"Hijab Is My Identity": Beyond the Politics of the Veil: The Appropriations of the Veil in an Inner- City Muslim Area of Accra (Ghana) since the ...
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
“Hijab Is My Identity”:
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
Beyond the Politics of the
Veil: The Appropriations
of the Veil in an Inner-
City Muslim Area of Accra
(Ghana) since the 1980s
c ha r l e s pre mpe h
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and
Technology, Kumasi-Ghana
Abstract
The object of this ethnographic study is to assess the contemporary
debates surrounding the veil (hijab) and the cultural reinterpretation
of the hair in Maamobi, an inner-city Muslim area of Accra, Ghana.
Instead of reproducing the Orientalists’ view of the veil as oppressive
to women in Islam, the paper analyses the significance of the veil and
its appropriation within the Islamic faith in recent times. I maintain
that in the midst of religious plurality and the widespread perception
of a fast-declining morality in urban Accra, the “traditional” role of
women as gatekeepers of religious values has been refashioned in
the veil debate. This study is based on my position as a resident of
Maamobi for more than three decades as well as twelve months of eth-
nographic fieldwork I conducted in 2018 and 2019 to discuss the his-
tory and social use of the veil from the 1980s to contemporary times.
Keywords: Islam, veil, Maamobi, youth, Ghana
Given that I have since the 1990s desired to write about the evolution of
the veil in Maamobi, an inner-city Muslim area of Accra where I have lived
since 1984, I joined a group of Muslims from my community and other sur-
rounding communities on October 12, 2019, to embark on a peaceful walk
DOI: 10.5325/jafrireli.10.1.0020
Journal of Africana Religions, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2022
Copyright © 2022 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA21 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
(“demonstration”) to demand the acceptance of the hijab in public spaces.
The walk was inspired by what most Muslims believe to be a creeping
Islamophobia that veiling Muslim women experience, especially in public insti-
tutions. The walk, which witnessed a gathering of hundreds of Muslim men
and women, was supported by the Muslim Parliamentary Caucus, the Office of
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
the National Chief Imam, the National Council of Zongo Chiefs, and a group
of Muslim women who had graduated from the various universities in Ghana.
Participants in the walk included Muslim youth and some important Islamic
leaders in Accra. They held placards marked with inscriptions such as “We are
harmless in our hijab,” “Leave Muslim women alone,” “The hijab has liberated
me from society’s expectation of women,” “Article 12 of the 1992 Constitution
offers us religious freedom,” “My hijab my right,” “My hijab does not make me
less efficient, stop the workplace discrimination,” and “My hair is covered not
my brain.” Participants in the march eventually converged at the “Obra Spot”
(Kwame Nkrumah Circle—an important interchange in Accra) where they were
addressed by notable Muslim leaders, such as Sheikh Aremeyaw Shuaib, the
spokesperson of Ghana’s national chief imam. Other speakers included Yussif
Issaka Jajah, the member of parliament for the Ayawaso North Constituency
(which includes Maamobi), and Alhassan Suhuyini, the member of parliament
for Tamale North Constituency of the Northern Region of Ghana.
The inscriptions on the placards bespeak the aspiration of the majority of
Muslims in Ghana. They contested the stigmatisation of the hijab as patriar-
chal and an expression of androcentric sentiments against women. They also
articulated the importance of the hijab as an index of religious identity and
belonging. In his address to the gathering, Sheikh Aremeyaw Shuaib pleaded
with the state to allow female Muslims to wear the veil in basic schools and
public workplaces since it is part of their constitutional right to express their
religious identity. He appealed to the National Peace Council, an interreligious
establishment of the state that is mandated to mediate conflictual relations in
the country, to step in to enforce the constitutional rights of female Muslims.
But of importance to this article was the inscription on a placard held by a
young Muslim woman about the liberating effect of the veil. The inscription
read, “The hijab has liberated me from society’s expectation of women.” In a
follow-up interview, she indicated to me that the veil is expected to set clear
boundaries between her sense of Islamic womanhood—and by extension gen-
der relations—and the perspectives of “secular” society.1 As the veil defines
the boundaries of her status as a woman belonging to Islam, she saw her con-
formity to Islam as necessary in articulating her activism against the Ghanaian
demands of “secular” feminism.22 jou r na l of a f r ica na r e l ig ion s
Imtaz Ahmed has observed that the veil has become an emblem of sig-
nificant tension in the world.2 There is hardly any consensus among Muslims
or non-Muslims about the religious and social significance of the veil. While
some Muslim scholars and Western authors consider the veil as part of patri-
archal tendencies to control and domesticate women, as well as to suppress
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
their rights,3 some women also appeal to the veil to routinise their piety and to
express their conformity to the demands of a religious group.4 In Ghana, par-
ticularly in Maamobi, the veil became an important subject of discussion in the
late 1980s, though the country is “secular” (in terms of the absence of a state
religion) and also demographically dominated by Christianity.5 The Tijaniyyah
Sufi movement, which predated the presence in Ghana of both Shi‘a Islam and
Sunni Islam (expressed in Ghana as Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a, or Ahlu Sunna),6
rarely emphasised the wearing of the veil among female Muslims.7
Veiling was one of the consequences of the global religious resurgence
since the Iranian revolution in 1979, though this in no way suggests that Shi‘a
Islam introduced the veil in Ghana. After the Iranian revolution, Shi‘a Islam
started spreading to other parts of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.
