Of late the niqab, or full veil, has been
used less cheerfully. On December13th
Yemeni authorities said its police had
shot dead several al-Qaeda militants
who were disguised as fully veiled women.
On December1st a black-veiled woman
stabbed to death an American teacher
in an Abu Dhabi shopping centre.
The incident provoked a rare flutter of
debate in the Gulf, mostly on Twitter and
other social media, over whether the
niqab should be restricted as a security
threat.
Separately a Saudi sheikh, Ahmed
al-Ghamdi,
was criticised and threatened
with death after declaring on television
that Islam does not require women to
cover their faces (his wife was interviewed,
bare-faced, alongside him).
The use and abuse of the niqab is
nothing new. Nuri al-Said, a former Iraqi
prime minister, tried to escape Baghdad
after the 1958 revolution by donning one,
but was caught and killed.
Western journalists have at times availed themselves of the garment to slip in to difficult places.
Some countries have restricted the
niqab as a symbol of the repression of
women (or a security measure).
France and Belgium have banned the full veil in public.
Muslim-majority Turkey prevents
women from wearing it in some places.
Some women claim the niqab sets them
free and say that the prohibitions infringe
their rights.
But in July the European
Court of Human Rights upheld the ban
introduced by France in 2011.
As in the Arabian Nights, full veiling
can be a means of getting around conservative
social conventions. Saudi women, for instance, recount how they use the niqab to meet boyfriends or lovers incognito. Still, on the whole, the niqab gives men the edge in cross-dressing.
On December15th a Saudi woman dressed as a man to watch a football game in Jeddah;
she was spotted and arrested.