Niqāb

A niqāb or niqaab (/nɪˈkɑːb/; Arabic: نقاب), also known as a ruband (Persian: روبند), is a long garment worn by some Muslim women in order to cover their entire body and face, excluding their eyes. It is an interpretation in Islam of the concept of hijab, and is worn in public and in all other places where a woman may encounter non-mahram men. Most prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula, the niqab is a controversial clothing item in many parts of the world, including in some Muslim-majority countries.

Historically, the niqab was largely exclusive to Muslim women in Najd, a region in present-day Saudi Arabia, and in some Arab countries of the Persian Gulf. However, since the late 1970s, it has spread throughout the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, particularly among Sunni Muslims. This phenomenon was encouraged by the rise of "Petro-Islam" under the House of Saud; the propagation of hardline Sunni Islamic doctrines from the oil-producing Arab countries, beginning in earnest after the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, would quickly come to mold the Saudis' ideological response to the religious zeal that the Iranian Revolution had stirred among Shia Muslims. Sponsorship by Saudi Arabia of mosques throughout many Muslim-majority countries led to the increased adoption of Wahhabism and Salafism globally, resulting in the rise of the niqab as one of the more noticeable consequences of the Saudi strain of Islamic revivalism, which flourished greatly throughout the late 20th century. It also consolidated the newfound religious and cultural dominance of Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia over the Arab countries as a whole, effectively serving as a social countermeasure to the religious and cultural influence of Shia-majority Iran.

Since the 2000s, and particularly after the September 11 attacks in the United States, the niqab has increasingly become the subject of negative attention in the Western world, as it is commonly perceived by detractors as a visible sign of growing Islamic extremism and a rejection of Western values. To some extent, this view is also present in the Muslim world, where a number of Muslims outside of the Arabian Peninsula have come to regard the niqab "as a symbol of encroaching fundamentalism" upon their religious freedoms. For instance, in Algeria, where the presence of the niqab increased considerably in the 1990s, the Algerian public consciousness began associating the garment with the Islamists who were fighting in the Algerian Civil War; it was also protested by some Algerians as a byproduct of Saudi-backed Islamic fundamentalism—one that lacked authenticity in Algerian culture. Another prominent example of this struggle was seen in Egypt during the same time period, when the niqab was increasingly worn by Egyptian women who had imported the custom from their time as expats in the Arabian Peninsula.

To varying degrees, wearing the niqab or the burqa has been banned by legislation in several countries, including a number of Muslim-majority countries. A significant amount of Muslim scholars consider the niqab as not compulsory for practicing Muslim women. Though similar, the niqab is distinct from the burqa by way of the eyes: a niqab does not cover the eyes, varies in the thickness of the material used, and has visible sleeves; but a burqa is elaborately designed with thicker material that covers the woman's entire body figure and face, lacking sleeves (i.e., keeping the entire body under the uniform cloth) and having a mesh screen to obfuscate the eyes. While the niqab is more widespread, the burqa is largely limited to Central Asia and South Asia, and is most prominent in Afghanistan.