Behind the Veil: April 2014

Good Morning!

Some of us (probably) often confused on how to differentiate Muslim female clothes,consists of; Hijab, Jilbab, Khimar, etc. So here I am going to show some explanation on each function of the hijabs.

Here some sort of information and differences type of Hijab in different countries.

First,

Hijab -- The term hijab itself in Arabic means 'screen or curtain' and in Quran it refers to a partition. Also refers to the tradisional dress code of Muslim women beyond age of puberty calling for the covering of the entire body except the face and hands. These days, hijab automatically means a veil that covers a head and chest.

Jilbab -- Jilbab in arabic means loose coat or garment that usually wear after the normal clothes (ex.: long sleeves shirt with pants) wear it like wearing a coat. But here in Indonesia, Jilbab refers to a headscarf that covers head.

Abaya is an example of Jilbab

Khimar -- Khimar is a long, and cape like veil that hang down to above the waist and fully covers the hair, neck, chest, shoulders and even stomach, but leave the face clear (uncovered).

Yemeni khimar

Niqab -- (my most favorite hijab, even I don't use one as daily basis :p) in Arabic 'veil, or mask' piece of cloth that covers whole face except the eyes. The terms of niqab and burqa are often incorrectly used interchangeably; a niqab only covers the face while burqa is covers the whole body from top to toe. There's no explicit explanation in Quran that women should covers their face so wears niqab is sunnah, since wives of Prophet Muhammad were also put hijab all over their body. Based on hadith narrated by Aisha: 'The woman is to bring down her Jilbab from over her head and [then place it] upon her face'.