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Overview
The tradition of the veil, which refers to various cloth coverings of the head, face, and body, has been little studied in Africa, where Islam has been present for more than a thousand years. These lively essays raise questions about what is distinctive about veiling in Africa, what religious histories or practices are reflected in particular uses of the veil, and how styles of veils have changed in response to contemporary events. Together, they explore the diversity of meanings and experiences with the veil, revealing it as both an object of Muslim piety and an expression of glamorous fashion.
“This is an exciting and strong collection of original research on women’s—and men’s—veiling practices in a range of African Muslim settings and the social and religious discourses that accompany changes in dress over time. Taken as a whole, it offers a fascinating overview of African Muslim interpretations of theological debates about ‘the veil’ and gender relations in Muslim societies while illustrating some of the particular accommodations adopted by African women.” —International Journal of African Historical Studies
“Explores the many meanings and uses of veiling which is so often treated as a monolithic phenomenon emblematic of Islam in different African and African diaspora contexts.” —Emma Tarlo, Goldsmiths, University of London
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253008282 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2021 |
| Series: | African Expressive Cultures |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 257 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Elisha P. Renne is Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Department for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. She is author of The Politics of Polio in Northern Nigeria (IUP, 2010).
Read an Excerpt
Veiling in Africa
By Elisha P. Renne
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2013 Indiana University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-00828-2
CHAPTER 1
Veiling, Fashion, and Social Mobility: A Century of Change in Zanzibar
LAURA FAIR
"The Veil" has never been a static thing, nor have its use and meaning been firm. In this chapter, I explore changes in veiling habits in Zanzibar over the course of more than a century, illustrating both how and why the veil has changed over time. Though "the veil" is often condemned in the West as a sign of women's subordination, here I illustrate that in Zanzibar women have often used the veil to assert both their freedom and their economic might. The bulk of this chapter examines changes in veiling fashions over the course of the twentieth century, but I begin with a brief discussion of a more recent trend to illustrate that the uses and meanings attributed to the veil worn by women in the Isles of Zanzibar—which includes two large islands, Unguja and Pemba, and several smaller ones which came to be known collectively as Zanzibar—are often completely hidden from casual observers in the West.
At the turn of the twenty-first century a new veiling fashion was increasingly seen on the streets and in the markets of Zanzibar. Suddenly, it seemed, growing numbers of women were donning the niqab, choosing to cover their faces entirely when in public rather than wearing the more common buibui, which left their faces open, or the more casual kanga, thrown over the top of the head and draped over the shoulders and chest. Where did this new style come from, I wondered? And what was the impetus for this change? (Plate 1).
Both the popular Western press and more academic publications were filled with articles discussing the growing presence of "radical" Islam across the globe. In East Africa, many Western observers speculated, in both print and in private, that the niqab was symbolic of a growing Islamic fundamentalism in the Isles. Saudi money was freely flowing into East Africa at the time, and in Zanzibar it was being used to finance the building of large and opulent mosques, as well as institutes of Islamic education. Since the mid-1980s Iranian scholars, educators, and publications had also been increasingly seen there, and women, in particular, were encouraged to attend classes and discussion groups on Islamic reform. The bombings of the American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998 added to the refrain commonly heard in the Western press that East Africans were falling into the grip of Al-Qaeda. Increasingly we were told that the donning of the niqab by Zanzibar women was a public testament of their allegiance to the political aims of Al-Qaeda and an endorsement of fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. Western feminists, too, had their fears that the women who adopted this new form of veil were being pressured to do so by men and that the niqab foreshadowed a restriction on women's larger presence in the public domain.
