Concealment and Revealment: The Muslim Veil in Context
Author(s): Anjum Alvi
Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 54, No. 2 (April 2013), pp. 177-199 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669732 . Accessed: 13/08/2014 10:31 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 177 2013 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2013/5402-0004$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/669732 Concealment and Revealment The Muslim Veil in Context by Anjum Alvi CA Online-Only Material: Supplementary Figures Analyzing ethnographic data of the Pakistani Punjab, the essay argues that the meaning of the concept of veiling is inseparable from its multiple and apparently unrelated expressions of shame and honor beyond the normally identied contexts of dress and female concerns. Muslim veiling is described as a fundamental value, as concealment counterpoised to the relative value of revealment, forming a permanent ontological statement of ones being in the world, that is, an ethical relation of the self with the other, while recognizing its nonethical aspectsthe non-values. Thus it cautions against interpretations of the veil as a symbol representing something else, entailing implicit dualities like semioticpractice, subjectobject, category/ruleaction, instrumentalreligious. At the same time, the essay questions the imposition of the self, posits the other, and rethinks differences between cultures, integrations of minorities, ethics, freedom, tolerance, and recognition. A religious symbol does not rest on any opinion. And error belongs only with opinion. (Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazers Golden Bough [2002 (1931)]) Absurdity consists not in non-sense but in the isolation of innumerable meanings, in the absence of a sense that ori- ents them. (Levinas, Basic Philosophical Writings [1996]) In recent years public debates in Europe have centered around the covering of womens hair and face as a sign of Muslim identity. The popular public discourse generally sees this as a violation of womens rights and individual freedom and its wearer as either suppressed by the male gender in the name of religion or as engaged in fundamentalismand radical think- ing, subverting Western values. The media associate the con- comitants of economical poverty and corrupted institutions, such as lack of education, dependence on men, control on female sexuality, and violence, with Islamjust as many Mus- lims associate Western values of individual freedom and self- realization with moral decadence, the casting of women as sexual objects, and the breaking of families. The professional debate, as the following review shows, takes place on a dif- ferent level, but this essay argues that it is for the most part Anjum Alvi is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS, Room 221, New Wing, Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences, D.H.A, Lahore Cantt, 54792, Lahore, Pakistan [anjum.alvi@lums.edu.pk]). This paper was submitted 14 VI 11, accepted 29 III 12, and electronically published 15 III 13. still embedded in certain key concepts that, for all their merits, impede an access to the veils full meaning. Nilofar Gole introduces her work with the observation that no other symbol than the veil reconstructs with such force the otherness of Islam to the West (1996:1). For authors like Franks (2000:920), Hirschmann (1998:352, 362), Laborde (2005:306), and Macleod (1991:121), the sartorial veil is a symbol (sign, signal, marker, representation, instrument, code) of an Islamic subjectivity as viewed from a range of different perspectives: of personal choice and freedom, cul- tural and personal identity, dignity and modesty, female sex- uality, patriarchy, power and coercion, necessity and cultural pressures, secularism, religion, resistance, and protest against cultural and economic mores associated with the West, from colonialism or imperialism to consumerism. To see the veil as a symbol or sign suggests a duality between signier and signied, as if, as Franks implies, the veil itself had no meaning but acquires it through what it refers to (2000:918). Against this, I argue for the inseparability of the symbol from its reference, semiotics from practice, and thought/rule from action. 1 Second, I propose that to locate the meanings of the veil in institutionalized contexts like pol- itics, economics, religion, culture, and sexuality, or in notions of agency, self-formation, and identity, obscures the mutual illumination of different contexts of meaning. Hoodfar, for instance, sees no relation between voluntary and involuntary wearing of the veil (2003:3839), while Lyon and Spini dis- 1. My approach draws on authors like de Coppet 1992, Dumont 1986, Levinas 1996, Merleau-Ponty 1958, Strathern 1985, Wagner 1972, and Wittgenstein 1958. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 178 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 connect its traditional and modern meanings (2004:343). Against such views I draw on Levinass notion of the gathered Being (1996:37) in order to locate meaning by relating ap- parently discrete contexts. Even Moruzzis (1994) important argument against the homogenization of Islam that stresses the specicity of cultural understandings of the veil neglects this relatedness. My third point is that to see veiling primarily as a dress code that secondarily symbolizes further issues, no matter how de- tailed and complex, forecloses not only its location in nonsar- torial contexts but also its meaning in relation to itself. El Guindi, in her comprehensive work (1999), exposes different meanings of the veil with regard to both genders: In sum, the veil in social space is about privacy, identity, kinship status, rank, and class (2003 [1999]:126). However, withthe exception of privacy, all these meanings ultimately hinge on dress codes, whereas I suggest that the concept of veiling is expressed in many contexts, with dress, though important, being only one among them. This wider quality of the concept of veiling was already recognized by Antoun, whose term modesty code refers to more than dress, including character traits and insti- tutions (1968:672). Unfortunately, however, his work retains a male perspective, linking the whole complexity of veiling to female sexuality, a point underlying Abu-Zahras criticism (1970). For Abu-Lughod the veil as a dress code is embedded in ideas of sexual shame, a matter of concern primarily for married Bedouin women in relation to hierarchically superior males (1986:152167). This essay, by contrast, demonstrates that the meaning of honor and shame and its link to the mean- ing of veiling in both sartorial and nonsartorial contexts are all constituted through the concept of concealment. This brings me to my fourth point: the veil is often discussed solely with regard to female concerns. For instance, Hoodfar (1991) treats the veil as a dress code with reference to multiple issues: voluntary participation in political movements; move- ment in public without the danger of molestation, enabling women to follow a profession or have access to higher edu- cation, itself enabling economic independence; or a way of self- differentiation from traditional rural women. Mahmoods work goes beyond the concentration on the symbol by arguing for the nonseparation of the veil from the interiorized modesty of the self, yet she too relates the veil as a dress code exclusively to womens concerns (Mahmood 2001). Many authors on South Asia (Jacobson 1982; Jeffery 1979; Papanek 1973; Pastner 1972; Sharma 1978) enhance the understanding of the function of sartorial veiling by relating it to multiple contexts like ar- chitecture, economic and political powers, female behavior norms (bashfulness, reservedness, low voice), control on mar- riage and on in-marrying women, and womens submission to the in-laws. Vatuk (1982) interprets all this as a concern with womens protection. While I take regard of this, my emphasis shifts from functional meaning to an understanding of con- cealment as a value for both genders in order to identify mul- tiple contexts, like architecture, home, work, death, marriage, gifts, Su poetry, asceticism, mysticism, sacredness, shrines, and their related myths. Veiling is central to the brother-sister, mothers brother-sisters daughter, and father-daughter rela- tion, to agnatic solidarity, and the daily activities of men, women, and children. My fth point: the meaning of the term sharam, so often invoked in relation to the veil, is far richer than its usual English translation shame, which is often associated with modesty, morality, piety, and female sexuality and its control. I explore additional meanings of sharam as aspects of concealment as a value, like nakedness of humans and sacred items, virginity, beauty in concealment, honor in responsibility andas embodied self-control, afnity, self-respect, dignity, pride, reverence for the other, self-sufciency, vulnerability, security and protection, embarrassment, an obligation to be humble, humiliation, shy- ness, reservedness, restraint, as well as women of the house, in particular, daughter and sister. Many of these aspects, however, will be demonstrated for both genders. Sixth, while my intention is to gain an inside view into a particular Muslim phenomenon and not to defend or criticize veiling, I identify contexts that enhance as well as those that limit social practice. Limiting contexts are, I contend, pri- marily unintended consequences of veiling, like the concern about honor killings or mutilation of women. Among these is the French ban on the veil. These six points expose the arbitrary fragmentation of the concept of veiling that I treat as a whole. Some anthropological theorizing of symbols presumes a context-free, objectively reducible meaning, a view critiqued by a range of philosophers. 2 The perception of religion as a system of symbols fails, as de Coppet shows with regard to the medieval meaning of (symbolic) repre sentation, to grasp that an object may stand for something and, at the same time, as an act of repeating and recreating, constitutes a thought inseparable from the act (1992:6469). This inseparability is often lost by the modern 3 perspective (de Coppet 1992:64 69). According to Dumont, the modern separation between value and fact also separates the symbol from its reference, which is assumed to be arbitrarily linked to or imposed on the symbol, constituting a modern articialism (1986:56, 243, 249, 257). This dualism is arguably traceable to the sep- 2. See, in particular, Wittgenstein in his arguments against the pos- sibility of a private language, about rule following (1958), and his remarks about Frazer (2002 [1931]; see also Skorupski 1976:1317), Merleau- Pontys localization of the self in the human world (1958), as well as Levinass arguments against the possibility of a pure receptivity (1996: 36), that is, meaning without context. 3. The concept of modernity is here operationally dened as a value system that locates a person primarily with reference to him- or herself and only secondarily to the cultural narrative, thus creating a duality pointed out by many authors (like de Coppet 1992; Dumont 1986; Lev- inas 1996; MacIntyre 1984, and Merleau-Ponty 1958). In many other value systems a person is primarily dened within his or her relations (Strathern 1992). While many authors discard this distinction between the modern and the nonmodern in order to avoid an orientalist per- spective, this essay argues for a recognition of difference, and thus for the other, rather than searching for the self everywhere. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 179 aration of mind and body inscribed in the intellectual traditions of both intellectualism and empiricism. 4 In an- thropology this problem may be traced to the separation be- tween rule and practice criticized by Bourdieu (1977:2230) inuencing Jackson (1983), who argues against the separation of bodily experience and conceptual formulation, and Csordas (1990), who observes that the body is not an object but a subject of culture. 5 Symbol, if seen from Bourdieus perspective, involves an objective truth imposed by the observing scientist on the peo- ple studied. This forecloses an access to the subjective view that unfolds itself in time and lies in practices and the sense people nd in pursuing their aims (1990:107). This sense and rationality, however, he characterizes as illusio, as a subjective illusion, because, he maintains, when seen objectively, free of the social context, apart from the narrative, it is a misre- cognition of power relations (Bourdieu 1990:68, 82, 107, 114, 135). For him veiling would thus constitute an objective struc- ture of subservience to masculine dominance (Bourdieu 2001). Hence, his critique on objectivism, important as it is, does not escape its own imposition of an objectivity reected in the terms illusio and misrecognition and therefore re- mains caught within the duality of the modern perspective, leading him to concentrate solely on a fragmentary meaning in individual acts unfolded in the habitus, while the entirety of these acts eludes him. The division implicated in the notion of symbol entails a separation between the authors view, which is presented as an analytical fact, and the symbols signicance as a religious act for the people themselves (for the same reasoning, see Mahmood 2001:209). For Dumont (1986:23368) however, values 6 are not separable from the facts in which they are expressed, namely, ideas and actions. 7 He notes that to make scientic knowledge possible the def- inition of being has been altered by excluding from it precisely the value dimension (243). Thus, for him the access to other cultures lies in understanding their system of related values, which are not simply what is desirable or preferable (249). What, then, is this concept of value? Values, in the acts and ideas of the people who share them, express their aspirations, worth, and sense, and relate them in a meaningful way to the world by shaping their perceptions, intentions, and aims, and provide orientation in every new context. This concept of 4. As pointed out by Merleau-Ponty and Levinas. 5. However, Csordas, though arguing against the duality of body and mind, reduces culture to the self. Through this implicit denial of the other he remains caught within the modern perspective (1990). 6. Unlike Webers ideal types, which attempt to access subjective con- tent through the imposition of an objectivity, values are specic cultural contents whose recognition as such makes the scientic inquiry and, instead of falling into solipsism, for de Coppet (1992) and Dumont (1986: 207, 213) become relatable at a global level, most notably also, as I argue, with regard to an ethical perspective. 7. Dumont refers to his concept of value in terms of the inseparability of value from idea, idea from fact, or ought to be from what is, and sometimes simply as value-system (1986:233, 238, 243, 249, 260, 261, 265). value that denies its separation from fact and provides ori- entation is the heart of my theoretical approach to the concept of veiling. Concealment, sharam, I argue, is one such value expressed in peoples practice, not just in individual acts but contained in the entirety as a systemic orientation. Such a fundamental value, the mother of all others, Dumont notes, often remains unexpressed (1986:233). This concept of value not only lifts the separation between objective and subjective, semiotic and practice, category/rule and act, or symbol and its meaning, but also prevents modernitys values from im- posing themselves on nonmodern contexts, in the negative sense of treating them as inferior as well as in the positive sense of nding the self everywhere. To broach the issue of the modern and nonmodern implies no opposition, as be- tween Western and Islamic societies, but poses the other without the imposition of the self. It is precisely such an ethics that is proposed by Levinas (1996; Alvi, The Death of Pope John Paul II: Some Reections on the Place of Ethics in Mo- dernity, unpublished manuscript, n.d.). Here we must note some further attributes of the concept of value: Dumont observes that a value necessitates the ex- istence of other values of different statuses that may be contrary to each other, as well as of non-values that pervert them, re- sulting in a hierarchy (1986:7, 124, 227, 265, 279); funda- mental value encompasses the relative one, and both together as a whole subordinate the non-value. Acommon characteristic of value in nonmodern contexts is its segmentation (252 56): its multiple uid facets, exibility, appearances in numer- ous overlapping and intersecting contexts, its continuity that is, the immediate relatedness of all its appearances in different contexts that may be at more or less encompassing levels because of the different statuses of values. The uid nature of the value of concealment lies, I argue, in multiple contexts, united as a gathered Being (Levinas 1996:37), as does the contrary value of revealment (wakhala, dekhawa), what is shown to others. 