17 May 2005

BEIRUT: Zeina Fadel was walking back home from college on a sunny spring day in 2002 when a bomb suddenly exploded a few meters behind her. Propelled to the ground and hit by fragments from the exploding car, she thought she was dying. But apart from the strong shock she suffered, she was unharmed.

Fadel's near-death experience made her re-examine several aspects of her life and prompted her to make a number of major decisions. A few days after the incident, she put on the Islamic veil.

But Fadel's veil didn't affect her style of clothing. She maintained the trendy designs but opted for long sleeves and skirts and looser shirts, punctuating her look with a brightly colored veil on the head. "Some people are surprised by what I wear but my clothes actually abide by the rules set in the Koran," she says. "People think you have to either be stylish and uncovered or ugly and covered. Well, I am stylish and decent and that doesn't contradict the principles of Islam."

Through her original approach to the veil, Fadel represents a case in point. The trend of stylishly veiled young women is growing in Lebanon's Muslim communities today.

Dima Baba, a 27-year-old manager at a local production house in Beirut, said she never gave much attention to her attire before she decided to cover. "I was always in jeans and t-shirt, always looking for comfort rather than looks," she explained. "Today, I feel I have an obligation to wear nice and stylish clothes because I want people to see that veiled women can look young and beautiful, too."

Baba buys her clothes from international franchise stores and chooses "elegant, English and romantic" designs. She says she wouldn't consider wearing the abaya or jilbab Muslim women have traditionally opted for because she doesn't want to look out of place within her society. "We shouldn't be wearing clothes that alienate us from society," she says. "We should show that, although we cover our heads from the outside, we are exactly like everybody else from the inside."

Dr. Hassan Hammoud, associate professor of sociology at the Lebanese American University, explains that women in Lebanon are bombarded by messages and images of how fashionable a woman ought to be in terms of outfit and physical shape. "Young girls try to fit into this model," he says. "They build an image of themselves made out of what they hear, see and expect themselves to be."

And if veiled women come from an immediate environment that values fashion, then their clothes will be fashionable, too. "A veiled woman, like any other woman, holds an image of what is acceptable versus what is unacceptable, based on the values of her peer group, her family, her community," Hammoud explains.

Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Shafii, assistant to the judge at the Sunni Sharia Court, gave the trendy veil phenomenon an even more significant denotation, affirming that it indicates a religious revival among liberal Muslim circles. "The veil is not limited to traditional communities anymore," he explains. "It is now being embraced by liberal people who were originally trendy."

Such religious revival among new social circles is all the more important because it isn't only manifested in non-traditional veiling but also in more liberal viewpoints, politics and approach to religion among Muslim societies, Shafii adds.

The Koran and Sunnah, or teachings of the Prophet, instruct Muslim women to cover their whole body, except for the hands and face, with loose and nondiaphanous clothes. They make no mention of form, style and color, leaving the door open to personal interpretation.

"A woman's clothes shouldn't make her look odd in the society she belongs to, but that doesn't necessarily mean they shouldn't be colorful or trendy," Sheikh Shafii explains. "In a society where everybody wears showy clothes, a veiled woman can wear showy clothes and in a society where people tune down style and colors, it is preferable that she does that, too. It is all very relative."

Dania Arayssi, a 29-year-old public relations coordinator at the Lebanese Center for Cultural Research and Studies, said she sees no contradiction between veiling and fashion. "I don't think God wants to impose one costume on all people, which is why He left it open to interpretation," she says. "If a woman wants to wear conservative clothes, then she can go ahead and do it. But if she doesn't like to, then she definitely doesn't have to."

Arayssi, who usually wears original designer clothes, doesn't hesitate to put on an orange or red dress if she likes it. "I believe Islam encourages fashion, art and beauty, as long as they don't contradict with the principles of the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet," she said.

But Arayssi's viewpoint is not prevalent across the Muslim community in Lebanon. Islamic scholars as well as ordinary Muslims differ in their interpretations, depending on their backgrounds and personal tastes.

Samar Zaatari, a 26-year-old Islamic education instructor from Sidon, says she is against wearing trendy clothes which may attract attention. She wears a simple jilbab and avoids flashy colors and designs, declining adornments that may embellish her outfit. "I would never try anything other than my jilbab," she says. "The point is to observe veil etiquette as accurately as possible."

Zaatari admits her parents and friends have influenced her definition of lawful Islamic clothing, and says her clothes were conservative even before she decided to wear the veil.

Sheikh Mohammad Tameem, a doctor of philosophy in Islamic studies, is more lenient. He says Islam doesn't give specific requirements concerning style and color but adds that he personally prefers elegant over stylish fashion. "It pains me to see men and women wearing multicolored and shabby clothes," he says. "If this is fashion, then I don't want it."

A much stricter interpretation came from Salafi scholars. Salafi tradition, mainstream in countries such as Saudi Arabia, advocates a return to the lifestyle of the salaf, or ancestors, who lived during early Islam. Its understanding of Islamic laws is extremist.

Sheikh Abdel-Hadi Wehbi, who belongs to the Salafi community in Beirut, says that the ideal female clothing would be something similar to the Iranian chador or Afghani burka, which covers a woman completely from head to toe. He dismisses the jilbab as unlawful because it defines a woman's shoulders, but scriptures require a garment that doesn't outline the body.

Sheikh Wehbi also cautions that a woman's attire shouldn't be colored (navy blue or dark brown may be permitted, he said) because color becomes an adornment by itself. "We can't follow the fashion of modern times at the expense of our religion," he says. "This fashion is exported from the West and it doesn't conform with the Koran and Sunnah."

Hanadi Shehabeddine, a 29-year-old media and advertising professional, finds that "it is not wrong at all to be influenced by the West." In fact, she finds such an influence very "normal" given the power of globalization and the United States' leading position in the world.

Shehabeddine's attire is very distinctive, design-oriented and based on strong colors. It is, as she says, her way to express herself and reflect the way she thinks and feels. It raises eyebrows in conservative circles but the less traditional find it inspiring. "People who are not religious or not Muslim are amazed because they find they have no problem wearing exactly the same design I wear but without the veil," she says.

"The flexibility in Islam is amazing and fashion is one of the things Islam can adapt to," Shehabeddine continues. "But it's very important to understand that, in the end, the core of Islam is not about the attire. It's about what's inside - the heart, the goodness, the humanity."