Ghana registered the presence of the Shi‘a in the 1980s.8 The Shi‘a, known
in Maamobi as “Yan Shi‘awa,” showed their presence in Ghana by providing
social services, which became important entry points for religious proselyti-
zation. Consequently, the Shi‘a have built a health clinic (Iran Clinic) and a
university (Islamic University College) in Accra to support the Ghanaian pop-
ulace as well as boost their chances of winning more converts. They also built
the Imam Khomeini library in the community. Despite these social services
(which were necessary at the time, as the negative impacts of neoliberal pol-
icies left Ghana in dire need of international aid),9 the sect was stigmatised
in Maamobi for allegedly using food, which was usually freely supplied after
Jama’ah prayer, to lure other Muslims and non-Muslims into the faith.10
The presence of the Shi‘a partly led Ahlus Sunna to intensify mission work
in the country. The resurgence of the Shi‘a in the Arab world incentivized
Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-oriented countries in the Arab Gulf to offer male
Muslim youth the opportunity to pursue further studies in the Sunni-related
centres of learning in the Arab world. For example, some Muslim youth in
West Africa were sponsored to study in Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia,
and Kuwait in the 1970s.11 Most of these youth studied Islamic theology and
history, usually in Arabic, and were required to return to Ghana to champion
reforms by purifying Islam from local traditions and the alleged “bida” (unwar-
ranted and un-Islamic innovation or heresy) in Tijaniyya Islam.12 This effort
at purifying Islam, alongside state partisan politics that seems to favour the23 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
Tijaniyya, partly contributed to the tension between the Tijaniyya and Ahlu
Sunna. This was usually framed around Tijaniyya’s practice of emphasising
mystical and experimental ways of knowing God, which the Ahlu Sunna—
interested in returning to the ideal model of the Prophet’s way of life—consider
as an adulteration of the religion.13 Participation in the hajj also influenced the
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
views of some Muslim leaders on practices such as veiling.14
These educated scholars and pilgrims brought new socioreligious ideas that
were neither Western nor “traditional,” and these new ideas became the cata-
lyst for creating a new Islamic society.15 Given the “secular” economy of Ghana,
most of these youth, upon their return from studies, did not find employment
in the public sector that aligned with their qualifications. Consequently, many
of them resorted to becoming religious clerics, where their newly acquired
knowledge was put to use. Most also taught in the madrasas (known locally
as “makaranta”); in Maamobi until the 1990s, Islamic education in madrasas
was free, though the parents of students in these madarasas occasionally give
gifts to the teachers.16 This is fast changing, with many Muslims now unable to
provide their children with Qur’anic education.
Even so, it is widely believed that when these young men trained in Sunni-
related universities returned, they insisted on female Muslims veiling which
then led to the widespread visibility of the veil in the public sphere in Ghana.
Such an explanation satisfies the polemical attacks against Ahlu Sunna Islam
(who are derogatorily labelled as “Ahlu-fitina,” or rabble-rousers). However, it
does not explain why most (though certainly not all) female Muslim youth in
Ghana, particularly those in Maamobi, regardless of the Islamic sect or denom-
ination they belong to, wear the veil. It is not enough to claim that the resur-
gence of Ahlu Sunna Islam is responsible for the rise of the veil, as Ghana’s
status as a “secular” country means that religious laws that infringe on the
right of a person cannot be implemented. In fact, since Ghana’s redemocratisa-
tion in 1992 (which ushered in the country’s fourth republican constitution),
Muslim leaders in government and other offices of influence have called on the
state to allow the use of the veil in the public sphere, including basic schools
and public work environments.
I look at how the veil has been used in different religious and social con-
texts to explain the near homogenous response among Muslims regarding
the enforcement of the veil in the public sphere. Through this perspective, I
argue that the veil transgresses its materiality as a ritual object to signal how
a female Muslim seeks to conduct herself in the public sphere. Through the
veil, Muslims endeavor to draw ethical boundaries for Muslims, particularly
females, in a “secular” Ghana. This is enforced through the cultural definitions24 jour na l of a f r ic a na r e l ig ion s
ascribed to women’s hair. Given the difficulty in enforcing Islamic family laws,
which some popular preachers in the community broaden to include the wear-
ing of the veil, the veil becomes a “micro” law that determines conformity of
Muslims to Islam. But it has also become a religious material used by female
Muslims to negotiate their “modernity” and piety, as well as to solve social
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
dilemmas in the community.
Methodology and Study Area
In this article, I draw on a year’s ethnographic research I conducted between
2018 and 2019; it involved interviews with Muslim youth, some of the ear-
liest settlers of the Maamobi community, and clerics. Forty female Muslims
and ten males were interviewed. Given the communal nature of Maamobi,
which has a population of about 3,349 with many people living in compound
houses,17 it is easy to know most of the residents. And as a resident of the
community for more than three decades, I depended on my friends to connect
me to other respondents with whom I did not have a direct friendship. I also
took advantage of my participation in the peaceful walk to interview some of
the females who held placards with specific inscriptions of relevance to the
article. I conducted a focus group discussion with some Muslim students in the
community to gather information on the subject. I also interacted with some
non-Muslims who expressed their views on the veil. I deployed my position as
a person who understands the cultural climate of the community and is com-
petent in Hausa—the lingua franca of the community—to analyse the subject.
I recorded the interviews and later transcribed and analysed the data. Thick
description with emic and etic perspectives served as the framework for the
study. I conducted interviews in Hausa, Twi, and English. Given the fact that
I am partly an “insider,” I depended on secondary literature for comparative
analysis.
Because I am not Muslim, I am also an outsider. In order to understand
the complexities of contestations around the veil, I interviewed some of the
key Muslim leaders from the main Islamic denominations in the community,
including the Ahlu Sunna, Tijanniyya, and Shi‘a, and read secondary literature.
