Quora Answer: Is There Any Verse in the Qur’an That Clearly States Women Should Wear Hijab?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Is there any verse in the Qur’an that clearly states women should wear hijab?” 

The Qur’an Itself does not state that women should be veiled.  The rulings and guidelines for female dress are ruling of the scholars based on the hadits and the consensus of scholars.  Except for what is compulsory, there is much leeway and the female dress has evolved considerably.  Much of what Muslim women wear such as the burqa, the jilbab and the tudung are very much cultural interpretations of a religious injunction.  Some are more conservative than others. 

What the Qur’an does Say is this: 

سُوۡرَةُ النُّور

قُل لِّلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ يَغُضُّواْ مِنۡ أَبۡصَـٰرِهِمۡ وَيَحۡفَظُواْ فُرُوجَهُمۡ‌ۚ ذَٲلِكَ أَزۡكَىٰ لَهُمۡ‌ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ خَبِيرُۢ بِمَا يَصۡنَعُونَ (٣٠) وَقُل لِّلۡمُؤۡمِنَـٰتِ يَغۡضُضۡنَ مِنۡ أَبۡصَـٰرِهِنَّ وَيَحۡفَظۡنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ وَلَا يُبۡدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا مَا ظَهَرَ مِنۡهَا‌ۖ وَلۡيَضۡرِبۡنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَىٰ جُيُوبِہِنَّ‌ۖ وَلَا يُبۡدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا لِبُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوۡ ءَابَآٮِٕهِنَّ أَوۡ ءَابَآءِ بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوۡ أَبۡنَآٮِٕهِنَّ أَوۡ أَبۡنَآءِ بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوۡ إِخۡوَٲنِهِنَّ أَوۡ بَنِىٓ إِخۡوَٲنِهِنَّ أَوۡ بَنِىٓ أَخَوَٲتِهِنَّ أَوۡ نِسَآٮِٕهِنَّ أَوۡ مَا مَلَكَتۡ أَيۡمَـٰنُهُنَّ أَوِ ٱلتَّـٰبِعِينَ غَيۡرِ أُوْلِى ٱلۡإِرۡبَةِ مِنَ ٱلرِّجَالِ أَوِ ٱلطِّفۡلِ ٱلَّذِينَ لَمۡ يَظۡهَرُواْ عَلَىٰ عَوۡرَٲتِ ٱلنِّسَآءِ‌ۖ وَلَا يَضۡرِبۡنَ بِأَرۡجُلِهِنَّ لِيُعۡلَمَ مَا يُخۡفِينَ مِن زِينَتِهِنَّ‌ۚ … (٣١) 

Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: and Allah is Well Acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments ... (Surah an-Nur:30-31) 

In an environment where it has been politicised, the hijab is neither the resurgence of Islamic extremism nor a rebellion against modernism.  It is neither a fashion statement nor a symbol of oppression.  It is merely an attempt to submit to the Divine Law.  It is a concept of modesty more than a piece of cloth.  Appreciating the Wisdom of a Divine Injunction entails understanding the concept of preserving modesty and maintaining the social order.  That being said, the mere covering of the head or the mere uncovering of the head does not give an indication of piety, but a preference of ikhtilaf.  I do not subscribe to the view that the hijab is compulsory since it is an issue of fiqh, jurisprudence, and fiqh has a zaman wa makan, a time and place. 

Now, in address of the development of fiqh, firstly, the basis of the Maliki madzhab is the ‘urf of Madina in the time of the Prophet (s.a.w.).  The schools of the Ahl al-Ahadits, the Shafi'i and the Hanbali came much later.  This is 300 years before Swahih al-Bukhari was compiled. 

We know that the Qur’an does not specifically mention the hijab as the head covering and even the words used for that term evolved retroactively.  We have this unfortunate situation where even Arabs are mistaken on many words in the Qur’an because they did not consider that Arabic is very much a living language and there has been a semantic shift.  As such, one of the considerations of tafsir, exegesis, is to understand the meaning of the words of Revelation as they were understood then, and not as we understand them now. 

So how did the hijab come then?  The use of the hijab in swalah, ritual prayer, is unanimous and an established ijma’, consensus.  There is no controversy there.  But outside fiqh al-‘ibadah, we can raise several contentions.  We can say that the verses pertaining to covering the hair refer specifically to the wives of the Prophet (s.a.w.).  It is wajib, compulsory, for them, making it a sunnah al-mu’akkadah for the rest.  We can also say that is was a necessity of the environment to cover the hair.  They lived in an arid environment and dust storms were an occurrence.  And that was how the hijab was understood in many parts of the world for a long time.  Consider, for example, in Southeast Asia.  The women, including our female scholars, did not wear the hijab.  They did not even cover the ankles.  They worked in padi fields and that is why the telekung was invented. 

Prior to the 1950s, Al-Azhar even had a fatwa that the hijab outside of swalah was not wajib. I refer to Shaykh Muhammad Mahmud Shaltut’s (r.a.) fatwa on the matter.  What changed?  The Baby Boom generation and the invention of things like the bikini caused a cultural reaction in the Arab world.  Al-Azhar then issued a new fatwa and these became the guidelines for the hijab as we know it. 

In the 1970s, the Iranian Revolution occurred, and this influenced a slew of new revolutionary movements.  The works of Hassan ibn Ahmad ‘Abd ar-Rahman Muhammad al-Banna and Sayyid Quthb Ibrahim Husayn were revived.  The ideas of Jamal ad-Din Asadabadi al-Afghani and Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) were dusted off, and the hijab was elevated as a religious symbol.  This makes it very difficult to revisit the fiqh because people, even some scholars, cannot divorce the jurisprudence from the political symbolism.  That is why we have this enforced religiosity now.  It implies that one is either with the Islamists or the secularists.  Why can we not simply be Muslims without the political labels based on head coverings?