8 I further discuss the non-values (nonideological or unintended consequences of values) that pervert the value system (Dumont 1986:265). The value of concealment posits Islam as principally in- separable from its specic expressions, like the Punjabi one discussed here, which constitute its oneness, just as the notes of a certain music may be played with different instruments in different ways and are neither reducible to nor separable from them. This analytical concept of value is thus not di- vorced from its immediate subjective content. Seen in this way, veiling is a form of being, or a permanent ontological 8. It should be noted that Western values of revealment are also ne- gotiated issues, set against the conceptual notions of concealment. For instance, transparency in politics and economics is set against discretion and privacy. The revealment of female beauty and nudity is not simply a matter of male manipulation but is set against sexual abstinence and the deliberate covering of body parts. The uid nature of the value of revealment may also be noted in modern architecture and art (an extreme case is Gunther von Hagenss Body Worlds, a display of the human bodys inner beauty against the general taboo on death and the burial). This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 180 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 statement, in-built into every act. It shapes a practice that is neither guided by rules nor by principles (Bourdieu 1977), nor are rules or principles a result of practice, but the principle in its enactment forms innumerable expressions in our in- strumental individual actions, thereby rendering them as, as Wagner notes, at the same time cultural and personal (1972: 6079; Alvi 2007). Thus also Mahmoods valuable critique of interpretations of the veil in instrumental rather than religious terms (2001:209) requires a qualication: individual acts re- lating to economics, politics, status, cultural identity, the struggle for self expression, and personal instrumental strat- egies expose multifarious individual expressions of the same values. To separate religion from other categories of existence is a modern view whose history is traced by Dumont (1977). He notes that in modern ideology the previous hierarchical universe has fanned out into a collection of at views (1986: 249), or the multidimensional world is decomposed into a heap of planes that are absolutely separate and independent . . . homologous to each other, and each of them is homoge- neous throughout its extension (263)an image presented by many studies that limit the veil to a single institutional context. This essay thus intends to establish the perspective that the veil in Islam is not a mere symbol limited to a dress code, referring to an absence waiting to be discovered and to be constituted as its real meaning, but a value of concealment. It is this that explains the importance of veiling in Islamic contexts, its persistence, and how it permeates peoples very being. This being is not a matter of mere existence but, as Merleau-Ponty notes, a certain bent toward the world (be- ing-in-the-world; 1958:424475). That is, a persons world- view (foregrounds and horizons) is formed and rendered meaningful by culture (the world), which itself is the result of a persons engagement with other humans. Thus the world in which a person is situated is also a space where he or she unfolds his or her own creative potential. Here no aspect is prior to the other: Inside and outside are inseparable. The world is wholly inside and I am wholly outside myself (474). This inseparability on which Bourdieus theory of practice too is built lies at the heart of the value of concealment that takes regard of the signicance the world has for people and how their acts are unfolded in it, thereby contributing to shaping it, and rendering arguments of absolute freedom or agency (for instance, Hirschmann 1998) questionable. Thus, the self forms itself wholly in relation to the world or the other, an ethical quality that may get distorted in the unintended consequences of an act, and thus rendering them unethical. This thesis is exemplied by drawing on ethnographic ob- servations in the Pakistani Punjab, in particular, the area around the village of my eldwork, Malot (see g. A1 in the CA online supplement 9 ), in the Salt Range. 10 9. For all photographs, please consult the online supplementary ma- terial. All photographs were taken by Lukas Werth. 10. The village of Malot where I worked between 1993 and 1995 is mainly populated by Janjua Rajput, regarded as a high caste in the area. Power, Responsibility, and Freedom Kim, the eponymous hero of Rudyard Kiplings novel, wan- dering with his teacher on the Great Trunk Road, meets an elderly noblewoman traveling in a veiled palanquin accom- panied by a group of servants. She speaks only from inside, never showing herself. Yet she dominates the scene, thus pro- viding an eloquent testimony of a womans self-assertion in such a situation. She deals with everybody in a condent, sovereign manner, including a passing policeman to whom she demonstrates the limits of his authority. In the morning she hurries her servants, who all rush to provide her with her rst hookah. Kim is impressed by the richness of her ex- pressions. Kiplings gure is no Muslima, but a Hindu, and yet she perfectly illustrates the general relevance of the prin- ciple of the veil in a cultural context crucially inuenced by Islamic notions. The veiling is self-evident, obviously forms the ranis personality; it is at the same time a criterion of honor, status, and action, and an identity determining the way in which the rani turns to the world. To regard it as a limitation of her perspective would certainly amount to no more than a description of one aspect among others and neglect how the veil also enhances her possibilities. During my eldwork I experienced a similarly self-assertive manner among the women in Malot. Women usually drape their head and body with a palla, 11 also called chunni, or dupata, a cotton shawl, one meter broad and two meters long without which they feel naked despite their long shirt and baggy trousers (shalwar-qamiz): a palla covers a womans sharm (nakedness). Even the presence of a close male relative induces a woman to respectfully take extra care of her shawl. She eschews eye contact with men; friendliness is less an issue than the obvious effort to hamper any male access to herself, and if she has to address a male stranger, she does so using a term for a close relative. Men on their side gaze on the ground. In the daytime women move freely in the village, young ones preferably with female friends and cousins. When my friends and I came across men in a lane, they respectfully turned aside, avoiding any eye contact, whereas we walked self-condently in the middle of the lane. However, in a town bazar women cannot depend on this respect and are therefore compelled to wear a chador, a shawl bigger than a palla, or a burqa, 12 which is therefore not necessarily a symbol of urbanization and modernity (El Hamel 2002:303) but ne- cessitated by the unfamiliar, public context. Already the architecture expresses the value of concealment: 11. Palla is also a Latin term for a rectangular cloth within which women in Roman antiquity wrapped themselves when they left home (see Tanno in Goto 2004:280). 12. A burqa is a thin coat with sleeves covering the body down to the feet, usually black, along with a cape down to the waist, covering the head and xed under the chin, sometimes with an attached piece of cloth covering nose and mouth, and nally two transparent veils attached to it, niqab, which cover the whole face down to the chest when they are not folded back. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 181 single-story buildings with windows only opening to the courtyard surrounded by high walls and a gate prevent any view inside from the narrow lanes (see g. A2, AD). Non- related men of other villages, who usually visit without their women, are whisked into guest rooms beside the entrance, where they are served only by men: people take pride in the fact that their women do not move unnecessarily between villages. Village men usually meet each other outside their homes at certain places or at lodges (dera) in the elds; only on such occasions as sickness or death do they pay a formal visit to a home, considered to be the womens realm, which facilitates frequent and informal meetings between female friends and relatives. Urban contexts reect similar separa- tions: different places are reserved for women in public trans- port and in restaurants, and there are separate hostels, schools, and colleges for each gender. A family traveling in a public transport pickup whose platform, covered with a canvas roof, usually features two benches facing each other, never allows its young women to sit at the rear toward the road, a place occupied by elderly women or by men. This segregation is inculcated from early childhood: boys play cricket in a free plot where they are watched by passersby, a display considered disrespectful for girls who never idle around street corners and shops. The daughters of one woman who had married in from elsewhere were criticized for being seen too much on the village streets. I used to teach some small girls, aged between 8 and 11 years, who always arrived in the company of a mother or aunt. They felt awkward and resistant when I, though being female, tried to take them into my lap or to kiss them on the cheek: wrapped in their small palla/chunni, they acted like small women with the female consciousness of how to move with shyness and reservedness (sharam; see g. A3). The fear that girls might lose this em- bodied shame by moving outside discourages many parents from sending them to high school in the nearby town. Some of the girls who studied there were soon compelled to stop their education and to marry when their parents were con- fronted with rumors about their behavior. Shyness (sharam) is also felt about female undergarments, as they imply na- kedness: my washed underwear was secretly spread by my hostess on the roof, and I was not allowed to hang it in the courtyard like other clothes. The concept of tna 13 that Mus- lim scholars would normally invoke to explain this and other acts is not generally used by the people: what matters is a general attitude of self-respect in reservedness as a way of being. This attitude also informs urban practice: even female university students whose dress includes sleeveless shirts and who sometimes go without dupata are brought by a car inside 13. The term tna, meaning temptation, trial, torments, discord, or civil strife, appears many times in the Qur an (Goto 2004:290). the campus. This is not just a control of female sexuality 14 but an aspect of a wider discourse on sharam permeating these contexts also, which is carried on internally among the students: the same students told me unanimously that, even if they would not make it public, they would distance them- selves from anyone who lost her virginity (sharam). This sharam is considered a womans real jewelry, ex- pected at all stages of life, without which she is thought empty, graceless, and naked (nangi, besharam). It expresses the Is- lamic principle of beauty in concealment (sharam, hiya, laj), 15 a conceptual counterpart to honor, the ability to preserve ones sharam (see g. A4). A young widow in my host family in Malot particularly emphasized her reservedness by re- straining herself from wearing new or colorful clothes, by leaving her hair unkempt, and by avoiding talk with any man outside the immediate family: a Rajput widow is expected not to remarry, and hence acts of revealment render her partic- ularly vulnerable. Sharam therefore also becomes an idea of security, visible when young women always move in groups of two to three for daily activities, like fetching water from the distant spring, washing clothes in the streamlet, defecating outside the village, going to the local shrine for Thursday prayers, or visiting a town bazar. Sharam also means to keep the image of ones self-suf- ciency, to conceal a needy personal situation: even neighbors sharing the same courtyard do not know what is cooked in each others pot. My hostess once told me that in order to conceal her poverty she at times placed the pot over the re without really cooking anything; to expose ones own weak- ness to others is like becoming naked (apna pet nanga karna). One woman who sometimes openly asked for monetary help was criticized for having no self-respect (sharam); people take pride in managing their life without asking for help. My host- ess also used to tell me before I visited other houses never to stay for a meal, because, she maintained, it was a matter of pride (izzat aur sharam) for her not to allow other people to say that she was too poor to feed her guests. In other contexts, this concealment of needs in Malot con- stitutes a barrier between daughters and mothers. Many young women told me that they had been entirely unprepared and ignorant when they had their rst menstruation. Whenever I asked a mother why she never had told her daughter, she would say, this is a matter of concealment (sharam) which should not be talked about. Daughtersand sons alsofeel frequently unable to address issues concerning their marriages to their mothers: the exchange marriage (watta-satta; Alvi 2007:66671), depending on the availability of a pair made up of either brother and sister or cousins to wed to a cor- responding pair, may lead either to marriage taking place at 14. As such simplifying interpretations reveal an observers prejudices, so does a widespread Muslim discourse that identies sexuality as a pivotal point on which a Western womans possibilities of life are hinged and ignores cultural concepts of self-realization, transparency, aesthetics, etc. 15. See Quran 24:31. