Are non-muslim women required to wear things like burqa’s headscarfs, veils and such in Islamic countries?
You know, countries like Egypt, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.
Even if it isn’t officially enforced by law in those countries, do the women still get acid-attacks for not wearing what the Muslim attire?
Those are highly disparate countries, and the standards vary between them.
AFAIK in most Muslim countries not even Muslim women are required to wear head scarves. (I was just in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, and although many women wore them many did not.)
Saudi Arabia is the main country that enforces a dress code even on non-Muslim women, but they adhere to a particularly stringent variety of Islam.
In most Islamic countries, certainly those I have visited, even local women make their own choice about what to wear, and many do not wear head scarves. It will vary a lot. Egypt, the UAE, very much personal choice. In Saudi Arabia however it is different, and a head scarf is going to be needed to avoid giving offence no matter where a woman is from.
As to acid attacks - I have no idea where you get this idea from. The answer is no, because it never used to happen either.
You really need to understand that Islamic culture includes a very strong component of modesty. For both men and women. It can be offensive for a man to wander about in a short sleeved shirt in many of these countries. In many ways it isn’t much different to Victorian England, where a flash of ankle was quite shocking.
The answer is “it varies”.
Some countries (such as Iran and Saudi Arabia) go to great lengths to control what women wear. In Iran women are supposed to wear a chador (a usually black formless outfit) over their clothes, and some women wear transparent chadors to officially follow the rules while unofficially violating them.
I don’t believe Afghanistan officially tries to control but women wear, but the Afghan Taliban will attack people who don’t follow their brand of Islam. (I don’t know if the Taliban have thrown acid at “immodestly” dressed women, saving their ire for girls who want to get educated instead.)
And then some Muslim countries don’t. Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, does not, and several Middle Eastern Muslim countries will happily sell microscopic bikinis to women.
Among a few majority Muslim cultures (such as the Tuareg) both women and men must cover their faces. I’m not sure if religion is used as the reason among the Tuareg, as I believe they did so before they first came into contact with Islam.
**Not correct **
The Iran the regulation is for a hijab and the loose body clothing. There is not a requirement for the chador itself. I have never heard of this ‘transparent chador’ - what is the case is the wearing of the light rain coat type over garment for the barest adherence to regualtion - and the hijab is worn loosley very typically.
Also the women of the Taureq do not have **any **requirement of covering the face in tradition. The men wear the Litham.
The answer for the OP question is that it is only two countries, the the Saudis and Iran who have the legal restrictions in place.
I live in Saudi Arabia. The answer is “it depends.” Women at the mall wear the robe to one degree or another. Non-Muslims wear it open or closed over jeans. Other women wear it closed, with or without a scarf. A few wear the robe, face-veil and even long black gloves.
(Would it defeat the purpose if men had a fetish for long black gloves.)
At my work compound women were jeans or long skirts. Others wear the robe. Most ladies seem to prefer a headscarf in the same way I wear a big floppy hat, for sun protection.
What about the Religious Police? They have been on a short leash for years. Even in the Bad Old Days if they found someone who offended them, the lady would just button up until they went away.
Weird … these answers seem almost identical to Christian beliefs … modest clothing, spectrum of enforcement, individual choice … think of Amish boys and girls sneaking down to the swimming hole together … [wink, wink, nudge, nudge] …
How does that address the question?
In the M.E. country I’m in, headscarf/hijab/burqa are not required by law, Muslim or not. Modest dress for *all *women is officially encouraged, but not required or enforced.
Traditionally, is some countries, people were expected to dress according to their station in life. If you read Victorian era British literature, you will sometimes see remarks about the inapropriatnous of servents or other working class people wearing nice clothing. Similarly, in France, secular government was interpreted to more or less prohibit the wearing in clothes by government officials, or the requirement to wear clothes, that demonstrated religous affiliation. (Including those distinctive hats some nuns and religous wore).
Since Christians, Jews, and other non-muslims are explicitly treated differently by Sharia, for a non-muslim women to dress as a muslim has, in some traditions, been both a religous insult and tantamount to deception. Laurance of Arabia advised British officers NOT to wear Arabic headgear (whatever else they wore), because it would lead to false expectations. Kemal Atatürk, in his reform of Turkish government, also banned the wearing of distinctive religous headdress, which was a characteristic of Turkish society.
This has recently come up as an issue in Australian politics, where a local politician wore a Burqa (with the mesh cutout) to make a political point. This was interpreted as an ‘insult to religion’ by the female islamic representative I heard on radio. I don’t actually give much weight to what she said: she also said that she’d never seen an Australian muslim women wearing that veil, so either she was exagerating, or she doesn’t get out very much. I don’t have any muslim co-workers any more, so I can’t ask actual people what they think.