page_title: Hijab
section_title: Pre-Islamic veiling practices
hierarchical_section_title: Hijab / History / Pre-Islamic veiling practices
caption_attribution_description: English: Palmyra (Syria), Temple of Baal (17-32). Relief with a group of veiled Arab women. Italiano: Palmyra (Siria), Tempio di Baal (17-32). Bassorilievo raffigurante un gruppo di donne arabe, forse in processione, che indossano il velo integrale.
context_page_description: A hijab is a veil worn by some Muslim women in the presence of any male outside of their immediate family, which usually covers the head and chest. The term can refer to any head, face, or body covering worn by Muslim women that conforms to Islamic standards of modesty. Hijab can also refer to the seclusion of women from men in the public sphere, or it may denote a metaphysical dimension, for example referring to "the veil which separates man or the world from God."
  In the Qur'an, hadith, and other classical Arabic texts the term khimār was used to denote a headscarf, and ḥijāb was used to denote a partition, a curtain, or was used generally for the Islamic rules of modesty and dress for females.
  In its traditional form, it is worn by women to maintain modesty and privacy from unrelated males. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam and Muslim World, modesty in the Quran concerns both men's and women's "gaze, gait, garments, and genitalia." The Qur'an instructs Muslim women to dress modestly. Some Islamic legal systems define this type of modest clothing as covering everything except the face and hands up to wrists.
context_section_description: Veiling did not originate with the advent of Islam. Statuettes depicting veiled priestesses date back as far as 2500 BCE. Elite women in ancient Mesopotamia and in the Byzantine, Greek, and Persian empires wore the veil as a sign of respectability and high status. In ancient Mesopotamia, Assyria had explicit sumptuary laws detailing which women must veil and which women must not, depending upon the woman's class, rank, and occupation in society. Female slaves and prostitutes were forbidden to veil and faced harsh penalties if they did so. Veiling was thus not only a marker of aristocratic rank, but also served to "differentiate between 'respectable' women and those who were publicly available".
  Strict seclusion and the veiling of matrons were also customary in ancient Greece. Between 550 and 323 BCE, prior to Christianity, respectable women in classical Greek society were expected to seclude themselves and wear clothing that concealed them from the eyes of strange men. 
  It is not clear whether the Hebrew Bible contains prescriptions with regard to veiling, but rabbinic literature presents it as a question of modesty (tzniut). Modesty became an important rabbinic virtue in the early Roman period, and it may have been intended to distinguish Jewish women from their non-Jewish counterparts in the Greco-Roman and later in the Babylonian society. According to rabbinical precepts, married Jewish women have to cover their hair. The surviving representations of veiled Jewish women may reflect general Roman customs rather than particular Jewish practices. According to Fadwa El Guindi, at the inception of Christianity, Jewish women were veiling their heads and faces. 
  There is archeological evidence suggesting that early Christian women in Rome covered their heads. Writings of Tertullian indicate that a number of different customs of dress were associated with different cults to which early Christians belonged around 200 CE. The best known early Christian view on veiling is the passage in 1 Corinthians 11:4-7, which states that "every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head". This view may have been influenced by Roman pagan customs, such as the head covering worn by the priestesses of Vesta (Vestal Virgins), rather than Jewish practices. In turn, the rigid norms pertaining to veiling and seclusion of women found in Christian Byzantine literature have been influenced by ancient Persian traditions, and there is evidence to suggest that they differed significantly from actual practice.
  Intermixing of populations resulted in a convergence of the cultural practices of Greek, Persian, and Mesopotamian empires and the Semitic peoples of the Middle East. Veiling and seclusion of women appear to have established themselves among Jews and Christians before spreading to urban Arabs of the upper classes and eventually among the urban masses. In the rural areas it was common to cover the hair, but not the face.
  Leila Ahmed argues that "Whatever the cultural source or sources, a fierce misogyny was a distinct ingredient of Mediterranean and eventually Christian thought in the centuries immediately preceding the rise of Islam." Ahmed interprets veiling and segregation of sexes as an expression of a misogynistic view of shamefulness of sex which focused most intensely on shamefulness of the female body and danger of seeing it exposed.
caption: Pre-Islamic relief showing veiled women, Temple of Baal, Palmyra, Syria, 1st century CE.
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