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 182 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 an early age or being delayed for many years. This creates personal tension: one girls frequent faints were blamed on her mothers inability to marry her, and a neighboring girls continuous bed-stricken sickness was seen by my hostess as a depression (dukh) due to her ances sudden death, about which she could not express her feelings without losing her dignity. Young unmarried girls with such afictions, including states of frenzy, are commonly considered to be possessed by jin and often brought for help to holy men (pir) by whom they are treated with amulets and holy breath (dam-darud). Generally, an inverse relation exists between the vulnera- bility that the veil is meant to protect and the successive responsibilities that a woman shoulders in the course of her life. Her sphere is the home, represented to the outside world by men to protect her from its dangers: as Bourdieu observes for Algerian Kabyles (1990:276), all healthy men of working age are supposed to leave home in the morning. However, women have gradated access to the outside world: young un- married teenage girls with no social responsibilities are the most restricted, elder girls get around more in order to look after the livestock and for other such duties, while mothers move freely within the village, and mothers-in-law not only enjoy still more authority but also maintain relations between villages through the visits they conduct alone on ritual occasions. The rst step to this freedom of movement is marriage, which enables a woman to start her own gift exchange with other women, which is the beginning of a lifelong network of complex and systematic interactions, continuously en- hancing her social possibilities (Alvi 1999, 2001, 2007). It is through the medium of gifts that she expresses her intentions and xes the engagements and eventual marriages of her chil- dren, to which her husband is then only required to give his ofcial approval in the form of a nod at the formal engage- ment ceremony: It is practical kin who make marriages; it is ofcial kin who celebrate them (Bourdieu 1977:3338). Thus, far from just dominating and controlling women, men are in fact dependent for their own possibilities on the re- lations managed for them by mother, wife, and sister. A man gets the best morsels of food served rst; his wife works for him and moves behind him carrying his items, obeys his command in many contexts, and is left or disregarded much more easily than she is herself able to leave or disregard. When I once had agreed to give a man a lift to the town to get his television repaired, I was surprised to see him arrive at my Jeep without it, only to notice a short time later his wife carrying the heavy set on her head down the hill. Yet, this ofcial male seniority is linked to a clear dependence on a practical female realm, as it is the women who arrange mar- riages for their brothers and sons and shape and create male social spaces and group integration through their gift giving (Alvi 1999, 2001, 2007). This informal female authority side- steps easy stereotypes such as patriarchy or male control on female sexuality, which are better described as instances of viri-representation, that is, male notions may encompass female ones. An obvious example of viri-representation in Malot is to designate both genders with the term rajput, lit- erally son of a raja, which, however, does not necessarily mean that all authority lies with the male gender. It is inherent in the human condition to be confronted with choices, and the effort to choose the right choice in a responsible way, that is, in relation to the other, indeed con- stitutes freedom (see de Rougemont 1944:97100; Levinas 1996). The present essay does not emphasize individual ethics (Mahmood 2001:222) but a general ethical dimension that not only gives sense to the self in relation to others but also forms a notion of freedom that can only unfold itself in a specic cultural narrative. Cultural particularities, value sys- tems, and differences all depend on this ethical dimension that thus relates them and makes them possible in the rst place (see Levinas 1996:5759). A cultural narrative does not imply a restriction against which a will would have to be formulated; rather, it denes a person and his or her will as a bent toward the world. The interrelatedness of freedom, responsibility, and viri- representation induced by the value of concealment is further demonstrated among female members of noble families, par- ticularly holy families associated with Su traditions in the Punjab. Many never show themselves in the open, passing only in cases of need, cloaked in a burqa through public places, yet they play a crucial part in managing and sustaining family power structures. A Su shrine is maintained by the gifts of large numbers of guests whose donations form its economic base; many of the guests are dedicated followers (murid) over whom a holy person (pir) constructs a network of power by his patronage. Guests and followers are directed according to their gender into an open male realm (mardana, bairun) or a concealed female one (zanana, andrun). The majority of guests are served food from a free kitchen (langar), but important ones are entertained within the household, which is controlled and managed by the familys women. Thus, the males of the family depend crucially upon the womens organization. In a recorded case the deliberate mis- management of his guests by his sisters forced the destined successor of a shrine to withdraw in favor of his younger brother. 16 In another shrine in Rawalpindi, the overlordship was contested when a middle-aged, unmarried woman, un- related to the saint, occupied a separate room in the com- pound that was forbidden to adult males, with the sole excep- tion of her father, who directed female followers (murid) to her. In return for her treatments and blessings, they gave her gifts: through strict concealment she built a center of honor and power from which she could not be removed. When Hirschmann (1998) insists on womens participation in for- mal power structures, she does so without reference to cases where power is not exclusively contained by such structures in the male sphere but may take different shapes (see Nelson 1974; Rogers 1975). In many social contexts complex female 16. I speak of a recorded case when I am unable to reveal its par- ticulars for ethical reasons. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 183 practical strategies interact with male ofcial ones (Bour- dieu 1977:3338), an aspect that escapes, as noted by Yegen- oglu (1998), those female authors who impose their own perspective when scrutinizing the other. Thus, regarding Mus- lims in South Asia, the work, for instance, of Jeffery (1979), Papanek (1973, 1988), Pastner (1974), and Vreede-de Stuers (1968), contains an undertone of protest against the veil in- spired by inducing their own perspective onto the women they worked with. The self-understood expression of the value of concealment as a way of being in rural contexts may be modulated through personal interpretation in some urban contexts. When women work in ofces, businesses, or the media, they frequently go to work cloaked, much as rural women visit a bazar, and once in the ofce, they take off the chador, thus converting public space into a familiar one but often also compromising their status. Some women of the urban middle classes, however, carry their formal segregation with a chador, hijab, 17 or abaya into the public space, deliberately reinterpreting the veil as a religious principle and along with it their own position in relation to the male realm, thus dening a personal identity. 18 Such an identity may also get reinforced when women join a religious movement like Al Huda. 19 Many women I met at its gatherings in the Punjab studied there against the will of their husbands or fathers who also resisted their veiling. Con- temporary expressions of veiling like these are the result of personal efforts of womenfrequently working, often with academic training, students, or ofce employeesto con- struct a submitted self, to live Islam in a way they consider ideal, and to protect themselves from their male-dominated environment, thus achieving a certain control on it. Here the wearers status is newly dened in the act that claims religious values for another context in order to support her aims and make a social space for her in the public arena. While the traditional idea of the veil (parda) consists in a concentration on the domestic realm separated from unrelated men, and status built through the demonstration of an ability to afford the luxury of seclusion, here seclusion is detached from the domestic context and carried into the contemporary profes- sional world, the very context from which women were meant to stay away. The prestige of the burqa is thus related to, but different from that won through the hijab or abaya. While a womans traditional veiling denes her honor and status in relation to her family, in which she locates her identity, a woman taking the hijab or abaya, though remaining com- mitted to the familys reputation, relates it to another realm in which she rst of all localizes herself and thus questions 17. A mostly white or gray garment worn over the clothes, covering loosely the upper part of the body, leaving, in difference to the burqa, the eyes visible. 18. An abaya is a long, loosely sewn thin gown with head scarf. 19. Al Huda (guidance), an organization for teaching Islam to women, was founded by the Pakistani scholar Farhat Hashmi in 1994. Nowadays her recorded lessons on Quran and Hadith are taught in many countries. habitual objective structures. Such manners of redenition are frequently identied as fundamentalist. However, this personal identication in relation to religion is not separable from pragmatic aspects like gaining respect, reputation (which is helpful for receiving marriage proposals), status, power, and mobility, which enable a woman to deal with public matters without being brushed aside easily. For instance, a girl of sixteen, growing up in an urban lower-middle-class neigh- borhood, donned the head scarf as the rst female person in her family, when she started driving. She told me she did this to keep mischievous male motorists at bay. A similar attitude may be noted in the opinions about the veil of many university students and teachers who point out that abaya is Gods command to maintain sharam in order to keep the tna away; that is, men should not get sexually attracted to other women. Thus, the veil may predominantly emphasize in cer- tain contexts pragmatic or sexual aspects but is neither re- ducible to them nor separable from the religious value of concealment as such. Marriage as Concealing Sharam The value of concealment in Islam, however, forms a basic disposition of perception, structuring the self in relation to social reality. Male dress is also designed to conceal the body, and the male head covering, too, though subject to personal and regional variation, embodies shame and honor, the source par excellence of which are the women whose care is a prime responsibility of every man, rendering him vulnerable: terms for women of the house (like mother, sister, daughter, wife) may in some contexts be equated with terms for honor (izzat, ghairat, sharam). 20 This theme is elaborated in a Punjabi mar- riage song addressing the brides father: Father never bowed down before, his daughters [by being born] have made him to bow, he stands with his turban hanging around his neck; he came from far with a bowed head, in the morning he had set his [bridal] daughter into the palanquin (Alvi 1999:256). 21 The fact that a mans status is lowered after his daughters marriage in relation to the wife-takers reects the South Asian theme of afnity (see Dumont 1983), which also is expressed as a concealment: when cousins, who do not normally veil from each other, are married with each other, they veil them- selves in the marriage ceremony, that is, bridegroom as well as bride are veiled (sera, ghungat, the latter is for both; see g. A5). This concealment addresses their being others to each other (see Alvi 2007:674) as well as their elevated and sensitive situation. Thus, veiling itself expresses in the context of mar- riage the value of afnity. For the Hindu context, both Sharma (1978:225) and Ja- 20. The basic link between honor and care for family women was what Kressels informant tried to communicate through a story (1986:177) and is reected in his disappointment about the authors inability to under- stand the issue. 21. Age te babal kadi na niva / dhiya an nivaya / gal wic palra pa khalota / duro nevonda aya / vade vele uth ke dhi dole wic payi. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 184 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 cobson (1982:99100) note, on the one hand, that among the reasons for a married womans veiling in her in-laws village is to prevent sexual relations with other men of the husbands village, but, on the other hand, they observe that such liaisons are common. I argue that if veiling is seen in functional terms, such contradictions remain, but they dissolve once it is re- alized that a married woman chooses her lovers among such men who fall into a category of potential husbands and not of brothers. In other words, veiling in this context expresses primarily the value of afnity, which is inseparable from its instrumental aspects. This perspective also allows one to un- derstand Jacobsons observance that a married woman does not veil herself either in her natal village or in the villages of her jethani and devrani (her husbands elder and young broth- ers wives): the men of these villages are categorical brothers to her (1982:91). When in the Punjab a mans daughter leaves the home upon marriage, his responsibility is not completely transferred to the husband but falls on her brother, making him vulner- able. This South Asian aspect of vulnerability is a womans pride and honor, which lies in her ability to conceal herself as a beauty from the category of the other (the world, duniya), the exposure to whom renders her and her own ones vul- nerable to insult. Marriage also binds brother and sister in a relation of lifelong mutual dependence expressed in gift ex- changes, which endow each other with honor (Alvi 1999, 2007). A woman without a brother, even though she may have many sisters, is pitied for being alone. There are subtle elements in this relationship: a sister confronts her in-laws and the world (duniya) with pride (man) in her brother: she has him; his and his sons house remains her natal home (peka/picha) on which she and her daughter can lean, and this love is expressed in her songs. A married sister has a particularly auspicious status in relation to her natal family, and this allows her to receive gifts from her brother, and in return she bestows her blessings on his family by performing auspicious rites of passage. A brother who fullls his duties of protection and gifts toward his sister moves with an upright head, boldly facing the world. Thus both are sources of honor and shame for each other. The brother-sister relationship, on the one hand, joins the Muslim Punjab with the Middle East (Granqvist 1950:175 179) and, on the other hand, is expressed in South Asian categories that systematically juxtapose wife-takers and wife- givers in an asymmetrical relationship (Alvi 2007). It intro- duces the Middle Eastern idea of marrying in as close as possible, thus not revealing daughters and sisters (sharam) to strangers (duniya). For instance, a father of four sons told me that he feels morally responsible toward his brother and sister to take their daughters in marriage for his sons instead of searching for brides from elsewhere in order to keep the daughters (sharam) in the trusted family and to face the world with honor. A Punjabi saying illustrates the triumph of fa- milial dependence and love despite any disputes: Even when a relative kills you he will place your body in the shade, just as in Algeria the saying is, I hate my brother, but I hate the man who hates him (Bourdieu 1977:65). In families of very high status, like Su saints, some daughters may never marry because within their own category no suitable man is left, and it is considered dangerous to expose the familys vul- nerability (sharam) to strangers. In such cases they are married to the Quran. 22 Thus, there is no better concealment (parda dalna) for the honor (sharam) of a woman than a bridegroom who is a cousin, addressed as a sibling, and therefore double- bound in his responsibility (see also Alvi 2007:668). This re- sponsibility, implied here by the value of concealment, nds justication for its expression in politics, property preservation, group status, solidarity, respect for the forefathers, loyalty, and the safety of women, as is evident in Antouns discussion of several authors (1968:693): each individual marriage expresses this value through its own intentions and pragmatic strategies. The value of a consanguineous wife may be traced back to the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament when the bridegroom sings my sister, my bride (4:910; 5:12) to his beloved who is near and yet far: she is veiled. In the Punjabi exchange marriage (watta-satta; Alvi 2007) too, in the concept of the concealment of each others women (in this context also re- ferred to as sharam) through which honor is maintained and potential disgrace is avoided, Middle Eastern and South Asian values of marrying in and dening kin and afnes meet each other. A Punjabi Rajput man extends his duty to conceal his sisters vulnerability (sharam) to her daughter by giving to her at her marriage as a special gift a large and elaborately embroidered shawl (subar; see g. A6), and thus cloaked, she leaves her natal home. She cherishes the subar all her life and wears it on ceremonial occasions. If a woman dies before her marriage, she is buried wrapped in this shawl after the usual covering with the white shroud (kafan) and her long loose hair, which constitute a nal concealment of vulnerability and beauty in concealment (sharam): the naked body, male or female, should not even be exposed to the person responsible for the nal ablution who puries it under a bed sheet (chador) with the hand covered in a cloth, thus avoiding any direct view or touch. The nal shroud also conceals a persons faults, a source of embarrassment (sharam) that should be mentioned no more, as the person can no more defend his or her honor. Saints, Mysticism, and the Dangerous Sacred The value of concealment is, in Wittgensteins terms, a part of the language game, that is, its meaning evolves with ref- erence to the contexts of its use. One such context is the shrine of Pir Ghaib (the vanished saint) just outside the 22. Marriages to the Quran (see Frembgen 2008) are sometimes also motivated by economic considerations as when families fear that their property may get divided if a daughters husband asks for his wifes share. However, the concept of honor cannot be reduced to such pragmatic aspects from which values are often inseparable. