As the months have passed since the war in Iraq, fewer women — Muslims and Christians alike — are daring to venture out without wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf, according to a recent report by the Washington Post.

"Because of the current situation in the country, lack of security, the occupation and many other things, people started to look for a way to escape the terror," a psychology professor at Baghdad University told the Washington Post. "They want to hide or take shelter to protect themselves. For women, the scarf is the best way to protect them. Women believe the scarf will be the wall to prevent people from looking at them."

Before the war, Iraqi Christian women rarely put on scarves. There was no reason to do so, according to Christian women interviewed recently. "Their religion did not dictate it, Muslims and Christians in Iraq got along peacefully and they said they felt no pressure to blend in," the Washington Post reported. "Even a few months ago, the sight of a Christian woman without a scarf or a Catholic nun in a habit was not uncommon in neighborhoods where Christians gathered."

Moderate Muslim women, also, used to feel they had a choice whether to wear the scarf, the news agency reported, even as religious oppression under Saddam Hussein grew over the past decade. Now, in many neighbourhoods, it is hard to find a woman outdoors without a head scarf.

Many of the women interviewed by the news agency said these days Iraqi society feels like it has lost its social compact, its religious tolerance. "Christians feel singled out. Anyone associated with the Americans, any foreign military force or the interim government feels singled out," the news agency went on to report.

Although Iraq is predominantly Muslim, for many decades its capital was a "trendy, modern city." In the 1960s, women wore short skirts and blouses with low necklines. But their daughters say they do not have such freedom today. They blame a postwar insurgency bolstered by conservative hard-liners.

According to the beliefs of conservative Muslims, women should cover their heads to hide their beauty and not tempt the men who see them. Such instructions are spelled out in the Koran, the Islamic holy book.

Today, the practice of wearing head scarves varies widely throughout the Islamic world, from more secular countries such as Turkey where many women dress in the Western style, to strict religious societies such as Saudi Arabia where all women cover their heads and most of their faces in public.

And now, for women in Iraq, wearing the scarves is a way to avoid being singled out and followed, or kidnapped, or shot. As stated by the Washington Post, "It was more than a matter of blending in. It was a matter of disappearing into the landscape."




Kenneth Chan
Ecumenical Press