The niqab, or cadar in Indonesian, remains a center of controversy in some parts of the world, particularly in Western countries (Fattali and Smith, Reference Fattali and Smith2023; Piela, Reference Piela2021; Zempi, Reference Zempi2016; Zempi, Reference Zempi2019).Footnote 1 The niqab was even banned in several European countries, such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and France, because of its association with religious extremism, gender oppression, and self-segregation (Zempi, Reference Zempi2016). What is even more surprising is that the cadar is not always acceptable even in Muslim majority countries such as Indonesia.
Adapted from her ethnographic doctoral dissertation, Nisa's monograph addresses the practice of face-veiling in the Indonesian context. Studying Indonesian Muslim face-veiled women that belonged to the Islamic revivalist movements, namely various Salafi groups and the Tablīghī Jamāʿat, Nisa's study reveals the context in which increasing numbers of women are wearing cadar in Indonesia. Drawing on an extended period of fieldwork from 2008 to 2010 in urban Jakarta, Makassar (South Sulawesi), and Yogyakarta, and additional visits to the field from 2011 to 2019, Nisa's key findings shed light on why these women decided to wear the cadar, embodying strict religious disciplinary practices, and the consequences of their decisions. As the meanings and practices of Islam in Indonesia have undergone change, she argues that the key actors in this transformation are women. While face veiling is frequently portrayed as evidence of radicalism or extremism, the increasing Arabization of Indonesian Muslims, or the lack of female agency, Nisa's study suggests alternative interpretations – that their agency can be manifested in their decision to be docile and submissive. This argument is also supported by other scholars like Nonaka (Reference Nonaka2021) that Indonesian Muslim women wear the cadar in order to practice the Sunnah for the reward of heaven in the afterlife.
In the introductory chapter, Nisa highlights the fact that Indonesian Islam has long been seen as a “friendly” Islam with a “smiling face” characterized by its moderation, tolerance, accommodation, and ability to maintain harmony with non-Muslim minorities; and its refusal to build an Islamic state (Azra, Reference Azra2006; van Bruinessen, Reference van Bruinessen2011). However, this friendly label or image has been questioned in light of terrorist attacks and violence by some Muslim groups who acted under the name of Islam or to defend the religion. As Indonesia is still battling against terrorism, radicalism, and conservatism, many Indonesians, including Muslims as well as the government, have been unfriendly to cadari (face-veiled) women. These women, as noted by Nisa, were both seen as those who adhere to strong literalist interpretations of Islam and are portrayed as weak and oppressed. This book intends “to understand how cadari experience the practice of covering their bodies, especially their faces, in the light of the dominant view in popular discourse that deems them to be subservient to and oppressed by their male relatives and Muslim community leaders” (p. 1).
Chapter 1 discusses the origins of the face veiling practices by women in Indonesia. It is believed that these practices were adopted from the Middle East since the time of the Islamic sultanates. Because of migration, the use of the veil is also introduced from neighboring countries in which there are Islamic movements such as Darul Arqam from Malaysia and Tablighÿ Jamÿÿat from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Globalization and acculturation between nations impact on religious teachings and practice from time to time.
In chapter 2, Nisa examines authoritative sources originating from the Qur'an and the Hadith (narratives of the words, deeds, and agreements of the Prophet Muhammad, pbuh) which often form the bases for women and Islamic movements wearing and regulating the cadar. From these sources, they build their arguments and wore cadar based on their understandings. Nisa suggests that their cadar practices were based on Q.S. al-Aḥzāb [33]:53, 59 and Q.S. An-Nūr [24]:31 and some prophetic traditions. The participants who were Salafi and Tablīghī religious teachers argued that the cadar is the proper Muslim women dress that the Prophet's wives and companions wore. Considering these religious teachings, the women in the study then argued that wearing a cadar is a form of obedience to God's and the Prophet's teachings. For these women, implementing a strict lifestyle of wearing the cadar is an effort to become better Muslims. Their answers challenge the common belief that the conservative movement, as it is demonstrated by cadar practices, is based on patriarchal thoughts. Nisa's study showcases independence in determining their habits of religion and obedience to God's teachings rather than to men.
