"O femmes du Prophète! …/ Demeurez dans vos demeures! Ne vous produisez point en vos atours, à la manière de l'ancienne Gentillité (jâhiliyya)! Accomplissez la prière! Donnez l'Aumône (zakât). Obéissez à Allah et à son Apôtre!"

VIII. Sura 33: 59 (Medina revelation):

"O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters, and the women of the faithful, to draw their wraps a little over them. They will thus be recognized and no harm will come to them. God is forgiving and kind."

"O Prophète!, dis à tes épouses, à tes filles et aux femmes des Croyants de serrer sur elles leurs voiles! Cela sera le plus simple moyen qu'elles soient reconnues et qu'elles ne soient point offensées. Allah est absoluteur et miséricordieux."

While, the Quran is indeed concerned in these passages about women's clothing and the way women appear in public, in none of these 3 passages is the word hijab used. In fact, nowhere in the Quran, except in Sura 33: 53, is the word hijab used to speak about a particular dress code for Muslim women. And nowhere, including in Sura 33:53 is hijab used to describe, let alone to prescribe, the necessity for Muslim women to wear a headscarf or any of the other pieces of clothing often seen covering women in Islamic countries today. Even after reading these passages dealing with the female dress code, one continues to wonder what exactly the hijab is: is it supposed to be a simple scarf? A purdah? A chador? Or something else? Which parts of the body exactly is it supposed to cover: just the hair? The hair and neck? The arms? Hands? Feet? Face? Eyes? What colour is it supposed to be? More often than not, the Quranic ayat seem to offer a new use for an existing piece of clothing (it is a well kown fact that women in the Roman, and therefore pre-islamic, world, but also in the Jewish and Christian traditions wore veils).

If the word hijab is used indeed in one passage, namely Sura 33:52, it does not in any case refer to what is today commonly understood by the word, namely a headscarf of some sort to be worn by all Muslim women. For this prescription is addressed clearly and specifically to the wives of the Prophet, and not to all Muslim women. Moreover, when one considers the circumstances surrounding the specific revelation of this sura, one realizes that the meaning of the term hijab here seems to have been vastly misunderstood by succeeding generations. For sura 33:52 was revealed at the time of the Prophet's marriage with a new bride and speaks of his desire to consummate his marriage, a desire which was frustrated because some guests were overstaying their visit. God has thus sent in this revelation in order to separate the guests through a veil from the private chambers of the Prophet and his bride. When one thus contextualizes the Quranic revelations and their prescriptions, one sees that the hijab in this aya was meant to be a physical object aimed at securing the privacy of the Prophet and of his family and not, as is still often believed, a piece of clothing for women to wear. Evidently, the use of the word hijab here may not be interpreted as a prescription for any specific type of Islamic dress code for women.
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Sahar Amer
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