page_title: Hijab
section_title: Sunni
hierarchical_section_title: Hijab / Dress code / Sunni
caption_attribution_description: English: Two Muslim women in colourful tudungs (the Malay language term for the Islamic headscarf) at an engagement party in Brunei.
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: The four major Sunni schools of thought (Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali) hold by consensus that it is obligatory for the entire body of the woman (see awrah), except her hands and face (and feet according to Hanafis) to be covered during prayer and in the presence of people of the opposite sex other than close family members (whom one is forbidden to marry—see mahram). According to Hanafis and other scholars, these requirements extend to being around non-Muslim women as well, for fear that they may describe her physical features to unrelated men.
  Men must cover from their belly buttons to their knees, though the schools differ on whether this includes covering the navel and knees or only what is between them.
  It is recommended that women wear clothing that is not form fitting to the body, such as modest forms of Western clothing (long shirts and skirts), or the more traditional jilbāb, a high-necked, loose robe that covers the arms and legs. A khimār or shaylah, a scarf or cowl that covers all but the face, is also worn in many different styles.
  Some Salafi scholars such as Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen believe that covering the hands and face for all adult women is obligatory.
caption: Women wearing tudongs (the Malay term for hijab) in Brunei
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