The female hijab in Muslim contexts

01The garment and its meaning

In its common contemporary sense, the hijab refers to the headscarf worn by many Muslim women to cover their hair and neck, leaving the face uncovered. It is distinct from the niqab (a veil that leaves the eyes visible), the burqa (a full-body covering with a mesh screen over the face, associated with Afghanistan), and the chador (a large draped Iranian veil). For those who wear it freely, it expresses modesty (haya), identity, and personal piety - often a claimed choice, not an imposed constraint. Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi showed (Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance, 1999) that the veil is not reducible to modesty alone: it also involves space, privacy, and self-construction.

02Where it goes wrong: a two-way misunderstanding

The most widespread Western misunderstanding reads every hijab as a sign of oppression or a political symbol, a reflex sharpened after September 11, 2001. This reading erases the intent of the women who choose it and fuels concrete discrimination, including in hiring. But the symmetrical error also exists: presenting the hijab as always a free choice erases the state coercion that exists where it is legally mandated, and where some women refuse it at the risk of their lives. The accurate position is neither "veil = submission" nor "veil = guaranteed emancipation": the garment's meaning depends entirely on whether it is freely worn, mandated by the state, or banned.

03The word "hijab": a frequent misconception

Counterintuitively, the word hijab (حجاب) is not, in the Quran, the name of the headscarf. There it refers to a partition, a curtain, a separation - notably the "verse of the hijab" (33:53), which instructs that the Prophet's wives be addressed "from behind a curtain". The Quranic terms that concern women's clothing are khimar (خمار, surah 24:31: draw the veil "over the bosoms") and jilbab (جلباب, surah 33:59: a loose outer garment "drawn close" around oneself). The modern sense of "hijab = headscarf" is a recent development, popularized by the Islamic revival of the 1980s-1990s (El Guindi). The exact extent of the prescribed covering - hair alone, or face and hands too - is debated among the four Sunni legal schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali) and Shia jurisprudence.

04Legal geography: mandated, free, banned

The hijab does not have the same status in every country. It is mandated by the state in very few places: Iran (compulsory for all women - Muslim, non-Muslim, foreign - since April 1983, under penalty of sanctions enforced by the morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad), Afghanistan (a Taliban decree of 7 May 2022 imposing the burqa or niqab), and the Indonesian province of Aceh (local sharia-inspired law). It is banned or restricted elsewhere: in France, the law of 15 March 2004 bans conspicuous religious symbols in public schools (including the headscarf), and the law of 11 October 2010 bans face-covering in public spaces (the niqab and burqa, not the plain headscarf); in 2016, several municipal "anti-burkini" orders were suspended by the Conseil d'État (Villeneuve-Loubet, 26 August 2016). Turkey long banned it in public institutions (progressively lifted around 2013), as did Tunisia and Kosovo. In the vast majority of Muslim-majority countries, it is freely worn, with no legal obligation or ban.

05Practical recommendations

Do not presume that a veiled woman is oppressed, and do not comment on her clothing: that is condescension. Do not presume the opposite either - "free choice" is not universal where the state mandates it. In countries with mandatory hijab (notably Iran), a foreign visitor must cover her hair in public: this is a legal obligation, not mere courtesy. Always distinguish the headscarf (the hijab) from full-body coverings (niqab, burqa), which are the actual target of most Western restrictive laws.

Geography of misunderstanding

Historical origins

Le fondement scripturaire tient aux versets de pudeur du Coran (le khimar, sourate 24:31 ; le jilbab, sourate 33:59), le mot « hijab » lui-même y désignant une cloison (33:53), non le vêtement. L'obligation légale moderne (Iran, 1983), le sens actuel « hijab = foulard » et sa politisation sont des développements des XXe-XXIe siècles.

Documented incidents

• 2015 — Le 1er juin 2015, la Cour suprême des États-Unis tranche 8 voix contre 1 (arrêt EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch) en faveur de Samantha Elauf, candidate refusée à l'embauche en 2008 parce que son foulard contrevenait au « look policy » du magasin : une discrimination religieuse prohibée par le Title VII du Civil Rights Act. (EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 575 U.S. 768 (2015))
• 2022 — Le 16 septembre 2022, Mahsa (Jina) Amini, 22 ans, meurt après son arrestation par la police des mœurs iranienne pour un hijab jugé « non conforme ». Sa mort déclenche le mouvement « Femme, Vie, Liberté » ; une mission d'enquête de l'ONU conclura à la responsabilité de l'Iran. (Death of Mahsa Amini (Human Rights Watch ; mission d'enquête de l'ONU sur l'Iran, 2022))

Practical recommendations

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