My own research on this topic over the last fifteen years suggests that such fears are largely unfounded. When asked why they were now wearing the niqab, women whom I spoke with in Zanzibar were unanimous in saying it had far more to do with fashion than with fundamentalism. Among those now wearing the niqab, nearly everyone I asked about why she wore it mentioned its being "in fashion" before all else. It was new, it was stylish, and wearing it was fun. As later sections of this chapter show, Zanzibari women have always taken fashion and style quite seriously, and one of the many attractions of the niqab is its range of styles. While most are black, they are frequently adorned with embroidery, sequins, or rhinestones, making their fashion possibilities endless. They are also commonly worn with a matching jilbab (overcoat), which can again be fashioned from a range of fabrics, from opaque black to negligee sheer, and adorned with different patterns and material decorations, in myriad colors. Unlike the previously common "veil" worn in Zanzibar, known as thebuibui, the new style allows for far more personalized expression of style. The variable and constantly changing styles of the niqab and jilbab make them the preferred veil worn by younger women, and those with expendable income. Like young women in the West who frequently abandon perfectly good winter coats because their color and style are "so last year," or put aside jeans that have "gone out fashion," many young Zanzibari women abandon perfectly good veils for something new to hit the stores, something more "hip" and fashionable.
None of the women whom I interviewed said that they wore the niqab because they considered themselves "more devout" than those who did not. Furthermore, none of the women I spoke to who regularly attended "reformist" or "fundamentalist" religious training and discussion groups wore the niqab. Most were, in fact, quite critical of this new fashion trend. Many women attending these discussions said that the niqab represented conspicuous consumption and a "waste" of money that could be put to more pious ends. Changing styles all the time, they asserted, was contrary to what the Prophet had in mind when he encouraged modesty in dress. Others speculated that women donned the niqab as a means of hiding their identity while pursuing nefarious pleasures. I couldn't help but laugh and recall these responses during the early days of Ramadan 2011, when I passed the shop of a Hindu woman selling bajias (fried bean snacks) and every female inside was eating while wearing a niqab. While many of the women who identified with "reformist" trends in the Isles also veiled in fashions that differed from the common buibui, their preference was for simple styles that left a woman's face, and thus identity, open for all to see.
Feminist fears that the niqab might portend growing restrictions on women's mobility or limits on their presence in the public domain were also not supported by my research. When niqab s first appeared in the Isles, they were most commonly sported by young professional women who worked outside of the home. Like their elders who first adopted the buibui roughly a century before, they said they wore the veil as one expression of their economic independence and autonomy. Wearing a fashionable niqab and jilbab meant that a woman had income to spare, and usually that she earned and controlled her own income, and had a profession that allowed her to support herself independently of a man. Nowadays, it is difficult for young couples to get by on only one income, and while many Zanzibari women have often run small businesses or engaged in trade, in the past twenty years growing numbers have also entered the formal labor market. As they have done so, men's historic obligation of providing for their wives' clothing has increasingly become a thing of the past. Men with whom I spoke whose wives wore the niqab all said they were thrilled that their wives had independent incomes, since few husbands were willing to indulge in buying a veil that could easily run three to ten times the price of their own daily fashions, and yet quickly "go out of style." Meeting the needs of a woman whose veil alone could run US$100–200 was simply beyond the means or desires of most men. Men were unanimous in saying women wore the new niqab and ever-changing jilbab for themselves, not for men.
Several working women also equated the niqab with cosmetics. It was an adornment that enhanced their beauty—drawing attention to their eyes—and it protected their complexion from the harmful rays of the tropical sun while walking to and from work, waiting for public transportation, or shopping at the market during the heat of the day. Another fashion trend that appeared in the Isles at roughly the same time as the new veil was the use of skin-lighteners and bleaches, which had previously been banned under the socialist regime. As neoliberalism took hold new commodities flooded the market, including skin lighteners and the niqab (Thomas 2008). Light, bright complexions became the new fashion rage. For women concerned with maintaining their current beauty without damaging their skin over the long term, the niqab simply made more sense.
Many women, including myself, also experienced unconventional degrees of freedom when wearing the niqab. There is something exceptionally fun about being in public incognito. You can see and observe everyone on the streets, but almost no one can tell who you are. It takes a trained eye, and a degree of intimacy, to be able to identify a woman wearing a mask. Like Batman and Robin, or better yet, Catwoman, you garner unaccustomed respect when you walk down the street: crowds part to let you pass, and you can travel about town both undetected and unmolested. Men who typically made a habit of flirting with me in the market or certain shops didn't say "boo" when I wore the niqab. Other women too said they enjoyed the freedom conveyed by traveling incognito; they could do their errands in record time.
