Advertisement

Behind the veil

Go to story details and video.

MOUNA: I just felt like I know where I'm going in my life, what I'm here for, what I should be striving for, and everything just fell into place.

ANISA KHAN: I'd love to go skydiving one day. (LAUGHS)

RAHNI SADLER: It's a leap of faith to cover yourself from the world and drop out of sight. Especially if...

ANISA KHAN: "Man, you're dinky-di Aussie!"

ANISA KHAN: Whoo, hoo-hoo! Whoo!

RAHNI SADLER: How does wearing the burqa make you feel?

AMINA: I can't imagine life without it. If I was forced to take it off, I would stay at home and never leave. I love it - I really can't imagine life without it.

MONA ELTAHAWY: The message is that a good woman is a woman I can't see and, for me, that is a very dangerous message.

ANISA KHAN: My name's Anisa. I'm a fifth-generation Australian-born.

RAHNI SADLER: Are you a feminist?

ANISA KHAN: Yes, I am.

RAHNI SADLER: You believe in women's rights?

ANISA KHAN: Oh, yes. Definitely.

ANISA KHAN: Oh, my God! Match shot.

RAHNI SADLER: On a quiet stretch of water on the outskirts of Sydney are two Australia’s uncovered and covered. In the boat behind her is Anisa's husband. When she's at home with him and their kids, Anisa doesn't cover up. But to the outside world, she only reveals her hands and eyes.

ANISA KHAN: I feel liberated and I'm not saying being covered is being liberated but that's how I feel.

RAHNI SADLER: Explain that to me. How are you more liberated than I am?

ANISA KHAN: When I'm interacting, say, with men, outside in society when I'm out shopping, I know there's no, sort of, that physical or sexual attraction there.

RAHNI SADLER: From a Pakistani background, Anisa is a fifth-generation Australian. Growing up, her family didn't believe in face coverings. The turning point was 9/11. Anisa faced hostility for being a Muslim but rather than turn her back on her religion, she embraced it.

ANISA KHAN: I studied the life of the Prophet and when you study the life of someone, or you fall in love with someone, it's like a hero. You want to duplicate what they did or what they had in their life. It's like people who love, I don't know, Justin Bieber, you know, the boys are out there to copy Justin Bieber. But for us it was to duplicate the life of the prophet Muhammad.

RAHNI SADLER: What do you think the benefits are for you every day wearing it?

AMINA: The benefits? I'm in an act of worship every time I wear it. I'm pleasing my Lord every time I wear it. I am copycatting the wives of the Prophet and the female companions in the time of the Prophet who wore it. They're the benefits, um... Yeah, that's basically it.

RAHNI SADLER: Born in Iraq, Amina came to Australia as a kid. Married to Ahmed, they have a young son and another baby on the way. They're like any other couple arguing over what to watch. Normally, Amina wouldn't cover herself in her home but tonight she's wearing the burqa because our camera crew is all male. In Amina's case, the eyes haven't always had it.

RAHNI SADLER: Because you started with the hijab.

AMINA: Mm-hm.

RAHNI SADLER: And what's the hijab?

AMINA: The hijab is where your face and your hands show but everything else is covered.

RAHNI SADLER: Right.

AMINA: And the niqab is where your face is covered but your eyes are showing, sometimes your hands as well. The burqa is when you're completely covered which is what I'm wearing now, is the burqa.

RAHNI SADLER: And what are the rules with the burqa? You have the gloves as well?

AMINA: The rules are the clothing has to be baggy, nothing tight-fitting, nothing attractive. So no colourful, light, pale, no glitter, nothing like that. Dull colours. No perfume. They're basically the rules. Gloves, yeah, socks.

RAHNI SADLER: So you wouldn't be wearing this.

AMINA: (CHUCKLES) No, not with the burqa.

RAHNI SADLER: As her faith grew more conservative, she dropped out of uni and now won't leave home without her husband. She says he'd divorce her if she didn't wear the burqa and she'd divorce him if he insisted she take it off. Her choice to wear the burqa means she's often yelled at by those who disagree, like this day.

AMINA: Oh, shut up.Oh, shut up, you idiot.

HUSBAND: That wasn't good. That wasn't good.

AMINA: Look at her.

HUSBAND: Let her. Don't worry about it. They are probably on heroin or something. Leave her, man - she's off her head.

AMINA: It made me feel very upset. Like, this is the 21st century, we're in Australia. Like, everyone is able to do what they do and wear what they wear so why are you now attacking me? I pay my taxes, I work, I study. Why do I not have the same freedom as everybody else to do as I please?

HUSBAND: A bit of action, you know what I mean?

AMINA: I look after a baby, I have a husband, I have a home, I have a family. Same old person same as everybody else. Only difference is, I believe in.....I believe in the one Lord, Allah, the creator of all.

(WOMAN PRAYS)

RAHNI SADLER: Does it make you sad to see women dressed the way I am?

AMINA: Um, it does make me sad because I believe that I am in the right. For you, this is probably oppression, but, no, for me, it's guidance. For me, it's freedom. For me, it's everything.

