Niqāb

A niqāb or niqaab (/nɪˈkɑːb/; Arabic: نِقاب niqāb, "[face] veil"), also called a ruband, (Persian: روبند) is a garment, usually black, that covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of an interpretation of hijab. Muslim women who wear the niqab do so in places where they may encounter non-mahram (un-related) men. Somewhat controversial in some parts of the world, the niqab is most often worn in its region of origin: the Arab countries of the Arabian Peninsula – Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, where it is common and considered as culturally belonging to the region, though not compulsory. Historically only found amongst Muslim women in Najd, a region of Saudi Arabia, as well as elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, since the late 1970s the Niqab has spread to more religious Muslim women, usually Sunni, throughout the Middle East and worldwide as a result of the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Revival brought on by the success of the revolution. This phenomenon was encouraged by the rise of “Petro-Islam” by the monarchy of Saudi Arabia in response to the consolidation of the revolution, which funded many mosques to adopt neo-Wahhabi, Salafist ideologies worldwide, resulting in the rise of the Niqab becoming a noticeable consequence of the Islamic Revival in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, and of Saudi Arabia's newfound cultural dominance over the Arab world. Since the 2000s the niqab has attracted significant controversy in the Western world, being perceived as a visible sign of growing Salafist extremism and a rejection of Western society. Culturally, in the modern world, the face veil has been considered by some to be "a custom imported from Najd, the Saudi region and the power base of its Salafi fundamentalist form of Islam." The Sydney Morning Herald added, "Within Muslim countries it is very contested and considered fringe." In parts of the Muslim world outside of the Arabian Peninsula, where the niqab is less extensively worn, it is regarded warily by Sunni and non-Sunni Muslims "as a symbol of encroaching fundamentalism." For instance in Algeria, the niqab made its presence felt starting in the 1990s and it becoming associated in the Algerian public consciousness with Islamist groups fighting in the 1991-2002 Algerian Civil War as well as being a product of Saudi-funded fundamentalism and as lacking cultural authenticitity. It has also caused a societal clash in Egypt in the 1990s when the niqab was increasingly worn by Egyptian women who imported the custom having returned from work in the Arabian Peninsula. There are currently 16 states that have banned the niqab and burqa, both Muslim-majority countries and non-Muslim countries, including Tunisia, Austria, Denmark, France, Belgium, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, the Netherlands, China, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Switzerland. Most Islamic scholars consider the niqab to not be compulsory for practising women. The terms niqab and burqa are often confused; a niqab covers the face while leaving the eyes uncovered and today can be found amongst Muslim women in many different countries, while a burqa covers the entire body from the top of the head to the ground, with only a mesh screen allowing the wearer to see, and is usually only found in Afghanistan and sometimes traditionally in Central Asia. From Wikipedia