I wear a niqab! AMA

[JamTea]

Hi everyone,

I am a regular MNer and NC'd for this :). As background, I have a successful career in tech, I am a Muslim and I wear niqab too. Since Boris's comments, I've seen quite a bit written on MN about burqa and niqab, and thought it may be useful to answer any questions people have in relation to niqab. I also know a large number of Muslim women and have lived in various Muslim communities, so can probably speak from my experience and relay other people's experiences too.

Just as a note: I don't know any women in the UK that wear burqa and I have never seen anyone wear a burqa in real life. The difference between niqab and burqa is illustrated here: cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/scarf-651554.jpg

OP, what are your views on non Muslims wearing the niqab?

The more I think about it, the more I think we associate hiding one’s face with death

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with this, I see no such association.

Possibly as I know women who wear both the niqab and the burqa and have spoken to them also in western clothes. I see no association with death and I'm quite shocked at the link. I accept fully this is your correlation, this is your link, I'm simply asking you not to say "we" because I for one am not part of that. In no way shape nor form do I accept that link.

When you speak, speak only for yourself, others then may agree or disagree.

Op, I was an avid reader of Austen and the Bronte sisters as a teenager, but I can't remember the passages you are talking about. Face covering was not a cultural practice among Georgian and early Victorian English women and the word veil in a Christian context generally refers to a see-through length of white lace that is worn by the bride at a wedding. Even they weren't particularly common among ordinary people until Queen Victoria's wedding clothes were emulated up and down the country. Before the gold cloth was favoured by royalty and ordinary women would were a nice dress that they liked. I digress. Thank you for your answers.

A completely different question. You said you wore the niqab before you got married. Did your husband see your face before you married or did he wait until afterwards?

I find the view that we need to see faces when we talk outdated. We communicate online, or the days before video chat etc and made wonderful friends online. We used to talk over the phone as it was easier than typing. I can't see their face then. In person, I can hear them well unless it's a noisy place. I think the view that people are just not used to it stronger because being a British born female who wore niqab in her teens and was not surrounded by Islamic schools, grew up in a multicultural area (more white, black and chinese friends), I recall the days of talking on the phone and we still do it today.
When it's a noisy supermarket and you're at customer services it might be harder but most of the time there's not a problem.

JamTea I hope I'm not interrupting your answers, they are more eloquent. I just find it fascinating how it seems like the more people show hate to Islam the more intimate details of Islam are advertised. It's quite cool.

For me, my husband did see my face before marriage. We have to show it and recommended to show it or that would be pretty awkward after.

I find the view that we need to see faces when we talk outdated

I'm struggling with remembering all the folks on here and their back grounds. So can you remind us of your ethinicty and how often you communicate with women in burqas and niqabs please?

I find talking to someone online or the telephone, a very different concept, to talking to someone in person who has their face covered versus not covered, There is nothing about our times, or fashion, in this, it's simply different when someone is standing in front of you, with their face covered versus not covered.

No one is showing hate to Islam. That is just an attempt to shut down any post which expresses any concerns about this.

Your point about communicating online or on the telephone is completely irrelevant.

Babba, it's fascinating to read your opinion on these issues but I feel I really have to respond to what you said about facial expressions not being that important in human communication.

The face has 43 muscles exquisitely adapted to allow finely nuanced emotions to be conveyed. In contrast, online media gives us or . Really, there is no contest!

Why would you choose to narrow the bandwidth of communication?

Dottysheep, I have just read your links about Anchorites. Fascinating. I knew about Julian of Norwich, but hadn't realised Guthlac of Crowland was an anchorite. I have been to Crowland and read accounts of his life. I remember thinking that the demons he heard were probably birds living in the marshes.

For an enjoyable read more linked to the Op's thread, Muhajababes by Allegra Stratton is worth a look. It must be 10 years old now, but it is just as relevant. It doesn't look at the niqab, but it does touch on the way new generations can take back ownership of something for themselves, so that, while 1930s women were discarding the hijab as a symbol of the hareem, young women in the 21st century are making it their own.

Nun's veils are a different issue. I'm not aware of any European order that required nuns to cover their faces, though certainly some had head coverings so elaborate that they did hide areas of the face, and most of the older orders had a separate specific garment, name escapes me, that closely wrapped the head and throat rather like a hijab . In orders founded in medieval times, the nun's habit was not very different from the ordinary dress of women, but gradually that changed. Taking the veil was a phrase referring to the process of sequential vows and commitments to the religious life.

At various points in history, especially as womens clothing moved awsy from being like the habit, the nun's head covering has been controversial, usually for reasons of anti-catholicism like the anti-Islamic things we sadly see expressed today. More recently there was a whole process of reassessment of what nuns should wear as part of the Vatican II conference in the 60s, after which smaller veils/hats were tried and some orders discarded head covering or any habit completely. But fundamentally a nun's habit is something worn by a tiny minority of adult women to signify that they are brides of Christ (and therefore not sexually available even if - shock - they went out alone). Not something recommended for all post pubescent women simply because they can potentially have a child and therefore need to be sexually controlled.

