What is the philosophy behind Hijab in Islam?
One of the obligations in Islam is Hijab; Hijab in Arabic dictionaries is defined as “covering”, and the reason that this word is used in Islamic ruling, is because in Islam man and women are ordered to have Hijab, but of course for the reasons that will be mentioned soon, this covering by the woman is wider than that of man.
The women in Islam are ordered to have Hijab from the men who are not among their Maharim like their fathers, brothers, uncles etc. and about the amount of this covering; it must cover their bodies except their faces and their hands till their wrists.
A question arises here, why women are ordered to observe this rule?
Some reasons and let’s say philosophies are mentioned in this regard, like:
1) Keeping the balance of tranquility in the society.
It has been proved in psychology that man can be turned on (in sexual appeals) by looking, and woman through touching.
A woman by observing Hijab, keeps herself safe from the impure looks by the impure men, but the women are not like men, for this reason, observing Hijab for men, is not that much important. For reaching to the tranquility, Islam has ordered both men and women; Islam has ordered men to ovoid from looking at the women and on the other side has ordered women to cover themselves from the men.
2) The second philosophy of Hijab is to keep the families safe from being collapsed, because if the women do not cover themselves in the public eyes or come out from their houses with make-up, it makes the men of the society to be attracted to them and after a while makes the men reluctant to their spouses and it may little by little lead to the divorce of different families.
3) The third philosophy can be that Hijab prevents the society members from committing adultery and corruption, because the man is like that if he gets turned on sexually, he might be stuck mentally in the sexual imaginations and after a while pushes him to have illegal intercourse with that women or other women and this very obscene sin, will be committed, the sin that is one of the greatest sins and disobediences of the All- Mighty Allah. And the society can be full of illegitimate babies that in a lot of these cases, the fathers of these babies do not care about them and leave their responsibilities toward them and a lot of these babies will be exposed to different dangers when they get older, and that is an important matter that is common in the west.
3) The other philosophy of Hijab can be that it prevents women from being considered as a tool for just sexual matters; you can see that when a woman has Hijab, what a greatness and majesty, it gives to her. But you see in the west that the women with no Hijab are used for advertisements of the little things like the toothbrush and other things.
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Source:
Akhlagh.porsemani.ir