Iftekhar Ahmed, Ahmadiyya Archive and Research Centre
In Europe, the headscarf has been a hot topic for ages. Not a day goes by without encountering some mention of it, whether in newspapers or, nowadays, on social media. Recently, I stumbled upon a post on X (formerly Twitter) by an Islamic studies professor. He attempted to argue that no explicit commandment to wear a headscarf existed in the Holy Quran.
I am taking this as an opportunity to write a response, presenting my perspective and attempting to substantiate the head covering commandment from the Holy Quran and other relevant sources.
The head covering for believing Muslim women was made obligatory in two verses of the Holy Quran, and not merely in the ahadith, as some might expect. Unfortunately, many English translations of these Quranic verses often miss crucial parts of their meaning. For a better understanding, I therefore provide below translations of the relevant passages from classical Arabic dictionaries:
The Holy Quran states:
وَقُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ […] وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَىٰ جُيُوبِهِنَّ
“And say to the believing women […], and that they draw their head-coverings over their bosoms.” (Surah an-Nur, Ch.24: V.32)
Elsewhere it is written:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُل لِّأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِن جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ
“O Prophet! tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers that they should draw close to them portions of their (loose) outer coverings.” (Surah al-Ahzab, Ch.33: V.60)
There are some modernists who maintain that khumur (sing. khimar) does not explicitly mean head coverings, and that jalabib (sing. jilbab) does not refer to garments that cover the head. This contradicts both the understanding of all those who interpreted this verse before modernity, as well as the relevant dictionaries of Classical Arabic.
For example, in Kitab al-ʿAyn by al-Farahidi (d. 170/790), the first ever dictionary of the Arabic language and one of the earliest dictionaries overall known to us, it states:
والجلباب: ثوب أوسع من الخمار دون الرداء، تغطي به المرأة رأسها وصدرها
“The jilbab is a garment larger than a head covering (khimar), smaller than a robe (rida’) with which a woman covers her head and her chest.” (Al-Khalil b. Ahmad al-Farahidi, 1982, Kitab al-‘Ayn, ed. Mahdi al-Makhzumi, Ibrahim as-Samarraʼi, Baghdad: Wizarat ath-Thaqafa wa-l-Iʻlam; Dar ar-Rashid, Vol. 6, p. 132)
And in the dictionary Tahdhib al-lugha by Abu Mansur al-Azhari (d. 370/980), it states:
والخمار: ما تغطي به المرأة رأسها
“And the khimar is what a woman covers her head with.” (Al-Azhari, 2001, Tahdhib al-lugha, ed. Muhammad ʻAwad Murʻib, Beirut: Dar Ihya’ at-Turath al-‘Arabi, Vol 7, p. 162)
And:
وقال الليث: الجلباب: ثوب أوسع من الخمار دون الرداء، تغطي به المرأة رأسها وصدرها
“And al-Layth [b. Sa‘d] (d. 175/791) said: The jilbab is a garment larger than a head covering (khimar), smaller than a robe (rida’) with which a woman covers her head and her chest.” (Ibid., Vol. 11, p. 64)
Furthermore, in the dictionary al-Mughrib by al-Mutarrizi (d. 610/1213), it is written:
منه الخمار وهو ما تغطي به المرأة رأسها وقد اختمرت وتخمرت إذا لبست الخمار
“And derived from it is the khimar, and it is that with which a woman covers her head, and ikhtamarat and takhammarat means: She donned a khimar.” (Al-Mutarrizi, 1979, al-Mughrib fi tartib al-mu‘rib, Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-ʻArabi, p. 154)
Al-Fayyumi (d. 770/1368) writes in al-Misbah al-munir, a glossary of Islamic legal terminology:
الخمار: ثوب تغطي به المرأة رأسها والجمع (خمر) […]. و(اختمرت) المرأة و(تخمرت) لبست الخمار
“The khimar is a garment that a woman covers her head with […]. And ikhtamarat and takhammarat regarding a woman means: She donned a khimar.” (Al-Fayyumi, 1977, al-Misbah al-munir fi gharib ash-Sharh al-kabir, ed. ʻAbd al-ʻAzim ash-Shinnawi, Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, Vol. 1, p. 181)
In al-Firuzabadi’s (d. 817/1414) al-Qamus al-muhit, it states:
والخمار، بالكسر: النصيف
“Khimar (with a kasra) means nasif.” (Al-Firuzabadi, 2005, al-Qamus al-muhit, ed. Muhammad Naʻim al-ʻIrqsusi, Beirut: Muʼassasat al-Risala, p. 387)
And under nasif we read:
الخمار والعمامة، وكل ما غطى الرأس
“The head covering, and the turban, and everything with which one covers the head.” (Ibid., p. 856)
These same meanings are reproduced in other renowned works, such as the dictionaries Lisan al-‘Arab by Ibn Manzur (d. 711/1312) and Taj al-‘arus by Murtada al-Zabidi (d. 1205/1790).
