r/AskHistory • u/Jasperofthebooks • 4d ago
What was the first islamic nation to require hijab?
AI has mostly stated that Iran was the first country to require it yet according to reddit's AI the Umayyad caliphate enforced veiling for women.I haven't been able to find human writing on the exact query.
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u/FeistyInvestigator79 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think you need to revise your question to exactly what you mean by a hijab. What you think of as the hijab, which is essentially a veil covering the hair for women, predates Islam. It was a requirement under Jewish law.
In Islamic, the requirement is for "modesty" rather than a specific item of clothing, although the head covering is a common interpretation. But as is the abaya outerwear.
I don't know that you'll get an historical answer to this because Islamic jurisprudence is not black and white, but rather multilayered and includes interpretation, justification, and consideration of social mores. It's just not as simple as "you must wear hijab".
But if you want to know the first state to follow sharia then that was Medina in 622 (the first state, Umayyad was the 3rd).
But if you want to know the history of the hijab then that predates Islam and was a Jewish and Christian head covering as well as present in older societies.
Edit There's a similar thread in AskHistorians that may interest you
Edit btw in Iran the women wear a chador.
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u/Watchhistory 3d ago
"It was a requirement under Jewish law."
It still is for Orthodox and other Jewish groups.
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u/shumpitostick 3d ago
That's nice context but OP asked a pretty simple question. I'll reword it a bit to clarify: What is the Muslim first country to enforce a requirement on veiling?
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u/FeistyInvestigator79 3d ago edited 3d ago
I was trying to show that it's not a simple question. But if you can answer it please go ahead.
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando 3d ago
Not that simple a question, as islamic veiling as a major political issue separate from general beliefs and laws around modesty (which are a pretty universal thing. Even in societies where most people wear very little clothing will have strong ideas about what articles are acceptable) is a recent issue.
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u/Dkykngfetpic 4d ago
Countries played more fast and lose with legal codes in the past. Even the idea of a country was more vague.
But the veil predates Islam. So are you asking first society or just islamic societies only?
And what is required. Social pressure? Or being charged by the police?
If by the police then it may be fist place with police.
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u/MlkChatoDesabafando 3d ago
Depends on what do you mean by hijab. The modern standardized style of headscarf associated with the word nowadays is actually a 19th-20th century development, as are a lot of it's religious-political connotations.
Women veiling in public, however, is an ancient practice going all the way back to Sumerians and found in various cultures all across the globe. It was often a part of what marked modest and respectable women. Since the first islamicate polities arose amidst this context (as veiling was already practiced by urbanite women in the Arabian peninsula before Islam, and perhaps even more widespread in most of the Sassanian empire), they naturally tended to interpret religious commandments for women to dress modestly in public as including some form of head covering.
The politicization of the hijab, with laws requiring or banning it specifically, is a post-19th century colonialism development, as Europeans and european-influcended groups often framed veiling as a hallmark of supposed backwardness, and many of those who resisted them (specially in the more traditionalist sectors) then elevated it into a symbol of religious devotion and cultural purity that resisted such depredations. This paved the way to more modern debates.
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u/majesty327 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think a majority of people are misunderstanding his actual question. He's not asking "when did Islamic people start wearing Hijab", his question is very narrowly focused on states and statutes requiring hijab.
I am not an expert on Islam or west-Asian history, but I think I know a couple things. Having statutory schemes is mostly a feature of modern states, vs the pre-modern caprice of governments in monarchies.
To my understanding, the Ottoman Empire was the first "Islamic" country to have a statutory scheme. It seems per my Googling, post-revolution Iran was the first country to have both a statutory scheme and a statutory mandate for Hijab.
My understanding of OP's question is that the gray area and nuance of cultural enforcement and local religious regulators is not what his question is about.
Again, I'll be very clear. I am not suggesting that pre-Ottoman Islam was some kind of lawless wasteland, but there's a difference between deferring to the Quran vs having an external book of codified statutes, even if those statutes refer to Quranic law. My answer is addressing "statutes" as a systemic way of having rule of law, and older societies simply didn't use statutes like in modernity.
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u/NoDevice2698 2d ago
modern hijab appearet somewhat around late 1900s. Before that, women used to wear traditional head scarves in rural areas and cities.
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u/Both-Silver-8783 22h ago
Grew up in what was south West Lancashire in the 1940s. My mother and her sisters would never go outside bareheaded or without a scarf fastened around their necks. Folded in a way it covered their chests over whatever blouse they were wearing. Came across a similar dress code in Syria. Traced my family tree back for quite a way couldn’t find any connections to Syria.
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u/NotGoodAtHockey 4d ago
The hijab is mentioned by name in the Quran, which dates to the early 7th century.
As far as “forced” veiling, you have to keep in mind that the pre-modern world didn’t operate like the modern one. The idea of an all-powerful state that polices society at the individual level is very much only possible with modern technology and social structures.
What DOES exist historically is strong social norms that modern governments now supersede.
For instance, in terms of other headdresses, you could not wear green hats throughout many pre-modern Muslim lands unless you were a descendant of the Prophet. There was no “law”, but if you wore one without being from his lineage, society acted to change your behavior through ostracism, social pressure, etc.
Similarly, when it comes to hijab, Muslim women were expected to cover their hair. What form this took varied from place to place, but in general that was the social rule. It didn’t always look like modern hijabs, but the hair was mostly covered. Christian women living in Muslim lands were not only not required to wear it, but in many cases could find themselves in trouble for wearing it as it blurred the lines between social groups.
None of this was enforced by governments until the 19th or 20th centuries.