchief or scarf. "And tell the believing women to… not display their charms/attractiveness (zinatohonna) except what is apparent, and to draw their coverings over their breasts, and to not expose their charms except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons…”

In this verse, women are specifically requested to fold sides of their veil (khoumourihina) on their breasts and to show some of their charms (zinatouhouna) only to close family members. However, what is described as "charms" is not explicit. There is no more details about the limits of what should or should not appear. The majority of Ulema, thus, have interpreted this verse as the obligation to cover one's head and to show only the hands and the face.

There are therefore four concepts more or less related to clothing and physical appearance. And none of these four concepts refers to the word "Hijab", commonly used to describe the veil or headscarf.

Indeed, in the Qur'an, the word Hijab does not refer at any time to a dress, veil, or any garment. It is used about seven times and always in the same sense namely that of a separation or a curtain

But the verse that was most often used to prove "the obligation" to veil women and in which we once again find the word Hijab is the one that states: "O believers do not enter the dwellings of the prophet unless you are invited .... When you ask the Prophet’s wives for something, do it from behind a veil (Hijab) "Quran 33; 53.

We note that concerning physical appearances, the Quran transmits implicitly its ethical guidelines regarding the body by addressing women and men without any particular distinction, apart from the two verses about the Khimar and the Jilbab (Qur'an 24.31 and Qur’an 33.59).

Only these two verses mention a dress code without going into the secondary details that we currently find with a meticulous precision in the books for "Muslim practitioners"!

Unfortunately, nowadays, the whole of Islamic ethics seems to be reduced to women's clothing behavior, and only to that. In other words, to their bodies, to the precise way in which they must be covered, to the color and thickness of the fabric, to the uniformity of the habit ...etc.

Now, since the Qur'an did not insist on specific clothing or a specific external aspect for women and men, it would be very reducing to analyze the few verses on the behavior of clothing while disregarding all the orientations of the spiritual message that provides global ethics of the body, concerning men and women as well.

Hence, the Qur’an invites believers, male and female, to a "decency" and "sobriety" behavior, both physical and moral. With regard to women, the general - and subtle - expression of a certain "external appearance" is proof of the great "latitude" offered by the spiritual message in order to enable them to reconcile their spiritual convictions with their respective social context.

Therefore, the Qur’an does not legislates on the need for a religious "uniform" that would be strictly "Islamic", as we tend to demonstrate currently. The primary spiritual intention was not to determine rigid or static dress standards that would be "fixed" once for all, but rather to "recommend" an "attitude", or rather an "ethic" linked to body and mind.

It is unfortunate to acknowledge that this initial intention of the Islam spiritual message is often omitted, or even completely disregarded, at the expense of a literalist reading that reduces all the Quranic teaching about women to the so-called "obligation to wear the Hijab”!

Nevertheless, the Quran has never imposed any formal dress code obligation. Dictating standardized dress norms goes against the principles of the universal message and its spiritual ethics.

The khimâr or headscarf issue belongs to the morality, the behavior and the ethics of Islam. This falls within the Islamic science of mu'amalat, the social field or the human relations, and not within the 'ibadat, the ritual practice.

A religious conviction that appeals to faith makes sense only when it is lived without constraint. Talking about the Islamic obligation to wear the headscarf or khimar cannot be acceptable spiritually speaking, because the Qur’an is clear: "There shall be no compulsion in religion!”. This is one of Islam’s fundamental principles. It is therefore clear that the main purpose of the Qur'an is to induce men and women to free themselves from all the materialistic alienation and the seduction codes, specific to each period, which are ultimately only the concrete projections of recurring dominant ideologies through the history of human civilization.

The Qur’an invites men and women to take ownership of a culture of decency and mutual respect: "The best garment is certainly that of taqwâ; this is one of the signs of God "... Undoubtedly, this verse sums up on its own, the central teaching that should be kept in mind and be implemented nowadays among this great chaos of ultra-liberal consumption, of exuberance, of the cult of appearance and of arrogance, as the ethic of Islam: libas at-taqwa, the garment of awkwardness which inevitably reflects in the externality of acts and actions of every man and every woman. It is this ethic of awkwardness, moral rigor and decency that is preferable to the Creator's eyes.