A Regional Dress Mistaken for a Religious Requirement

The Afghan burqa is routinely presented as the emblem of Islamic dress for women, and it is in fact regional clothing worn by a small minority of the Muslim women of the world.

Not a requirement of Islam

The garment, more precisely the chadaree in Afghanistan, is a full-body covering with a mesh screen over the eyes, and it covers more than the niqab, which leaves the eyes open; the two are constantly confused in English reporting and legislation. Its use in Afghanistan long predates the Taliban, though it was enforced by them from 1996 and again after 2021, and the great majority of Muslim women worldwide have never worn one. Treating it as the standard of Islamic dress mistakes a local custom for a doctrine.

Made the emblem of a foreign war

The burqa has also been used politically from outside. The argument that Western military intervention would liberate Afghan women was made prominently with reference to it, and organisations of Afghan women have objected both to the compulsion at home and to their clothing being turned into the symbol of a war that is not theirs. Both the enforcement and the instrumentalisation treat the women wearing the garment as illustrations of a point made by others rather than as its subjects.