My study aims to answer the following questions: What is the history of veil-
ing in Maamobi? How do Muslim leaders use the veil to respond to what they
consider to be creeping Islamophobia and moral degeneration? In what ways
do Muslim women deploy the veil to shape their identities and articulate their
sense of fashion?25 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
Maamobi is one of the oldest inner-city Muslim areas of Accra. It was
established in the 1950s as the home of some Hausa who were former World
War II soldiers and most of whom were Muslim.18 It is also a migrant commu-
nity that has received residents from Northern Ghana and some of the coun-
tries that neighbour Ghana, including Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo.
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
As a low-income community, most of the residents are involved in the informal
sector of the economy. The men are artisans who work as mechanics, electri-
cians, masons, gardeners, cobblers, carpenters, tailors, and the like. Some of
the women also work as petty traders selling foodstuffs and consumer goods.
Some residents also work in the lower echelons of the public and civil service
as clerks, labourers, secretaries, errand men and women, security officers, cou-
riers, messengers, and distributors of newspapers. Most of the Muslims in the
community claim affiliation with the Ahlu Sunna and Tijaniyya Islam.
There is a small group of Shi‘a Muslims who have a mosque in the commu-
nity. Annually, the Shi‘a celebrate Ashura by marching through the community
to also register their presence. There are Christians belonging to the different
denominations in the community as well. In the late 1990s, I observed intra-
religious conflicts between the Tijaniyya and the Ahlu Sunna in Maamobi.19
These conflicts usually involved the intervention of the police. But since the
beginning of the 2000s, intrareligious and interreligious relations have gener-
ally been peaceful. There have been occasions where some religious leaders
use open preaching to criticise each other’s religion or sect. Some residents
think that the large number of mosques in the community is a result of the
intra-Islamic conflict between the Tijaniyya and Ahlu Sunna. The community
currently houses Ghana’s national mosque, which was constructed through the
financial support of the Turkish government. The mosque, which is the largest
of the modern type in West Africa, with a fifteen-thousand-seat capacity, was
inaugurated on July 16, 2021.20 The two denominations (Tijaniyaa and Sunni)
have reached a truce to defend the frontiers of Islam,21 and they collectively
worship at this national mosque.
The rest of the article is structured as follows: In the first section, I review
secondary literature on the veil. I highlight the different opinions offered by
scholars on the function of the veil. The section then discusses the impact of
the global resurgence in religion on the use of the veil in Maamobi. I argue
that the veil became very visible there in the 1980s. By situating the debate
on the veil globally and locating it in Maamobi, I argue that the veil has both
universal and local appeal in Muslim communities. As I situate the veil within
global and local contexts, I discuss the cultural symbolism of hair that offers an
additional reason to reinforce the use of the veil in Maamobi. I then turn to a26 jour na l of a f r ic a na r e l ig ion s
section on the theoretical perspective, where I look at how the veil is a signifier
to encourage Muslim women to exemplify the ideals of a good Muslim. Against
this background, I discuss how Muslim women deploy the veil as a religious
material to achieve religious piety, social aspiration, and sartorial interest. This
then leads to the next section, which sheds insight on the social purpose of
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
the veil in the community. I conclude by highlighting the importance of the
veil in shaping the debate on Ghana’s “secular” status and the need for effec-
tive religious plurality that allows religious people to manifest their beliefs as
enshrined in Ghana’s constitution.
The Politics of the Veil in Global and Local Perspectives
The veil remains a contentious religious emblem in some parts of the world,
and sometimes the same theories or concepts are applied arbitrarily to the dis-
course on the veil. For example, in France, the political elites invoke secularity
to proscribe the use of the veil in the public sphere, especially in schools.22 In
Ghana, most Muslim leaders and some political elites invoke Ghana’s “secular”
constitution to promote the wearing of the veil in public spaces.23 The veil has
a long history in Islam. Katherine Bullock argued that in the nineteenth cen-
tury, at the peak of European colonisation of the Arab world, the veil was con-
sidered a backward practice in some Arab countries. This was also part of the
colonialist stigmatisation of the veil as an emblem of primitivity.24 Bullock’s
observation resonates with the Orientalists’ view of the veil as part of the back-
wardness in the Arab world that supposedly subjugated women. The veil has
also had a broader discursive history in terms of its function. For example,
David Patel has argued that, since the 1970s and 1980s, the veil has become
an important emblem of religion that is deployed for various economic, politi-
cal, and social purposes.25 Patel’s observation is similar to Franz Fanon’s argu-
ment that, politically, the veil was used as a mark of protest against political
imperialism, particularly in Algeria.26 Culturally, the veil has been deployed
to express the restitution of some Islamic cultural practices. In Egypt, the veil
became an important index of religious identity, and some females deployed
the burqa to denote the extent of their religious piety.27 The multiple uses to
which the veil has been put indicates the reinterpretations ascribed to it and
also demonstrates that the use of the veil is osmotic in Muslim communities.
This implies that the reasons for which women use the veil cannot be homo-
genised across cultures. It is from this perspective that this article discusses the
evolution and multiple uses to which the veil has been put in Maamobi.27 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
Janine Clark has observed that in some of the countries in the Arab world,
especially Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, the popularity of the veil was made pos-
sible through incentives, especially employment opportunities that Islamic
social institutions gave to women who wore the veil.28 Clark’s observation does
not consider the agency that women tend to have in their use of the veil.
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
While some women were paid to wear the veil, to generalise such a situation
reinforces the perception that women’s use of the veil is part of a patriarchal
stifling of women’s agency. It is partly because of the varied reasons for the use
of the veil that Muslim scholars are sharply divided over its use in the “mod-
ern” world. While some scholars see the veil as an expression of atavism for
pre-Islamic patriarchal culture, others see it as liberating for Muslim women.
