Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the Muslim World: Gender, Modernism and the Politics of Dress

305 Pages·2014·2.83 MB·English

by  Stephanie Cronin

Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the
Muslim World
In recent years bitter controversies have erupted across Europe and the
Middle East about women’s veiling, and especially their wearing of the face-
veil or niqab. Yet the deeper issues contained within these controversies—
secularism versus religious belief, individual freedom versus social or family
coercion, identity versus integration—are not new but are strikingly pre-
figuredbyearlierconflicts.Thisbookexaminesthestate-sponsoredanti-veiling
campaigns that swept across wide swathes of the Muslim world in the inter-
war period, especially in Turkey and the Balkans, Iran, Afghanistan, and the
Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It shows how veiling was
officially discouraged and ridiculed as backward and, although it was rarely
banned, veiling was politicized and turned into a rallying-point for a wider
opposition. Asking a number of questions about this earlier anti-veiling dis-
courseandthepoliciesflowingfromit,andthereactionsthatitprovoked,the
book illuminates and contextualizes contemporary debates about gender,
Islam and modernism.
Stephanie Cronin is a Lecturer in Iranian History at the University of
Oxford, UK.
Durham Modern Middle East and Islamic World Series
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Anti-Veiling Campaigns in the
Muslim World
Gender, modernism and the politics of dress
Edited by
Stephanie Cronin
ROUTLEDGE RTayolour &t Flerandcisg Geroup
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Firstpublished2014
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LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Anti-veilingcampaignsintheMuslimworld:gender,modernismandthe
politicsofdress/[editedby]StephanieCronin.
pagescm–(DurhammodernMiddleEastandIslamicworldseries)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Hijab(Islamicclothing)2.Veils–Religiousaspects–Islam.3.Hijab
(Islamicclothing)–Governmentpolicy.4.Clothinganddress–Political
aspects–Islamiccountries.5.Muslimwomen–Socialconditions.I.Cronin,
Stephanie.
BP190.5.H44A582014
305.48'697–dc23
2013040891
ISBN:978-0-415-71138-8(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-88455-4(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Contributors x
Acknowledgments xiv
Note on transliteration xv
Introduction: Coercion or empowerment?
Anti-veiling campaigns: a comparative perspective 1
STEPHANIECRONIN
PARTI
Turkey 37
1 From face veil to cloche hat: the backward Ottomanversus new
Turkish woman in urban public discourse 39
KATHRYNLIBAL
2 Anti-veiling campaigns and local elites in Turkey of the 1930s:
aview from the periphery 59
SEVGIADAK
3 Everyday resistance to unveiling and flexible secularism in early
republican Turkey 86
MURATMETİNSOY
PARTII
Iran and Afghanistan 119
4 Unveiling ambiguities: revisiting 1930s Iran’s kashf-i hijab
campaign 121
JASAMINROSTAM-KOLAYIANDAFSHINMATIN-ASGARI
viii Contents
5 Dressing up (or down): veils, hats, and consumer fashions in
interwar Iran 149
FIROOZEHKASHANI-SABET
6 Astrakhan, borqa’, chadari, dreshi: the economy of dress in
early-twentieth-century Afghanistan 163
THOMASWIDE
PARTIII
Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus 203
7 Women-initiated unveiling: state-led campaigns in Uzbekistan
and Azerbaijan 205
MARIANNEKAMP
PARTIV
The Balkans 229
8 Behind the veil: the reform of Islam in interwar Albania or the
search for a “modern” and “European” Islam 231
NATHALIECLAYER
9 Difference unveiled: Bulgarian national imperatives and the
re-dressing of Muslim women, 1878–1989 252
MARYNEUBURGER
Bibliography 267
Index 279
List of Figures
1 Women of Kokand, Uzbekistan, wearing paranji and chachvon,
early twentieth century 140
2 Man in traditional clothing accompanied by two women with
their face veils drawn aside, Iran, late nineteenth / early twentieth
century 141
3 Egyptian woman on a donkey 142
4 Two Egyptian women heavily veiled 142
5 Veiled African Muslim women, presumably ex-slaves,
photographed in Constanta, Romania, c. 1910s / 1920s 143
6 Turkish woman from Smyrna (Izmir), 1907, wearing the newly
fashionable transparent white chiffonyashmak 144
7 Three veiled Turkish women showing their ankles andwith
semi-transparent veils, early 1920s 145
8 Schoolgirls wearing chadors, but without face-veils, over
fashionable Western clothing 146
9 Veiled Muslim women at Sarajevo market, Bosnia, 1930s 147
10 Veiled Muslim women, Bulgaria, 1930s 147
11 Some leading figures and army commanderswith their wives
inanofficialceremonyheldinIranontheanniversaryofremoval
of veils 148
12 Women athletes parading, Turkey, 1936 148