"All I knew is that I wanted something functional yet attractive that wouldn't look like the traditional hijab," Algan

BERLIN, March 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Facing "prejudices" and rising social opposition to the Islamic code of dress, a Berlin Muslim designed a new alternative gear to hijab.

On a sunny winter morning, Emel Algan drives up in a black Mini car to the office of her Islamic women's organization in Berlin's largely Turkish Kreuzberg district, her face framed by a swath of striking pink fabric.

"I was unhappy with the widespread prejudices in Germany against hijab-clad Muslim women," Algan said in an interview with Deutsche Welle website on Tuesday, March 3.

"Prejudices like 'they're dumb and servile.' I had nothing to do with all that but I felt like I was being branded the same on account of my hijab," she said.

The turmoil brought Algan last year to the doorstep of milliner Susanne Gäbel, who runs a hat shop in the upscale Charlottenburg neighborhood.

"I'm no designer, all I knew is that I wanted something functional yet attractive that wouldn't look like the traditional hijab," Algan said.

Innovative Models

Algan wears the alternative wear

The search for an alternative to the traditional Islamic gear has resulted in a series of nine innovative models in varying colors and materials.

"Most of them are like ski caps or hoods with ear flaps that can be simply slipped over the head without needing any buttons or zips. The fabric has to be elastic like jersey and felt," Gäbel explains.

"Some resemble Charleston hats, others Nordic felt caps, and they all meet the needs of those Muslim women who interpret the Qur’an as requiring they cover their hair, ears and throat," the Deutsche Welle  said on its website.

Algan herself incorporates a mixture of tradition and modernity. She studied English language and literature at college and now heads a Muslim women's organization. She began toying with fashionable alternatives to the conventional hijab a year ago.

In Qur'an, a Muslim woman must cover all of her body except the face and hands, as scholars said that hijab is a religious obligation primarily intended to safeguard the modesty, dignity and honor of men and women.

 'Positive Sense'

Algan, who has now permanently swapped her conventional hijab for the alternative headscarf, says it's made her feel like a different person.

"With the new headscarf I feel like I'm more accepted in a positive sense. It could be just a banal conversation with the cashier at the supermarket about the weather, but now non-Muslims actually notice me and aren't afraid of contact," she said.

Algan added that she has no plans to sell the headgear on a commercial basis, but wants to convince younger Muslim girls and women to try it out and in doing so, sidestep a proposed ban on hijab in state-run institutions in Berlin. She's now started a women's discussion group to that purpose.

"I'm doing all this to just provide some ideas for Muslim women, to provide them with an alternative -- after all as far as Islam goes, there are no rules dictating how we should dress. We can wear what we want as long as we cover ourselves," Algan said.

Indoors, Algan does a quick fashion show as she exchanges her cleverly-woven bright hood cum scarf for a jaunty shaded green silk hat with an attached piece of fabric that buttons under the chin and flows to the chest and a floral patterned bandanna-like creation that gathers in at the back of the head.

"It looks so colorful and yet it's just so practical," Algan says. "It does away with the thousands of safety pins that you need for a conventional Muslim headscarf and at the same time covers the throat, hair and ears," she adds.

'Reserved'

Delivering the message to others is proving harder than expected.

"The reactions have been very reserved so far," she said.

In October 2003, seven states in Germany backed a legislation barring hijab at a meeting of 16 regional ministers for culture, education and religious affairs in the western German city of Darmstadt, while eight opposed such laws.

In February 2004, the dominant party in a German state has proposed a ban on Muslim civil servants wearing hijab, claiming that the covering is a political rather than religious statement.

The French Senate approved by a large majority a bill banning hijab and other religious insignia in state schools on Wednesday, March 3.

Ibn`Abbas, the famous Companion and the Qur’an exegete, said that a woman must cover all her body except her face and hands while in the presence of men who are not related to her directly.

The majority of Imams - including those of the Four Schools as well as others - share the above interpretation of Ibn`Abbas.

According to Sheikh Faisal Mawlawi, deputy chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, taking off hijab is part of the process of westernizing the Muslim communities in a way to make them lose their Islamic identity and should be resisted by all possible means.