None of the women I interviewed about wearing the niqab expressed any sympathies for Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or "radical" Islam writ large. This new form of veil had nothing to do with Islamic fundamentalism infiltrating the Isles, in fact it had more to do with neoliberal trade and conspicuous consumption than with religious devotion of any form. This new veiling fashion had nothing to do with women's enhanced subordination or their reluctance to appear in the public sphere. Rather, like their grandmothers before them, these young women donned the veil as one expression of their economic autonomy and larger sense of social freedom overall.
The History of Veiling in Zanzibar
Dress has historically been used as one of the most important and visually immediate markers of class, status, and ethnicity in East African coastal society. As one of many forms of expressive culture, clothing practice shaped and gave form to social bodies (see also Hansen 2000; Hendrickson 1996; MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga 2000; Martin 1994). In this chapter I examine the social, cultural, and performative processes through which women constructed new individual and collective identities in early-twentieth-century urban Zanzibar. Dress played a critical role in this process. Drawing on cultural elements from their varied, transnational pasts, women in urban Zanzibar crafted newly imagined identities as Zanzibaris, as they sought to overcome historical divisions between Arab and African, slave and free, and replace them with a new and decidedly modern cosmopolitanism. As with the English usage of the term, this cosmopolitanism carried connotations of being "sophisticated, urbane, worldly," and "free from provincial prejudices" (Brennan 1997:19). It also carried important political implications, as women crafted this cosmopolitanism by weaving together threads from the diverse cultural heritage of their parents, with the aim of creating a larger, more inclusive, fabric of citizenship within the Isles. These processes became particularly pronounced after the abolition of slavery in Zanzibar, in 1897, and continued beyond the period discussed here. And although both male and female slaves participated in efforts to enhance respect for their rights in island society, the ways they publicly expressed their changing definitions of self were often gendered in important ways (Fair 2001:195–264).
Zanzibar in the Nineteenth Century
Prior to the 1830s, Zanzibar was a small and relatively unimportant Swahili town. When the sultan of Oman, Seyyid Said, decided to move his capital to Zanzibar in the 1830s, the fortunes of the Isles changed rather dramatically. Over the course of the next fifty years, what had once been a small fishing village on the western side of Unguja Island grew to become a sprawling urban trading town of more than 80,000 permanent residents. By mid-century, Zanzibar had become the premier trading entrepôt linking traders and goods from Europe, the Americas, and India with those from East and East-central Africa. Among the most important commodities imported from Europe and India during the nineteenth century was cloth, while by far the most lucrative goods exported from East Africa were ivory and slaves. Slaves, and the profits derived from both their sale and their labor, were at the very heart of Zanzibar's economic transformation (Cooper 1977; Cooper 1981:271–301; Sheriff 1987). Slave labor transformed the forest- and shrub-covered coral islands of Unguja and Pemba into the most productive clove plantations in the world, netting vast profits for plantation owners, the majority of whom were immigrants from Oman. Swahili, Yemeni, Omani, and Indian immigrant traders also utilized slave labor to transport goods from ships to godowns, to package materials for trade, and to provide domestic and other services to support crews and fellow merchants from across the globe. As the wealth of Zanzibar grew over the course of the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of free immigrants from neighboring Swahili towns, the Arabian peninsula, and SouthAsia decided to settle permanently in the Isles. By far the largest segment of the islands' urban and rural population, however, was made up of slaves captured from the East African mainland. On the eve of the twentieth century, some three-fourths of Zanzibar's estimated population were either enslaved women and men or recently manumitted slaves (Commission on Agriculture 1923:38).