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 185 village of Malot; a small, open, walled ground of gravelike structures inside a little grove from which nobody collects even the scarce rewood that is needed on a daily basis (see Werth 1998). It is told about the saints origins that once, when a marriage procession (barat) passed by this spot, by- standers laughed at the bald bridegroom with his one-eyed bride. The couple felt such embarrassment (sharam) that the whole procession instantly vanished, and in its stead the graves found there today emerged: the bridegroom had become a saint (pir) through veiling himself in this miraculous death a holy persons death is regularly referred to in the Punjab as veiling from the world (duniya se parda lena), an ex- pression implying that he, though concealed, in fact lives on. 23 The respect for this afterlife, particularly in the urs (Arabic marriage; a saints death anniversary celebrating his mar- riage with God), is expressed in the offerings of chador, cloth sheets of mostly green color covering the grave and concealing it from a naked exposure to the world (duniya) in order to maintain the honor (sharam) of a holy person (as honor is maintained by a womans concealment; see g. A7, A). His power is enhanced by this simultaneous concealment and revealment, which he shares with the divine itself: the black veil of the Kaaba conceals the divine and at the same time indicates its presence (Winter 2004:146). In Susm the world (duniya) is a veil concealing the divine; ascetic practices aim to remove the veil from the heart in order that the divine light might be perceived. In one such practice, chilla, the Su prays and meditates for a prolonged period in an undisturbed seclusion, thus preempting his veiling from the world. Some holy men in Pakistan remain throughout their lives in the room in which they will be buried, leaving it only once a year at the urs. In Nurpur, near Islamabad, an ascetic withdrew himself to a walled enclosure into which only male followers were allowed and thus enhanced his status by concealing him- self from the female gender and the world (duniya). In Muslim mysticism, Winter notes, God is referred to as female, as mirrored in the classical Arabic love epic Layla and Majnun (2004:146; see de Rougemont 1983:102107). Majnuns love for Layla is likened to a search for God. In this search, though Majnun has crossed the veil of the world, he has not yet reached Layla, or the Divine, which from the worlds perspective renders him insane. This theme is in- versely reiterated in the Punjabi epic of Hir and Ranjha, a leading topos of Punjabi mysticism: the Punjabi Su poet Shah Hussein uses the metaphor of this epic to identify him- self in his search for God with Hir in her search for Ranjha. The following verse shows Shah Husseins longing for and identication with the other side of the veil: 23. In this story, the Islamic value is clearly formulated on a Hindu topos of the Indian goddess: all over India, myths about Devi gures contain a structure of marriage or sexuality terminated by deathpar- ticularly of the male consortresulting in the emergence of the goddess. For the shrine of Pir Ghaib and other such sites in the Punjab, this pattern has been demonstrated by Werth 1998. mahi mahi kukdi, mai ape Ranjhan hui Ranjhan Ranjhan mainu sabh koi akho, Hir na akho koi. [calling my beloved again and again, I have become Ranjha myself everyone should call me Ranjha, and no one call me Hir.] This verse reproduces the moment when Hirs pain in her search reaches its zenith, a mystical moment that may best be characterized with the words of Levinas as one of most passive passivity, the Self is freed from every Other and from itself, and, at the height of its pain for the other, the self is substituted for the other (1996:9091, 121), the self is ab- solved of itself, and only the one searched for is left, God. This is the existential meaning that elevates the I to the climax of its existence (18): the cardinal experience of the ascetic. This experience of awe beyond the veil, the relation with the other through the negation of the self, was experi- enced a thousand years before by Al Hallaj when he main- tained anal -Haqq (I am the Truth, that is, God in his transcendence and omnipotence), a statement he paid for with his life. This topos of self-sacrice appears already in the Song of Solomon of the Old Testament when the bride in search for the beloved sacrices her honor: the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me (5:7). The sacredness formulated by Pir Ghaibs veiling cannot be characterized as perfectly good, but Otto draws our at- tention to the irreducible, distinctly frightening anddangerous aspect of the mysterium tremendum (1947:1321), immedi- ately connected with the pirs power: he affects with illness or madness anyone who tries to pierce his aloofness from the world by using the sacred wilderness of his grove for worldly matters, like collecting rewood, urinating, or living nearby. The grove may be entered, however, with a feeling of reverence (sharam) and is visited every Thursday evening by the village women who, with their heads covered, burn oil lights on the saints (pirs) grave to obtain his blessing (see g. A7, B). Its rewood may be used only to prepare offerings to the saint, as was once done when the village elds needed rain (g. A7, C). During every marriage procession (barat), the bridal cou- ple leaves the village and enters the grove to obtain Pir Ghaibs blessing (see g. A8). Winter notes that this bifacial quality even in the veiling of God, expressed in the black veil of the Kaaba, parallels darkness and dangers of the night, a meaning entailed also in the name of Layla (Arabic night) who is likened to God: that which one is not able to bear to look on must remain concealed, only accessible to those who are friends of God. After his revelation the Prophet wrapped his face in order to spare common man this sight illuminated by God himself (Winter 2004:146; Quran 74:1). A Punjabi womans veil shares this quality of a membrane, rendering her accessible only to those who can bear her sight (Winter 2004:157). This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 186 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 This bifacial quality of blessing and danger, 24 analogue to the ambiguities in the religious forces of good and evil, death and life, illness and health, sin and virtue, falsity and truth, which was noted much earlier by Hubert and Mauss (1964 [1898]:60), also characterizes the veiling of women in the home: Punjabi rituals contain at central moments rites of auspiciousness for a man conducted by related women who are concealed and thus honored and protected, and at the same time a source of blessing as well as of danger. Thus, at his marriage a sister ties a bracelet of owers (gana) on his wrist and ties the veil (sera) to his head just before he mounts the horse he rides during the marriage procession (barat; see g. A5, A). All through a mans life his sister, by accepting his unilateral gifts called dhian, keeps dangers at bay (Alvi 1999:310), and to neglect this duty makes his prosperity wither (ghata). On the other hand, women constitute the forbidden zone 25 and are inherently exposed to sacrilegious outrage (Bourdieu 1977:61); the duty to protect them is a mans source of honor, and failing to do so brings humiliation (sharam) whose public announcement is unbearable, as it was for Pir Ghaib. The meaning of this looming danger is com- parable to Wittgensteins characterization of the life of the Priest-King of the Wood at Nemi, protecting the GoldenBough: as his life is not separable from and gives expression to the phrase the majesty of death (2002 [1931]:87), a mans life in the Punjab gives meaning to the notions of honor and shame. Such a principle is not based on an opinion, and therefore is not subject to error, but is a way of expressing signicance (88). Thus, efforts to localize any real or original meaning in the veil as a sartorial symbol (of Islam, for example) all narrow down and fail to grasp the value of concealment as a principle of signicance permeating diverse contexts. The Value of Revealment: Ostentation and Asceticism The Islamic value of concealment necessitates revealment as its counterpart (Dumont 1986:227, 279). This may form a shadow threatening what is to be concealed but also a value in itself, subordinated to and dependent on concealment but entering into a dialectical relationship illuminating an entirety of contexts. A person deliberately reveals his or her identity not only in relation to his or her own social position, wealth, or ed- ucation but also to that of kin (Alvi 2001), thereby concealing sources of potential embarrassment (sharam): Rajput men told me with enthusiasm about their forefathers but concealed the status of a few in-married women fromanother, somewhat lower caste, as people often conceal their caste background if they nd this appropriate. This attitude is expressed also 24. Figures of Indian goddesses also prominently show this double nature of blessing and danger (see Werth 1998). 25. The terms for sacred zone (harimharem) and for sin and sinful (haram) both refer to a forbidden zone (see Ahmed 1982:524; Antoun 1968: 679; El Guindi 2003 [1999]:84; Gole 1996:7, 20, 52). in contexts such as contemporary architecture when private urban estates exhibit elaborately decorated fronts and drawing rooms at the expense of other sides (see g. A9). Ironically the terraces of such fronts, often copied from Western ar- chitecture, tend to remain empty both of plants and humans: the value of concealment has not changed with the fashion of architecture (see g. A10). The necessary revealment is also connected with dangers overcome by nazar bhatu, a black spot that counters the evil eye that looks enviously at what is revealed: old black cooking pots shield newly constructed houses in the villages from the envious, tatters of black cloth protect newly bought taxis and trucks, and a black spot on a childs cheek protects his or her health and beauty. The respectability attained through the responsibility for women (Bourdieu 1977:61) is maintained through an agnatic solidarity reproduced and demonstrated by internal mar- riages, through concealing internal disputes, the readiness to confront enemies, and through common relations withothers, forming elaborate networks relating different groups and vil- lages that nd their prime expression in an emphasis on large numbers of visitors at marriages and funerals. A common Punjabi saying, mati pao (conceal with soil), aptly char- acterizes the attitude on such occasions when quarrels and conicts must be overcome to demonstrate solidarity. The value of revealment thus implicates the prior intactness of concealment. Families of particularly high or holy status, how- ever, may choose to form a new marriage bond in order to extend relations, often in an exchange of women that serves as a mutual concealment of each others vulnerability (sharam par parda dalna) and to mutually bind each other in the responsibility for the daughters (sharam). In a recorded case, a wealthy and powerful holy man (pir) exchanged his own daughter and son in marriage with those of an unrelated but also highly reputed and powerful landlord and politician. Marriage entails extreme aspects of both revealment and concealment: a bride is at once the focal point of beauty in concealment, even referred to as a bundle (ghatri) that can- not move and talk on its own, but her lavish decoration appears simultaneously to cry for revealment (see g. A11, A). The lascivious dance of the transvestites (khusre; see g. A11, B) who are invited to bless the couple with fertility forms the conceptual opposite to the brides nonmovement and silence, waiting to be disclosed to her husband and in-laws. One day is reserved for the display of the dowry and all the gifts received. Women take turns in announcing the names of the gift givers to each arriving guest, a sweeping public statement of unity concealing all individual intentions, strat- egies, and embarrassments that inform the complex grammar of gifting. One category of gifts is called wakhala (ostentation): this is not meant to be kept but is returned after its display, serving only to reveal the size of the network of social relations beyond immediate relatives (Alvi 1999:80; see g. A12). Western notions of modesty seem to nd no equivalent in common Punjabi demonstrations of status, and yet frequently enclosed in this display is a bent to the world that may be This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 187 called ascetic, as it renounces its own limitations or needs in an outspoken hospitality. During my eldwork, the elderly head of my host family was proud to provide a place for me without asking for favors. Any open contribution to the main- tenance on my part was refused, and I had to sneak in pro- visions in the night as small gifts. A Punjabi saying aptly describes my situation: mu khanda, ankh sharmandi (the mouth eats, but the eye feels embarrassed). This metaphor describes honor as embodied control for preserving egoity or unicity through compelling the self in an obligation to the other, the source of meaning for the self according to Levinas (1996:94, 120). I had to respect my hosts pure hos- pitality, a source of honor (izzat, sharam) but also to preserve my own dignity (sharam), and I was thus compelled to give in return, just like the eyes are bound in obligation for what the mouth eats. The term sharamala/i refers to a person who is obliged to be humble (sharam), a quality of humans as opposed to animals, who are considered to be without regard for the other (besharam). Living with his elder son, my host secretly saved his small army pension over 2 decades without telling anybody, and one day revealed his intention of giving the whole amount to his younger sons widow, for whom he felt morally re- sponsible. The reason for his long concealment was not only that he wanted to give toward the end of his life a substantial amount to the most needy person in the family, betting to his Rajput identity, but also to renounce any favors from the family retrospectively to his savings, thus saving the eyes from feeling embarrassed for the mouth. This ascetic attitude in concealment informs other daily contexts as when, on a jour- ney, a watchman allowed me to use the bathroom of a closed restaurant, refusing the money I offered him and thus re- nouncing the opportunity to mend some of his needs. Bour- dieu refers to such conditions when he notes that poverty . . . makes doubly meritorious the man who, though partic- ularly exposed to outrage, nonetheless manages to win re- spectthough far from being a transgured expression of . . . economic and political facts (1977:61). A similar attitude of reservedness and restraint lies behind a way of revealing ones personal grief by concealing ones prosperity: a woman whose son-in-law had been murdered never again wore new and colorful clothes, though her other daughters were happily married. She was regarded as shara- mali, a woman with dignity. Another well-to-do woman had, 30 years after the death of her saint (pir), never again thor- oughly washed her clothes in order to express her permanent bereavement. Still another very afuent woman of a holy family never again ate mangoes or grapes, because 38 years before her father on his deathbed had wished for these fruits that had not been available. The social expectation for ex- pressing bereavement after a death is limited to avoid aus- picious celebrations for 1 year, but these three examples show how the value of concealment in relation to revealment serves to express an intensely felt personal pain and to allow the persons