Long before our trip started, I was dealing with the choice of clothes in Iran. The so-called hijab (pronounced: hee-jub), the Muslim dress code, is legally obligatory in Iran. What do I wear and what do I have to watch out for as a woman? The thing with the headscarf was soon obvious, take one from Germany and then buy one here as worn by the women in Iran. In the end I didn’t do that, because most of the time they wear black, the color of mourning. That’s why I rather stayed with my colored scarves. You always wear a headscarf in public. And I can tell you that every day you wrap your headscarf anew: like “bad hair days” there are also “bad hijab days” where the scarf just won’t hold. On other days the wind can blow and it holds. In addition to the headscarf, a woman should wear a top and/or a jacket that reaches up to half of the thigh, thus covering the behind. I didn’t realize the butt was so sexy. But if you see a tourist in western clothing with tight jeans after a few days, you know that the feminine buttocks can be hot.
There is no provision to wear hijab in the Quran. “It would be better if a women wears hijab”. The interpretation of the Quran is therefore crucial.
In some countries it is understood as a free choice or as an obligation of a headscarf up to the requirement of the burka. And not all headscarves are the same. There are still some variations of the hijabs that I have only met here. Al Amira is a strong bathing cap or sweatband and above it comes the one-piece tunnel cloth with a hole for the face. Then the Batula, where the woman looks like a bird. With such a beak in her face. That’s what women in southern Iran wear. Then the chador, which can be seen frequently and everywhere. In principle, this is a bed sheet, with which one covers oneself from head to toe in addition to the headscarf and the butt cover. A woman looks like a cone from the front and back. In some religious shrines and mosques I additionally had to wear a chador. I found that very disturbing. The sheets don’t have any slits for the hands. Also it won’t hold on its own. The women must either hold it with their hands or bite it with their teeth or wrap the chador in such a way that it can be clamped under the arm at the end. The woman is busy fixing the chador all the time. An Indonesian tourist also struggled beside me. With Chador, I felt really discriminated. There is also the Niquab, the combination of headscarf with additional cloth over nose and mouth. And then, of course, the burka, the complete cone with a lattice window to look through. My God.
In Iran, bathing is in long clothes with a headscarf. Also every sport, including martial arts or climbing, has to be done separately with a headscarf. Recently, a female Iranian footballer took off her headscarf abroad. There was an outcry in Iran. I don’t know what punishment she gets. And if you say that bathing in long clothes is not so bad, you didn’t have to keep the clothes on and freeze afterwards.
There were repeated protests from women on the street who took off their headscarf and waved it as a flag on a pole. The last ones went to jail three weeks ago. Women in Iran otherwise have few limitations. Just like in Germany, they are allowed to drive a car and fill the same positions as men as CEOs or managers of large companies. The rate of women in executive positions is higher than in Germany, and more women than men study in Iran. Until 1979 a Shah was head of state, and headscarf was not compulsory. Since then, women in larger cities have been trying to bend the dress code. Loose headscarves, tight fitting coats, shortened trousers and sometimes no headscarf in the car. Because the car is private space and not public. The Iranian government has reacted by appointing civilian moral police in Tehran. The Tehranis, on the other hand, then programmed an app to locate the police as we did with speed cam app.
I asked various women and men in different provinces whether they felt the duty to wear hijab was right. Everyone agreed that it should not be a legal obligation, but a personal decision. And so there are many more women than you might think, who see hijab as a tradition in Iran and part of their culture. Just like the women in our host family in Shiraz, who also wear hijab at home. Matthias was never allowed to see them without a headscarf and so I was the only one to enjoy looking at the women’s personal photos without a headscarf, for example at Taekwondo with a female trainer. It felt a bit like I was getting access to a secret hideaway. And so I was reconciliated with the Hijab hassle of the last weeks.
