Hijab in Iran

After the 1979 Iranian revolution, the hijab became the mandatory dress code for all Iranian women by the order of Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of the new Islamic Republic. Hijab was seen as a symbol of piety, dignity, and identity for Muslim women.
The Safavid dynasty centralized Iran and declared Shia Islam as the official religion, which led to the widespread adoption of hijab by women in the country. Shia Islam served as a tool for the Safavids to consolidate the diverse ethnic groups under their authority and to differentiate themselves from their Sunni Muslim adversaries. Free women continued to wear hijab as a prevalent fashion trend during the Qajar era, with increased inspiration from European fashions and materials. In parallel, slave women did show themselves in public unveiled, but where in contrast not viewed as respectable women. The Pahlavi era (1925-1979) was marked by significant changes in the hijab and women's dress in Iran, reflecting the influence of Westernization, modernization, and political movements. The first Pahlavi era, under Reza Shah (1925-1941), was characterized by the forced unveiling of women, known as Kashf-e hijab, as part of the regime's attempt to secularize and modernize the country. Women who resisted the ban on hijab faced harassment, violence, and imprisonment. The second Pahlavi era, under Mohammad Reza Shah (1941-1979), was more tolerant of women’s choice of clothing, but also encouraged Western styles and fabrics, especially among the urban elite. Women wore a variety of dresses, skirts, pants, suits, and coats, often made of silk, velvet, or brocade. They also wore hijab in different forms, such as scarves, hats, or veils, depending on their personal, religious, or political preferences.
Following the 1979 revolution, the hijab became a compulsory dress code for women by the new regime. Restrictions sparked several movements by activists and ordinary citizens who challenged the mandatory hijab, seeking more freedom and rights for women. In response, the government cracked down on protests with violence, notably during the Mahsa Amini protests (2022-2023). In September 2024, on the second anniversary of the death of Amini, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian said that morality police will no longer "bother" women over the wearing of the hijab.
Muslims conquered Iran in the time of Umar (637 CE) and Iranians converted to Islam and adopted Muslim customs such as hijab. During the Middle Ages, Turkic nomadic tribes from Central Asia arrived, whose women did not wear headscarves.
As part of Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam (from 1501 to 1736) centralization in the 16th century, the headscarf became defined as the standard headdress for many religious women in urban areas all around the Iranian Empire. Exceptions to this were seen only in the villages and among nomadic tribes, such as Qashqai. Covering the whole face was rare among the Iranians and was mostly restricted to local Arabs and local Afghans.
However, hijab was not uniform and monolithic in Safavid Iran. Women from different ethnic and religious groups wore different styles and colors of veils and headscarves, reflecting their regional and cultural identities. Some women also wore hats, turbans, and bonnets, influenced by European fashion.
The Safavid court was also a place of diversity and splendor in terms of clothing. The royal women wore elaborate and luxurious garments, made of silk, velvet, brocade, and fur, embroidered with gold and silver, and adorned with jewels and pearls. They also wore different types of head coverings, such as mandils (turban material), qalānsūwas (conical caps), and tāj (crowns).
During Qajar dynasty the hijab was a prevalent fashion choice for women in Iran, as it reflected the cultural, religious, and political identity of the Qajar empire. The hijab was enforced by the Islamic dress code for women, which was introduced by the Safavid dynasty and continued by the Qajars. The hijab was often made of colorful and patterned fabrics, and sometimes adorned with pearls, feathers, or flowers, however, In the later Qajar period, women’s clothing became more elaborate and diverse, reflecting the influence of European styles and fabrics. Women wore long dresses with tight waists and wide skirts, often made of silk, velvet, or brocade. They also wore jackets, vests, and shawls over their dresses, and decorated their outfits with embroidery, lace, ribbons, and jewels.
During the era of slavery in Iran, female slaves (kaniz) were allowed to move about alone in public outside of the sex segregation of the harem unveiled, which separated them from free women.
The Qajar dynasty faced many internal and external challenges and pressures, such as the constitutional revolution, the tobacco protest, and the Anglo-Russian agreement. These events affected the lives and roles of women in Iran, who participated in various social and political movements, such as the women’s awakening, the women’s association, and the women’s parliament. Some women also advocated for women’s rights and education, such as Bibi Khanum Astarabadi, Tuba Azmudeh, and Sediqeh Dowlatabadi. during the economic crisis in the late 19th century under the Qajar dynasty, the poorest religious urban women could not afford headscarves, therefore Women were protected, secluded in the home or had to wear chador.
