Burkas & Classes

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>  >Chris is talking about the Northern >Alliance, not the Taliban.  It was the
>>Taliban who required women to wear >Burkas, not the NA.  Duh!
>
>I lost the thread, but this is a very specific point. The burka has been
>around a lot longer than the Taliban, and there are cultures which the NA
>draws on that also require it (fundamentalist shia I believe). Just because
>some women in Kabul can now unveil doesn't mean that many where the custom
>is long-standing would dare to.
>
>Charles Jannuzi

*****   The Qur'an tells women: "Draw your head coverings across your 
necks and bosoms."  There is nothing about covering from head to 
foot.  The chador and veil originate from pre-Islamic Persia, and was 
a sign of the status of upper class women.  Slave girls did not cover 
themselves in this way, neither did any other female servant. 
Indeed, in the Hajj, no woman is permitted to wear any sort of veil.

<http://www.islamfortoday.com/taleban3.htm>   *****

*****   The Hindu women belonging to the elitist class including my 
maternal grandmother wore the burka, the type of veil worn by the 
upper class Muslim women in North India and never stepped out of 
their houses except in a palinquin.  On the other hand a Kashmiri 
Muslim woman's dress was more practical.

<http://www.chennaionline.com/columns/DownMemoryLane/diary72.asp>   *****

*****   She wore an Arabian style head-to-toe 'burka'.  Islamic 
influence could also be seen from the fact that Kashmiri Hindu upper 
caste women observed 'pardah' (the veil) and wore a 'burka' similar 
to that worn by the Muslim upper class women.

<http://www.chennaionline.com/columns/DownMemoryLane/diary84.asp>   *****

Burka, chador, pardah, etc. had -- & still have -- more to do with 
*class-specific* gender oppression than religion, national culture, 
regional culture, rural culture, etc, I think.  Only the relatively 
rich men could *afford* to cover women in their lives from head to 
toe and keep them always inside, exempting them from labor in the 
outside.