Chapter 3 discusses the media's point of view in describing the cadari and how the cadari take advantage of the media to promote their existence and ideologies. The film Ayat Ayat Cinta [Love Verses], in which there is a cadari female character, became the material for discourse on how cadari interact with politics. In addition, Nisa also highlights how the cadari interact with the social media, their version of a strict lifestyle, and how they use it for preaching. This challenges the view that women with the cadar practice confinement. The chapter explains that cadari are progressive in carrying out Islamic law on the one hand and at the same time being active in social activities and pursuing careers following the current trend of modern women. These social and professional activities make them able to rectify the common view that cadari women are confined to the domestic sphere far from modernity.
Chapter 4 addresses the practice of face veiling in Islamic schools, particularly pesantren (Indonesian Islamic boarding schools). It provides an insight into the daily life of the cadari in these informal Islamic educational institutions. Since the cadar is mainly imposed on students, their tale differs from the majority of the cadari (the passionate cadari) with whom Nisa worked. The chapter depicts the disciplinary practices used in the pesantren to create “decent” Muslim women. To the pesantren administrators, as Nisa observed, the decency of Muslim women should begin by veiling the face. The chapter also deals with the key concepts of the body, total institutions, and subjectivity. Nisa agrees that these cadari students' condition might be easily seen as an indication of their passivity and their lack of agency. Nisa argues that the students have little agency on the face veiling practice because they wear the cadar mainly to follow the male administrators' orders (disciplinary purposes). This chapter, therefore, provides a crucial counterbalance to the chapter that follows, which discusses the “choices” of passionate cadari, by highlighting how face veiling is perceived when “choice” is little or constrained.
Chapter 5 follows the previous chapter on institutions for children by turning attention to cadari women in the tertiary education context. She examines the struggle of face-veiled university students and graduates to defend their practice of face veiling and to fulfill their desire to be authentic Muslimah. The chapter evaluates their motivations for participating in the movements that favor the wearing of cadar as well as for donning the cadar and taking on the broader responsibilities that go along with it. In daily life, their decision is constantly negotiated. It examines women's search for community and the pursuit of reliable religious knowledge and practices.
Chapter 6 focuses on the daʿwa (Islamic preaching or promotion) activities of the cadari as part of the manifestation of being true Muslimah. It reveals that the experiences of the cadari who are involved in the revivalist groups do not fit the notion that they are passive targets of male domination. In this chapter, Nisa argues against common perceptions on the passivity of women as religious followers. She contends that women are devoted religious actors. By analyzing public piety, subjectivity, and expanding the concept of religious habitus into the public arena, the chapter advances and expands the claim on the cadari's religious agency within a Foucault (Reference Foucault1997) theoretical framework on self. The last chapter ties together the book's discussions to comment on the Indonesian cadari's lives, addressing the implications of the growing presence of the cadari in Indonesia's Islam landscape. In this chapter, Nisa recommends greater understandings of cadari women, whose lives and existence are frequently constrained with bias and prejudice.
While the practice of wearing the cadar, niqab, or face veils among Muslim women in Indonesia is still being debated (Nonaka, Reference Nonaka2021), Nisa's book provides further support to the need to accept face-veiled women. Face veiling practices must be acknowledged as part of religious practices and identities. Although the book is mainly authored from the perspective of a non-cadari Muslim woman, Nisa succeeds in revealing the voices of the cadari women directly from the practitioners themselves.
The book, however, has several shortcomings. The context from which the study is conducted is limited to the Indonesian context. While there may be some similarities or connections, the face veiling practice and its backdrops in other contexts may be different and therefore more exploration is needed. The book would also be better and richer if it provided voices from non-cadari Muslim women practitioners, namely those who wear head veils only and those who do wear any form of Islamic veil. In particular, for example, it is easy to imagine women forced to wear cadar at pesantren yet deciding not to wear cadar at university. Their perspectives seem pertinent to the wider debate.
Despite of these shortcomings, the book is essential to scholars, researchers, and university students in the field of Islamic studies, particularly those whose focus are in the context of Indonesia or Southeast Asia. Those in anthropology may also find the book a useful reference in understanding the religious practices by some of the Indonesian Muslim community in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.
