I live in a large Midwestern city and for years have been seeing women who don’t appear to be Middle Eastern who all wear Muslim-style head coverings. They are usually made of white cloth. Some of the women also wear long dresses or robes, although I’ve seen a few who wear western clothes. What stands out is that their appearance is very uniform - very light skinned European, as if they’ve come from some isolated place. I’ve always been curious about their nationality. I figure they are probably Muslim, but I thought the head covering for women is only common in Middle Eastern cultures. Obviously I don’t know much about this topic.
I think it would be incredibly rude for me to just go up to a stranger and ask them what culture they are from because of their appearance, so I’m asking here: can anyone shed some light on this?
P.S., I’ve never seen one of these women with a man, so I don’t know if the men wear traditional clothing.
There have been plenty of Americans and Europeans who have converted to Islam. As to whether wearing the kerchief is just a Middle Eastern custom, or an integral part of the religion, opinions differ; it has been the topic of many lively debates. Probably the women you saw held the latter opinion.
You know, it wasn’t all that long ago (in the whole span of historical perspective) that it was the custom for Christian women to wear kerchiefs also, rather similar to the contemporary Muslim kerchiefs.
P.S. A lot of Middle Easterners are indistinguishable from Europeans at first glance, in matters like skin color and facial lineaments. This is especially true of Turkey and Syria. The policy of the Ottoman Empire, in fact, was to bring lots and lots of Europeans to Turkey where they became completely assimilated to Turkish society, so that a considerable amount of modern Turks’ ancestry came from Europe.
The wearing of the hijab (headscarf) is a Muslim, not necessarily Middle Easten, custom (“custom” is not quite the appropriate term, since in a sense the wearing of the hijab is mandatory). Most likely these women are Muslims from a European country, possibly Albania or Bosnia. I don’t know enough about the physical characteristics of people from these countries to tell you definitively these women’s country of origin, but those would be my best guesses.
I have seen a handful few women that fit that description as well, and I am in West Texas. They are usually older, and wear a white head scarf and very old fashioned dresses. I always assumed they were ethnic Eastern Europeans who wore headscarves, but never thought about their religion.
Anyway, for some reason, we seem to think Muslim=swarthy or non-white, even though we generally would not think of Christians in racial terms.
Primo: Traditionally Eastern Xian women wore head coverings as well. That’s fallen by the wayside, but you find (largely older) village Xian women in the Balkans, Greece and its islands, etc. wearing head scarves to cover their hair.
Second: While the women may be of Balkan Muslim origin, they might also be of North African Jebali or Levant origin. The idea that Arabs all look like Saudis is misplaced.
Well, it is not really clear what country or region the OP is talking about. That makes it hard to give a good answer. The title suggest Europe, but I’ve never heard someone refer to a specific region or country as ‘Midwestern’. Is the OP actually living in Europe, and is (s)he a native or an ex-pat?
FWIW, people seem to think headscarfs are exclusively muslim. A lot of women in Europe, in particular women living and working on the country-side, tend to wear head coverings and dresses similar to what the OP describes (I’m not really sure what particular kind of dress she means). When you are out in the fields, you want to keep stuff blowing into your hair. It has nothing in particular to do with female modesty (although some calvinistic thing may be an influence in some cases).
This kind of dress may be less common in large cities, but if a city is in the middle of the countryside, people from the surrounding area may live in the city and still keep the same kind of dress.
Of course, the points of the other posters are valid as well: the OP may be seeing Turkish women. Most Turkish women that I’ve met are actually light-skinned.
Well, we are speaking english, and the Straight Dope originates and is printed in U.S. publications, so I’m assuming most of us live in the U.S. If you live in the U.S. you know what I mean by “Midwestern”. It’s a very common term. The capitalization indicates a specific placename. I meant the Midwest in the U.S. (is there any other “Midwest”?) - wiseguy.
I’d be very impressed if the Straight Dope appears in the Netherlands.
I’m surprised. Under your name it says you registered in 2000, but in all that time you haven’t managed to figure out that this is an international message board, with a particularly large number of European posters?
He lives in the Netherlands, and I think you are being very rude to someone who was just trying to help answer your question.
I don’t know if it does or not, but if it doesn’t the Dutch could always, you know, read it online.
In regards to the OP, I am in school with several American-born, white-skinned, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed devout Muslims who wear headscarves. Astonishingly, people of any physical appearance are allowed to be Muslim and wear scarves. I also know two international students from the Middle East who are devout Muslims but do not wear headscarves – and based on their physical appearance and dress are often mistaken for students from France. Astonishingly, people from the Middle East vary greatly in appearance and many look quite “European”…or “Asian”, or “African”.
I don’t feel insulted or anything; it’s just that the thread title made me assume that we are speaking about a city in Europe. Especially since you were speaking about Muslim women; Europeans are still primarily Christian. I did associate Midwestern with U.S., but I guess I was put on the wrong foot with the ‘European’ reference. Sorry if I seemed to slight you.
And thanks Lsura, for stepping in. The Straight Dope doesn’t appear over here, as far as I know, but I’m one of the many dopers who discovered it on-line.
Round our way there is a community of baptists who wear white hankerchiefs on thier head, often crocheted. Many of them will wear long dresses with long sleeves.
Ok, I’m going to ask someone who might know and report back. Lsura, I didn’t mean to be rude - I was explaining myself and I thought the poster might have been trying to be funny, so I was joking with the “wiseguy” remark, which was followed with ;P.
meant that the comment was supposed to be taken in fun.
Don’t feel bad, Lsura, I think it’s me, not you. There was once a thread in GD that I had nothing to do with, but inexplicably other posters kept being called by my name. Still haven’t figured that one out, and it screwed up my vanity searches for days. And then not long ago in the Pit someone else was credited with a remark I’d made in GD. So I think it’s just a problem people have with remembering who I am or something.
Just because I registered in 2000 doesn’t mean I’ve been active since 2000.
I’m not culturally ignorant and you could have spared your sarcastic tone. I was trying to make it clear that this is a very particular group of people who consistently resemble each other ethnically. I guess I failed at that.
I have since confirmed that the people I’m seeing are Bosnian. I had always assumed Bosnian Muslims dressed like other Bosnians or other Europeans because of all of the talk in the media of Bosnian Muslims being indistinguishable from their neighbors. You learn something new every day.
and 