Five Hearts of Historical-Social Reality Regarding Mandatory Hijab

The issue of mandatory hijab is a highly contentious topic among Islamists and their critics, both in terms of its religious, legal, and practical implications in Iranian society. The religious, historical, and social facts related to it have become very tangled and confusing. In this article, I challenge some of the historical and social claims and assertions related to it. Iranian Hijab-Wearing Women: Majority or Minority? Abdolkarim Soroush, in a speech at George Washington University on July 11, 2014, states: "This society [the West] considers one type of clothing good, and our society considers another type of clothing good" (YouTube). He speaks of the lack of hijab in Western societies and hijab in Iranian society. In the following sentences, he introduces hijab as something preferred by Iranian society. The implication of his statement is that Iranian society views hijab positively. He attributes this solely to the rational values of societies (and not moral judgments) and believes that the customs should be considered in this matter. Islamists and religious intellectuals have always considered hijab to be the desire and value of the majority of the Iranian people without even a single field survey. Of course, some of them have denied the dictatorship of the majority in this regard. However, attributing the customary nature of hijab to Iranian society distorts the reality. In Iran, before the establishment of the Islamic Republic, no fieldwork has been done to show that the majority of women in society prefer hijab. During the Islamic Republic, women are not free in their dress to observe what type of clothing the majority prefer. Independent polling institutions and freedom of expression do not exist in Iran to discover this issue through surveys. Is mandatory hijab legal? On June 15, 2014, 195 members of parliament wrote a letter to Rouhani for the implementation of the hijab and chastity law. Many officials of the Islamic Republic introduce it as a legal matter when the issue of hijab arises, although individual rights cannot be violated by law, even if they are in the minority. However, if we look at the issue of mandatory hijab from a historical perspective, hijab was not made mandatory by law in society. The enforcement of mandatory hijab was carried out through coercive powers (the Revolutionary Guard, Basij, and Hezbollah) and through violence and repression, and it became legally mandatory after its enforcement, not the other way around. The first law mandating hijab was passed in 1983 (Clause 102 of the Punishment Law), which is currently appended as a clause to Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code passed in 1996, meaning that after five years of women being forced to wear hijab through beatings, threats, and violence in the streets, this law was approved. The establishment of a religious government was so unexpected for the rulers that they had no specific program in advance for these matters and tried to impose their will through trial and error. The situation in offices regarding hijab in 1979? Reza Alijani, in an interview with a Persian-language television network on May 6, 2015, states that when the Islamic Republic wanted to make hijab mandatory, most women working in offices were hijab-wearing. The ideologues of that period usually introduced hijab as the demand of the majority or the prevailing reality (with a small minority of opponents). This statement does not align with the facts. I demonstrate its inconsistency only by quoting from the memoirs of Hassan Rouhani: "The issue of women's dress and hijab in March 1979 was not without problems and occupied the officials for a long time. After February 11, when organizations and government offices began their work and schools also resumed activities in mid-March, a large number of female employees and schoolgirls appeared in government offices without hijab and sometimes hijab-wearing women were in the minority among them. Some nurses, doctors, and female teachers also went to work without headscarves, and in the streets, women without hijab were also present. Of course, hijab-wearing women were also numerous and could be seen everywhere... The plan to make hijab mandatory in offices related to the army was assigned to me, and for this reason, in the first step, I gathered all the female employees stationed at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who numbered nearly thirty, and after talking to them, we agreed that starting the next day, they would appear at work with headscarves. The female employees, all but two or three of whom were without hijab, began to grumble and make a fuss, but I stood firm and said: Starting tomorrow morning, the military police at the entrance must prevent women without hijab from entering the Joint Chiefs of Staff area. After the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was the turn of the three forces. Initially, I went to the Dushan Tappeh barracks and gathered all the female employees, who were numerous, in a hall and talked about hijab. There, the women made a lot of noise, but I firmly stated that this is an order and disobedience is not permissible. I then explained that we are not saying to wear a chador; the issue is not about chador, but about wearing a headscarf and covering the head and neck. Ultimately, I also said that we had instructed the military police that starting tomorrow, no woman without hijab would be allowed into the base." (Memoirs of Dr. Hassan Rouhani, Volume 1, pages 571-573, quoted from Mashregh News, May 25, 2014) The religious people apparently do not want to accept the ugliness and disgrace of mandatory hijab and want to reduce the ugliness of this act by claiming the majority of hijab-wearers in offices in 1979 and 1980. The atmosphere in offices in the 1970s was such that hijab-wearing women were in the minority, and the Islamic Republic had to fire a significant number of women to enforce hijab. Additionally, many women who could not accept mandatory hijab resigned from their jobs. Thus, the share of women in the public sector workforce decreased from 11.1% in 1976 to about 6.8% in 1986, despite the ongoing war and the need for women's labor in the rear. Mandatory hijab, a significant religious directive of many Shia clerics in Iran, has been portrayed as an implementation of religious law through the enforcement of mandatory hijab and the repression of women opposing this. They have extended this narrative to the years 1979 to 1983 and attribute the enforcement of mandatory hijab to those who had religious concerns. This claim distorts reality. They know that in the Quran and Sharia, hijab is not mandatory for those who do not believe or for non-Muslims, and believers also have the option of hijab. Not wearing hijab for a believing woman is also considered a sin that can be resolved between herself and her God. Thus, mandatory hijab in "Sharia not reliant on coercive power" is fundamentally rejected. Mohammad Reza Zibaie Nejad, director of the Women's and Family Research Center in Qom, explains well the dependence of mandatory hijab on political power and access to coercive forces: "If the government had power and there was no significant issue in front of it, meaning you prioritized and there was an issue that was more important, it should go and pursue it... I agree with the general idea that the government should set regulations for every sin with these two conditions that I mentioned, namely power and expediency." (A, June 1, 2015) The government relies on power to enforce hijab and considers it in its own interest. Regarding human rights and the issue of mandatory hijab, which violates them, Ali Khamenei states: "In the matter of human rights, our position is not defensive; our position is offensive. Let’s mourn here that human rights have been violated in the Islamic Republic; because Americans and Zionists and the media have said so! Is this correct?! You have an offensive position on this issue. Now sit with your hands folded and grieve that a representative somewhere has said that you should take better care of your human rights! Is this a statement? In the issue of women, your position is not defensive; it is offensive. Their objection to us is why your women have hijab; why is hijab mandatory? They themselves have also made hijab mandatory; this is a reciprocal issue." (July 16, 2004) Khamenei attempts to present the enforcement of mandatory hijab as a response to the mandatory lack of hijab in the West, which is fundamentally baseless. Clerics, after coming to power, sought to impose their lifestyle and were unconcerned with other societies. Three distortions of truth are expressed in Khamenei's speech: 1) Westerners have never stated in any text or speech why the women of the Islamic Republic officials have hijab unless Khamenei considers all the women of the country as his own women or "the women of the regime"; Iranian women have not transferred their autonomy to Khamenei in any contract; 2) In no Western country is lack of hijab mandatory. It may be the case that in some countries, for certain positions or access to certain places, women are required to be without head coverings, but this is not generalized. Especially in the two countries he mentions, namely the United States and Israel, the choice of attire in public and in work and educational environments is free; and 3) Even assuming that something has been imposed on individuals in Western countries, does that give officials of another country the right to impose their reciprocal actions on another group?...................................................................................................... The author's opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Radio Farda. 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