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From the editor
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Veil scholar Radwas El Guindi dedicates her book "Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance" with a hope that her words reach "those who decide to veil those who refuse to veil, those who refuse to unveil an those who never ever veiled." Hers is an open, respectful delving into a complex topic, informative and worthwhile. Yet like many good books of its kind, it does not do its subject poetic justice. Why? Because the Veiled Feminine and the Veil itself pique the psyche's deep interest, make forays into its poetic marrow — resisting denotative and cultural interpretations, even as they seem to invite them… I That which is seen veils that which is not seen. And in many traditions that which is Unseen is all the more powerful. It has been called Divine and worth loving, worth worship. It is the invisible sheath of wisdom which keeps the planets in their orbits and the plants in the good, dark earth and the thickening autumnal fur of the creatures pushing forth to prepare for first snow. The world’s fertile body — so variegated, specific, dappled, striated, pulsing, plush, milky and wild has itself been known as a veil — for underneath its seemingly obvious solidity lives an often unacknowledged, unobserved process — a complex and whirling energy dance. It and we as part of it, remain in mystery, even to ourselves, And for every veil we lift, a new one forms simultaneously. What our true being is, we do not know. What we think we know, we know limitedly. Take for example, one simple English work, "material." It sounds so solid, rational and certainly non-mythic! Yet its etymology carries us back, to language's mysterious wellspings. For language too is a veil. "Material" comes from the Latin work "mater," the Mother. So, the word seems to suggest that everything tangible is made out of the Mother. What is you heart tissue made of? The Mother. What is you skirt, your computer, your Coke can, your brain made of? The Mother. Why, your own mother is made of the Mother! And what might she be, this Mater? You could say she is a veiled woman dancing to a music which issues from her own heart. Or you could say she's subatomic particles configuring and reconfiguring. Or you could say she's Shiva Nataraja whirling in a circle of flames-or you could say many things — and everything you say will fling forth a metaphorical veil. Some metaphors, of course, seem better than others-truer, more life-worthy. People have been enriched by them, impoverished by them, got stuck on them, lived and died for them. The great metaphorical theses of poetry, of science, of history all approach her — this mater-with curious questing fingers — to touch the veil's fabric, to feel for an outline, an impression, for warmth, for a response. In Jungian terms the veil can be viewed as an archetype, a huge transpersonal symbol whose latent familiarity constellates in our psyches and is older than cultural or individual voices. Like a circle or a stone or snake or feather a veil when it appears invites deep responses, ones beyond the articulate rational. The veil as an archetype travels a horseshoe-shaped energy path from very light to very dark and as such can evoke amazingly positive reactions as well as equally amazing negative ones. And it can evoke much in between. Besides the grand, material veil, which flickers as all of Reality, smaller "veils" emerge in the natural world effortlessly. There's the white flowing hijab of the waterfall; there is deep, mysterious water itself. There are the eyelids of creatures with their clever fringe, veiling the eyes. There's the rare child whose face is born covered with a membranous caul, the usual child who has floated in his amniotic sac for many veiled months. There are the months, the minutes, the seasons which veil the future, mask he past. There's the numinous place in the forest where the shadows deepen and beckon. There is the hymen, smoke, mist, the tympan of the frog's ear, the pony's showy mane. There is the early scrim known as fog, the heavenly scrim known as cloud cover. There is blue heaven itself, which veils us from the great mystery of outer space. There is the dark veiled theater behind our closed eyes, inviting us to the mystery of dreamy, inner space. From the wealth of the world's wisdom literatures comes an interest in the cultural parallels to nature's veils. Such references to veils are innumerable, really. The Rabbinic literature of Judaism says, "It is not like the daughters of Israel to work out with their heads uncovered." Christian sacred literature gives us the veil of Veronica, which receives the image of Christ's face as he staggers to Golgotha. It offers the blue, starry mantle of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the rosy green one of Guadalupe, the fierce words of Saint Paul who proclaims, "…every woman who prays or prophecies with her head uncovered dishonors her head; it is just as though her head was shaved." There's the sumptuous veil of the Temple, the richly-embroidered velvet veil over the Ka'aba, the seven veils shed by Inanna the Sumerican in her dancing descent to the underworld, searching for her lost husband. Form the Hindu epic "Mahabarata" flows the magic sari-veil of Queen Draupadi which unwinds and unwinds and will not allow her to be seen naked by the men who've won her form her foolish spouse in a gambling game.. II For a number of years, since reverting to Islam and meeting a Shi'ite woman who wore the head scarf known in Farsi as "chador, it has pleased me to stretch my own fingers towards the veil and its relationship to women. Living symbolically, religiously and creatively as I try to do, I imagine clearly a divine directive that asks a human female to veil and to unveil only in the sanctuary of her own home or only for those who are worthy of her visage, worthy of watching her move, dance, work play, create3 in intimate settings. Some scholars of the Kor'an insist the Suras al Nur and al Ahzab which came down from Allah (SWT) through the Angel Gibril to Muhammed (SAS are clear. Women must veil. The translations of the meanings of these suras (not the only ones available, obviously) are as follow: "Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty… and say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what ordinarily appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms…" (Kor'an 24:30:31) and "O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women that they should cast their outer garments over their bodies (when abroad) so that they should be known and not molested." (Kor'an 33:59). Other scholars like Fatimah Mernissi claim that the incident in which hijab is revealed has to do with a "curtain"-hijab most literally means curtain-that was invoked to separate Muhammed (SAS) and his family and new bride from male house guests who overstayed their welcome on one of his wedding nights. In Islam one must go by the Kor'an and if there is confusion about meaning, one should energetically and earnestly examine the best commentaries available and then decide. The distinguished Kor'an translator, Yusuf Ali says to read "not only with the tongue and voice and eyes but with the best light our intellect can supply, and even more, with the truest and purest light which our heart and conscience can give us." Not being an Arabic reader yet and without the best tools to research this matter, I am left with translations and with the beliefs of respected scholars. Also, I am left with what I know about the life of symbols and life in general. So, no matter what was or is said about the veil in the Western media, or in over-generalized or even in specific political or historical contexts, I decided to enter as fully as possible the mystique of the veil symbol.
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