Hijab means "a veil", "curtain", "partition" or "separation." It is the beauty of women. Another, and most popular and common meaning of Hijab today, is the veil in dressing for women. It refers to a certain standard of modest dress for women. “Hijab is not a piece of cloth on your head.” The usual definition of modest dress according to the legal systems does not actually require covering everything except the face and hands in public.

The general term hijab in the present day is to covering of the face by women.

Just because some of the sisters have their head covered, they think that the requirement of Hijab is fulfilled. They don’t realize that wearing a Hijab requires much more than just covering your head.

Actually, if you think about it, Hijab is the way you talk…..the way you walk….the way you carry yourself. In fact, Hijab is an attitude in itself. It’s a whole way of life.

When the Pre-Islamic Arabs went to battle, Arab women seeing the men off to war would bare their breasts to encourage them to fight; or they would do so at the battle itself, as in the case of the Meccan women led by Hind at the Battle of Uhud. This changed with Islam, but the general use of the veil to cover the face did not appear until 'Abbasid times. Nor was it entirely unknown in Europe, for the veil permitted women the freedom of not showed herself. None of the legal systems actually prescribe that women must wear a veil, although they do prescribe covering the body in public, up to the neck, the ankles, and below the elbow. In many Muslim societies, for example in traditional South East Asia, or in Bedouin lands a face veil for women is either rare or non-existent; paradoxically, modern fundamentalism is introducing it. In others, the veil may be used at one time and European dresses another. While modesty is a religious prescription, the wearing of a veil is not a religious requirement of Islam, but a matter of cultural environment.

Al-Qurtubi said: “Women in those days used to cover their heads with the khimars, throwing its ends upon their backs. This left the neck and the upper part of the chest bare, along with the ears. Then Allah commanded them to cover those parts with the khimars.”
 

The Hijab shouldn’t attract attention.The dress should not be such that it attracts men’s attention to the woman’s beauty. Allah clearly states “not to display their beauty (zeenah).” Yet, Subhan Allah, some Hijab sisters are dressed in such a way that they attract more attention to themselves than they would if they didn’t wear Hijab!! How could such zeenah be concealed if the dress is designed in a way that it attracts men’s eyes to the woman? It beats the purpose of Hijab.
 

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