For those against the veil, it is considered part of the patriarchal structure that
perpetually oppresses women. Others support the veil by contending that it
is meant to ensure the protection of women.29 Some consider the veil neces-
sary to counter the perceived corrosive effect of globalisation, with its cultural
liberalism.30
But generally, the veil is a lived experience full of contradictions and mul-
tiple meanings. While it is seen to be a patriarchal tool for regulating and
controlling women’s lives, Brigid Sackey has observed that women have used
the veil to free themselves from the bonds of patriarchy.31 Elisha Renne has
also rightly observed that the different meanings associated with veiling—as
an assertion of Islamic moral and political authority, as a form of protection,
as a marker of social status, as a sign of sartorial expertise, and sometimes as a
subversive disguise—underscore the ephemeral ambiguity of veiling as a form
of dress.32 The veil as clothing has agency and communicates. The fact that the
veil has cultural agency is supported by Emma Tarlo, who rightly observed
that Muslim women in Britain adopt the veil as an identity choice to express
their personal devotion to Islam and also to make themselves modern by tap-
ping into contemporary fashion. This enables Muslim women to integrate into
British society without seeing any contradiction.33
Following the different uses of the veil as clothing with agency across
cultures, I now focus on Maamobi to discuss the evolution of the veil there.
My aim is to analyse the malleability in women’s use of the veil. In Maamobi,
the veil was hardly part of the dress code of most females until the late 1980s.
Until that time, most unmarried female Muslims did not cover their hair. A
few wore “duku,” a simple headscarf popularly used by Akan women that cov-
ered only the hair. Alhaji Haruna Dabre, one of the earliest settlers of the
community, living in Maamobi since the 1960s, and a leading opinion leader,
indicated that unmarried female youth hardly wore the veil. Most of them28 jour na l of a f r ic a na r e l ig ion s
preferred to style their hair through braiding or a permanent wave known in
the community as “perming”—a hairstyle that consisted of waves or curls set
into the hair, with the curl lasting for a month or two. This was corroborated
by Mr. Tajudin Abubakar, who plays an active role in the administration of
one of the popular mosques of Ahlu Sunna called Khulaffah Mosque. He said
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
that in the past if an unmarried female Muslim wore the veil she was laughed
at and ridiculed as not qualified for marriage. He added that because of the
stigmatisation some residents attached to the scarf as antimodern (also labelled
“colo”—outmoded—in the community), most unmarried women shied away
from wearing it.34 They were often mocked for hiding their financial difficulties
through the use of the veil, as it was perceived as indicating they did not have
money to style their hair.
Sheikh Kasim Mohammed, a lecturer and administrator at the Islam
University College of Ghana (the Shi‘a university in Ghana), admitted that
the type of veil promoted today was largely unknown in Muslim communi-
ties in Ghana. He maintained that the conflation of headscarf and abaya—a
robe-like dress worn by women in some parts of the Arab world—creates the
incorrect impression that veiling was not known among Muslims. He fur-
ther said that covering the entire body, including the face except the eyes,
is not necessarily Islamic. It was rather a pre-Islamic Arabian traditional
dress code. He reiterated that it was “duku” that was worn instead of the
Islamic veil. The use of the headscarf was a popular practice among older
Akan and Ewe women, as it served as a mark of seniority in the company
of other women. Dagomba women also used to wear a head covering called
bobgu, which means “to cover.”35 Sheikh Kasim Mohammed’s observation
that the veil (especially the burqa) constitutes an imposition of traditional
Arab dress code on Ghanaians is similar to Ousman Kobo’s assertion that a
moderate younger generation of Islamic scholars admitted that their prede-
cessors uncritically imposed Arab veiling customs such as purdah and the
black abaya on local Muslims.36
On the other hand, the type of veil that was in popular use in Maamobi
was referred to as mayafi. The mayafi was usually used by married women to
indicate their conjugal social status. It covered the head, neck, and upper arms
and fell down over the chest and back. The mayafi has survived in Maamobi
through wedding practices: for Muslims of all ethnic groups in the commu-
nity, a prospective husband-to-be is expected to provide his prospective wife
with no fewer than ten mayafi.37 The presentation is part of the leife, which
constitutes items in the marriage contract that are not returned if the marriage
collapses.29 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
Cultural Symbolism of the Hair and the Rationale for the Veil
In this section, I argue that one of the reasons for the enforcement of the rule
about veiling is because of the cultural value invested in hair. In an edited
volume on hair in Africa, Roy Sieber and Frank Herreman observed that in
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
African cultures, hair may reflect one’s status, gender, ethnic origin, leadership
role, personal taste, and place in the cycle of life.38 Thus, while this article is
about Islam, I will give some background information about the cultural sym-
bolism of hair in Africa and how it also feeds the cultural imaginations about
hair among Muslims in Maamobi. I argue that the enforcement of the veil is
based on the cultural configurations of hair in African cultures and religion in
general, and in Maamobi in particular. This is to help us appreciate the extent
to which cultural idioms are deployed to rationalize the enforcement of the
wearing of the veil among female Muslims. Human hair, much as it is natu-
ral, is also a cultural construct. Hair is a powerful symbol for enforcing group
identity because it is visible. It is also a marker of social status.39 Among the
Asante, hair is sometimes placed in the mouth of a corpse as preparation for
burial. The hair is believed to serve as money or hold value in the world of
ghosts.40 Among many African peoples, shaving the hair has been a primary
symbol of mourning. Among the Akan, growing one’s hair is part of mourning,
symbolizing protest against death.41
Some cultures in Africa also attached importance to the shaving of a newly
born baby’s hair. There is limited evidence to show that some Asante people
shaved the hair of a new baby. The hair was hidden in a secure place and later
buried; as an adult, that person could not be tracked when traveling. This was
precisely because, until recent improvement in transportation and communi-
cation systems beginning in the late colonial era in the nineteenth century, it
was difficult for people who migrated in the preindustrial Akan areas to be
traced. So, when a member of a family migrated and did not return in a rea-
sonable time interval, it was the duty of the family head to track the person,
usually through divination. In addition, if the person had gone missing in a
distant land, the hair was re-buried when the oracles confirmed that the person
had died in a “strange” land.42 Among the Nawuri, one of the Guan groups in
Ghana, when a native of the land dies in a “strange” land, the person’s hair,
fingernails, and toenails were taken to Nawuriland for burial. This practice
was predicated on the assumption that the hair, fingernails, and toenails are
the summation of a human being.43 These three elements mark the three main
divisions of the human body. The hair represents the upper part, the fingernails
represent the middle part, and the toenails represent the lowest part. Among30 jour na l of a f r ica na r e l ig ion s
Muslims, especially in Ghana, the hair of a new baby is shaved at birth. While
Muslims do it to repeat the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed, it is also done
for hygienic purposes, since the hair may be contaminated.44
Some Muslims in Maamobi in the 1990s, when the veil was becoming a
fashion, reinforced a certain belief about hair that informed the need for veiling.
