Banning the "Hijab" at Educational Institutions

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Banning the Muslim headscarf and other dress that conspicuously shows religious affiliation has presented considerable controversy in many nations of the Middle-East and West such as Turkey and France. In many of these countries, secularity is a great achievement and is considered to play a crucial role in social harmony and national cohesion. Banning the headscarf has therefore come to reaffirm the countries’ secular foundations.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, many Muslims have viewed the ban as a public suppression of the Islamic identity and a sign of cultural intolerance. Refusing the recognition of headscarves has meant refusing not only the faith which accompanies them but the other symbols for which they stand.

What are these symbols? Why wear a piece of cloth on your head? While the “hijab,” or Muslim headscarf, is essentially a form of religious dress and expression and is often understood to be a way of protecting women’s modesty, there is a larger rationale behind the wearing of this scarf, which often goes ignored: it is a means of equalizing women so as to allow others to interact with them on a more intellectual, rather than a sexual, level. This garment worn by many women, this means of self-presentation, this whole way of behavior is so people judge a woman not by the degree to which she exposes her body and her outward appearance, but by her character, personal qualities, and inner beauty. As a female, American, Muslim, at an Ivy League institution, in a nation where tolerance and the acceptance of pluralism is for the most part prevalent, I have only to say that where there is a multiplicity of faiths, a commitment to tolerance implies respect for, and public recognition of, them all. Refusing that recognition, especially if the refusal is given the force of law, is perhaps just another form of prejudice. After all, such laws infringe on Muslim women’s right not only to freely practice their beliefs but also to get educated, which makes such policies just as intolerant as those of the radical Muslims or the Taliban that deny women education.