Whose piety? Clothing and communal belonging

I grew up in Penang in the 1980s when it was a rarity to see adults, let alone children, in tudung and jubah, or any form of commonly understood “Islamic clothing”.

Children had the freedom to be themselves, wearing clothing appropriate for their age and activity. My childhood friends and I used to wear shorts and tank tops while clowning around on the playground, playing “roundes” and racing around on our BMX bikes playing “police and thief”.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me be clear. The experiences of my childhood were a part of my upbringing, which was deeply rooted in Islam and its ideals.

Fast forward to 2015. Numerous local and transnational social, political, and economic factors have reshaped the landscape of Malaysia’s faith communities in general, and Penang in particular. The sight of adults, children, and even toddlers in tudung and jubah, and sometimes with tudung labuh and niqab (face covering), is now commonplace.

On a recent visit to a pasar malam (night market) close to my childhood home, I noticed that a new playground had been built. There were many children in tudung/tudung labuh and jubah trying to manage their clothing while running and playing with equipment such as a seesaw, a swing set, and monkey bars.

I saw a little girl who was barely four, trying her best to slide while adjusting her tudung labuh and jubah. She was hitching her jubah with one hand while climbing the ladder with another. When she finally reached the top, she pulled up her jubah and slid down the slide, but the tudung labuh kept getting caught under her.

The heat being unbearable these days, I can only imagine how that little body, wrapped from head to toe in such clothing, fared. Over the next several weeks, I saw similar scenes of children struggling with their clothing, in both outdoor and indoor playgrounds in Bayan Lepas, Batu Maung, Balik Pulau, and Tanjung Bungah.

Almost everywhere I look, there are girls wearing tudung and jubah, little girls who should be wearing supportive clothing that allows them the freedom to move and experience life, and girls who have barely reached puberty trying to adhere to some notion of “Islamic clothing”.

Curious, I asked Ayra, the 12-year-old daughter of a family friend who recently wore tudung, about her decision.

I also spoke to Ayra’s mother, Puan Kasih, and grandmother, Makcik Senja, about their thoughts on tudung (their names have been changed to protect their privacy).

I have known Ayra since she was born and have loved her since she took her first breath. Puan Kasih is one of my closest friends and I consider Makcik Senja my second mother.

Ayra is an outgoing, beautiful, athletic, and smart young girl. She attends a high performance school and comes from an upper middle class family. Her parents were educated abroad and are professionals.

Passionate about music and dancing, she used to dance in public uninhibitedly wherever music could be heard. She is, in many ways, a typical and atypical almost-teenager.

At 11 years old, she decided to wear tudung. Long T-shirts with pants are now her typical clothing and it is my observation that she has become less gregarious in public in order to adhere her personality to her physical appearance.

What follows are, in their own words, Ayra’s, her mother’s, and her grandmother’s thoughts about tudung.

The girl, Cik Ayra

When I was eight years old and in Standard 2, I saw how the Standard 6 girls who did not wear tudung were treated.

The ustazah (female religious teacher) would pull on their hair in public to make an example of their un-Islamic behaviour. At school, it is expected that Muslim girls wear tudung. We have to wear it for kelas agama (religious class) and during Ramadan. I used to wear it during kelas agama and took it off afterwards but ustazah gave me “fishy looks”. She acted like I was doing something wrong. I felt guilty.

A few girls I know wear tudung at school and take it off after school. They wear tight tank tops and shorts outside of school or skimpy clothes. I don’t do that and I don’t think it’s appropriate.

At my school there are only three Muslim girls who do not wear tudung and people make fun of them and say that they are going to neraka (hell) all the time.

I wore tudung because I don’t want the ustazah to pull my hair, I don’t want anyone to single me out, and I don’t want people saying mean things to me. It’s safer for me to wear tudung because I don’t want to draw attention to myself for not wearing it.

Religiously, I don’t know why I wear it. I don’t even know what religion says about tudung. It made me sad when I first started wearing tudung because I look like everyone else. I can’t just be me.

The mother, Puan Kasih

When Ayra approached me about wearing tudung, I strongly disagreed because she is not wise enough to make her own decision. Ayra wears it because of peer pressure. She has not reached puberty and there is no need to wear it.