Therefore, firstly, in chapter 33, verse 60 of the Holy Quran, there is a clear commandment from God to believing women that they should don a jilbab, that is, a cloak that covers the head and the chest.
Secondly, the Quranic expression khumur in chapter 24, verse 32 of the Holy Quran clearly assumes that head coverings were already present on the heads of women and now only needed to be folded over their bosoms.
Ibn ‘Atiyya (d. 542/1141) explains the scenario at the time of the Holy Prophetsa in his exegetical work al-Muharrar al-wajiz in the following words:
وسبب هذه الآية أن النساء كن في ذلك الزمان إذا غطين رؤوسهن بالأخمرة سدلنها من وراء الظهر
“And the reason for this verse was that there were women at that time who, while they covered their heads with head coverings, these clothes hung down behind their backs.” (Ibn ‘Atiyya, 2001, al-Muharrar al-wajiz fi tafsir al-Kitab al-ʻAziz, ed. ʻAbd as-Salam ʻAbd ash-Shafi Muhammad, Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, Vol. 4, p. 178)
Those women who did not possess a head covering, of course, had to procure one. This is clear from the reaction of the women of that time to the revealed verses, which is mentioned in authentic ahadith. Two narrations of a hadith are cited by al-Bukhari in his Sahih in the Book of Exegesis under verse 32 of chapter 24 of the Holy Quran:
عن عائشة رضي الله عنها، قالت: يرحم الله نساء المهاجرات الأول، لما أنزل الله: {وليضربن بخمرهن على جيوبهن} شققن مروطهن فاختمرن بها
“‘A’ishara said: May Allah have mercy on the first emigrant women. When Allah gave the commandment: ‘and that they draw their head-coverings over their bosoms,’ they tore their cloths and used them as head coverings.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab at-Tafsir, Bab: Wa-l-yadribna bi-khumurihinna ‘ala juyubihinna, Hadith no. 4758)
And:
عن صفية بنت شيبة: أن عائشة رضي الله عنها كانت تقول لما نزلت هذه الآية: {وليضربن بخمرهن على جيوبهن} أخذن أزرهن فشققنها من قبل الحواشي فاختمرن بها
“It is reported from Safiyya bint Shayba that ‘A’ishara used to say: When the verse ‘and that they draw their head coverings over their bosoms’ was revealed, the women [of the Ansar] took their aprons and tore them from the edges and used them as head coverings.” (Ibid., Hadith no. 4759)
The expression ikhtamarna biha, which appears at the end of these narrations, does not mean, as sometimes claimed, “they covered their faces with them,” but rather “they used them as a khimar,” and as already explained above, khimar means head covering.
Another hadith is cited by Abu Dawud in his Sunan:
عن أم سلمة، قالت: لما نزلت: {يدنين عليهن من جلابيبهن}، خرج نساء الأنصار كأن على رءوسهن الغربان من الأكسية
“It is reported from Umm Salamara that she said: When ‘that they should draw close to them portions of their (loose) outer coverings’ was revealed, the women of the Muslim inhabitants of Medina left [their houses] so covered as if there were crows on their heads.” (Sunan Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Libas, Bab fi qawlihi ta‘ala: Yudnina ‘alayhinna min jalabibihinna, Hadith no. 4101)
Here, too, it is clear that the women covered their heads.
In the presence of such clear verses of the Holy Quran, it is completely unnecessary for the Holy Prophetsa himself to prescribe commandments. The unanimous practice of these Quranic commandments by the Prophet’ssa companions, who were themselves educated by the Prophetsa, is testimony that this was his intention. Otherwise, it would have been his duty to address it if all the women had implemented a commandment of the Quran incorrectly.