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Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance. Fadwa El Guindi. New York: Berg, 1999. 242 pp.
This study is an engrossing, scholarly, and comprehensive analysis of the veil in its historical, social, and contemporary political context. It distinguishes between hijab (head covering) and the face-veil, and it challenges Western ideas of the veil as a symbol of women's oppression in Islamic societies. El Guindi focuses on the multilayered areas of women's cultural identity. By drawing on the analysis of data and personal fieldwork, she synthesizes ethnography, history, Qur'anic text, Hadith (sayings of Muhammad), and Tafsir (interpretations) (p. iv). In her own words, El Guindi is bridging two orientations to Middle Eastern phenomena, "that of scholars of Religious and Islamic Studies, who rely heavily on textual sources, and that of anthropologists of the Middle East, who rely heavily on contemporary ethnography" (p. xiii). Her interest in visual anthropology and the anthropology of dress in its sociocultural context captures the meanings people give dress in their everyday lives. Presentation of numerous photographs and art accompany her descriptions and analyses, making the reading of the study extremely enjoyable.
The author documents how the veil occurred historically in earlier periods, such as the Persian, Hellenic Byzantine, and Greek, but feels that viewing it only as borrowed lessens its cultural use. Certainly in most Mediterranean and desert cultures, covering parts of the body in deference to the sun and sand is quite rational. Not confined to Muslims, it was an urban phenomenon associated mostly with the upper classes. Christian Coptic women wore long veils until the early 1900s when Western Christian missionaries influenced them against it. Most discussions are in...