The niqab through a foreigner’s eyes [Archives:2008/1126/Last Page]
Sarah Wolff
Swathes of black fabric glide through the streets of Sana'a, floating elegantly toward me as I stumble along the sidewalk. With my too-short abaya, my headscarf coming unwrapped and my heavy and clumsy gait, I am an American woman living in Sana'a – and it seems that everyone knows it.
However, I wouldn't ever complain about Yemen because I'm treated better here than in my own country. Yemenis have a general respect for each other that's extended to foreign visitors and residents and I appreciate this thoroughly. It's the main reason I enjoy living here so much.
People sometimes stare or point at me and every once in awhile, I see them laughing at me and it makes me want to disappear. But lucky for me, there's a way for me to vanish by wearing a niqab, the full-face veil covering all but a woman's eyes.
Although some outside the Muslim world think that wearing the niqab is limiting, I can attest to the advantages to going fully-veiled in Yemen, even for non-Muslims like myself.
Aside from its religious significance, the niqab offers a way to remain anonymous in a globalized and ever-shrinking world. No one can tell that you're a foreigner until you speak, so people assume you're Yemeni, which means cheaper taxi fares, less attention from men on the streets and way less pointing and laughing.
Although I regularly wear a hijab (headscarf) outside the house out of respect for local and Islamic culture, I decided to wear a niqab one day as an experiment. So one morning, I tied a face veil over my abaya and hijab and stepped out the door.
As I walked around Bab Al-Sabah, I imagined that wearing the niqab somehow would make me magically invisible, but I was wrong. In fact, I stood out possibly even more than before.
Because I didn't know that I was supposed to place the niqab's eye slit directly under my lower eyelashes, I had worn mine with the fabric drooping down my nose and my sunglasses stuck through the eye slit.
This immediately gave me away to the nut vendor on the street, who didn't even bother with Arabic. “One hundred riyals, please,” he said in halting English. So much for going incognito.
When I got to my office and told my coworkers about my experiment, they explained what had blown my cover and al-hamdulillah, no one was offended.
However, I correctly wore it home from work that night and found it not only totally uncomfortable (the lower part of my eyes hurt from being rubbed), but also slightly disabling because I had no peripheral vision. I was quite worried about tripping on an errant stick or stone beyond (or below) my eyesight.
As I walked, I kept lowering my head to keep the veil from flying up over my head and exposing me. I soon realized that I was looking down at the street – a lot.
The niqab felt like a barrier between me and everyone else on the street because I could see them, but they couldn't see me. Suddenly, I was a just another black-covered entity without a smile and without a personality.
I became more timid, demure and subtly submissive as I dodged oblivious men on the street, something I never had to do when I went about unveiled.
While wearing a niqab created a tangible distance between myself and others, that just might be the point. As I circled Tahrir Square, I pondered the niqab again. “Tahrir” means “liberation” in Arabic, and I think wearing the veil gives Yemeni women their own sort of liberation.
It's not the same liberation we have in the U.S., nor would I permanently trade my country's version for the Yemeni one. But all the same, it is a type of liberation – at least from being noticed, judged and harassed.
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