As a personal protest against the hijab and its current popularity in Mogadiscio and elsewhere, I am posting a drawing and two photographs of Somali women in Mogadiscio as I remember them from the 1960s. Their traditional dress was graceful and sensible. And they were just as Muslim, just as devout and just as virtuous as women today in hijab.

There is nothing intrinsically Muslim about any mode of dress. The hijab, for example, was, and in some places still is, the dress of the Catholic nun. The burqa, covering the woman totally and isolating her from public life, has been worn through the centuries and across the globe, in ancient Rome and Greece, medieval Europe, Hindu India, and incidentally, in the original Mogadiscio that became the Italian Mogadiscio’s casbah, Hamar Wein. Veiling is an urban phenomenon, done in cities and towns, and until recently, only by families wealthy enough to afford the luxury of keeping their women secluded inside the narrow bounds of the residence. An ordinary woman hauled wood and water to the home, worked in the fields, tended animals, went to market to bargain and buy and to sell produce she had grown or made herself. Why should she be encumbered by excessive, useless layers of cloth.

In the 1990s, seeing videos of women in Mogadiscio desperately seeking a safe place in the ruins for their children, I assumed they were covering themselves in robes as a way to avoid the gaze of marauding males. Now, with peace and civility returning to the city, it seems that nearly all women are in the hijab, and a few even in burqa. I see photos of girls in white hijab at school and women everywhere in colorful robes, covered all but for the face and hands. It is the current fashion.

In my view, the hijab can best be understood as an international fashion. Explaining why women adopt it and why I find it objectionable are beyond my purpose here. I simply present images of Mogadiscio’s lovely Muslim women as they dressed decades ago and as I knew them.

I discussed here the technology pictured in this 1847 etching. Now let us regard the individuals shown.

The couple standing center left in the picture are noticeably different from other people shown. They are somewhat lighter skinned, as were a number of lineages in the original Mogadiscio. They would have been descendants of men from Persian and Arab lands who came by ship to trade in Mogadiscio, married Somali women and settled in to become part of a distinctive urban culture. Mogadiscio was the northern most of the East African coastal cities, extending south to include Mombasa, Zanzibar and, finally, Sofala in Mozambique.

The woman with the man is dressed exactly as were women in Mogadiscio in the 1960s and her hair is covered in a similar manner. I knew the dress as garessa but it has been called by other names. It is a five meter length of cotton cloth tied at one shoulder, over the breast and wrapped to form a shirt. It is ideal for the climate, light and comfortable. I wore it at home.

I was able to enlarge the etching to see details not visible here. I think the woman sitting in the far background is wearing a garessa; the white of her dress seems to continue over her right shoulder. With the picture’s enlargement the woman at the spinning wheel seems to have her dress simply wrapped and her right breast is showing. She may have her hair covered. The woman sitting in front of the mill has a cloth wrapped like a skirt and another length across her breast and holding her baby. Most women in the 1960s wore a length of cotton cloth over the head and shoulders when outside, and so did I, to draw over the hair and across the face for protection against blowing sand. It could be used, as well, for carrying a baby.

The man with the woman in garessa is probably her husband. He is in a dishdasha, a traditional garment worn for centuries by men throughout the region. It is tailored; someone has sewn it for him. He wears a cap, quite like those worn in the 1960s, and sandals, the only person in the picture who is not barefooted. The ultimate symbol of his status and power is the spear he carries. The woman holds something significant in her hand but I cannot determine what it is. Her garessa seems very fine. It is fringed and the folds at the waist and the way it drapes indicate a quality cloth. Ibn Battuta, visiting Mogadiscio in the 1300s, wrote of imported silken robes. She wears two beaded necklaces, and if the longer one is like other traditional antique Somali jewelry, its pendant is in silver. She is elegant and they are a handsome couple.

A photograph from the 1960s. Women near the river behind Mogadiscio are loading wooden containers of camel milk to sell in the markets of Mogadiscio.

Young women are on a stage, circa 1966, probably at the new theatre built by the Chinese Embassy. They may have been singing for an audience. They are dressed in their best, and their garessas have more cloth and heavier cloth than for every-day wear.

This photograph from the 1930s is of women in northern Somalia. Their dress is essentially the same as that of women in Mogadiscio in later decades.

A note added in May 2018 — This essay is about my thoughts concerning Somali women. Please read my experience with women in the hijab in America six years ago. https://irissansfrontieres.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/thoughts-on-the-hijab/ Things may have changed since then with younger women. I would like to have comments and feedback.