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| Purdah hai purdah Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) views obliquely his veiled beloved (Neetu Singh) in ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’ |
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| Mirza Ghalib, who played with the purdah motif |
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| A model on the Paris runway |
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| The romance of the veil |
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| Veiled protest |
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| Mirza Ghalib in one of his famous couplets admits to having had serial affairs with veiled women, and begs Allah not to look at his nama-e-a’amal or list of deeds. He invokes the Islamic ruling that forbids gazing at women as being an ignoble act, and leans on it to imply that the same applies to the gaze of the Almighty as well |
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| Rasul Mir, a 19th century romantic Koshur poet, is captivated by the contours of his beloved’s breasts. In one of his poems, while beckoning his beloved Kungi, he describes her ‘fiery breasts’ as inverted domes, rebelliously inverting the concept of holiness by locating it in the body of his beloved. Fittingly, Rasul Mir is buried inside the compound of a large mosque in Dooru, Islamabad, in Kashmir |
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 The veil has a romantic side too. For centuries, the burqa, hijab, niqab or purdah have inspired romantic poetry: ghazals and poems in Urdu, Farsi, and my mother tongue Koshur(Kashmiri), as well as many other languages that flourish in Muslim cultures from Sindh to Samarkand and Delhi to Dhaka, all are replete with references to the enchanting veil.The mystery of this romance is that the beloved is behind the veil, away from the pernicious gaze of society or ‘zamana’. Even the romances that incubate inside the burqa and the flaming passions that are generated and struggle for an outlet must remain hidden, adding to the intensity and charm of the romance.
In classical Farsi and Urdu poetry, the beloved is always veiled, enhancing the pain of longing and love, and intensifying the desire for union. Even when the meeting finally takes place, desire remains un-satiated, and this provokes an even greater desire for a more complete unveiling. There is always a demand for more. A modern Urdu poet sums up the feeling:
na ji bhar kay dekha na kutch baat ki
badi arzoo thi mulaqat ki
(I could not see or talk much; I longed so much for union)
Mirza Ghalib in one of his famous couplets admits to having had serial affairs with veiled women, and begs Allah not to look at his nama-e-a’amal or list of deeds. He invokes the Islamic ruling that forbids gazing at women as being an ignoble act, and leans on it to imply that the same applies to the gaze of the Almighty as well. Ghalib’s stated intention, however, is to save the honour of those veiled beauties. In one of his ghazals he says:
The shroud veiled the wound of the flaws of nakedness
The veil becomes an object of beatification and respect, not for any religious reason, but because of what it holds inside – the most precious and priceless object that is the essence of the beloved. Because it is covering a precious object, the veil itself attains the status of that object. The burqa, which some have described as a shapeless tent, becomes an aastana or shrine. The respect it inspires resembles what Qays ibn al-Mulawwah (better known as Majnun of Layla-Majnun fame) felt for Layla’s house. In one of the poems Qays, the Majnun, says:
I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla
And I kiss this wall and that wall
It’s not Love of the houses that has taken my heart
But of the One who dwells in those houses
But the need to unveil the beloved is a part of the very metaphor of veiling: in the classic Bollywood film Amar Akbar Anthony , Rishi Kapoor’s Akbar sings a qawwali in a theatre before his beloved, who is wearing a burqa. Cries Akbar (in a cheeky and playful demeanour):
Veil o veil!
Behind the veil
Is the One
And if I don’t unveil her beauty
My name ain’t Akbar!
There is also, of course, the veiled One’s rebuttal to every prudah-tearing Akbar. In the film Nikah (1982) there is a verbal duel between groups of men and women in the form of a sung aawwali. The men sing:
Chehra chupa liya hai kisi nay hijab mein
Ji chahata hai aag laga doon naqab mein
(Someone has hidden her face beneath the hijab
I wish I could set the niqab on fire)
And the women’s reply is:
Bijali thi ik jo hum ne chhupa li naqab mein
Lag jaati varna aag tumhaare shabab mein
(It is lightning that we have covered with our niqab
Otherwise it would have set your youth on fire.)
Others have not been so subtle in demanding a carnal encounter. One of the greatest modern Urdu poets, Ahmad Faraz (1931-2008), questions the wisdom of the veil by emphasizing the earthly (and therefore legitimate) nature of human desire:
You are not God and my love is not angelic
Being humans why should we meet under so many veils
Muslim as well as non-Muslim politicians have described the veil as a limitation. But they seem unfamiliar with its other life as motif and metaphor for the preciousness of the human soul, not to mention its storied sexual role: Rasul Mir, a 19thcentury romantic Koshur poet, is captivated by the contours of his beloved’s breasts and venerates them, often employing religious symbols. In one of his poems he describes the breasts of his beloved as objects of desire for all those who are in love. These are rotund and sweet as pomegranates, and he prays for them during his nocturnal supplications. In one of his poems, while beckoning his beloved Kungi , he describes her ‘fiery breasts’ as inverted domes, rebelliously inverting the concept of holiness by locating it in the body of his beloved. Fittingly, Rasul Mir is buried inside the compound of a large mosque in Dooru, Islamabad, in Kashmir. When I visited his grave in 2006, it was decorated like a Sufi shrine, bedecked with flowers and burning incense. A small signboard there read: Aashiq Rasul Mir .
Many people, including Islamic scholars, argue that the veil affords safety and security to women. This is most applicable to places like Afghanistan or the tribal areas of Pakistan, where women have been bartered to settle family or clan feuds, or raped and kidnapped by warlords because of their beauty. In many conservative Muslim cultures, the burqa offers a necessary anonymity to women to negotiate cultural taboos and frontiers without being noticed as ‘a particular woman’, and shields them from unwarranted male attention. In this way, the burqa becomes important and very convenient to go to the cinema or to meet your mahboob or lover, or simply to wander around without attracting male attention.
(Also worth noting is the fact that under the safety and anonymity of the burqa, many women from once financially secure families can go out and beg for alms and food. In Kashmir, India, Iran and Turkey, I have seen women begging with their veils on as it protects their family’s reputation.)
There are poetic references that place the veil as the main defence for women against the evils of society, particularly from the prying eyes of lascivious males. An Urdu couplet set in a mischievous idiom counsels women:
Don’t let that scarf fall off your breast
Or else even the old would pray for their youth to come back
And now for a piece of my own experience: after last year’s news of arow between Saudi Princess SaraAl-Amoudi and her Swedish boyfriendPatrick Ribbsaeter, a photograph of her appeared in a black veil with only her eyes showing. It provoked an instant nostalgia for my college days, and I couldn’t help but mumble a Koshur song that addresses a burqa-clad beauty:
Chi hai chak nara wuzmul
Krehnis hai burqas tal
(You are a bolt of lightning, flashing fire Under this black burqa)
Murtaza Shibli is a London based writer and consultant on Muslim issues in Europe and South Asia. He is also the editor of '7/7: Muslim Perspectives', a book that explores the British Muslim reaction to the London bombings |