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
For example, they believed that if an unmarried woman left her hair uncovered
in the night, she would attract evil jinn who could establish a spiritual marriage
with her. Sheikh Kasim said that some Muslims in Ghana believe that just as
the unmarried woman’s hair attracts men, it also attracts jinn. Hamidatu, a
female Muslim in Maamobi and student at the Accra Technical University, said
that as a child growing up in the late 1990s, she was constantly reprimanded
for exposing her hair, and she was told that doing so imperiled the family by
exposing their home to the invasion of jinn.45 Sadiatu, also a resident of the
community, said that as a young lady she was always told to bathe early since
bathing at night would expose her to jinn possession.46 In Maamobi, there are
many stories about young women believed to live under the sufferance of jinn
because they carelessly refused to veil. The situation is perhaps grim for young
women considered to be physically attractive, as many believe that those who
are beautiful are even more susceptible to jinn possession.
Many mallams, an improvised use of “Mualim” (an Arabic word for
teacher) in Hausa that denotes a ritual functionary in Islam, have specialized in
exorcising such females of malicious jinn.47 This practice is popular because the
“presence of the intruding spirit contradicts Muslim notions of bodily health,
closure, and self-control.”48 Some Muslims also believe that a potential suitor
can use the hair of a female for potent love charms. Muslim ladies are, there-
fore, told to avoid exposing their hair in public, since pieces of their hair could
be used against them to marry men against their wishes. There are stories in
the community about some mallams who are despised for specializing in using
the hair of women as a love potion. James Frazer has observed that the use
of hair for magical reasons follows a contagious type of magic, where a “sym-
pathetic connexion which exists between himself and every part of his body
continues to exist even after the physical connexion has been broken, and that
therefore will suffer from any harm that may befall the several parts of the
body.”49
Given the connotation ascribed to the hair, Muslims in the community
believe that an unmarried woman should expose her hair only to her relatives;
the woman can be safeguarded from jinn invasion by veiling in other con-
texts. Muslims support that practice by quoting Qur’an 33:59, which reads, “O
Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers31 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
to bring down over themselves [part] of their outer garments. That is more
suitable that they will be known and not be abused. And ever is Allah Forgiving
and Merciful.”
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
Theoretical Framework and the Sociopolitical Significance of the
Veil
In this section, I argue that the promotion of veiling provides a narrative for
Muslim leaders to use as they interact with youth, encouraging them to con-
form to the ethics of Islam. Given the “secularity” of Ghana’s public sphere
that guarantees religious freedom, Muslim leaders deploy the veil to encour-
age female Muslims to conform to their expected roles and behavior in society.
Mustapha Hamid has argued that the veil was not intended to be a symbol of
piety. It was meant to distinguish the wives of Prophet Mohammed from other
women, ensuring that the wives of the Prophet were accorded the respect
of “mothers of the faithful.” The second reason for the use of the veil was
to prevent lewdness and other forms of sexual solicitation.50 While Hamid
provides a theological analysis to demonstrate that the veil was not a symbol
of religious piety, some religious leaders in Maamobi have invested the veil
with religious significance so that it serves as a counterforce to what some
Muslims perceive as the corrosive effects of secularization. The sacralization
of the veil and theories about secularization are the framework for explaining
how the veil becomes an important religious material that is displayed pub-
licly to indicate conformity to Islam. Muslim leaders in Maamobi deploy the
beliefs around the veil as a way of communicating commitment and loyalty
to Islam. Endowing the veil with religious meaning is similar to the social
implications of signal theory to the extent that “they can promote intra-group
cooperation by overcoming the free-rider problems that plague most cooper-
ative pursuits.”51 The strength of any community, especially a lower-income
one like Maamobi, depends on how members of the group can enforce cooper-
ation through conformity to the group’s ideals. But while “everyone may gain
if all group members invest in the cooperative goal, attaining such large-scale
cooperation is often difficult to achieve without social mechanisms limiting
free-riding opportunities.”52
In many cases, religious rituals that require conformity are strictly enforced;
such strictness makes organizations more attractive by helping individuals
integrate effectively.53 The ability of a religious organization to demand com-
plete loyalty, unwavering beliefs, and rigid adherence to a distinctive lifestyle32 jou r na l of a f r ica na r e l ig ion s
keeps the organization strong. Strictness increases commitment, raises levels
of participation, and enables a group to offer more benefits to current and
potential members.54 To ensure conformity, the cost of deviating from religious
norms tends to be high.55 In other words, to benefit from cooperation, there
must be some accurate predictors that the individual will be less motivated to
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
defect than to cooperate.56
The religious significance ascribed to the veil helps to clarify the unspoken
but real reasons for the contention over the veil in Maamobi since the 1980s.