to continue to live with personal dignity (sharam). Such instances reveal a quality of ascetic modesty, highly respected and yet not uncommon in the Punjab, entailed in various forms of honorable politeness that deconstitute the self, placing it in relation to the other through concealing and renouncing self-serving wishes (nafs). Asceticism as it emerges here is ever a movement toward the other; a perspective of regarding an ascetic as primarily concerned with the isolation of the self, as entailed in Webers interpretation (1976:365 366), is misleading. Thus, we note the meaning of the value of concealment in the gathered Being of diverse contexts that build a hierarchy of segmented, uid, and related values of different status, in which the fundamental value of concealment subordinates the relative value of revealment: the latter is conditioned on the prior intactness of the value of concealment, but when revealing becomes wishful and concealing is shifted into the background, it subordinates its superior value (see Dumont 1986:46, 173, 227, 279). Both values cast their shadows, the non-values. They are normally subordinated, but in certain circumstances people may get carried away by them. The Shadow of Concealment: Unintended Consequences The humanity of religion means that its practices are fal- lible, and need continual scrutiny in the light of the im- portant human interests. . . . Religion is itself among the important human interests, both in itself and because it represents a central exercise of human choice. (Nussbaum, Religion and Sex Equality, 1999) A few of the women moving on the streets of Pakistans cities in a burqa are prostitutes. For them, concealment means free- dom of movement without embarrassment, sexual harass- ment, and the possibility to escape a social stigma, and in this way the burqa bestows them too with honor and dignity. Such unintended contexts of the value of concealment, indeed of any value, are unavoidable, but nevertheless their meaning is only accessible to us because of the prior understanding of veiling in other contexts: the meaning precedes the data and illuminates them. Meanings are not the privilege of any context; they arise precisely in the reference of one to an- other . . . in the entire gathering of Being (Levinas 1996:37). Hence, even the context of the beginning of Islam is illu- minated with reference to earlier contexts of veiling, and each new context forms a part of the gathered Being, amounting to an overow of meanings. Levinas also notes that even our simplest movement toward an intended aim carries with it an inevitable awkwardness for which we remain responsible. In putting out my hand to approach a chair, I have . . . scratched the oor . . . dropped the ash from my cigarette: the traces picked up by Sherlock Holmes when he follows a lead (1996:4). Thus, our being in the world (habitation) is more than our consciousness and meaningful actions. Similarly, Dumont notes that just as an This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 188 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 individual action has unforeseen consequences or perverse effects so is a value system (ideology) accompanied by nonconscious aspects, its shadow (the nonideological) re- ecting the very limits of a value system; that is, a value has no control on its unintended meanings in unlimited contexts (1986:265). For instance, the appearance of the veil in an adult magazine (Shirazi 2001:4957), or, as Gole notes, a womans participation in Islamism may lead to unintended consequences of her individuation and to a critique of Is- lamist ideology (1996:22, 139). Both Levinas and Dumont see the unintended or unconscious aspect authenticating the human condition as such (Dumont 1986:265; Levinas 1996:4). Merleau-Ponty notes that the principle of indeter- minacy belongs to human existence (1958:196), a thought very much compatible with Dumonts notion of the shadow or what is noted by de Rougemont as the devils share in our being (1944). This share, in which the other is denied, forms the nonethical aspect of being. To fully explore the concept of the shadow is beyond the scope of this essay, but I gather briey some scattered mean- ings: the term shadow indicates a secondariness to some- thing of primary importance. 26 It expresses itself in multiple ways, such as (i) unintended consequences (for instance, the hierarchy of classes in avowedly egalitarian societies; Dumont 1980:234, 1986:266); (ii) diversions (when racismexists along- side other forms of social equality; Dumont 1980:262, 1986: 256); (iii) perversions (when the individual value is usurped by an absolutist regime; Dumont 1986:149179, 245); (iv) fears of imagined dangers legitimizing denunciation (like as- similation or exclusion of the other; Werbner 2005:7); (v) reactions, when the self is decontextualized and humanity is addressed without positing the other (like Calvinist ideology, which reduces the other to the self: outworldliness is now concentrated in the individuals will [Dumont 1986:5557], and when such ideologies impose their own specic interpre- tation on others); (vi) certain reversals of a fundamental value (when divine power in its own context is encompassed by a temporal one; Dumont 1986:4652, 252253); or (vii) sanc- tions as intended precalculations, I argue, are not as such part of a value system but form its shadow, meant to cope with other unintended consequences that pervert values. However, no precalculated sanction can ever exhaust the full potential of unintended consequences (as the right to live implicates that murder is punished but legal killing or life imprisonment can neither themselves become part of a value system nor can their own unintended consequences be contained). Thus, the value of concealment has its own shadows that may be elucidated by exemplifying the seven points just listed: even though begging in Pakistan is not a wholly disreputable activity, 27 female beggars in chador or burqa, often with a child at their waist belong, like prostitutes, to unintended 26. Just as a shirt may have a stain, but a stain cannot have a shirt. 27. A beggar is politely referred to in Urdu or Punjabi as faqir, a term also used for ascetics. contexts of honor and protection. We may regard as diversions of the value of concealment instances where in the guise of concealment revealment is alluded to: pictures on taxicabs and trucks of large female eyes glancing out of a half-covered face spell erotic promise and spark male fantasies. The veils intention is also diverted when a womans tight-tting burqa renders her body contours prominent, or by the use of heavy makeup to emphasize the eyes behind the veil (niqab, a full face cover) for a seductive effect, or by wearing a colorful head scarf with beads and embroidery, or when university students wear brightly colored shoes or handbag together with a dully colored veiling gown (abaya), or tight jeans and short shirt with a head scarf, or when in a diaspora context a head scarf is worn with a long but very tight skirt that reveals even the contours of the undergarments. An example of perversion is the banning of the head scarf from public spheres. Brems explains the formation of such court decisions as an attempt to avoid civil unrest (2006), but here something other than simple regulation may be involved: a law against theft, for instance, preempts the possibility that some people may wish to steal but cannot reasonably be de- scribed as punishing those who would like to steal. Here, however, the identity of a certain category of people is ques- tioned, their very freedom to move through society within an unviolated personal space is curtailed by imposing a col- lective identity on them they did not ask for and which takes away the autonomy of their personal identities (see Appiah 1994). The same is true when the veil is enforced by the state. When the decision to demonstrate or not demonstrate faith by an external expression is removed from an individual and vested in the hands of the state, it is an imposition of one will over another, a discriminatory deprivation of personal liberty. In the same way that forcing non-Muslims in Af- ghanistan or people of Jewish background to wear identifying patches profanes their individual dignity and freedom, so too does depriving Muslim women of the right to wear the veil or forcing them to do so. Sanctions brought into play to protect peoples individual rights while depriving them of a religious right effectively punishes them in anticipation of the act. Thus, manipulating the law by violating the rights of the individual in the name of protecting individual rights in a judicial move explained as anticipating violence conates the impersonal criterion, the law, with the person of the judge, leading him or her to become a perpetrator, just as a merchant manipulating the very truth by using an adulterated scale becomes a thief (de Rougemont 1944:3940). Such judgments are marked by a nonrecognition of the other. As Jones notes: The majoritys dislike or disapproval is not an acceptable reason for a liberal states withholding recognition from mi- norities (2006:130), as it may be grounded in a bundle of baseless fears. Werbner, echoing Asad (1993:286), sees the real fear of fundamentalism to be grounded not so much in its differences with Islam but in the fear of return to the Wests own earlier history: the spectre of puritanical Chris- tianity, a moral crusade, European sectarian wars, the Cru- This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 189 saders, the Inquisition, the attack on the permissive society (Werbner 2005:7, 8). A shadow as a reaction may be detected in a new con- sciousness of religion in urban contexts in the Punjab, as among university students, which is prominently visible in their attire and concentrates on forming a new self. The words of one female student reect the thoughts of many: I realized for the rst time how sinful my life had been, and that I have to face God one day. So I must purify (pak) myself of my sins, and I must live up to the demand of God in my person. . . . So my veil (abaya) is not for men, but for God. In such a context God is invoked to construct the self, and the human other is ignored. Further, such personal decisions tend to condemn those acting differently as ignoramuses (ghalat raste par) who must be told the truth. Similarly the organi- zation of Al-Huda, otherwise aspiring moral interpretations of Quran and Hadith pertaining to everyday matters, forms a shadow when, in search for a new Islamic self not embedded in a local cultural context, it strips religion from its cultural expressions by denouncing them as biddat, that is, cultural and not Islamic, thus decontextualizing the self in its imposition on the other (see also Ahmad 2009). The value of honor, associated with the protection of the family, may be reversed when a woman is mutilated or killed to restore honor. It happens in the Punjab that a man who accuses his wife of adultery or wants to punish her for leaving him throws acid into her face or cuts her nose (see Frembgen 2006:248), or he may kill his sister or daughter for marrying against her parents will (see Werbner 2007:167). Frembgen concludes from press reports about cases of mutilation that nose-cutting is rmly integrated within the moral matrix and (terrible) logic of honour and shame (2006:252). However, if the number of such incidents is evaluated against the size of the population, the frequency of extramarital affairs and women marrying against the wishes of their families, the con- clusion suggests itself that such incidents are not embedded in the logic of honor but form its shadow, that they are pathological aberrations, just as there are aberrations in other societies related to cultural predispositions, like shooting sprees in schools or outbreaks of racism. Honor killings, whether of men or women, may be explained by understand- ing their nature as precalculated sanctions, rather than through a dissociation of religion from patriarchy (Sever and Yurdakul 2001), rendering them as a shadow. Islam is not implicated in the historical fact of honor killings or executions of women for adultery any more than an increase in capital punishment is a prerequisite of democratic values. It rather points to an instability of the value of concealment in path- ological circumstances. A persons freedom to live with honor is necessarily linked to responsibility for others. Honor is a moral success allowing a Punjabi person to turn a bold face toward the world, and when challenged it must be defended, as, for instance, when a woman is unjustly accused of unfairness in the gift exchange, or when, in the extreme case of a murder, honor is defended by insisting that the case must be brought to law rather than settled by the acceptance of monetary compensation. Many offenses to honor in the Punjab, however, are not defended unless they become a public topic, and cases of a man being challenged with respect to the honor of women in his family are extremely rare. In such cases the option of killing the woman is only one of many and not always the one to be chosen. For instance, the man who stained the womans honor is likely to be the one put to death. In a recorded case, a man killed his rst cousin for having a sexual relationship with his wife, and this did not prevent the marriage of the victims sister with the killers brother (just this motive lies at the heart of Rajinder Singh Bedis grand little novel that depicts a Sikh context, I Take This Woman 28 ). In another village, a man of a service caste (kammi) had to ee for his life from the village when his relationship with a woman of a high landholding caste 29 was discovered, and his extended family was made to leave the village in disgrace. The woman continued to live in the village without any punishment. After some months, how- ever, her husband died, it was said, out of embarrassment (sharam). Women in rural Punjab are not commonly killed for eloping, but they remain a source of embarrassment (sharam) for having done so. Women frequently discuss love affairs and pregnancies without marriage that rarely result in killings (see also Antoun 1968:685). Before an extreme step is taken, there are many ways to get along with the brokenness of being. When social acceptance becomes impossible, women may rather turn to prostitution and men exile themselves. To take another persons life is the result of an unforeseen loss of control. Conclusion Some authors tend to associate veiling with those aspects of Muslim womanhood that they consider unacceptable, factors like polygamy, control on womens sexuality, the inferior right of a woman to bear witness, her right to inherit only half of what comes to her brother, forced marriages, and mens right of custody and to divorce (see Vatuk 2008). While these issues certainly constitute real problems, such interpretations fall as short of understanding veiling, as do biologically inspired reservations against cousin marriage, which, in their search for objective meaning, fail to go beyond genetic problems, ignoring the complexity of cultural meanings. Even the con- scious decision in favor of wearing the veil taken by educated Muslims is traced to male, cultural, or religious manipula- tions, which some feminist authors are inclined to demystify. Such views may be called orientalist because they assume the universality of the observers perspective: they point out what the other lacks, and, instead of accepting the independent reality of the other, they interpret it either as a transguration 28. The original Urdu title is Ek chador maili-si. 29. The term caste is preferred here to qaum because it adequately reects the situation in the Muslim Punjab. This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 190 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 of exploitation (Bourdieu 1977) or a symbol of a collective identity, thus translating it into terms accessible to the ob- servers rationality (see Wittgenstein 2002 [1931]; Yegenoglu 1998). Here they unite with those epigones of Said (1978) who, criticizing any kind of difference between the self and the other as orientalist, forget that Said criticized that per- ception of the other that is left for its formulation at the mercy of the modern perspective that they universalize by nding everywhere the self. The value of concealment forms a meaning that is neither isolable to one context nor a privilege of a particular time or place