WUNRN
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Special
Report: Religion in Azerbaijan |
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Azerbaijan -
Headscarves Provoke Bitter Controversy
Religious Young Women Risk Problems If They Choose To Wear Islamic Clothing.
By Nigar Musayeva in Baku: 23-Aug-07
When
Humai, a young Azerbaijani women, decided to begin wearing a Muslim headscarf,
her mother took the news with surprising composure. According to her daughter,
she said only, “Well, you’ve made your choice, so do as you wish. But you
should know that this will make your life very difficult. You will never be
able to achieve many of your plans and dreams.”
Just a year later, Humai found that her mother was right. The first unpleasant
surprise awaited her when she went to the passport office to get an identity
card, which she needed to enter university.
Although Azerbaijan is a secular state, girls and women wearing headscarves in
public are an increasingly frequent sight. Attitudes towards them range from
sympathetic to extremely hostile.
The problems often start with obtaining official identity documents.
Azerbaijan’s passport, visa and registration offices refuse to accept photos of
women wearing headscarves for official use. For their part, most of these women
won’t be photographed with their heads uncovered.
There is inconsistency in the law, which requires that a passport photo should
show a person “without a head-covering”, but also that it should be his or her
“everyday appearance”.
Humai grew up in a secular family. “Our home has never been religious,” she
said. “But ever since I was a teenager, felt something was lacking, something
to give me spiritual comfort. I was in a constant state of searching until I
met people, who were performing namaz [daily Muslim prayers]. They taught me
the principles of the Muslim faith, the Koran, and then I understood that this
was just what I had been looking for.”
Because of the headscarf issue, Humai never obtained a passport and as a
result, she was unable to continue her education at college. She has had to
give up her dream of getting a good professional job and becoming a diplomat.
In the only college that agreed to enrol her without a passport, she took
accountancy courses. Because she speaks good English, she has been able to earn
money on the side as a tutor.
The silver lining in Humai’s story is that in the course of her legal actions
to defend her right to wear hijab, or Islamic dress, she met her future husband
- also a devout Muslim - and they now have a two-year-old son.
Today, she is a member of DEVAMM, a group set up to defend the rights of women
who wear hijab. It is headed by the cleric Ilgar Ibrahimoglu (the subject of
another IWPR report, Young People Increasingly Drawn To Islam), who founded the
organisation after his own wife encountered problems because she wore the
hijab.
Those women who do proceed into higher education are generally banned from
wearing the headscarves in classes, which has led to a number of confrontations
at Baku State University, Sumgait University, the Bulbul musical school and
other colleges.
These institutions argue that the women play on the issue so that they can
claim discrimination, sometimes when they are failing in their studies.
DEVAMM has received scores of complaints from women who say their rights were
violated. The group makes the argument that wear a headscarf is a civic right
that is in line with the country’s international obligations.
The organisation also notes that female family members of Azerbaijan’s official
religious leader, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade, were given special
permission to have their passport photos taken wearing the hijab.
The headscarf issue is dividing families and believers right across Azerbaijan.
Outwardly, 30-year-old Mariam Ismailova does not seem pious. She looks like a
fashion-conscious, attractive young woman with gorgeous long hair. But for
several years, Mariam has been regularly performing the namaz, keeping fasts
and trying to stick to the rules set out in the Koran. She smokes, but refuses
alcohol on religious grounds.
However, Mariam does not wear the hijab. “I think that in a modern society, a
woman shouldn’t have to do this,” she said. “I believe that a woman’s spirituality
and purity have nothing to do with whether she wears a hijab or has her head
uncovered. Purity of thought and moral principle matter far more.”
Humai may have won the grudging approval of her parents for her decision, but
other families frequently engage in heated rows over the issue.
“I’m very glad that I managed to talk my 17-year-old daughter out of covering
her head,” said Sanubar Efendieva. “The girl fell under someone’s influence,
and for several weeks our house was just hell.”
Parents say they are acting in their children’s best interests by forbidding
them to wear the hijab.
“They want to voluntarily lock themselves up in a prison, and deprive
themselves of many of the joys of life, and of a normal career,” said
Efendieva. “And what for? I think it’s your soul rather than your head that
matters to Allah.”
Other family members fear that their loved ones might turn into religious
fanatics.
Dilshad Mamedova’s husband was not happy when she announced she would start
wearing a headscarf. She was 40 at the time, and could not be dissuaded. Her
husband and grown-up children objected as much as they could, arguing that if
she wore the headscarf, Dilshad would lose old friends and acquaintances.
“What’s essential for me is that I am accepted by Allah, not by people,” she
declared. In her case, wearing the hijab has not changed her life dramatically.
Today, she works distributing cosmetics, gives religious education lessons to
orphaned girls, and engages in charity activities.
Mamedova does have a passport, since she decided she could be photographed with
her head uncovered.
“I think getting photographed without a head-covering is not in breach of the
Koran,” she said. “It’s just an image, not a live woman.”
Even so, she has still had problems. On her way to the United States to attend
a religious conference, she spent two hours at the airport refusing to take off
her headscarf while border guards demanded she do so, to check whether she
resembled her uncovered self in the passport photo.
At the age of 24, Humai’s only identity paper is “Form № 9”, a document
which she received when she was 16 and has long since expired. But she insists
that she is happy with the decisions she has made.
“I think that wearing the hijab but letting yourself be photographed without it
amounts to a kind of hypocrisy,” she said. “I would give in only in an extreme
emergency – for instance, if I had to leave the country for urgent medical
treatment or something like that. Although I might not agree to do it even
then.”
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