The veil is a signifier and a signal encouraging female Muslims to conform to
the demands of Islam. Through the veil as a vector, the Muslim community
encourages the enforcement of what it requires of a “good” female Muslim.
This is because Ghana’s “secular” public sphere is seen to pose a threat to a
minority Muslim group (who are said to represent 17.6 percent of Ghana’s
population),57 especially as female Muslims seek to maintain their “primordial”
identity.
Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic in 1992, the veil has become
a topic of public discourse in Ghana. Muslim leaders have consistently called
on the state to liberalize the use of the veil in public spaces, including basic
schools and workplaces. For example, in 1992 a group of Muslim women,
including Hajia Katumi Mahama, Zalia Ali, and Rukaya Ahmad from the
Ghana Education Service (GES) and Zainab Yakubu from the Internal Revenue
Service, all of whom had had Western education, formed the Federation of
Muslim Women’s Association (FOMWAG).58 One of the objectives of FOMWAG
is to enhance the public image of Muslim women in Ghanaian society, and one
way it has sought to do this is by encouraging the use of the veil in public.59
The group has largely succeeded in neutralizing the negative perception some
people have about the veil in public spaces and in making Muslim women feel
more comfortable wearing the veil in public.60
Notwithstanding the extent to which some Muslim leaders have endowed
the veil with piety to contest what they consider to be the corrosive effect of
secularization, women use the veil to reflect their fashion choices as well as to
express their social aspirations. In this sense, my findings corroborate Emma
Tarlo’s assertion that the veil serves as a form of clothing agency that incor-
porates the various uses to which Muslim women put the veil. The mutual
inclusivity of the sacralization of the veil and the veil as a social construct put
my discussion into a broader perspective. On the one hand, the religious sig-
nificance provides a rationale for Muslim women to wear the veil; on the other
hand, the veil as a clothing agency enables Muslim women to appropriate it to
meet their social and sartorial aspirations.33 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
The Social Deployment of the Veil
In this section, I argue that the enforcement of the veil in the public sphere
is part of broader efforts to encourage women to remain true to what is
considered their primary role of nurturing the next generation of Muslims.
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
Female Muslims deploy the veil to produce piety and achieve social concerns
in Maamobi. The veil is deployed to encourage female conformity to Islamic
social norms because women are considered the symbols of the whole social
context: home and outside, interior and exterior, private and public.61 They are
also considered the maintainers of tradition and are relegated to being the last
bastion against foreign penetration. One of their roles, therefore, is to safeguard
the Muslim community from annihilation by upholding the faith in the face of
what is perceived as a longstanding Western design to destroy Islam.62 Their
veiling encourages them to remain connected to the ideals of Islam that are
expected to be transmitted to the next generation.
Veiling is considered to restore a link with past traditions. It signifies the
immutability of religion and nonsecular time,63 belonging to a particular com-
munity, and participating in a moral way of life. This moral life is paramount
in the organization of communities and the home usually associated with the
sanctity of women.64 Given the popular assertion of moral degeneration in
Ghana, Ghanaian Muslims, like their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, see the
veil as a moral scaffolding needed to encourage local women on the path of
reformation and as a remedy against immorality.65 Similarly, the veil conveys
the vision of Islamic ideals. Together with dress style, the veil serves as an affir-
mation of Islamic identity and morality and a rejection of Western materialism,
consumerism, commercialism, and values.66 The veil has, therefore, “borne a
heavy semantic load as an icon of Muslim identity.”67 However, the discussions
on the importance of the veil elide the extent to which Muslim women exer-
cise agency in their use of the veil both to comply with religious norms and to
express their sartorial preferences.
In Ghana, the centrality of the veil in fashioning Islamic identity for female
Muslims has led some Muslims to express disgust against heads of basic schools
or state institutions who compel female Muslims to remove the veil. This is pre-
cisely because some Muslims consider the public disapproval of veiling in pub-
lic institutions as a form of Islamophobia. For example, in his speech during the
October 2019 march in support of the public use of the veil, Sheikh Aremeyaw
Shuaib, the spokesperson for the national chief imam, said that it was very
disappointing that state institutions are discriminating against female Muslims
by forcing them to unveil. He said that the veil is the identity of a Muslim34 jour na l of a f r ic a na r e l ig ion s
woman and must be accepted as it is. By conflating the Muslim woman’s
identity with the veil, Sheikh Aremeyaw articulated the need for Muslim
women to fit within the boundaries of Islamic ethics that must not be contra-
dicted by any “secular” law or the ethics of other religious groups. He noted
that the Office of the National Chief Imam had plans to engage state institu-
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
tions such as the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ministry of Health, and
the West African Examination Council (WAEC).