Because it isn't an answer to say, 'I wear it because it pleases God'. Why does it please God to require Jewish women who menstruate to wash themselves before going out in public, or to cover their hair with a wig once married, or in the past to require Christian women to be ritually blessed before leaving the house after childbirth? Why doesn't god require women to wear tefillin, or a pectoral cross, or to get her nIpples pierced? If the point were a neutral obedience, anything would have done the job. It is possible to find meaning in these things and in one's own obedience to them but they are all rooted in completely human male control of women and controlling paternity. To choose something like this can certainly be done by activist women - many nuns are completely formidable - but to deny the human and misogynist root of this control system is not credible.

I don't see the hate at all.

Jamtea started the thread about the niqabs and said ask me anything.

Obviously she must have known there would be curiousity and controversy about it.

People have responded to the invitation to ask questions. Surely that is the point of it?

It's not a narrow band because if I'm outside shopping etc I'm barely speaking to anyone just like any other Brit. It's a few minutes at most and then off on your way. No one talks to each other randomly for longer than that.
If I see someone I know, I'm not normally stopping talking to them for long either.
However if we are going out together, honestly I've had no issue whether Muslim or non Muslim. You'll regularly see my at my local park, people's kids come and sit with us on the bench as we share crisps out and I've suddenly adopted lots of kids (parents say it themselves) and manage to have long conversations with fellow parents and never ever had a problem. They've never asked me to repeat. We laugh and joke and relate with voice and body expressions, had movements.

And the majority of the time if I'm speaking with someone I probably am not wearing the veil as .at home or their home or at an event where it's women only.

I think perhaps we should meet sometime and see if you understand me or not and need to see my face. Or you could just come over to my house and I won't be wearing it anyway and probably be on my comfy sweats.
@OutwiththeOutCrowd

@Bluntness100
I was born and bred in UK, London, multicultural area. Have parents who didn't wear Islamic clothing or headscarf. No Islamic schools in the area. In fact parents didn't even know how to read the Qur'an in Arabic.
Chose to wear it as a teen after studying my own religion.

Here is our difference. I think yes the veil will seem strange but phone/in person with veil, they level each other out. Maybe it's because one hasn't ever spoken to anyone in niqab.

I have spoken to a whole load of people in niqab but most people around me do not wear it. My dad couldn't recognise my sister when she wore it lol. Very quickly you notice whose eyes are whose (on the streets, she doesn't wear the long dress etc at home of course).

I feel like a celebrity at times when I go out nowadays. Boris has an effect on people. People aren't nasty, they sort of are like OHMAGOSH I've seen a niqab wearer! It's funny because they think I don't notice. I'm a normal person haha. Just cover my face and believe there's a next life.

Our religion doesn't start from the veil. The veil is a teeny tiny thing in the grand scheme of life. There's so much we love about what we are taught that makes us stronger. All the prophecies about today that make us think from time to time, ah, that's another sign of the end of times that we knew about 1400 years ago. Just watch this if you haven't watched the other video I posted (which I highly recommend as it explains better than my words)

It's always women isn't it. No matter rhe religion , it's always women who have to cover their faces through time.

As a woman I reject that. I reject it for me, i reject it for my daughter. I am an equal. I will be seen, as will she. If a man has a problem with that, then I will deal with him or the authorities will. And he will regret it.

So the question remains, the op clearly must know that rhe niqab or burqa has become a symbol of female oppression and abuse due to regimes like the taliban. We live in a global society, we see it, we see the media images, the reports, and we reject it. As a gender we wholesale reject it. We won't be controlled. We won't be hidden, our daughters won't be hidden, we will not permit them to be hidden or. controlled. It is not something we recognise or accept.

So how do women like the op, in fact the op herself, make it acceptable to modern day women that they will hide their faces, in line with regimes like the talibans orders. How do they make us understand that by complying with orders from regimes like the taliban, they are in fact doing something which is good? Something which is positive? Something which is holy?

Because I think the one thing many of us agree on is that " my god likes it"does really cut it.

Baba I think you might just not be noticing how much you use facial expressions at home when you are having a proper chat!

Actually, I am reminded of a couple of medical conditions, which can impact significantly on a person’s ability to communicate with others. The first is Prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness, the inability to recognise someone from looking at his/her face. The second is Alexithymia, which relates, amongst other things, to not being able to read emotions by looking at facial expressions. People on the autistic spectrum are more likely to have these conditions and do find communication quite a challenge because they have fewer clues to go on.

