From Bikini To Burqini

That’s right. A burqa bathing suit. It covers virtually every inch of her body and most of her head. I had seen many women wearing burqinis during my past trips to the Middle East, but it never ceased to pique my interest. Like so many Western women, I wondered, “Isn’t she warm?” and, “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

Since there is no definitive consensus on what exactly a Muslim woman is supposed to wear, Islamic fashion runs the gamut from more Western-style clothing in countries like Lebanon and Turkey to mandatory burqas in Afghanistan. The concept of being clothed from head to toe at all times is baffling to many Westerners and Muslims alike. However, many Muslim women do choose to wear clothes that conceal most of their body.

Fourteen-year-old Maryam Henson takes pride in her modesty. Maryam and her younger sisters are all wearing long, cape-like veils called khimars, and you can only see their faces. She admits that sometimes she gets hot wearing so many layers in the summer. “Then I just go and stand by an AC and I feel a lot better,” she laughs.

She attends a private Muslim school but says that she would dress the same if she attended public school. She adds that her friends in public school wear uniforms and that what she is wearing is her uniform. She is aware that the way she dresses comes with the baggage of stereotypes. “Sometimes people come up to me and ask me if I am bald. It’s really embarrassing. I have nice hair, it’s just covered up.”

Siddharta Malone also knows a little bit about fitting in and its difficulties. In his eyes many people succumb to peer pressure and forget about the tenets of Islam to assimilate. He sees young Muslim-American women dressing like their non-Muslim peers but thinks that if you need to change how you look, you are not hanging out with the right group of people. “Either you spend time with other Muslims or you hang out with people who accept you for you are,” he says.

Attar, who owns a perfume store in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, says that dressing modestly is in a woman’s best interest. “A woman should go unnoticed on the street. In the West there is so much effort placed on showing as much as possible. I think I should not be able to know what any given woman’s body looks like. Otherwise she draws attention to herself and gets remarks from men.”

In Iran, store owners are even prohibited from dressing mannequins in “un-Islamic” clothing that showcases female curves or neglects to cover the head, while Sudanese journalist Lubna al-Hussein faced a sentence of 40 lashes for wearing too-tight pants.

Not everyone agrees that the Koran stipulates the complete coverage of the female body. Verses 30-31 in the Surah state that women should not “display their ornaments” to anyone but their husbands or direct relatives. It calls for women to cover their bosoms with their veils, although one could argue whether this implies that the head needs to be covered as well. Around the men in her family, a woman can dress however she pleases, but on the street she should not even so much as wear perfume or make up, so as not to attract the gazes of men.

Conversely, backlash against this stricter dress code is also gaining more support. To many, the act of covering up symbolizes the oppression of women. In France, home of the largest Muslim population in Europe, Urban Regeneration Minister Fadela Amara says that the burqa “represents not a piece of fabric but the political manipulation of a religion that enslaves women and disputes the principle of equality between men and women.”

Samara is Egyptian but never wears a headscarf unless she is traveling to countries like Saudi Arabia, where she has no choice but to cover up.

Growing up in Egypt in an affluent family, Samara embraced a more worldly approach to her attire. She says that family plays a large role in the way a Muslim woman decides to dress.

While many believe that men dictate what Muslim women wear, Samara believes that women themselves place a lot of pressure on each other. “You don’t want to be the one that’s covered up while other women are looking beautiful, showing their hair and wearing nice clothes. You’ll encourage others to cover up, ask them for support, when really you just don’t want the competition.”

In recent years Samara has seen Egypt grow more religiously conservative, particularly Egypt’s working-class citizens. This has influenced how women dress, but she thinks this movement may only be temporary. She cites her grandmother as an example. She never wore a headscarf during adolescence, only to end up wearing one in her later life.

In a time where Muslim dress is increasingly polarized—one side arguing that a woman who does not cover herself from head to toes is not virtuous, while the other side decries covering up as a form of social imprisonment—a resolution may not be easy to achieve. Perhaps consensus is not even necessary. A woman should be able to wear whatever she wants, whether it be a bikini or a burqini.