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Islamic Dress and Muslim Norms of Modesty by Ingrid Mattson The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, “Modesty is an important part of religion.” Islamic norms of dress and gender interaction nurture and reinforce a sense of physical modesty. The purpose is to allow men and women to interact in a wholesome and productive environment and to support the ability of Muslims to confine intimacy to marriage. Intimate relations of any sort outside of marriage are forbidden in Islam. In their homes and among close family members, Muslim men and women dress more casually than in public. According to the consensus of Muslim scholars, appropriate public dress for women includes a head-covering, and clothes that do not reveal her shape. Appropriate public dress for men includes loose-fitting clothes, and in some cultures, a head-covering. A woman’s head-covering is often referred to as “hijab.” Modest dress is a religious obligation of every Muslim. At the same time, Muslim men and women are required to refrain from flirting or engaging in immodest conversation or physical contact with anyone other than their spouse. Accordingly, some Muslims are even reluctant to shake hands with unrelated members of the opposite sex. The guidelines for modest dress and interaction are found in the Qur’an and in the example of the Prophet Muhammad. Qur’an 24:30-31, for example, orders Muslim men and women to lower their gaze when speaking with the opposite sex, and for women to adjust the ends of their head-scarves to cover their chest. Sometimes non-Muslim women misinterpret the lowered gaze of a Muslim man to mean that she is insignificant or below him, not worthy of even a glance. In fact, it is a sign of respect. Muslim women, for their part, may feel uncomfortable if a man stares at her face. In many traditional Muslim cultures, women will instinctively draw their headscarves over their faces to shield themselves from such stares. Some women prefer to cover their face at all times in public, to avoid unwanted attention from men. Islamic dress takes many different forms in Muslim societies across the world. In most traditional societies, women and men’s dress is similar in style, but differs in color, decoration and fabric. For example, Muslim men and women in West Africa traditionally wear billowing robes. Muslim men and women in Indonesia and Malaysia traditionally wear wrap-around skirts and long shirts. Bedouin Arabs across North Africa and Western Asia wear long straight-cut robes. In Pakistan, men and women traditionally wear baggy pants and long shirts. In many Muslim societies, some women wear a distinctive light-weight cloak in public. The black chador of Iran, the dark-colored abayas of the Arabian Peninsula and the varied colored chadori of Afghanistan are the most distinctive examples of this kind of dress. Historically, women who donned these cloaks often did not spend much time in the public sphere. Many of these women spend most of their times in their homes which often contained walled private gardens. Women agriculturalists, alternately, would not wear such cloaks in the fields, but might don them on rare visits to the city. Many traditional practices of Muslim societies were lost under European colonization, after the establishment of modern nation-states, and now, with the spread of globalization. In this context many Muslims abandoned traditional dress for Western styles. In modern times, most religious leaders distinguish between traditional dress—which is not religiously mandated--and “Islamic dress” (modest dress with a head-scarf for women) which is religiously mandated. One of the most contested issues in Muslim societies is the role governments should play in enforcing any one interpretation of modest dress. Most governments in the Muslim world leave the choice to the individual. In these countries, such as Egypt, Morocco and Indonesia, one notices a broad diversity of clothing styles. In radically secular countries, such as Turkey and Tunisia, religious dress is prohibited in many public settings. This creates great resentment among those who want to wear this dress. In a few small, conservative societies, such as many parts of Saudi Arabia, officials actively enforce compliance with their particular interpretations of modest dress. This creates resentment among those who normally would not dress this way. In America, Muslims have generally found the law to be supportive of their right to dress in the workplace and in public institutions according to their religious convictions. Still, Muslims sometimes experience harrassment when wearing distinctive dress, especially in times of increased political tensions. The greater challenge is maintaining pious norms of modest dress and interaction in the midst of an exceedingly immodest popular culture. It is possible to select one’s choice of entertainment, but “lowering the gaze” while passing a sexually provocative billboard on the side of the highway is impossible. For this reason, some Muslims feel quite comfortable in areas of the country where traditional Christian norms of physical modesty are still an important part of the cultural landscape. In urban areas, the desire to preserve chastity and a sense of physical modesty is the most imporant reason some Muslim parents homeschool their children or enroll them in private Islamic schools. Muslim teenagers and young men and women have to exert great effort to maintain chastity and Islamic norms of modesty in contemporary society. In this respect, Muslims often find a sympathetic response from other Americans who hold what are considered to be “traditional family values.” Fostering a wholesome youth culture, strong families and a standard of public decency within the parameters of political and religious freedom is a challenge all Americans face.
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