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of the fashion for veiling, which are one of the visible aspects of consumerism
experienced by the Islamic middle class as a symbolic capital. The results of
this contradiction can be followed in special issues devoted to discussions about
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fashion. A considerable number of articles published in these special issues are
written by famous Islamist intellectuals, whose discussions on political Islam, civil
society and Islamist feminism are well known. The dominant approach of these
articles is to invite the Islamic bourgeoisie to an experience of consumerism within
the limits of Islamic principles.
A general review of all the articles, interviews and news published in the
Islamic women’s magazines allows us to conclude that fashion as a whole and
particularly the fashion for veiling are discussed from a negative perspective.
The writers are aware that the capitalist system is powerful enough to assimilate
religious institutions, ethics and the aesthetics of Islam into consumption, which
is thereby considered a threat to the Islamic lifestyle. While the Islamic intellec-
tuals writing in these magazines have a reservation concerning fashion and
while other articles show a stronger rejection of the entire capitalist system; the
advertisements and the news in these magazines prove the ongoing articulation
process of the Islamic faith into the consumer culture. The major reason for the
denial of the capitalist production system by Islamic thought is based on the
importance of sustenance (rιzιk). In Islam, economic activity is seen as suste-
nance rather than production. That is why ‘waste’ is the essential concept setting
constraints on consumption. With the 1980s, new economic activities appropriate
to Islamic principles have been developed and some members of Islamic com-
munities have started to appear in these activities. One of the results of this was
the discovery of three important concepts by Muslim investors, which are fashion,
brand and profit. Abdurrahman Arslan points out how the name Tekbir, which
indicates the magnificence of Allah, is now used commercially as the brand name
for an Islamic clothing company and has lost its original sense (Arslan, 2000:
162–3).
Indeed, fashion is not only considered a threat to Islamic lifestyle in women’s
magazines, but also in Islamist literature. There are plenty of books devoted to
this subject such as Abdurrahman Kasapoglu’s (1994) Kadιn, Modernizm ve
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Örtünme (Women, Modernity and Veiling), Aysel Zeynep’s (1997) Kadιnιn Tercihi
(The Choice of Woman) and famous Islamist woman author Cihan Aktas¸’s two-
volume study of women’s clothing, titled Tanzimattan Günümüze Kιlιk, Kιyafet ve
Iktidar (Clothing and Power from the Tanzimat Reformation to the Present)
(1990) and Mahremiyetin Tükenis¸i (The Decline of Intimacy) (1995). In this litera-
ture, fashion is defined as ‘a basis for sexual deviance’ (Kasapoglu, 1994: 83);
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‘exhibitionism and consumerism’ (Zeynep, 1997: 45–9); and ‘an indication of a
loss of intimacy’ (Aktas¸, 1995: 12–13). Particularly, Aktas¸ criticizes the fashion for
veiling because it indicates the surrender of the religion and its practices to the
capitalist consumption culture (Aktas¸, 1995: 194). As a result of the fashion for
veiling, according to Aktas¸, veiled women are relocated in depoliticized posi-
tions, and gradually become consumers, who act within the ‘system’ (Aktas¸,
1995: 194). Moreover, these women try to legitimize their consumption thus: ‘up
to now they consumed, now we do’. In conclusion, Aktas¸ claims that the trans-
formation of Islamic communities, particularly women, towards the articulation