We have phones and social media – and that’s great – but meeting someone in person and being able to see their face is a much richer and rewarding experience.

And I would love to meet you and talk to you! Of course, I would prefer to see your face but I am sure you would be delightful company either way.

I agree Bluntness. To wear something voluntarily that is a form of torture for millions of women and making it more normal and acceptable...i have no words!

I have a question for OP.

Jam tea, how would you feel if steadily more and more women in the UK took to wearing the niqab?

I'm imagining a scenario whereby it caught on pretty quickly and within a couple of years almost every woman was wearing it (out of choice, of course) - women out walking, teachers, bus drivers, shop assistants, waitresses, policewomen, pilots, air stewardesses, life guards, horse riders, ballet dancers, theatre performers...

Serious question. Would this be a good thing?

The onus has to be on the women who comply with these rules, who cover their faces, to make us understand why they chose to do it, why they see it as positive,

When we see female oppression, the images coming out of the Middle East, the taliban reports, it's right we stand up and put our shoulders with these women and stand with them.

The onus will always be on the women who comply with these mens orders to explain to us why.

We are not wrong for questioning it.,we are not bigoted or prejudiced for standing shoulder to shoulder with the women who threw this oppression off, and no one, but no one, should be able to tell us we are.

I definitely make facial expressions and know they are important but what I mean is, when I go out, the people I see, we normally barely talk but when I have talked it's been fine. No one has said I don't understand you. In fact one time in kiddicare I was apologising and the women who were shopping were telling me not to ever say such a thing again as there is no issue.
Perhaps we should have a Mumsnet meet up. It would be a good experiment too but maybe we just all need to meet up more because in those meetings I wouldn't be wearing it anyway.

We don't associate niqab with torture. People of Mumsnet are probably more educated about this than me as I try to avoid mainstream news but for a long time people have been using religion to opress. However as I said earlier, the Qur'an being Allah's word, in it it says we are not allowed to transgress! I get so upset hearing of people abusing the religion they claim to follow but we know they are not one of us. No one is telling me to cover my face, but it makes sense in the grand scheme of things just like many other things. It really is a small matter in the grand scheme of Islam when you know there is a hereafter and a paradise waiting

I don't really know how to explain clearly by typing on Mumsnet. It would be amazing if one day we could all meet. Perhaps we would leave each others company with a mutual understanding. Islam is a way of life and not one aspect of niqab, or alcohol, or sleeping on your right side, or washing your hands before eating, or believing honey is a cure, as well as zamzam. We go right back to the root which is the Qur'an itself. It's miracles. I guess if anyone wanted an English translation you could message me and read it in your spare time, flick through it, whatever is easier. I won't post now as this is OP's thread and I don't want to divert the attention away but if you want to have a look at a page here or there in the Qur'an, send me a message and I'll post one to your nearest Amazon locker if you don't feel comfortable giving your address out to a random stranger. It will be one of the most accurate translations and easy to understand but that's really up to you. I don't mind sending one out, I have Amazon vouchers sitting around and it's only a few quid! :)

Hello OP - do you like living in a westernised society?

OP, what kind of niqab do you wear? Could you post a picture of a similar one? I see that styles vary from quite a narrow opening to ones where quite a lot of the upper face is visible. Tbh when I work outside in very cold weather with a woolly hat pulled down low and a scarf or my jacket zipped up full I'd say just as much of my face is covered, except my nose will pop in and out as I move my head!

Op, what do you think about the legacy of Muslim feminists like Huda Shaarawi? A link incase you don't know about her - www.amazingwomeninhistory.com/huda-shaarawi-egyptian-feminist/

I have asked a couple of questions no with no answer. I know you're busy though so I'll repeat them.

1. Can I ask you OP, do you believe followers of other religions and atheists are wrong? If not, why not? Can many different Gods exist?

1. OP Do you know the history of Islamic dress? I would assume it predates Islam, which actually isn't that old as religions go, it looks to me like practical desert clothing for first century Arabia, long flowing robes to protect from the sun with face coverings to protect from the sand. These are just my assumptions though, do you know any of its history, pre Islam?

I also have a third (trivial) question.
Do you have a facebook page? Are you pictured on there only with your face covered?

babba2014

You imply that whether you're speaking to someone on the phone or speaking to them in person (with a veil) , theres no difference as they 'level each other out'.

I disagree. If I'm speaking to you on the phone, then neither of us can see each other, which puts us on an equal footing.
However, if I'm speaking to you in person, and your face is covered but mine isn't, then I would feel at a 'disadvantage' because you would be able to see my facial expressions aswell as hearing me speak, but I would only be able to listen to you.

So, in my view, the only way things may 'level out' by speaking to someone in person is if both people are either covered up or uncovered.

OP -/does it upset you to read some of the posts on this thread and the attitudes in them (eg Bluntness)?