Before the peace walk, some Muslims had threatened to embark on court
action against the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), a
state establishment that is responsible for administering the national pension
scheme. The SSNIT is alleged to have refused to accept a female Muslim, Miss
Rabiatu Mohammed, who had been posted there to undertake her mandatory
national service, because she refused to remove her veil.68 In response to the
allegation and the petition against the SSNIT, the SSNIT conducted its inves-
tigation. It admitted that Mohammed had been posted to its institution but
denied that she was disallowed from working there as a national service per-
son.69 SSNIT stated that its management had, in principle, acknowledged that
wearing the hijab was acceptable in its dress code but that deliberations on
a definition of the hijab for the dress code policy were ongoing.70 Bashiratu
Kamal, one of the lead organizers of the peace march, argued that “stripping
Muslim women of their hijab is an act that violates their rights to exist as
human beings with fundamental rights.”71 The rights are grounded in Ghana’s
constitutional provision that grants religious liberty to freely believe, manifest,
and pursue any faith without state discrimination.72
The concerns of these Muslim leaders are based on a long history of what
they consider to be institutionalized discrimination against Muslims in a “sec-
ular” Ghana. In 2015, for example, Muslims complained that female Muslim
students and nurses were unable to wear the veil because of the restrictions
imposed by their schools and workplaces.73 Similarly, on September 26, 2019,
a lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, a public
tertiary institution, was reported to have forcibly removed the veil of a Muslim
woman who was writing her licensure examination.74 In January 2019, it was
reported that the management of the Maamobi General Hospital had turned
down the request of a female Muslim under training as a nurse to undertake
her internship, saying that she would first need to remove her hijab. A simi-
lar incident was believed to have happened at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital,
where a female Muslim who worked as a ward supervisor was faced with
threats of demotion because she refused to remove her veil.75 In response,
Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, the minister of Inner-City and Zongo Development35 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
and an Islamic scholar, took it upon himself to fight for the right of female
Muslims to wear the hijab. In his engagement with the health authorities and
administrators, he asked them how they expected a female Muslim to express
her identity in public without the veil. He concluded that while the veil is not
a symbol of piety, it is a symbol of identity.76
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
It could be gleaned from Abdul-Hamid’s response that the veil is expected
to shape the identity of the female Muslim in the public sphere. This implies
that the female Muslim is encouraged to fashion her behavior in conformity
with her Islamic identity, as identity implies responsibilities. Ideally, to iden-
tify with Islam is to live what Islam teaches. Given the emphasis Islam places
on orthopraxy, including five daily prayers and fasting, which are visible to
the public, the visible hijab is seen to encourage conformity to the ethical
requirements of the Islamic faith. While people do not always live by what they
believe, the display of a religious emblem in public creates an awareness that
one should live according to the emblem.
Muslims have devised ways of encouraging female Muslims to wear the
veil. For example, those who do not wear the veil in the community are likely
to suffer social isolation and ridicule, and they often are the target for critique
during Friday utuba (Friday congregational sermon; khutbah in Arabic) and
waazi (open-air preaching). One firebrand Muslim preacher in a sister commu-
nity (Nima) who is known for castigating against female Muslims who do not
wear the hijab is Mallam Dawud. He is derogatorily called Mallam Pamperewa
(a local term for “explicit”) because he is explicit with what he says. In 2013,
preaching in front of Chamber Store, a popular place in Maamobi, he referred
to female Muslims who do not wear the veil as prostitutes, bastards, and trai-
tors. The social cost and social pressure to wear the hijab make it difficult for
female Muslims to resist.
Even though some Muslim leaders deploy the veil to encourage confor-
mity to Islamic identity, female Muslims have agency. In many cases, female
Muslims have appropriated the veil in ways that reify their agency and their
subjectivity in the practice of Islam. Some late millennials who were born into
a social space that considers the veil to be a normative Islamic practice have
creatively appropriated the veil to meet their identity. For example, some of
them wear the veil in ways that help them appeal to prospective boyfriends
and future husbands. In a community where religion is considered important
and where women have to appeal to “pious” men for marriage, these young
female Muslims wear the veil to mark themselves out as “pious” and “true”
Muslims. In a conversation with Suweiba, a graduate of Islamic University
College, Ghana, she indicated that most of the Muslim men in the community36 jour na l of a f r ic a na r e l ig ion s
prefer women who demonstrate true Islamic identity. And since the veil and
dress are the key visible index of conformity to Islam, she and her friends have
decided to hold firmly to wearing the veil and other dress codes of Islam.77
Other female Muslims also appropriated the veil to appeal to prospective
marriage partners. This strategy seems to work well for them because mar-
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
riage is such an important institution in Islam in general and the community
in particular. Marriage is considered Sunnah (a worthy practice of Prophet
Mohammed) such that every Muslim, man and woman, is supposed to marry.
It is compulsory for all Muslims except those who for very serious reasons
are unable to fulfill such a social obligation. There is a Hadith that says that
“whoever marries completes half of his religion.”78 Similarly, it was observed
in the Gambia that some women wore the veil to appeal to men for marriage.79
This creative use of the veil in Maamobi by some unmarried female Muslims
is in response to a “conservative” community where an unwritten code forbids
females to initiate and propose conjugal relations to a male. In many instances,
a female who transgressed this unwritten code is considered “cheap” or to be
a prostitute.
Unmarried and married female Muslims have also articulated agency in
the ways they appropriate the veil to express “modern” fashion. Unlike the tra-
ditional mayafi, recent veils are ornamented. In most cases, they are not used
to cover the face. Some Muslim youth wear a basic headscarf and hang the veil
over their shoulders. This is becoming a common practice among both married
and unmarried female Muslims in Maamobi. In an interview with Sadiatu,
who married in 2017, she couched the refashioning of the veil as conducing
to modernity as “rayuwa” (life) and “ad-din” (faith). She indicated that faith
and “modernity” must move simultaneously.80 Fauziatu, a student at the Accra
High Secondary School, expressed the “modernization” that has been incorpo-
rated into the veil as follows: “As a lady, you must not be left behind in matters
of fashion. You must take the veil as a piece of clothing that can reflect new
fashion in the world.”81
The sartorial investment in the veil has influenced how some non-
Muslim females in Maamobi also appropriate Islamic modernity. In Maamobi,
it is nowadays not difficult to find some Christian women wearing a type of
veil that reflects the “modern” new fashion trend. The search for a balance
between “faith” and “modernity” resonates with what Masquelier referred to
as “alternative modernity,” where a creative balance is sought between “faith”
and “modern” fashion.82 This is not in any way to say that religion does not
demonstrate change; it is rather to argue that the dependence on orthopraxy in
Islam in Maamobi creates the impression in the minds of some observers that37 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
Islam in the community is impervious to “modernity” and change in relation
to the veil.
