Questioning the Veil by Marnia Lazreg5/12/2023 While many, perhaps most, Muslims accept that some form of veiling was ordained by God, Lazreg presumes that veiling is not compulsory in Islam. Her discussion relies on the assumption that what the Koran says about veiling is at best ambiguous. It is a series of five "letters", each of which takes issue with a common justification for the contemporary reveiling trend. The book is addressed, Lazreg says, to Muslim women in the first instance. Not only has she become frustrated with the reveiling trend across the Muslim world, but also with the apologetic ways in which some academics have treated the issue. Yet, like many of her colleagues, she seems to have reached a point where she could no longer keep quiet. As a professor of sociology of Algerian origin working in the US, she is an expert on the issue. Marnia Lazreg's discussion of the infamous piece of cloth, however, is different from most other treatises on the issue. Is this a trend? Friends have repeatedly asked why we ("Westerners") are so obsessed with their ("Middle Eastern") women, including the way they dress. Here we go again: another book on the veil, the third one I have reviewed within seven months.
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