In the 1920s, a few individual Iranian women started to appear unveiled, despite the cultural pressure to veil. In 1924, the singer Qamar-ol-Moluk Vaziri broke gender segregation and seclusion by performing unveiled in the gender-mixed company at the Grand Hotel in Tehran, and the Royal Palace Theater. Reza Shah, a military officer who supported "Westernized women active outside the home" and opposed the influence of religious clerics, came to power in December 1925. Iranian women's rights activists supported the unveiling, and the feminist Sediqeh Dowlatabadi is believed to have been the first woman in Iran to have appeared in public without the veil in 1928. To appear without a veil or even favor it in public debate was very controversial, and women's rights activists who spoke in favor of unveiling sometimes had to be protected by the police. In 1926, the Shah specifically provided police protection for individual women who appeared unveiled but with a scarf or a hat to cover the hair.
In 1928, the Queen of Afghanistan, Soraya Tarzi, appeared unveiled publicly with the Shah during her official visit to Iran. The clergy protested and asked the Shah to tell the foreign queen to cover up, but he refused. His refusal caused rumors that the Shah planned to abolish the veil in Iran. In 1928, Shah's wife, queen (Tadj ol-Molouk) attended the Fatima Masumeh Shrine during her pilgrimage in Qom wearing a veil that did not cover her completely, as well as showing her face, for which a cleric harshly criticized her. As a response, Reza Shah publicly beat the cleric who had criticised the queen the next day.
As a method of the modernization of the country, and following the example of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, the shah encouraged women's participation in society. The veiling of women which would have huge symbolic importance in towards this and women's emancipation in general, but the shah introduced the reform gradually so as not to cause unrest.
Female teachers were encouraged to unveil in 1933, and schoolgirls and women students in 1935. The reform not only allowed female teachers and students not to veil, but allowed female students to study alongside men. All these reforms were opposed and criticized by the Shia clergy.
In 1935, the women's committee Kanun-e Banuvan (Ladies Society) was formed with the support of the government. The committee's women's rights activists campaigned for unveiling.
On 8 January 1936, Reza Shah issued a decree banning all veils, known as Kashf-e hijab (Persian: کشف حجاب, lit. 'Unveiling'). The official declaration of unveiling was made on 8 January 1936, where the queen and her daughters were given an important role in this event. That day, Reza Shah attended the graduation ceremony of the Tehran Teacher's College with the queen and their two daughters unveiled and dressed in modern clothes. The queen handed out diplomas while the Shah spoke against the historic marginalization of Iranian women, telling the female graduates that the future was now in their hands. This was the first time an Iranian queen had shown herself in public. Afterwards, the Shah published pictures of his unveiled wife and daughters, and the unveiling was enforced throughout Iran. To enforce this decree, the police were ordered to physically remove the veil from any women who wore it publicly. As a result, many pious traditionalist women chose not leave their houses to avoid confrontations, and a few conservative women even committed suicide to avoid removing their hijabs due to the decree.
The ban was enforced for five years, until Reza Shah was deposed in 1941. The Iranian women's movement had generally favored unveiling, and many of Iran's leading feminists and women's rights activists organized in the Kanun-e Banuvan to campaign in favor of the Kashf-e hijab, among them Hajar Tarbiat, Khadijeh Afzal Vaziri and Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, Farrokhroo Parsa and Parvin E'tesami.
Religious conservatives reacted with outrage to the reform. According to Iran's current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the policy was aimed at "eradicating the tremendous power of faith" in Muslim societies that was enabled by what he termed the "decency of women", as hijab (in his view) protected Muslim women from the "malicious abuse" suffered by women in the West, and the people from preoccupation with sexual desire.
Kashf-e hijab was relaxed in 1941 under Reza Shah's heir, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi; the wearing of a headscarf or chador was no longer an offence and women were able to dress as they wished. However, hijab was still considered an indicator of backwardness or of membership of the lower class. Wearing of the chador became a significant hindrance to climbing the social ladder. Veiled women were assumed to be from conservative religious families with limited education, while unveiled women were assumed to be from the educated and professional upper or middle class. Professional middle-class women such as teachers and nurses appeared unveiled in their work place, but sometimes veiled when they returned home to their families.