Through the refashioning of the veil, most female Muslim youth negotiate,
practice, and perform piety. Consequently, the veil, which was prescribed and
donned by female Muslims to stem the tide of Western values in Turkey, for
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
example, has been appropriated to redefine notions of modernity in a way that
ensures a balance between “modernity” and what is considered appropriate
womanhood in Islam in Maamobi.83 Thus, the veil reflects both the wearer’s
fashionability and her virtue.84 The aesthetic qualities of the veil in Maamobi
resonate with a similar trend in Yemen. In Yemen, San’ani young women wear
covered dress and face veils to conform to what is common in their social
circles, which in turn has been affected by the globalization of dress and
contemporary fashion.85 The new sartorial practices that have encompassed
the veil contradict the assumption that modern fashion and Islam cannot be
compatible.86 The male Muslims I interviewed for this article expressed satis-
faction with the fashionability of the veil as well. Malik, a resident of Maamobi
and graduate of African University College of Communications, Accra was of
the view that “styling the veil is important to make the female Muslim compet-
itive in the ‘secular’ world of fashion.”87
The new sartorial practices that have invested fashionabilty in the veil in
Maamobi have been supported by the liberalization of the media landscape
in Ghana since the country’s redemocratization in 1992. This development,
together with the recent proliferation of social media, has given Muslim youth
in Maamobi access to international reforms in Islam. More specifically, they
have a pool of resources in relation to the veil to choose and learn from. They
also improvise the style and “modernity” they invest in the veil. The recent
increase in trading relations between Ghana and some Arab countries, includ-
ing Dubai and Saudi Arabia, has brought new fashions to Muslim youth in
Maamobi. Some of these veils, especially the one that is locally called kashkha,
could cost as much as US$70 each.88 Kashkha is an Arabic word meaning beau-
tiful; as a type of veil, it is tightly draped across the head and flanked across
one side of the shoulders. It comes in a variety of colors, including light red,
sea blue, gray, orange, and so on.
The veil in Maamobi also provides grounds for interdenominational ecu-
menism among Muslims. Both married Shi‘a women and women in other
Islamic denominations in Maamobi wear the same fashionable type of veil to
social gatherings such as naming and marriage ceremonies. It is only during
the month of Ashura that most Shi‘a women wear niqab, a black full-face cov-
ering. There is, therefore, little or no distinction between the veils worn by38 jour na l of a f r ica na r e l ig ion s
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
FIGURE 1. A married Muslim woman in kashkha. Reproduced with permission from the woman
pictured.
women of different Islamic sects in Maamobi. The homogeneous use of the
veil by married Muslim women reinforces Kobo’s argument that the concil-
iatory approach to da’wa (proselytism) taken by younger Ghanaian scholars39 Prempeh “Hijab Is My Identity”
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
FIGURE 2. A married Muslim woman in an improvised kashka, known as Shivon veil. Reproduced
with permission from the woman pictured.
encourages the coexistence of doctrinal differences in Islam in Ghana. While
Yunus Dumbe has critiqued Kobo’s position as simplistic and problematic,
I maintain that the common use of the veil among Muslims in Maamobi provides40 jour na l of a f r ic a na r e l ig ion s
common ground for them to fight for the collective rights of Muslims.89 Given
that most Muslims in Maamobi perceive the veil to serve as an important iden-
tity marker, the stance these Muslims have taken to promote the use of the veil
in public institutions and schools is not affected by doctrinal differences.
I have also observed that since the late 1990s, Muslim imams confer on
Downloaded from http://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/africana-religions/article-pdf/10/1/20/1472667/jafrireli_10_1_20.pdf by guest on 25 February 2022
women who comply with wearing the veil the legitimacy to run their own
schools of Islamic learning. These women, who are knowledgeable about Islam
and multilingual fluent speakers of Arabic and English, include Hajia Aida
Jibril, the founder of Al-Banatu Jannah Islamic School in Maamobi, Accra,
and Hajia Salma Tahir, founder of Firdaus Islamic School in Madina, Accra.
The incorporation of women in advancing Islamic studies in Ghana diverges
from decades of indigenous patriarchal culture masquerading as Islam that has
obstructed women’s participation in leadership.90 But more importantly, this
development sits in a long history, beginning in 1968, of Muslim women in
Accra mobilising to form solidarity groups—Zumunci—to advance their inter-
ests.91 More specifically, it shows how Muslim women have responded to a
historical challenge beginning in the colonial era of Muslim parents objecting
to the education of their female children in Christianity-influenced mission
schools for fear of the girls being compelled to convert to Christianity.92
In addition, while institutionalised marriage counselling was not very
strong among Muslims, Muslim women who distinguished themselves in
Qur’anic studies have pushed since 1998 to establish family counselling ser-
vices for the Muslim community.93 For example, Hajia Memuna Maliki, born in
Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana in 1947 and a government officer at the
Ministry of Agriculture in Kumasi until 1987, established the Garden of Bliss
Marriage Counselling Centre (GBMCC) in Accra in 2006.94 The goal of GBMCC
is to provide premarital and postmarital counselling to Muslims. So, with all
these activists, the Muslim community has rendered it possible for “pious”
women to become legitimate co-conveyers with their male counterparts in the
dissemination of Islamic knowledge and the provision of marital counselling.
I also observed a Muslim woman who had an equal share of property—against
the rule of the Islamic family law—with her brother because she was con-
sidered pious, which was exemplified by her use of the veil. Finally, Muslim
women who comply with the ideals of the veil are considered ideal women to
be married. This use of the veil to establish social networks and social prestige
is not entirely different from Francis Nyamnjoh’s observation of the veil being
used in Senegal as a mark of piety to access wealth, strongly Muslim-identified
merchants, marabouts, and politicians.95You can also read
