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Fashion for Veiling in Contemporary Turkey 285
with reference to the Koran, the essential and divine source of Islamic thought,
and the Sunna through the Hadith, the secondary and worldly source generated
from the commentaries of the Prophet Muhammed. They suggest the necessity
of covering the female body to conceal it from the male gaze, as a sign of adher-
ence to the Islamic faith and belief (El Guindi, 1999: 55–7). In this first meaning,
the scarf, often in pastel or austere colours, covers the head and half the shoul-
der. In Turkey, this first meaning is evident in the traditional mode of dress
favoured by housemaids and many peasant women (Norton, 1997: 167;
ˇ
Ilyasoglu, 1994: 107). This first meaning is usually symbolized in the use of a
‘headscarf’ (bas¸xörtüsü), which is defined in the latest edition of the dictionary
of the Turkish Language Institute as ‘a covering, made of muslin or silk that
women wrap round their heads to cover their hair’. Until the mid-1980s, the
word ‘headscarf’ only carried the first meaning, which eventually came to be
¸
seen as the symbol of popular religiosity in Turkey (Subas , 2000).
Political meaning
In the second context, the practice of veiling is considered a powerful symbol
of ‘political Islam’, seeking representation in the public sphere through the
idealization of veiled women. According to some Islamist intellectuals, the question
of identification either with the West or with Islam is closely linked to the veil-
ing issue. They argue that when women today decide whether or not to wear a
veil, they are not simply selecting a form of dress, rather they are locating them-
selves in one of these worlds: the West, or Islam. Hence, they insist on women’s
wearing the veil as an obligation, and as a true way to practise Islamic principles
in everyday life. We could interpret political Islam’s insistence on the practice of
veiling as using political symbolism to challenge the nation-state’s ideology and
its conceptualization of civilized identity in Turkey. The second meaning of veil-
ing, in contrast to the first, is generally seen in urban areas, such as in Istanbul,
Ankara and Konya (Göle, 1997: 73). In this second, political meaning, the word
türban describes how to cover the head, hair, neck and shoulders carefully. In the
course of time, the practice of veiling came to mean that ‘the Islamic woman’
should conceal the rest of her body completely as well as the head and the
shoulders. Hence, Muslim women have begun to wear long coats and a modern
türban, instead of a headscarf, which together come to signify the practice of veil-
ing (tesettür). This second meaning represents something beyond an attachment
to Islam as a religion, rather addressing Islamism as a political movement,
known to many sources – especially in the West – as ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ or
‘Islamic revivalism’.
A new meaning: consumption context
We claim that a new meaning could be attributed to the practice of veiling, that
is the articulation of a religious practice to the consumption culture. In Turkey,