If she decides to wear it, she needs to be responsible and act in accordance with her attire. I don’t want her to take it off later on.

For me, tudung is an Islamic requirement. As a Muslim wife, my beauty is for my husband. When I wear tudung, I am reminded of this obligation and have to act accordingly. But I must stress that the willingness has to come from within and not from external pressure.

While I believe tudung is an Islamic requirement, I also see it as a deeply personal choice. I wore the tudung for myself; in boarding school there was immense peer pressure to wear tudung but I decided against it. I wore it much later after there was no pressure.

I did want to take it off in college since my friends took theirs off because they were clubbing every night. I was tempted but my convictions prevailed. So, I have worn it since after secondary school and more importantly, I wore the tudung willingly. I want the same for Ayra.

The grandmother, Makcik Senja

I don’t really have an opinion about Ayra’s decision to wear tudung. She has parents and they should take responsibility for her at this point because she can’t be responsible for herself.

But I will say this. Young girls today syok pakai (like to wear) tudung because their friends wear tudung. There will come a time when they realise they don’t know why they wear it and don’t want to wear it anymore. At this age, I don’t think it’s permanent.

Ayra’s story is similar to my own story. I wore tudung when I was a primary school teacher. This is because the majority of the female teachers at my school wore it.

I felt that people were constantly judging me. I felt “naked”. After a few months of living with this hanging over my head, one morning I woke up and decided to wear it.
I can’t explain the decision. It was just a triangle piece of cloth tied at my chin. When I arrived at school, one of the teachers ran over and gave me a big hug. She was so happy I had “come to my senses about my Islamic obligations”. Her actions infuriated me.

However, after wearing tudung for some time I felt more at ease teaching at the school because nobody was judging me anymore. I was just like everyone else.

I don’t know if wearing tudung then was the right decision but now I understand that it is what Allah asked of me.

At least that is what I keep hearing on radio and television programmes. There are many ustaz (male religious teacher) giving lectures about why women must wear tudung.

To a certain extent, I believe them because I have meager religious knowledge... they are learned religious men and know the religion better than me, is that not the case?

*  *  *

The thread that runs through these differing narratives across age and time is the tension between agency and belonging, and between “choice” and “pressure”.

In Ayra’s case, her decision was about belonging to a circle of friends and a school environment; for Puan Kasih it was about belonging to God and a particular Islamic marriage ideology; and for Makcik Senja, it was about belonging to a group of teachers and a sense of religious obligation, in spite of her ambivalence.

Their senses of belonging are attained through an amicable response to the pressure that arises from policing of women’s clothing in different social settings.
Moreover, in our conversations, the girl, her mother, and her grandmother were unable to point to any specific sources of Islam on which such “Islamic requirements” for tudung rest.

The individuals featured here have differing levels of consciousness about their relationship to tudung. But how do we reconcile individual piety with the pressure to adhere to the practice of the majority or the demand of various state agencies that penalise Muslim women (and non-Muslims) who do not dress in a certain way?

It seems that more frequently than not, the standard dress code for a Muslim woman in Malaysia involves some measure of head covering, a disconcerting and popular definition of “Islamic modesty”.

Would Ayra have taken on the tudung if she did not see the older girls at her school being harassed for not wearing it, and if her friends did not wear tudung?

Would Puan Kasih have taken it on if it were not for the collective pressure at her boarding school that generated intense consciousness about the practice?

Would Makcik Senja’s luxurious jet black hair still be visible if she didn’t feel judged for her individuality?

I pose these questions not to invalidate their agency but to explore the social terrain contributing to their “personal” decisions to participate in the production of a Malay-Muslim identity.

More importantly, what of the little girls and babies that I saw at the pasar malam playground, with tudung and jubah, who are dressed in a certain way irrespective of their age? How do we think about this in relation to Puan Kasih’s reflection that she wants Ayra to wear tudung in a well-thought out way, not as a knee-jerk reaction to peer pressure, because she doesn’t want her to take it off?

What will this level of investment in clothing/attire for girls and women as constitutive of Islam mean to our future generations?

What perceptions are being inculcated about those who may be just as committed to the ideals of Islam, but do not adhere to the practices of the majority of Muslims in Malaysia? – September 9, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.