but nds ever new expressions in uncountable contexts. It is a center of signicance ordering practices (Wittgenstein 2002 [1931]:88), and precisely in this use its meaning is found, which is not separable from the practices in which it is ex- pressed; that is, meaning and act are inseparable (86; see also Alvi 2007; de Coppet 1992; Skorupski 1976:1517; Wagner 1972:607609). There is no exterior reference to which this meaning might be reduced. Wittgenstein emphasizes that what this signicance consists in is not important in itself, but it is precisely the characteristic feature of the awakening human spirit that a phenomenon has a meaning for it (Witt- genstein 2002 [1931]:89). Thus, a principle of signicance cannot be explained in rational terms but has to be taken as an expression of a reality of its own (8589), that is, it cannot be isolated from its social context. The attempt to treat the veil as a mere symbol of an external reference presupposes an absolute meaning free from the contexts in which the value of concealment appears and which the interpreter is tempted to locate in the modern perspective, thereby denying the other. Such values, however, are permanent ontological statements, forming the very perception of ones being as related to the world, providing the body with a meaning related to specic contexts, that is, a subjectivity, a specic consciousness in relation to the world, a sense and orientation, thereby denying modernitys dualities like semioticpractice, subjectobject, categoryaction, and yet they result in contexts that are be- yond ones conscious intentions, that is, shadows, authenti- cating the human condition as such by forming the nonethical aspect of being in the world. The ethical dimension also lies in the relation of respon- sibility of the self for the shadow, the shadow of ones own cultural narrative (MacIntyre 1984), of ones own existence what Levinas calls mans inevitable awkwardness (1996:4) of ones value system (Dumont 1986:265), of ones history as a moral identity (MacIntyre 1984:220). However, the problems concomitant with the shadows of veiling should not mask what is of signicance for both genders: Punjabis in the village of my eldwork are materially poor but value their honor and shame in the same way as any Western person, whatever his or her personal situation, values equality, free- dom, and individuality. To have access to any cultures fundamental values means to relate oneself to the other, not in a mutual recognition that would constitute a solipsism but in a mutual amendment, a deconstitution of the self enabling both sides to perceive the role of the other in their own constitution (Alvi, The Death of Pope John Paul II: Some Reections on the Place of Ethics in Modernity, unpublished manuscript, n.d.). Such a relation I call ethical freedom. Whether we confer, to use the distinction of Jones (2006), positivity by recognition or just tolerate what we cannot like, we have, because this is the recognition of our condition of being, to give space to differences, exempting those that themselves question the existence of the other. Thus, Punjabis abroad should not only ask for their own right to difference but must also recognize the same right for the majority or for minorities in their homelands: any attempt to eradicate, expel, subordinate, denigrate, or assimilate the other is nonethical. 30 Of course, discussions to enhance each others understanding are necessary steps (Jones 2006:141 143), but the basic point is about understanding the ontology of human difference in terms of values not necessarily sep- arated from facts. Integration in terms of one-sided inuence is neither possible, nor desirable, nor ethical. 31 The history of the relation between the West and Islam shows a continuing shaping of each other; in fact, the very use of the term Eu- rope is due to the inuence of expanding Islam (Pirenne 1939). 32 Werbner, comparing Bauman (1993) and Wieviorka (1995), notes that a subtle Western racism consists in the denial of the other through either expelling differences or a demand to assimilate, which Bauman refers to as anthro- pophagy (see Werbner 2005:7). This fear of eliding the ethical dimension consisting in the selfs relatedness to the other is best expressed by Levinas: In a homogenous . . . society, the central concern is how to confer on the Other (Autrui) the status of the I and how to liberate the I itself from the alienation that comes to it from the injustice that it commits. . . . Universality and egalitarian law result from the conicts in which one prim- itive egoism opposes another. . . . It is simply to contest that the humanity of man resides in the positing of an I. Man par excellencethe source of humanityis perhaps the Other. (1996:14) Acknowledgments I dedicate this essay to my late mother Shahzadi Akhtar Sul- tana, who gave me the insight to grasp the depth of veiling. I am grateful to my husband Lukas Werth for never-ending fruitful discussions that gave clarity to my argument and sub- stantially contributed to the nal formulation, and my special thanks go to Pnina Werbner for her encouraging words and 30. At issue here is, for instance, the suppression of Christian, Ahmadi, or Shia minorities in Pakistan. 31. Just this one-sidedness is implied by the slogan Leitkultur (guiding culture) in Germanys political discourse. 32. Gole discusses the mutual inuence of Islam and Europe in mod- ern times (2006). This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 191 constructive critique. I am also grateful to unknown referees for their critical appreciation. Comments Sarah Bracke Faculty of Social Sciences, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Park- straat 45, 3000 Leuven, Belgium (sarah.bracke@soc.kuleuven.be). 2 X 12 Reading an argument about the veil framed in terms other than womens rights, individual freedom. or the radicali- zation of Islam is refreshing in many ways, particular when one is reading in a West-European context where discussions about the veil are overdetermined. In Concealment and Re- vealment: The Muslim Veil in Context, Anjum Alvi departs from such discussions and reframes the conversation in terms of value. Veiling, she argues, is part of a value system, in which its meaning is related to the meaning of honor and shame, and all of these are constituted through the value of concealment (sharam). Along these lines Alvi considers the question of veiling from an ontological (positing veiling as part of a way of being) as well as from an ethical (calling for a recognition of different value systems) perspective. She of- fers a very convincing critique to the persistent argument that takes the veil to stand in for something else. There are many points worthy of comment and question, so what follows is necessarily selective and is concerned with the notion of value, which gures as a central concept in Alvis argument. Here Alvi relies on the work of Dumont: values are to be considered as Durkheimian collective rep- resentations, that is, as social facts, and provide a crucial means to map out culture, which, in a mentalist understand- ing, consists of beliefs, norms, and values. A consistent prob- lem with this theoretical approach, however, is its tendency to reify culture and its difculty to account for cultural change. Such problems become tangible in Alvis essay when she discusses and illustrates the unintended consequences and non-values of the value of concealment. Take, for instance, her account of women moving from a rural to an urban context. Initially Alvi concedes that the expression of the value of concealment may be modulated in urban contexts Dumonts understanding of value indeed allows for much exibility. She then proceeds, however, to problematize the emergence of urban pious female subjectivities as the shad- ows of concealment, suggesting that this development reects both an ontological loss of value, as well as an ethical im- position of a worldview on others. Ironically, in the light of Alvis stated concerns about processes of othering, this leaves contemporary urban forms of Islama current gure of threat par excellenceonce more framed in negative terms. Also the staging of the prostitute who uses a burqa to conceal in order to move free without embarrassment as an example of the unintended consequences of a value, and hence a non-value, raises questions. Here Alvi takes for granted an instrumental account of veiling, a mode of rea- soning she rst criticizes in her literature review. Surely other readings than mere instrumental ones are possible here: one might nd that the prostitute who dons the burqa seeks to appropriate the honor and dignity, indeed the value, that the burqa could offer her in that moment. Entertaining this pos- sibility, however, requires an approach that not only takes values as social facts into account but also attends to the multilayered character of practices as well as processes of the construction and interpretation of meaning. These examples, I argue, are indicative for the limits of a mentalist approach to culture. When a mental structure such as a value is understood as the central mode of transguring social reality (and it seems that Alvis thick account of em- bodiment occurs in the wake of this centrality of value, and remains framed by it), all too easily a reifying and relatively static account of what culture is and does emerges. More specically, a mentalist approach runs the risk of framing cultural change in terms of loss (of value) at the expense of other possible accounts of change. Alvis argument is explicitly driven by an ethical motive: she argues for the recognition of difference, or the acceptance of the independent reality of the other, in the light of the material and symbolic violence of modernity and colonization. Indeed, the centrality of the concept of value is justied along these lines: an approach centered in value enables one to pose the question of the other without the imposition of the self, Alvi contends. Yet here another risk emerges, as an insistence on the dignity of the other might well become entangled in problematic ways with processes of othering, especially when reied under- standings of culture are in play. Alvis theoretical framework, I fear, offers little resistance to that risk. And so the question remains whether Alvis theoretical approach is able to live up to the ethical aspirations of her project. Fadwa El Guindi Qatar National Research Fund, Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community, Doha, Qatar (felguindi@qnrf.edu). 9 IX 12 Cross-cultural explorations of veiling revealed a wide diversity of sartorial forms of head and face covers, experienced dif- ferently by peoples and groups in diverse sociocultural con- texts. In 1999 an empirically based analytic framework was formulated for the study of veiling whereby El Guindi re- considered the veil from a conceptual perspective rather than simply in material terms, broadened the context for the study of the veil such that it becomes part of the notion of dress rather than as an isolated sartorial item, and uncovered pri- mary and original evidence demonstrating the occurrence of This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 192 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 mens veiling in the region (see El Guindi 2003 [1999], chap. 7, The Veil of Masculinity), hence rendering inapplicable the commonly accepted explanation for womens veiling the asserted universal or the regional pattern of patriarchy. Most prior publications on veiling suffered from a weak em- pirical base and a lack of conceptual precision, two corner- stones of systematic disciplines. Conning the study of the veil to observations on womens veiling was based on the erroneous assumption that only women (particularly Mus- lims) veil. There was also unbalanced focus on the veils ma- terial and tangible qualities. Signicantly, El Guindis analytical framework uncovered a core conceptual complex identied as sanctity-reserve-respect (encompassing many Arabic concepts: hurma, hishma, ta- hasshum, haya, satr, etc.; El Guindi 2008, specically 1315, for discussion of the methodological technique involved). This complex constitutes a code that underlies specic cultural expressions, including veiling. Thirteen years later, Alvi studies veiling and locates the Pakistani Punjab notion of sharam (translated as conceal- ment), arguing it is expressed in peoples practice and indi- vidual acts as honor, shame, dignity, humbleness, embarrass- ment, reservedness, reverence, self-sufciency, self-respect, pride, vulnerability, humiliation, and more. The similarity to El Guindis code is striking and even some constituent terms, such as satr and haya, literally overlap. One question raised regarding Alvis analysis concerns the translation of concepts across cultural traditions, which, as studies have shown, risks oversimplication, distortion, and inaccuracy. There is dif- culty locating a single local equivalent referent when exploring conceptual phenomena such as veil, privacy, and time. Fol- lowing Edmund Leach in his study of time (1961), one can productively proceed by rst asking, how do we come to have such categories at all? Toward such exploration and seeking answers in ethnography, not polemics, a query can begin using a Western verbal category such as veil or privacy (El Guindi 2003 [1999]) or time (El Guindi 2008), then seek linguistic or conceptual equivalents in cultural traditions. In this regard, one asks: is it possible in such a process to simply translate a term such as veil or concealment found in one culture, let us say a Western culture, then search for the translated term in another, as among the Punjab? Some of the terms translated as concealment might be questionable. There are several ways in which Alvis analysis could have been more productive. First, remove contradictory claims: Muslim veiling is proposed as a fundamental value through which concealment [is] counterpoised to the relative value of revealment, yet Alvi explicitly rejects duality. Second, her rejection of symbol is not justied: To see the veil as a symbol or sign suggests a duality between signier and signied, as if . . . the veil itself had no meaning but acquires it through what it refers to. Third, her use of value is granted an exaggerated theoretical status which denies . . . separation from fact and provides orientation [and] is the heart of [the] theoretical approach to the concept of veiling. Fourth, re- jection of the notion of code along with embedded key concepts, which for the most part . . . [and] for all their merits, impede an access to the veils full meaning (emphasis added) is disingenuous at best. Alvi is proposing that symbol be inseparable from its ref- erence, semiotics from practice, and thought/rule fromaction, which is a moot point. Sharam is presented as a value ex- pressed in peoples practice . . . [and] . . . contained in the entirety as a systemic orientation (emphasis added), so the difference between it and the code underlying the conceptual complex discussed by El Guindi is supercial and polemical. The relabeling of code as value does not entail serious reconceptualizing. Furthermore, value is presented as [a] permanent onto- logical statement ... of ones being in the world. How is this being in the world empirically studied or culturally expe- rienced? These are questions of ethnographic and anthro- pological import. If, as Alvi states, meaning of the concept of veiling is inseparable from its multiple . . . expressions . . . beyond the normally identied contexts of dress and female concerns, then we may ask what has Alvi revealed in her study of the veil in 2012 beyond what is already known? If anything new has been revealed, it must be well concealed. Fatma Muge Gocek Sociology Department, University of Michigan, 500 South State Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, U.S.A. (gocek@umich.edu). 