Does Islam require women to wear a veil/nigab...What is the reasoning of why it is required?

[masmdu]

Educate me please.

Is it part of the Quran?

[elocs]

1. I don't know, but if I did not know I would certainly do an internet search on the subject.

I've found that often works very well.

[masmdu]

2. That helps

[ensho]

4. was being snide necessary?

nt

[masmdu]

8. Your perception. What I meant by what I typed was "that helps"

[ensho]

10. my remark was aimed at #1 not you

nt

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Like the Bible, it depends upon the interpretation of the Qur'an.

To fundamentalists, it's mandated through Mohammed. To Sufis and nonfundamentalists, it's optional and discretionary.

I've heard two different policies behind The Veil. One is to protect the women from men who are born with the propensity of uncontrolable lust. Protection from harassment and probable rape by hiding the beauty that ignites the baser instincts. The second is that it is women who have to be protected from themselves, insofar as they're more like Eve and likely to provoke unholy sexual contact.

[msongs]

5. MEN do not have to wear them. that is all you need to know about that nt

[ensho]

7. love the way you get to the bottom of things

true

[LeftishBrit]

6. Certainly not all Muslim groups think so.

Of my own Muslim friends and students, many do wear a headscarf, but none wear a veil.

Here is an 'anti' view, here promoted by the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford. MECO represent the non-traditionalist end of the scale of British Muslims, but their views are hardly unique.

http://www.meco.org.uk/abni/abni.htm

[onager]

9. Here's a real expert for you...

Souad Saleh, one of the very few women to become a professor of sharia law. She teaches at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the world's oldest Islamic college.

I lived in Alexandria, Egypt from 2005-09 and read a lot about Saleh. She got MANY death threats for her teachings on niqab.

I also lived in Saudi Arabia for 2 years. When Saleh talks about "Egyptians going to work in the Gulf countries," that's what she means. Egyptians went to work in The Magic Kingdom and came back infected with Saudi Wahhabism.

That's why 99.9% of the bars and belly dancing clubs closed in Cairo and Alexandria during the late 1970's-early 80's. Offtopic but funny - while I was living in Egypt, a pretty spirited fight broke out between imported Russian/Ukrainian belly dancers, and the native Belly Dancers' Union made up of Egyptians only. Yes, the belly dancers have a union, and they complained directly to the Egyptian Parliament. It's an interesting society.

More ominously, the Wahhabi infection was also responsible for Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution being amended - to proclaim that Egypt was officially under sharia law.

Anyway, here's the article, from the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram in November 2005:

There is no Quranic text that promotes niqab, Saleh says. The injunctions urging Muslim women to don the hijab are clearly stated in Surat Al-Nur and Surat Al-Ahzab. "The Quran clearly states that a Muslim woman should wear the hijab, even though the face should not be veiled."

Saleh recounts how she has had to force her munaqabat students at Al-Azhar University to remove their facial veils when they sit an exam. "How else can I ascertain the identity of the young woman? How do I know if another individual is sitting in her place. The niqab, in my view, is not acceptable."

Saleh believes that niqab is foreign attire imported into Egypt by people returning from oil-rich Gulf Arab countries. "Egyptians sought employment opportunities in the Gulf in the 1970s and 1980s and they returned with novel ideas. They came back with ideas that were neither traditional Egyptian nor Islamic. They were not part of a universal Islamic tradition."

Saleh expresses concern about the new trend of preachers spreading their own brand of Islam. She strongly believes that a Muslim woman should wear the customary hijab. But she insists that Islam never stipulated how it should be worn. "There are cultural variations and different designs. But Muslim women are free to chose the style of dress, colours and textiles of their attire.

"We have a tendency to bury our heads in the sand like ostriches."

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/766/profile.htm

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Expert but I think not representative.

She appears to know what she is talking about, but it's worth noting that there are an awful lot of likewise experts in the Quran who disagree with her - I suspect a sizeable majority, although I'm not certain of that.