Antara/Seno

There is little difference between the recent plan by new Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi to recommend banning the niqab (full-faced veil) in government offices and last year’s cancelled niqab ban for students of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University (UIN) in Yogyakarta.

The minister’s explicit justification was one of security; the UIN rector cited the face as a primary identity marker. But implicitly, both had the same underlying assumption: The niqab or cadar signifies an embrace of radicalism. Although it’s ill-defined, the term radicalism here simply means the ideology that attempts to change the Indonesian republic into an Islamic state.

However, there is only a thin connection between wearing the niqab and radicalism. While there is no denying that women who — or whose husbands — conducted terror attacks over the past few years wore the niqab, most women who can be categorized in the group that wants to establish an Islamic state or caliphate do not wear such veils.

Most women affiliated with the banned Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), which explicitly aims to establish a caliphate in the country, do not wear the niqab. In fact, there are more niqab-wearing women in puritanical Salafi circles than those in HTI. Salafi groups are not monolithic.

They include those who stress individual piety and therefore do not espouse an outspoken political stance. Some go to the extent of banning members from anti government rallies because, for them, such demonstrations are heretical.

On the other hand, there are women who study in pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) affiliated with Indonesia’s largest Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) who wear niqab when going out of their schools. One of their most cited reasons is that, according to mainstream classical Islamic jurists subscribing to the Shafi’i school, the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) school followed by most traditionalist Muslims in Indonesia, women’s aurat (body parts that are religiously required to be covered) consist of their whole body.

This means the obligated dress is the burqa, which covers the eyes.

NU pesantren that have this kind of policy would raise objections if their female students were deemed radical.

It is understandable why the chairman of NU’s youth wing GP Ansor, Yaqut Cholil Qoumas, urged Minister Fachrul to focus on things more closely related to radicalism than matters of dress. Among major Islamic organizations, NU has been the most vocal in supporting the government’s ban on HTI.

I am not endorsing Muslim women wearing the niqab. Contemporary reviews of classical Islamic tradition have suggested that there is no sufficient scriptural basis for women’s obligation to wear the niqab. The position of Al-Azhar University in Egypt has also been clear: the niqab is a customary matter, not religious.

Regardless of such interpretations, if the government wants to ban the niqab, where should we draw the line on religious freedom, especially for Muslim women who regard the niqab as a religious obligation?

This question is not easy to answer. Both fiqh-inspired and human rights-based policy formulations can potentially lead to a niqab ban.

Al-Azhar University bans the niqab for its students on the grounds, among others, that a fiqh ruling that isn’t obligatory can be banned by the state as long as it is in the interest of what classical fiqh calls al-maslahah al-‘ammah (the common good).

Several liberal democratic countries in Europe have also banned the niqab on various grounds, including that the niqab is contrary to national identity. When the case was brought to the European Court on Human Rights, the court resorted to a legal mechanism called the “margin of appreciation” or state discretion in those countries. This meant the court’s ruling banning the niqab in those countries did not violate human rights laws.

Which direction will Indonesia go on the veil? So far, using radicalism as a reason to ban the niqab would lead to misidentification and overgeneralization. Again, most women who aspire to a caliphate don’t wear the niqab, while there are many who wear niqab but show loyalty to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).

Treating a group of women as radical simply because they wear the niqab is a slippery logical fallacy, similar to identifying a prostitute simply because she wears a miniskirt. Thus, ill-defined radicalism isn’t a sufficient reason to ban the niqab.

A big burden of proof lies with those who claim that women wearing the niqab, in most cases, pose security threats. Minister Fachrul has not made a strong case to prove his assumption. In fact, he talked about this plan by referring to the stabbing of then-chief security minister Wiranto on Oct. 10 as the assailant’s wife wore a niqab. Did the minister forget that some of Wiranto’s family members also wear the niqab?

Above all, what is still lacking in this discussion is the voice of niqab-wearing women themselves, a point that any feminist should support. As a man I may have made unfair, biased statements that unconsciously objectified niqab-wearing women.

Therefore I urge niqab-wearing women to speak up about whether the common stigma against them is justified, so their voices can be represented fairly before any policy on banning the niqab is drafted.

_____________________

Researcher at the Center for Religious and Crosscultural Studies, Gadjah Mada University (UGM). The views are his own.

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