9 X 12 Is there a signicant difference in the emergence of social meaning between non-Western, Islamic contexts on the one side and Western, Christian ones on the other? This article takes a provocative, dual stand: placing Western theoretical formulations in tension with Punjabi Pakistani practices, it argues that the practice of veiling in the Punjab is one in- dication of a larger ontological difference of Islam, one pred- icated on the concept of concealment. Drawing on practices observed during an ethnographic study of a Punjabi village, Alvi states that the meanings she encountered in the practice of veiling were so multidimensional and multivariable that she was forced to argue for an ontological explanation rather than an epistemological one. Veiling, Alvi contends, is one component of a Muslim womans concealment of the self, an ontological practice that very much differs from the way Mus- lim women are portrayed in the Western popular media. As a comparative historical sociologist working on issues on gender and sexuality in the Middle East, I identify three problems with this argument. First, epistemologically, I think that Alvi naturalizes her underlying assumption that Western popular culture does not get what Islam is all about. I do concur there is a problem there, but when one focuses on Western scholarly literature rather than popular representa- tions, I would contend that, at least in the past decade, the This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 193 Muslim existence has generally been portrayed not solely in terms of the difference of the other but rather through a critical interpretation of similarity as well as difference, all the while respecting the context within which these emerge. Second, ontologically, Alvi draws on Levinas to argue that humans create meaning through their social relations. When veiling is interpreted within this paradigm, the boundaries of meaning expand beyond the epistemological to the ontolog- ical, with veiling appearing as a separate social reality pred- icated on concealment. Yet, is the Western (read European or American), non-Islamic (read Christian) ontology regarding women any different from the Muslim one in terms of, for instance, shame? That is, is the latter predicated on revealment rather than concealment? I think not. Womens public pres- ence in the West has certainly increased with modernity. Yet an ontological analysis takes into consideration both the pub- lic and private domains. When one analyzes both, I think many societies highlight the principle of concealment over revealment, and they probably do so based on the common principle of human preservation. Third, ethically, Alvi contends that Muslim and non-Mus- lim societies fundamentally differ regarding what is judged to be right and wrong. Once again, I think not. With modernity and secularization, what is epistemologically employed to sep- arate right from wrong may have transformed, say frombeliefs to empirical proof. But does that mean that the entire ethical system has shifted as well? After all, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all Abrahamic religions that share the fundamental ethics of monotheism as expressed, for instance, in the Ten Commandments. That these have been interpreted differently across time and space does not necessarily imply that such disparate interpretations naturally transform into ethical dif- ferences. I would instead argue that the boundaries around good and evil on the one side and social reality on the other certainly vary across the three religions, but such boundaries also diverge dramatically within a single religion as well. For instance, Islam as it is conceived, interpreted, and practiced in contemporary Turkey, within an urban setting or a rural village, by an orthodox or a Su or a secular woman, diverges just as much if not more than a woman living in the Punjab, Pakistan, or, I would argue, a Christian woman living in De- troit, Michigan, or at an Indian reservation in Oregon or rural countryside in Tennessee. If there is so much similarity and difference across epis- temological, ontological, and ethical aspects of human exis- tence, how can we as social scientists approach societies, com- munities, and individuals? This brings forth the issue of the researchers subjectivity and critical self-reexivity articulated in critical gender, race, and queer theories. Since the observer/ researcher/author is omnipotent in interpreting social mean- ing, she needs to articulate and challenge the naturalized power embedded in her standpoints. She needs to ask some critical questions: is the argued ontological difference out there or embedded in the mind of the observer/researcher/ author? More specically, in this instance, what topic was Alvi doing her ethnographic research on, for how long, based on which premises, and how did her particular scholarly stand- point impact what she observed? It is interesting that Alvi conceals her own subjectivity the same way she claims her subjects do; is this coincidental or does it reect a larger unacknowledged reexivity on the part of the author? Put another way, why does Alvi not critically address how and where she gets her own structures of meaning, that is, those other than the Western social science sources she formally quotes, on the one side, and the mother she informally ac- knowledges, on the other? In addition, who is Alvis audience and why? Unless Alvi addresses these issues in her analysis, her arguments will probably fall short of convincing her au- dience. Emi Goto Department of Area Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sci- ences, University of Tokyo, 3-8-1, Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan (emi-gto@td5.so-net.ne.jp). 15 IX 12 Over the past 3 decades, many efforts have been made to challenge peoples narrow understanding of the meaning of the Muslim veil: it is usually seen as a symbol of the oppression of women in the name of religion or as a mark of a sympathizer with radical Islam. It is surprising that, in spite of these efforts, they have continued to spread widely to the present day. How- ever, Alvis ambitious work has now offered a clear challenge to these prevailing understandings, describing so many mean- ings of veiling that one cannot help but take a broader view. I had a similar ambition myself and have searched for different meanings of the Muslim veil. While I was staying in Cairo, Egypt, where the veiled population had increased dramatically during the early 2000s, it was the words of ur- ban Egyptians that drew my attention. They were mostly educated young women who had chosen to wear the veil recently not for men, but for God. In order to comprehend the meanings and the context of their statements, I collected and analyzed the public messages that were circulating around Egyptian society: this proved to be an accumulation of his- torical and modern discourses that connected the texts of the Quran and Hadith to the practice of veiling. In conclusion, I argue that there has been a gradual dissemination of certain discourses, particularly those that see the veil as the marker of womens pious subjectivity and intimate relationship with God. My approach to the subject of the veil has been, as sum- marized above, one of Islamic studies. Evaluating Alvis the- oretical arguments and thoughtful consideration is beyond the scope of this article. Here, I will make only one point, asking, what makes a veil Islamic? The term Islamic is tricky. In different social contexts, either covering head to toe with a black cloth or wearing international-style dresses revealing neck, hair, and limbs, This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 194 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 could be described as Islamic (cf. Williams 1980). Fur- thermore, acts such as polygamy, honor killings, and female circumcision are termed as Islamic by some, while being negated by others. However, as Talal Asad wrote, it is (not) adequate to say that anything Muslims believe or do can be regarded by the anthropologist as part of Islam (Asad 1986:14). This may be an anthropology of individual Muslims but not of Islam itself. If one wants to write an anthropology of Islam, Asad sug- gested, one should begin, as Muslims do, from the concept of a discursive tradition that includes and relates itself to the founding texts of the Quran and the Hadith (14). In other words, if one wants to write about the Islamic veil or veil in Islam, the existing discursive tradition should also be con- sidered. In this respect, Alvis work presents several valuable ex- amples that most previous studies have failed to describe, including the idea of sacred veils and of a new consciousness of religion in urban contexts. However, there still seems to be a disparity. In her discussions about the Malot villagers, there is scarce mention of this tradition of discourse. Alvi has shown us various meanings of the term sharam, describing ethnographic observations: shyness and reserved- ness; womans real jewelry; the ideas of self-sufciency, self- respect, honor, and dignity; a feeling of reverence and em- barrassment, and so on. According to Alvi, these are the aspects of concealment as a value that have brought forth the practice of veiling, and the value itself is not reserved for the female gender. This argument reminded me of a popular Egyptian preachers lecture on the concept of haya (Khalid 2000). He argued that the most important thing for a Muslim is morality, and the most valuable of the morals is hayaa feeling of shame or shyness that arises from ones self-esteem. As he maintained, one who has always obeyed Gods will, lived a noble life, and done good deeds, would feel ashamed to disobey Gods orders, for he or she knows that God has done so much for him or her, is always watching over him or her, and that all his or her deeds will be weighed on the Day of Judgment. Because of this haya, believing men and women feel shyness and reservedness toward any sins, and the latter observe the practice of veiling, since that is, in their understanding, a part of the will of God. I wonder whether, in the village of Malot, the term sharam means more than concealment in relation to human others. When do veils become Islamic for them? This may be a question that only an anthropologist will be able to answer. Sana Haroon Departments of History and Asian Studies, University of Massa- chusetts at Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachu- setts 02125, U.S.A. (sana.haroon@umb.edu). 22 IX 12 Until recent years, it has been the rule rather than the ex- ception for anthropologists to treat religion in South Asia as a set of cultural practices. Since the rise of intentionally re- vivalist Islamic movements and womens piety movements, such scholarship has had to contend with anthropological and historical examinations of ideological conviction in the ac- tions of Muslims. The most inuential of such studies is Saba Mahmoods Politics of Piety (2004), in which the author seeks to understand womens participation in the mosque move- ment in Egypt as an exercise of agency through interrogation and appropriation of scriptural injunction. In the particularly South Asian context, historians have argued that the impor- tance of Islamic scriptures was communicated to a wider pub- lic through teachers, writers, transnational political move- ments, inuencing ideas about gentility, community, law, authority and womens roles. 33 Recent scholarship has ex- tended the implications of such writing, seeking to explain the rise of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the success of the religious right in Pakistan. 34 Important though this scholar- ship is, it is a valuable exercise indeed to question whether the meaning of religious practices can be understood through theories of agency and authority derived through study of self-consciously political or proselytizing movements. Anjum Alvis is one a several recent voices that do not privilege intentionally Islamic contexts in interrogating the meaning of Muslim actions. Magnus Marsdens study of re- ligious experience in Pakistans northwest (2005), and Na- veeda Khans recent book on Muslim Becoming (2012), are two excellent examples of other such work. In addition to such anthropological work, Farina Mirs study of vernacular literary cultures in the Punjab suggests that the Punjabi lan- guage is a site for sustained political engagement that dees the narrow connes of ethnonationalism (2010). Alvis work, which emphasizes her choice of Punjabi rural location and apolitical contexts to examine the value of veiling, is a forceful addition to this important body of scholarly work. Rather than looking for the meaning and communication of Islamic ideology in Punjabi villages, she uses Su lore and customary practices to draw parallels between veiling and other non- gendered acts of concealment, which make sacred that which is hidden. Alvis rendering of Su lore is reminiscent of recent schol- arship on Susm, particularly that of Shahzad Bashir (2011), who argues that the miracle tales must not be jettisoned in scholarly work but rather be understood to affect social un- derstandings of time, divinity, and personal agency. Alvis use of Su miracle stories allows us to measure social meaning through concepts of the sacred and mysterious rather than 33. See particularly Barbara Metcalfs inuential translation of Maul- ana Ashraf Ali Thanvis text, Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf Ali Than- awis Bihishti Zewar (1990). No less important are works such as Die- trich Reetzs Islam in the Public Sphere: Religious Groups in India, 1900 1947 (2006), and Francis Robinsons important essay, Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print in South Asia (1993). 34. See the work of Faisal Devji (2005) and Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy (2004). This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 195 relying on problematic formulations of the authority of theo- logians and texts and the agency of ethics and piety. In Alvis formulation, the aesthetics of concealment that are the reason for the concealment of the saint, and the self-censoring of womens words, form the edice that gives the veil its mean- ing. Certainly this argument allows us to explore popular representations of womens beauty and desirability as being enhanced not only by the wearing of the veil but by avoiding being seen outside her own home, or by any men outside of her immediate family. Locating the cultural meaning of concealment in a dynamic three-way relationship, between individual, family, and so- ciety, Alvi contrasts the notions of pride and respect to em- barrassment and disrepute. Veiling is constituted as a part of a much broader negotiation of social position and community relationships. While recognizing the relative freedom and power of men, and the gendered nature of community re- lations, Alvi argues that we see kinsmen and women as to- gether negotiating a complex and dangerous world. It is uncomfortable though, to be faced with the question of what is the real intent of veiling, or the true context of concealment. Alvi argues that the choice to veil in the diaspora, the convictions produced in the pious forums of upper-class women, and the use of the veil by beggars and prostitutes are mere shadows of the true intent of the veil. In truth, she argues, the cultural history of the veil is rooted in the rural Pakistani setting, and contemporary veiling practices are most meaningfully constituted in that same setting. We are left to ask, are there many veils? Or is there just one, birthed in a mystical spiritual world appropriated by the ra- tional and purposeful intent of Islamic revivalists? Neither seems an appropriate answer. It is possible, however, that exploring the aesthetics of individual and family practices of concealment outside of the cultural context of the Pakistani Punjab may allow us to extend Alvis compelling argument. Pnina Werbner School of Sociology and Criminology, Keele University, Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG, U.K. (p.werbner@keele.ac.uk). 22 IX 12 The Veil and the Public Sphere With all that has been written about the Islamic veil, it would seem almost impossible to say anything new. This makes Alvis nuanced analysis all the more remarkable: she succeeds in illuminating the veil not as a symbol standing for something else (Islam, the subordination of women in Muslim society, etc.) but as it is, embedded within a wider semiotic of con- cealment and revealment, practiced in many different contexts among Punjabi South Asian Muslims. Alvis ethnography is woven into a tapestry of subtle modes of ethical relatedness showing how the veilfor men as well as womenaffects architecture, gifting, marriage, and kinship, shaping Muslim Punjabi interpersonal relations. 