At the same time...

At the same time, we do not want to say that the security of a woman against the aggression of a man is not at all to be considered. We will discuss this when we refer to the verse on Jilbab. We also do not feel that this issue is irrelevant today and that women have total security against the aggression of men. All one has to do is to read the newspapers about the crimes committed against women in the western world.

LESSON TWO REASONS GIVEN FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIJAB - PART II Our discussion will centre on the issue of the hijab in Islam but as we had mentioned, we must first hold a more general discussion because the hijab is not exclusive to Islam. That is, it is not the idea that the hijab appeared for the first time in the world with Islam. It existed in ancient India and in ancient Iran, as well. The hijab which ancient India and Iran had was much stricter then that which Islam brought.

of course, if we take the Arabian peninsula into consideration, the Islamic hijab was established, not imitated. That is Islam imported the hijab into the Arabian peninsula but it existed in non-Arab lands throughout the world. It is a phenomena which existed during non-Islamic times. Philosophical, social, economic, ethical and psychological reasons have been given as the cause for the development of this phenomenon and as to how it happened that the hijab came to appear in history among people.

It is necessary to mention these reasons because they have said that these are the causes for the appearance of the hijab and that it first appeared because of certain very particular conditions which existed in those times. Conditions where by it was, perhaps, necessary for it to be but now that those conditions no longer exist, there is no reason for the hijab.

Thus, we have to see what the reasons mentioned are, whether or not they are the real causes or is it, as some people say that which caused the hijab to come into being was unjust, that from the very beginning the hijab itself was imposed upon women. If this is so, they conclude that this is even more reason why it should never come into being. In the last discussion we mentioned two reasons, one of which was the sense of insecurity.

We said that this has been mentioned as a reason for women wearing the hijab. The other reason mentioned was the sense of asceticism, the sense of struggling against sexual urges. This is something which existed in the world, in both the East and the West.