Women who wore the headscarf or chador were often discriminated against, with some public institutions discouraging their use, and some restaurants refusing to admit women who wore them.
In the 1970s, the chador was usually a patterned or of a lighter color such as white or beige; black chadors were typically reserved for mourning and only became more acceptable everyday wear starting in the mid-1970s. However, in the period before the Iranian Revolution, the black chador's usage outside of the city of Qom was associated with allegiance to political Islam and was stigmatized by areas of Iranian society.
During this era, traditionalists such as the Fada'iyan-e Islam (Devotees of Islam) demanded mandatory veiling and a ban on unveiled women, but their efforts failed.
Leading up to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the wearing of hijab by educated middle-class women began to become a political symbol—an indication of opposition to the Pahlavi modernization policy and thus of Pahlavi rule. Many middle-class working women started to use it as such.
The hijab became popular among the middle class opposition, as a symbol of revolutionary advocacy for the poor, as protest of the treatment of women as sex objects, to show solidarity with the conservative women who always wore them, and as a nationalist rejection of foreign influence.
Hijab was considered by conservative traditionalists as a sign of virtue, and unveiled women as the opposite. Rather than a sign of backwardness, unveiled women came to be seen as a symbol of Western cultural colonialism; "Westoxication" (Gharbzadegi) or infatuation with western culture, education, art, consumer products etc., "a super-consumer" of products of Imperialism, a propagator of "corrupt Western culture", undermining the traditionalist conception of "morals of society", and as overly dressed up "bourgeois dolls", who had lost their honor.
In spite of hijab and gender segregation, thousands of veiled women participated in religious processions and anti-Shah demonstrations alongside men, which showed hijab protected women from sexual harassment (because conservative men regarded them as more respectable) and enabled access to public spheres.
After the Islamic Revolution and founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, mandatory hijab was enshrined as law. This was in spite of statements made during his exile in France, where he denied any intent to control women's dress code. Ayatollah Khomeini announced that women should observe Islamic dress code. He was supported in his by the conservative/traditionalist fraction of the revolutionaries who were hostile to unveiled women, as expressed in two slogans used during this time: "Wear a veil, or we will punch your head" and "Death to the unveiled".
Non-conservative/traditionalist women, who had worn the veil as a symbol of opposition during the revolution, had not expected veiling to become mandatory. Almost immediately after, starting from 8 March 1979 (International Women's Day), thousands of women began protesting against mandatory hijab. The protests lasted six days, until 14 March, and resulted in the (temporary) retraction of mandatory veiling, as well as government assurances that Khomeini's statement was only a recommendation.
Khomeini denied that any non-hijab wearing women were part of the revolution, telling Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in February 1979:
As the consolidation of power by Khomeini and his core supporters continued, left and liberal organizations, parties, figures, were suppressed and eliminated, and mandatory veiling for all women returned. This began with the "islamification of offices" in July 1980, when unveiled women were refused entry to government offices and public buildings, and banned from appearing unveiled at their work places under the risk of being fired. On the streets, unveiled women were attacked by revolutionaries.
In 2024, Iran opened mental clinics in order to "treat" women who don't wear hijab.
There are several parts of the government that have the responsibility and eligibility to make laws and enforce them to people regarding the matter of compulsory hijab. First of all, the morality police or Gasht-e Ershad, which are units of the Iranian security forces that patrol the streets and public places to monitor the compliance of women with the hijab law. The judiciary, which is the branch of the government that prosecutes and punishes women who violate the hijab law, with penalties ranging from fines and lashes to imprisonment and flagellation. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is a paramilitary force that cooperates with the judiciary and the morality police to suppress women who protest against the hijab law.
In 2023, the Minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance announced they have a new Bureau of Chastity Living, meant to work in parallel with the country's public culture council.
Facial recognition cameras, a product of Bosch, were deployed for use. Under the 2023 law, business places that are reported to not force women to wear the hijab receive fines of up to 10 percent of their annual gross profit. A uniform was issued for waitresses in the entire city of Mashhad.
The fines are withdrawn from the person's bank account by the government.
In a move the government made it so doctors can't visit unveiled females.
