The Veil



Dangerous attack or fair point? Straw veil row deepens

Minister's remarks fuel claims of Islamophobia crisis

The issue had been troubling Jack Straw, and though he must have known that it might cause offence, he decided to raise it regardless.

One of Labour's most experienced politicians, Mr Straw addressed a gathering of Muslim leaders, sharing his disquiet over women who veiled their faces, and recalling a meeting he had had at a constituency surgery in Blackburn with a woman wearing a niqab.

It was a strange matter to raise at talks which had been dominated by a debate over Iraq's role in swelling British extremism, and his intervention stuck in the minds of those who were there. "He said, some of my constituents who have been accepting of the hijab are greatly concerned about the niqab," said one who was there. That discussion was almost 12 months ago. Mr Straw was warned at the time that any attempt to publicise his concerns would provoke anger. But a year later, and apparently unprompted by Downing Street, he chose to do so again, this time to the media.

This is a complex issue with no satisfactory answer.

I believe no where in the Qu'ran is the veil mentioned, I suspect its a cultural pratice, The relevant verse says something like this:"O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women to draw their outer garments around them when they go out or are among men." (hat tip to Echidne of the snakes), so its really down to how one interprets 'outer garment'.

I do know the Byzantines and the Ancient Greeks were veiling their women long before Islam came along.

Islam asorbed and adapted the cultures which surrounded it, it could not avoid it being in such close proximenty to the Byzantines and the Persians, the two major powers at the time when Islam emerged in the 7th century.

It worked both ways also, as the Muslims forbid depictions of the prophet they chose to create patterns instead, which are quite intricate, and this must of had some affect in the Byzantine Empire, when you look at the Iconoclasm period during the reign of Emperor Leo III the Syrian or "Isaurian," (reigned 717-741; born in eastern Anatolia).

More Views

Veil fetishism.

Straw and the veil: second thoughts

Veiled threats?

The big debate