Editing Hijab (section)

===Later pre-modern history===
During the [[history of slavery in the Muslim world]], it is known that female slaves did show themselves unveiled. Slave women were visually identified by their way of dress. While Islamic law dictated that a free Muslim woman should veil herself entirely, except for her face and hands, in order to hide her [[awrah]] (intimate parts) and avoid sexual harassment, the awrah of slave women were defined differently, and she was only to cover between her navel and her knee.<ref>Anchassi, O. (2021). Status Distinctions and Sartorial Difference: Slavery, Sexual Ethics, and the Social Logic of Veiling in Islamic Law. Islamic Law and Society, 28(3), 125-155. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685195-bja10008</ref> 
This difference became even more prominent during [[slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate|the Abbasid Caliphate]], when free Muslim women, in particular those of the upper classes, were subjected to even more sex segregation and [[harem]] seclusion, in contrast to the [[qiyan]] slave artists, who performed unveiled in male company.<ref>Caswell, F. M. (2011). The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The Qiyan in the Early Abbasid Era. Storbritannien: I.B.Tauris. 6-7</ref>

The practice of veiling was borrowed from the elites of the Byzantine and Persian empires, where it was a symbol of respectability and high social status, during the [[Early Muslim conquests|Arab conquests]] of those empires.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Hijab|editor=John L. Esposito|encyclopedia=The Oxford Dictionary of Islam|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|year=2014|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195125580.001.0001|isbn=9780195125580|url=https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00bada}}</ref> Reza Aslan argues that "The veil was neither compulsory nor widely adopted until generations after Muhammad's death, when a large body of male scriptural and legal scholars began using their religious and political authority to regain the dominance they had lost in society as a result of the Prophet's egalitarian reforms".<ref name="Aslan 2005 66" />

Because Islam identified with the monotheistic religions of the conquered empires, the practice was adopted as an appropriate expression of Qur'anic ideals regarding modesty and piety.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ahmed|first=Leila|title=Women and Gender in Islam|year=1992|publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven|page=36}}</ref> Veiling gradually spread to upper-class Arab women, and eventually it became widespread among Muslim women in cities throughout the Middle East. Veiling of Arab Muslim women became especially pervasive under Ottoman rule as a mark of rank and exclusive lifestyle, and Istanbul of the 17th century witnessed differentiated dress styles that reflected geographical and occupational identities.<ref name="El Guindi" /> Women in rural areas were much slower to adopt veiling because the garments interfered with their work in the fields.<ref>{{cite book|last=Esposito|first=John|title=Islam: The Straight Path|url=https://archive.org/details/islam00john|url-access=registration|year=1991|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/islam00john/page/99 99]|isbn=978-0-19-506225-0|edition=3}}</ref> Since wearing a veil was impractical for working women, "a veiled woman silently announced that her husband was rich enough to keep her idle."<ref>Bloom (2002), p.47</ref>

By the 19th century, upper-class urban Muslim and Christian women in Egypt wore a garment which included a head cover and a ''burqa'' ([[muslin]] cloth that covered the lower nose and the mouth).<ref name="El Guindi" /> The name of this garment, ''harabah'', derives from early Christian and Judaic religious vocabulary, which may indicate the origins of the garment itself.<ref name="El Guindi" /> Up to the first half of the twentieth century, rural women in the Maghreb and Egypt put on a form of ''niqab'' when they visited urban areas, "as a sign of civilization".<ref>{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=be7sCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA276|page=276|title=Religion in Public Spaces: A European Perspective|editor1=Silvio Ferrari |editor2=Sabrina Pastorelli|publisher=Routledge|year=2016|author=Sara Silverstri|chapter=Comparing Burqa Debates in Europe|isbn=9781317067542}}</ref>