35 If, in its naturalized setting, honor killings are deviations, the shadow of an ethic of concealment, this makes the politicization of the veil in con- temporary Europe, she suggests, an aberration that denies its location within an indigenous system of values. Nevertheless, I propose to argue here that under certain circumstances the veil can also be grasped as a symbol, albeit with a range of associations and polysemic signications. Like objects, concepts too may be reied once they are inserted into debates in the public sphere. Armando Salvatore has argued that the rise of a Muslim public sphere at the end of the nineteenth century in Egypt was associated with in- creasingly open debate beyond the connes of the ulama within an emergent eld of discourse marked by the rei- cation of key words such as Sharia, umma, or Islam, as they came to be standardized and subordinated to the rules of public communication (1997:45, 4647). In a parallel move, Michel Foucault (1980) documents the way personal intimacy and sexuality came to be subjected to normalizing discourses and discursive practices by a range of modern professionals, even as these experts extolled an end to sexual repression. Foucault associates this publicity of intimacy with the ad- vent of modernity. Like concepts, sartorial objects such as the veil can also become subjects of modern reicatory discourses controlling intimacy (Werbner 2007). In such contexts, the veil ceases to be a naturalized, taken-for-granted performance within a per- vasive, ethical semiotic of concealment and comes to be when worn by young Muslim girls in the Westa discrete symbol standing for whatever its wearer and audience de- termine. During the public discourse that developed in Eu- rope around the French head scarf affair, veiling practices came to be symbolically loaded with new connotations and to stand diacritically for a wide range of religious and national symbols within the context of migration and industrialization. The meaning of veiling and, indeed, of sexual modesty, are arguably now so loaded with higher-order symbolic elabo- rations as to emit ambiguously a range of contradictory mes- sages. These endow or deny agency to young South Asian and Muslim women living in the West in highly ambivalent ways. Such processes of higher-order symbolization raise crit- ical questions of authority: who has the authority to interpret the scriptures, in this case the Koran, and ideas about indi- vidual liberty? Who has the right to determine the limits of modesty or whom a young person should marry? The current contestation involves a range of actors claiming authoritative sacred knowledge: ulama of different tenden- cies, lay autodidact Islamists of various ilkamong them, young womenas well as modernists, reformists, and secu- larists. The debates are international: Al Azhar in Egypt pro- nounces on veiling in France; Pakistan negotiates with the 35. A similar argument about multiple modes of closure can be found in Janice Boddys analysis of Hofriati Muslimsociety (Boddy 1989). This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 196 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 British state over forced marriages. Each of these hallowed public bodies invokes variously the authority of a text (the Koran), culture, religion, tradition, human rights, the com- munity, the nation, or state law. Feminists argue that all fun- damentalist religious movements use the control of womens bodies symbolically to assert a wider agenda of authoritarian political and cultural social control (cf. Yuval-Davis 1992) in which women become guardians of Islam (Kandiyoti 1991: 7). In this debate what was once highly localizeda code of honor, concealment, and revealment, in Alvis termshas been deterritorialized, and the once self-evident reference to personal modesty obscured. Once this has occurred, the hijab comes to express a new identity as part of a deterritorialized global movement. That identity is not necessarily, however, fundamentalist, Islamist, or radical; it can also be part of a new search for authentic Islamic knowledge (Ahmad 2009; Mahmood 2005) or a strat- egy for young women (or men who grow beards) to make autonomous decisions about marriage. Being observant Mus- lims empowers them with the right to choose their own mar- riage partners, even against the will of their parents. They accuse their parents of being ignorant, locked into false or mistaken parochial customs and traditions of the old country, which, according to the girls, distort true Islam. To interpret this reicatory movement within modernity, however, we need to start from an understanding of everyday veiling in a Muslim society. Alvis brilliant contribution to the debate on veiling is thus likely to be foundational in any future discussion. Reply I am grateful to my commentators for their valuable com- ments, which allow me to revisit certain points of moot. I see different clusters of criticism: the possibility of using al- ternative terms for sharam and its translation into conceal- ment (Goto, El Guindi), the conceptual use of value, which creates certain confusions (Bracke, Haroon, Gocek, El Guindi), my skepticism about the conceptual use of the sym- bol (El Guindi, Werbner), concerns about my research meth- odology (Gocek), whether the contexts of the prostitute and urban religious movements constitute limitations of the value of concealment (Bracke, Haroon), whether there is any true meaning of the veil (Goto, Haroon), and nally, the quality of cultural differences and the related issue of creating an orientalist other (Gocek, Bracke). I am indeed much indebted to El Guindis pioneering work, which broadened the context for the study of the veil such that it becomes part of the notion of dress rather than as an isolated sartorial item. However, I explore with regard to veiling contexts that do not refer to dress, like the ablution of a dead body in a double covering, holy men who limit themselves to one room, the covering of saints graves, mys- tical poetry, the concealment of ones needs, ascetic relations, women who conceal their wealth to express their grief, mar- riage as a covering, as well as contrary contexts of revealment and those expressing the limitations of the concept. El Guindi and Goto both point out problems with the translation and meaning of the term sharam: I demonstrate, however, that numerous meanings of sharam are linked to the concept of concealment, constituting, one might say, its meta meaning. I do mention alternatives for sharam, but I concentrate on this term because it most commonly reverberates with the value of concealment. Brackes understanding of my theoretical framework as mentalist requires an elucidation: as Mauss, without ever criticizing Durkheim, emphasized individual strategies in the understanding of a collective phenomenon, the gift, so does Dumont, whose contribution has far outpaced Durkheims concept of collective representations. Dumont argues against two separations: of idea (thought) from fact (action) and the idea-fact from its value (1986:233). In other words, idea- fact has a valorized nature that is unequal and contrary to other idea-facts, resulting in different cultural positions of values in a system (248). Talking of a value system does not mean that its boundaries are xed and drawn (254); rather, it refers to a collectivity as well as individual acts: people do not exist in isolation; they share their values with each other and act them out in their being. For instance, Dumont (228) explains at length the example of the cultural understanding of the right and the left hand, which are thoughts in terms of practices. When seen in relation to the body (whole), hands are differently valorized in relation to each other, forming a hierarchy of contrary values. It is not a question whether a value of the right or the left hand is more desirable or preferable (249) because both, being values, refer to their different positions in a system of values. This concept of value is crucially different from the commonsense understanding of values as simple norms, beliefs, and ideas. As I explained in the essay, such a value has, instead, a static, a dynamic nature: it is uid, exible, segmented, allowing us to recognize its multiple appearances in numerous overlapping, intersect- ing, and ever-changing contexts (252256), which may be related to Levinass concept of gathered Being, and therefore I also speak of an overow of meanings, that is, every value has limitations as well as unlimited possibilities of expression. I do not criticize, as Bracke assumes, an instrumentalist mode of reasoning; I rather insist that a value is neither divorced from any kind of expression, be it instrumental, pragmatic, religious, political, or economic, nor can the meaning of veil- ing be reduced to it, because every person in his or her specic understanding expresses a value according to his or her sit- uational priorities. The value concentrates on the principles of habitus or collectivity, which are not separable from per- sonal expressions (see Wagner 1972). Thus, value is more comprehensive an analytical concept than code, relating hu- man diversity, its brokenness and personal and cultural ex- This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Alvi The Muslim Veil in Context 197 pressions, while, instead of imposed on a context, remaining indigenous. Hence my structures of meaning that Gocek wants to be identied are not mere Western analytical con- cepts (like emic, etic) imposed on others but inseparable from their indigenous understandings. I thus criticize that ontological duality (El Guindi) that separates action from thought, or action-thought from its value, and not just any notion that refers to two contrary aspects (as revealment and concealment). My work distances itself from seeing the veil as a symbol and older work exploring its functions. El Guindi and Werb- ner question this rejection of symbol, and I certainly regard it analytically possible to see the veil as a symbol in some instances, but I do not think it is necessary, as the instrumental use of the value already covers this ground. The notion of value is able to capture variations and contradictions of mean- ings in diasporas, as I showed for Punjabi contexts. The ar- gument for the symbol alone cannot explain its adoption and persistence. Besides, there remains a temptation to limit its meaning to explicit formulations of informants (thereby ren- dering them as either enlightened or ignorant) or to the an- alytical perspective of the scientist. Bourdieu makes us con- scious of all what informants do not explicitly formulate, what is not caught in interviews, the lacunae of the language of familiarity (1977:18). Let me add here as an answer to Gocek that I regard eldwork as an intersubjective, open-ended pro- cess aimed at learning about native experiences and relating them to ones own, and I am adverse to wearing the corset of an elaborate research design with structured interviews that rather hamper a fruitful engagement with a situation bound to be more complex than can be foreseen. Bourdieu warns that anthropologists . . . so often forget the distance between learned reconstruction of the native world and the native experience of that world (1977:18). Contrary to Brackes assumption, I write that a prostitutes burqa bestows them too with honor and dignity. However, and answering also to a problem identied by Haroon, I include the prostitute in the values unintended consequences because her dignity is momentary and embedded in the larger frame of her being deprived of the honor inseparable from the value of concealment. Similarly my reference to urban conscious religious thinking (nowadays emerging also in some rural contexts) as forming a non-value is not due to any consideration of rural contexts as the only pure ones, as I do mention many urban contexts as well. Pious urban thinking forms a shadow only when it denies the other. My approach of criticizing the denial of the other would remain incomplete if it would not question that other that itself denies the other. One cannot saw away the branch on which one sits. The shadow, where I combine Dumont and Levinas, is that uneth- ical moment when the other is denied or when concealment explicitly uses revealment. The essay notes seven variations of the shadow, from a subtle diversion of the value, to its perversion. Thus, mere diversions appear in TV shows when women wear shining, colorful head scarves adorned with jew- elry. However, a recent video circulated on mobiles about a woman in a burqa having sex in a car constitutes a perversion. Haroons remark about an inferred true context of the veil, or whether I identify one or many veils, is hinged on the concept of the value and of the shadow depending on it. Thus, a meaning of the concept of veiling arises not from one source but out of the gathered Being of different con- texts juxtaposed to each other. Note that I do not use Witt- gensteins concept of family resemblance to argue for the shifting meaning of veiling because the ethical value of con- cealment that relates the self to the other keeps all the vari- ances intact, and two contexts do not just resemble each other because both share a similarity with a third one. Gotos com- ment makes me recall Antouns narration about the honor killing of a girl by her father in an Arab village where the villages Islamic court was not consulted for justice, but the preacher emphasized in a Friday sermon after this incident those aspects of the scriptures that supported local ways of living (1968:685687): religion thus is for people what they believe in. The sacred scriptures of any religion are subject to different interpretations and are fragmentarily internalized by persons in their interactions with others, forming a whole that is inseparable from its individual expressions. This is why I argue that a separation of religion from culture is mean- ingless, and the notion of a pure religion a chimera. Haroon hints at the same issue when she emphasizes the importance of local concepts of understanding religion. Implicitly drawing on Clifford and Marcus (1986) and on Said (1978), Gocek and Bracke both point to the danger that an emphasis on differences between cultural concepts may lead to a reication of culture or to the construction of an orientalist other. This point, I must admit, has acquired for me a ring of policing the norms of the anthropological dis- course. I am perhaps particularly sensitive because I draw inspiration from Dumont, the great otherer, the denier of individualisms universality! But can acknowledging differ- ences not mean respecting the other, accepting, in Levinass terms, its priority over the self, and does not the denial of otherness imply an appropriation of the other by the self? Foucault, Saids inspiration, after all emphasized such differ- ences in the discourses of different periods. After Said, how- ever, social scientists (my audience) have become afraid to articulate differences that, I insist, must be respected and should not be ironed out in the hope of proving ones concern for humanity. Thus, concealment certainly also constitutes a value in cultural contexts inuenced by Christianity but is negotiated in other ways, and its constancy, its pervading and determining effectsthat is, its position and signicance are all different. This does not imply absolute oppositions: historically, the argument can be made that both Islamic and Christian contexts emerged from the same circum-Mediter- ranean origins (witness the Song of Solomon to which I refer), and, as Queen Victoria reminds us, concealment matters also in Christian contexts. Islamic sensitivities againstrevealing, one might saygurative art may well have been crucially This content downloaded from 141.209.100.60 on Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:31:03 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 198 Current Anthropology Volume 54, Number 2, April 2013 inuenced by eighth-century Byzantine iconoclasm, but they came to shape Islamic expressions in a way Christian icon- oclasms never did. I nowhere argue that Muslim societies fundamentally dif- fer from others in their understanding of right and wrong. Here Gocek apparently misunderstood my remark on the ontology of human difference in terms of values in the last paragraph of the conclusion. This may have happened because of her understanding of the concept of value in terms of common sense and not as it is understood in the essay. Rather than morals, I emphasize the ethical dimension that is a re- lation between the self and the other, whether within one or between cultural contexts. 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