Municipality in Tehran in August 2023 hired 400 hijab guards (hijabban) they report and then make arrest. An August 2023 law declared that minor girls who don't wear hijab can't go to school, aren't allowed to be hired in the future, can't get a passport, can't have a mobile phone, can't have a bank account, and can't have internet access.
In August 2023, Iranian MPs have voted to review a controversial hijab law behind closed doors, potentially avoiding public debate. The proposed "Hijab and Chastity Bill" would impose stricter penalties on women not wearing headscarves, prompted by protests over the death of a woman in custody. The decision to use Article 85 of Iran's constitution allows for a three to five-year trial period, pending approval from the powerful Council of Guardians.
In May 2017, My Stealthy Freedom, an Iranian online movement advocating for women's freedom of choice, created the White Wednesday movement, a campaign that invites men and women to wear white veils, scarves, or bracelets to show their opposition to the mandatory forced veiling code. The campaign resulted in Iranian women posting pictures and videos of themselves wearing pieces of white clothing to social media. Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-born journalist and activist based in the UK and the US, who started the protest in 2017, described it in Facebook, "This campaign is addressed to women who willingly wear the veil, but who remain opposed to the idea of imposing it on others. Many veiled women in Iran also find the compulsory imposition of the veil to be an insult. By taking videos of themselves wearing white, these women can also show their disagreement with compulsion."
On 27 December 2017, a White Wednesday protester, 31-year-old Vida Movahed, also known as "The Girl of Enghelab Street" was arrested. A video of her silently waving her white hijab headscarf on a stick while unveiled for one hour on Enqelab Street in Tehran went viral on social media. On social media, footage of her protest was shared along with the hashtag "#Where_Is_She?" On 28 January 2018, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh announced Movahed had been released, In the following weeks, multiple people re-enacted Movahed's public display of removing their hijabs and waving them in the air.
On 1 February 2018, the Iranian police released a statement saying that they had arrested 29 people, mostly women, for removing their headscarves. One woman, Shima Babaei, was arrested after removing her headdress in front of a court.
On 23 February 2018, Iranian Police released an official statement saying that any women found protesting Iran's compulsory veiling code would be charged with "inciting corruption and prostitution," which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. considerably harsher than regular sentences of two months imprisonment or up to 74 lashes; or a fine of five hundred to fifty thousand rials for being without hijab.
Following the announcement, multiple women reported being physically abused by police following their arrests, some sentenced to multiple years in prison. In one video, an unveiled woman is tackled by a man in police uniform while standing atop a tall box, waving her white scarf at passers by. On 8 March 2018, another video went viral, this one of three hijab-less Iranian women singing a feminist fight song in honor of International Women's Day and feminist issues in Tehran's subway .
That same day, in response to the peaceful hijab protests, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted a series of tweets, defending the Islamic state's dress code, praising Islam for keeping women "modest" and in their "defined roles" such as educators and mothers, and chastising Western immodesty. "The features of today's Iranian woman include modesty, chastity, eminence, protecting herself from abuse by men."
In 2021 a hard-line "Principalist", Ebrahim Raisi, was elected President of Iran, and enforcement of hijab regulations intensified. September 2022, when new and more intense protests followed the killing of Mahsa Amini 22, while in the custody of the morality police after being arrested for "improper hijab".
As of April 2023, protests have fizzled out due to a violent crackdown, in the form of mass arrests and several executions, but obedience to mandatory hijab by younger women has also dropped markedly, despite harsh penalties. In the capital city of Tehran, it can still be observed in the Bazaar (home of tradition), but not "in places popular with younger women"—parks, cafes, restaurants and malls.
Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times quotes a 23 year old a graduate student in Sanandaj, in western Iran, "I have not worn a scarf for months ... Whether the government likes to admit it or not, the era of the forced hijab is over."
However, as of 1 April 2023, there has been "unyielding rhetoric" from the Iranian Interior Ministry and head of the judiciary, promising "no retreat or tolerance" on enforcement of mandatory hijab. and two weeks prior Iranian authorities proposed new measures to enforce hijab, replacing Guidance Patrols with surveillance cameras. These
A popular Iranian singer, Parastoo Ahmadi, performed and streamed a virtual concert with no audience present while not wearing the hijab, for which she was arrested. The next day, faced with a public outcry, the authorities released the singer and members of her band.