***** 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.