RAHNI SADLER: Yeah, to me, it seems like oppression, so how do you explain to me why I would benefit from wearing that?


AMINA: If I'm oppressed I will say I'm oppressed. But I'm not oppressed I do it out of choice I do it because I believe in it.I do it because I love it.

RAHNI SADLER: Is it a bit hotter under there?

AMINA: (LAUGHS) No! When it's hot, we are all hot and at the end of the day, I believe that the fire of hell is hotter. I will be roasted in hell if I go out with my skin and my hair showing. So the fire of hell is hotter. I'd rather cop the heat of this world rather than the heat of the hereafter.

MONA ELTAHAWY: There is nothing in the Koran that says a woman should cover her face. Nothing. It's an interpretation. By who? By men.

RAHNI SADLER: Mona Eltahawy is a world-renowned Muslim writer.

MONA ELTAHAWY: I wore the headscarf for nine years. I chose to wear it and I chose to take it off. I chose to take it off because I realised it wasn't the only way to be a Muslim woman. My identity is in my face. And so, behind a niqab, you don't know who I am. I am just this entity, moving, and that really scares me. But just as importantly you don't see my expressions - you don't see I'm happy, you don't see I'm sad. Universally, our facial expressions are recognised, regardless of language, which says to me the human face is really important.

ANISA: Ladies, when you do it, please do it with nice, gentle strokes because you want your hostess to feel pampered, be relaxed.

RAHNI SADLER: For Anisa, the face is especially important. It's her day job selling beauty products.

ANISA: You get 20% off the pure essential oils.

RAHNI SADLER: At face value, it seems an unlikely career. But Anisa sees it differently.

ANISA: I'll show you how it creates her eyes' appearance, looking bigger.

RAHNI SADLER: She says while there's nothing wrong with being beautiful, it becomes wrong when it is all women are judged on.

ANISA: There is, being in the beauty industry, and going and meeting, so many different women, there is so much pressure on women in society, with botox and liposuction and their appearance all the time, for society to accept them. And I don't believe a woman's body or a woman's charms should be used for her to gain acceptance and recognition in society.

RAHNI SADLER: So why shouldn't men have to cover up?

ANISA: Because women don't have to cover either, it's just a personal choice.

RAHNI SADLER: But why shouldn't it be the same for both? Why shouldn't both men and women...?

ANISA: Because God has created men and women differently.

MOUNA: I like the fact that I can walk throughout society without men looking at me….Cheese and spinach... And it gives me control over who I show my beauty to and who I don't.
I like the fact that I am free from the slavery of having to follow trends and fashions and what society's perceptions of how a woman should look like. I'm freed from all of that.

RAHNI SADLER: Behind this veil is the face of a seventh-generation Australian. Mouna is a convert to Islam. She grew up in the suburbs in a Christian family.

MOUNA: I was brought up in a strong Christian household. I used to attend Sunday school, church, on a regular basis.

RAHNI SADLER: When Mouna was a teenager, she picked up the Koran at a friend's house and it changed the course of her life. She's married to Tarek. They have five children.

RAHNI SADLER: Who can see your face and who can't?

MOUNA: Basically, you show your face to any lady and any close male relative. It's only men who you could marry - they're the ones you cover your face from. Islam recognises that there is something called adultery of the eye where a man checks out a woman, looks her over, checks out her features of her body. So that's why you find, in Islam, it forbids everything that leads towards adultery and fornication.

RAHNI SADLER: What about the notion that men can't control themselves so women are, in fact, safer underneath the niqab?

MONA ELTAHAWY: Well, that's the thing. That is a notion that is insulting to men and women. You know, my brother and my father and all these wonderful Muslim men
I know, it is deeply insulting and offensive to them to think that just seeing my hair,
just seeing my face, just seeing anything is going to turn them into these
animals, worse than animals. My favourite argument against niqab is that the men should be going around with blindfolds rather than women going around with their faces covered. If we are doing it for men because they can't control themselves, then I want the men to go out there and not see anything rather than me not be seen, do you know what I mean?

RAHNI SADLER: On the issue of seeing, Mona has another, more practical objection.

MONA ELTAHAWY: I know that there are several countries, including Muslim majority countries, like Kuwait, for example, that ban women who wear the niqab from driving. For the very simple reason that you do not have peripheral vision and I want people on the road in cars to have peripheral vision. (LAUGHS)

RAHNI SADLER: But out on the road with Mouna, it was not so much peripheral vision that was of concern... ..but a local hoon who tried to take her on. The revhead got as good as he gave.Not only do we not see these women but we rarely hear from them.

(ALL CHEER)

Devout, even defiant their views are deeply held and for that they offer no apology to those who dislike them.

MOUNA: There was one lady, she was funny but she was a new migrant to Australia and she said, "Oh..." She walked up to me, and she goes, "You know you look so ugly in that." And you know the funny thing is I feel like saying to them, "If you don't like Australia for how it is, "maybe you should go back to where you came from."
(LAUGHS)