Dress served as a critically important and immediately visible marker of class and status difference in nineteenth-century Zanzibar. The fewer and less ornate clothes one wore, the lower was one's status. Slaves in nineteenth-century Zanzibar typically wore only the slightest of clothes, which were usually made of cheap, coarse white cotton cloth, known as merikani because it came from the United States. Male and female slaves during this era often wore only one piece of cloth, which men wrapped around their waists and women tied under their armpits. Slaves employed in the households of the elite sometimes wore additional cloth as well. Because over 95 percent of those who lived in Zanzibar, including slaves, were Muslims, the coverings men and women wore on their heads were also very important markers of class and status. Male slaves were forbidden from wearing caps on their heads, while female slaves were prohibited from wearing headcloths or veils. Perhaps as a further marker of their low social status many slaves of both genders also shaved their heads. Slaves were also required to go barefooted while in the presence of the freeborn (Bakari 1981:173; Burton 1872:428; Figure 1.1).
Members of aristocratic Omani households who were at the other end of the social hierarchy wore the most elaborate costumes and headdresses. Several yards of extremely expensive cloth, imported from abroad, was wrapped around the heads of Omani men to form a kilemba. Similar head-wrappings were sometimes worn by Omani women as well, although typically a woman of the aristocracy would only be seen by those outside of her immediate family while wearing a richly embroidered face mask known as a barakoa, a long silk scarf that hung from the head to the back of the knees, known as an ukaya, and a long-sleeved, knee-length shirt with frills around the collar accompanied by matching frilled pants, known as marinda. The clothing of freeborn Swahili members of society varied by gender and class, but typically included some form of cap or headscarf for both men and women, sewn or wrapped cloth which covered the body from shoulder to at least the knee, if not the ankle, and shoes. Swahili men's clothing typically included a long, white, loose-fitting gown, known as a kanzu, and a sewn cap, known as a kofia. While the value and quality of the cloth worn by the poorest Swahili woman may have varied little from that of slaves, whenever possible, when leaving home, a free Swahili woman would mark her status as freeborn by covering her head with a cloth or cap and her shoulders with a longer cloth that reached to the ankles (Fair 2001:65–109). Locally made sandals of leather were also worn by fashion-and status-conscious Swahili (Figure 1.2).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Veiling in Africa by Elisha P. Renne. Copyright © 2013 Indiana University Press. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Veiling/Counter-Veiling in sub-Saharan Africa Elisha Renne
Part I. Veiling Histories&Modernities
1. Veiling, Fashion and Social Mobility: A Century of Change in Zanzibar Laura Fair
2. Veiling Without Veils: Modesty and Reserve in Tuareg Cultural Encounters Susan Rasmussen
3. Interwined Veiling Histories in Nigeria Elisha Renne
Part II. Veiling&Fashion
4. Religious Modesty, Fashionable Glamour, and Cultural Text: Veiling in Senegal
Leslie Rabine
5. Modest Bodies, Stylish Selves: Fashioning Virtue in Niger Adeline Masquelier
6. "Should a Good Muslim Cover Her Face?" Pilgrimage, Veiling, and Fundamentalisms in Cameroon José C. M. van Santen
Part III. Veiling/Counter-Veiling
7. Invoking Hijab: The Power Politics of Spaces and Employment in Nigeria
Hauwa Mahdi
8. "We Grew Up Free but Here We Have to Cover Our Faces": Veiling among Oromo Refugees in Eastleigh, Kenya Peri M. Klemm
9. Vulnerability Unveiled: Lubna's Pants and Humanitarian Visibility on the Verge of Sudan's Secession Amal Hassan Fadlalla
List of Contributors
Index
What People are Saying About This
Explores the many meanings and uses of veiling which is so often treated as a monolithic phenomenon emblematic of Islam in different African and African diaspora contexts.
Although Islam has existed in Africa for more than one thousand years, its influence on material expressive culture (dress, sculpture, painting, architecture) has not been as well explored as indigenous religious and cultural traditions. This volume examines the complex histories, politics, and experiences of wearing Islamic dress in sub-Saharan Africa.