Brunei – Headscarf/Veil/Tudong

Santi Soekanto and

Muhammad Ali Mu’izz

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

20-Apr-07

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM is an Islamic state and
women in headscarves are easily found across the country, but do they
understand what veiling is in Islam and why they are doing it?

The Brunei Times spoke to a dozen of women in tudong and asked them how
disciplined they were about it.

Yanee, a 16-year-old student of PTE, says she wears the headscarf
because it is compulsory and because her parents taught her to wear it
from an early age. However, she takes it off when she is participating in
outdoor activities.

One UBD student, Nurul, wears the headscarf because she says she
respects her religion but does so only when she attends religious
functions and government business events.

Another young woman says she wears it because it is wajib and because
“it looks good on me.” However, when she goes out for activities that will
make her sweat, such as hiking and jogging, she discards her tudong.

Adlina, a student, 17, says she faithfully wears it because she is a
Muslim and because her parents taught her to. “I always wear it, except at
home when there are no visitors.”

Aidah, 19, an A-level graduate, has an interesting response. She says
she wears it “Just to look good, and sometimes to respect days like
Friday. If I’m going to government buildings like MoE, JPD and school, I
do wear tudong. I also wear it during religious functions or weddings. But
if I’m going elsewhere, I usually don’t wear the tudong.”

Yet another student, who is 16, says she wears the tudong “only because
it is part of my school uniform and only during class at school and at
places where it is really compulsory to wear it.”

Sarah, a 26-year-old teacher, says she wears a tudong because “it is
proper” to do so and because she wants to set a good example for the young
women. Salmah, a 42-year-old housewife, says firmly “I wear it because I
am a Muslim and I want to be a good example for my children. I wear it
everywhere except at home when I am alone or with my family.”

These women do not speak for the rest of the Muslim women population
here, but their remarks give us an idea that not all Muslim women in
Brunei understand that veiling is a commandment in Islam. Allah says in
the Quran (Surah An-Nur) “And say to the believing women that they should
lower their gaze and guard their modesty: they should not display their
adornments except what must ordinarily appear thereof; that they should
draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty.”

Clear guidelines accompany the ruling on hijab and spelled out both in
the Quran and in hadith, including when it is all right for the women to
take off their hijab.

Maybe not many Bruneian women who realise they are privileged to be
able to take up the hijab, but women in many other parts of the world have
gone through difficulties in order to cover.

Countless pages have been dedicated to discuss the veiling of women in
Islam, and much furore has been raised to defend or defile the simple of
piece of cloth that is so laden with values and symbolicism. Very often,
the discourse does not advance much from these two questions: Is hijab a
symbol of oppression of Muslim women and is it really a religious
obligation or merely a cultural fixture?

The speculation about oppression was more or less effectively quashed
during the uproar France’s Law Against Ostentatious Religious Symbols
which banned hijab in schools several years ago. It was hard to reconcile
the stereotype of Muslim women being an oppressed lot with the fact that
it was women themselves, coming out in thousands, who organised rallies to
protest the ban. “My body is my business. Hijab is my right,” the veiled
women chanted in Paris, London, and in many other major cities in the
world, decrying the discrimination against women who cover rather than
uncover in the streets. Studies have been conducted to determine whether
France was an exception in Europe because reports of unequal treatment of
women in hijab continue to surface in many countries.

Britain has been amongst the most friendly towards women in hijab and
Ireland has an Equality Authority that acts swiftly to solve any
discriminatory acts – which are against the laws. In Nowary, a furniture
store fired a Muslim woman in 2004 because she refused to take off her
hijab, but the authority moved quickly and the woman was re-employed. In
Sweden, which has the largest number of Muslims in the Nordic European
countries, little action was taken against the hijab. In Denmark both
students and teachers have the right to wear it in schools and
universities. The question of hijab for students is not a problem in the
German schools but at least two states have banned teachers from wearing
the headscarf. Holland has an issue about burqa, the covering that only
allows a slit for the eyes.

Turkey is different. Its laws forbid the wearing of hijab in schools,
in universities, and in public offices. For instance, the University of
Istanbul denied a student, Leyla Sahlin, to pass her examinations in the
Faculty of Medicine because she was wearing hijab. In the eyes of the
European Court of Justice, Turkey has not violated Article 9 on the
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

The Brunei Times