Other than the actual mosque itself, there are few things that are as closely identified with Islam as the burka. The garment is associated with a woman’s devotion to her faith. Without delving into the gender rights related arguments and criticism surrounding the burka, there is still a lot to understanding the background of this attire.
For those who are unfamiliar, a burka is a full-length body covering garment worn predominantly by Muslim women following specific Islamic traditions. The word is seemingly as mystic as the garment itself: our word is the Hindi spelling of the Arab burqa, but, in origin, comes from the Persian purda, meaning curtain or veil.
The reason for the burka is based around modesty in dress and behaviour while in public, but how did this come to be? Since it is commonly viewed in a religious context, we can follow the two Quranic verses that address the burka: “Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the faithful to draw their outergarments close around themselves; that is better that they will be recognized and not annoyed (Surah 33, Verse 59), and “And say to the faithful women to lower their gazes, and to guard their private parts, and not to display their beauty except what is apparent of it, and to extend their headcoverings (khimars) to cover their bosoms (jaybs), and not to display their beauty” (Surah 24, Verse 31). Moving beyond a religious meaning and actually pre-dating Islam itself, this concept of modesty is ethnically derived, being related to a sense of Namus, which is a considered a virtue in the Middle Eastern character and is synonymous with a sense of honour, modesty, and respectability. And since the Quran was written by Middle Easterners in the Middle East, there is the potential that the concept of Namus influenced the dress requirements mentioned in the Quran.
In English, the first known usage of the word occurred in Edward William Lane’s 1836 work, The Manners & Customs of the Modern Egyptians, stating that, “The burka, or face-veil, which is a long strip of white muslin, concealing the whole of the face except the eyes, and reaching nearly to the feet.” Kipling, a half-century later, in Beyond Pale from 1888’s Plain Tales from the Hills, makes mention of the more obscure male wearing a burka: “He went..clad in a burka, which cloaks a man as well as a woman.” Finally, writing in 1905, William H. Hunt reminds everyone of the reason for burkas in Pre-Raphaelitism, noting that, “His pleadings to be allowed to satisfy his eyes as to the features hidden under the black burka.”
