Hijab

Hijab or ħijāb (حجاب, pronounced: [ħi.ˈdʒæːb]) is the Arabic term for "cover" (noun), based on the root حجب meaning "to veil, to cover (verb), to screen, to shelter"

In some Arabic-speaking countries and Western countries, the common meaning of hijab currently is of "modest dress for women,". According to Islamic scholarship, hijab is given the wider meaning of modesty, privacy, and morality.

Surah an-Nur ayah 31 states:

“ And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings (khimars) over their bosoms (jaybs), and not display their ornaments.......... "( Qur'an 24:31)

In the following verse, Muslim women are asked to draw their jilbab over them (when they go out), as a measure to distinguish themselves from others, so that they are not harassed.

" And those who annoy believing men and women undeservedly, bear on themselves the crime of slander and plain sin. O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks (veils) all over their bodies (i.e.screen themselves completely except the eyes or one eye to see the way). That will be better, that they should be known (as free respectable women) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever OftForgiving, Most Merciful ". ( Qur'an 33:58-59)

Narrated Safiya bint Shaiba: 'Aisha used to say: "When (the Verse): "They should draw their veils over their necks and bosoms," was revealed, (the ladies) cut their waist sheets at the edges and covered their faces with the cut pieces."[8] Sahih Bukhari 6:60:282, Sunnan Abu Dawud 32:4091