From Manchester I write my 1st ever post I just wanted to say hi and share a thought all what I’ll write has no supporting documents but just recollection of real life events and memories and things I learnt at school when I was young.
The main line of this subject is the Nikab where it first existed and how it existences become a habit, to understand this we need to roll back not a few years or centuries but just go to pre-historic era of the Saudi peninsula – south west of Asia – this piece of land was not yet know as Saudi I have no idea what its name was but I know for sure it was a desert like area no rivers and some scattered rain here or there helped in some wild desert like plants to develop over time. In a place like that you can only depend on short term agriculture and plants that do not need much of time or water to grow plants you can use to eat or make some easy to make commodities and take away cause tomorrow this land without rain will be desert again and no one knows how soon it will be watered again by rain! Another activity of the people who lived there is animal raising again animals that do not need much of attention or water to survive like Camels or goats and sheep, they can be used for food travel and leather it was a main way of life in most desert like areas! In conditions like that, with a desert climate very hot day time extremely cold night time it was a good habit to wear lots of clothes not to reduce them like most people do in a hot weather, why? Because you protect your bare skin from being directly exposed to Sun hit and burns, the more your skin is exposed to the direct sun the more you feel the heat, but on the other hand till Sun heats up your clothes you are somehow protected of its heat…
I a community depending mainly on live animals elevation and moving around in the hunt of water sources and plants it was very normal to reach a spot in the desert where another group of people already reached for the same purpose…as strangers meet for same scarce recourses then either you share or fight for it…that was the origin of tribes and tribal fights; strength was measured by the size of the tribe and the men in it the more men the more likely you win a smaller tribe or less in men count, the more powerful you are and less likely to be attacked. However this was not only the rule for the stability of a tribe or to be famous a respected in a primitive society the female factor had a vital role, leave aside the fact that the more women in a tribe the less strength for that tribe, it could be a 50 – 50 chance the power (men) and beauty (women) affect the tribe’s reputation but for sure the more your reputation for beauty the more likely to be attacked by people who not just want to survive and fight for scarce resources but want to compensate it’s fighters with some beautiful mermaids!
From here and not to forget the effect of the desert climate and that your skin needs to be less exposed to direct Sun hits we see why those scattered tribes of the southern mainly part of the Saudi peninsula used the tent like dress to protect the delicate skin of women from the sun and their beauty from men’s eyes in the so called nowadays Nikab. Note that this dress habit was not a general habit it was just some particular tribes and may be for additional reasons I do not know of them, but for sure this dress was there years before Islam ever existed and has nothing to do directly with the Islamic Religion, moreover in Islam it is not a must to cover up in a simple manner where you dress like a Nun but it is an asset and some add on to your religious believes but as I said not a MAST!!
Now, a side story just to help readers better understand the factor of HABITS…In national geographic a TV program I like to watch and follow some time ago a team of explorers traveled to mid Latin America jungles of the Amazons to their surprise the team found a group of people still live there in a very primitive way, know nothing about the word outside their surrounding jungle! Still live on hunting to eat, using Animal skins and tree leaves as clothes and practically naked…Now I have no idea how the expedition there managed to communicate with those people and made them appear on TV and tell people about their way of living their primitive life but the reason of mentioning them is to show you how habits affect your way of living, those practically naked people had no problem appearing almost naked on TV they raised this way they do see it extremely strange your way of dressing and you look to them like a parrot!!
Bottom line not nakedness or Nikab has to do with religion it is just dressing habits people raised on them and looks very unusual to them to ask them remove the Nikab or wear it, it is just like if I asked someone to go to the Market wearing a Mayo or swim wear in spite of in his normal life he uses it on the beach not in the market!
Having understood partially the history of the Nikab –I do not clam there are no more factors but those are the main factors behind this type of dressing, could be more I do not know of them and wish if someone who has any add on to this article to add it in the comments- we see it was until recently a dressing habit that some people for their particular agendas –non religious agendas- decided to use it under religious agendas makes it very difficult to reject or fight back but rest assured it is not what God said, and most important remember God never appointed any one to do his job, he is merci he loves sinners who return home and makes big celebrations to receive them back home!
