Lifting the veil ban in Turkey

ALHAMDULILLAH for the positive development in Turkey. Reuters reported earlier this week that Turkey's ruling AK Party and a key opposition party have agreed to co-operate to lift a ban on hijab in universities.

"Agreement has been reached. The issue of the headscarf was evaluated in terms of rights and freedoms," said a joint statement of the two parties.

Indeed. For decades already, Muslim groups have listed Turkey as among countries hostile toward the Muslim women's rights and freedom to cover for fear that the proliferation of veiled women would threaten its secularist nature. Despite the absence of specific laws banning the veil, Muslim female students have been forced to take off their hijab before entering universities.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan needs MHP support in parliament to amend Turkey's constitution. Erdogan did not say when the proposal would be put to a vote in parliament. The current headscarf ban in universities dates back to a court ruling in 1989. Erdogan, whose own wife and daughters wear the headscarf, insists wearing the garment is a matter of personal freedom in a country where two-thirds of women cover their heads.

Reuters also said that opinion polls show strong public support for lifting the headscarf ban. Many women opt not to go to university because they want to keep their heads covered. Others wear wigs. The news agency also said that "an increasingly wealthy but pious middle class is emerging in Turkey and it wants to practise its religion more freely ... The MHP has long backed relaxing the headscarf ban because it counts among its supporters many religiously conservative small businessmen and farmers".

Probably by force of habit, Reuters turned the story into a potential conflict between what it described as a the growing force of "religiously conservative", "increasingly wealthy but pious" middle class, and those it described as the army and the "secularists" seeking to maintain secularism as the bedrock of the country.

"The role of religion has been a polarising issue in mainly Muslim Turkey since the founding of the secular republic in 1923 on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire," the news agency said. "The move (to lift the ban) is sure to anger the secular elite — including army generals, judges and university rectors who view the ban as vital for the separation of state and religion."

"Some secularists see the headscarf as a threat to the modernising pro-Western reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s and 1930s. They say any relaxation of the ban could turn Turkey into another Iran. "Turkey is turning to syariah (Islamic) law, not to the EU but to the Middle East," said Isa Esme, deputy head of the powerful secular body overseeing higher education.

"If you give (people) one thing, they will ask and eventually get more ... If you allow the headscarf in universities today, they will declare a syariah state in 10 years," Ibrahim Kalin, director of Turkish think-tank Seta, wrote in Zaman daily.

The natural question to arise would be: where is the logic of the assertion that granting a Muslim woman her right to cover would threaten the country's modernisation? Not only would we have to firstly discuss what it meant by modernisation, we would also point out that there are countries in the European Union (to which Turkey yearns to belong) that are considered "modern" that respect the Muslim women's freedom to practice her religious rights and obligations.

Certainly, the Muslims seeking to lift the veil ban and allow Muslim women the freedom to practice their faith, would face opposition, and a loud one, too. But that is to be expected. It is natural and sunatullah, a God-ordained condition. The Muslims in Turkey are being given the chance to choose between following Allah's line despite risks of opposition, and following the line of the secularists at the risk of inviting the wrath of Allah.