Islamic dress code call riles Gaza students

The Al-Aqsa University in Gaza has stirred controversy with a request that its female students wear Islamic dress when attending class.

AFP/Mohammed ABED

The university declared that it will also give classes on “appropriate” female dress, including the enforced wearing of the hijab (headscarf) and loose clothes such as wide trousers and long jackets.

Many, including some students, have objected to the decision, arguing that it is more about politics than religion.

Al-Aqsa University teaches around 6,000 students, where 97 per cent of the female student body in the conservative Gaza Strip already cover their heads with the hijab.

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Audio report: Gaza students fight Islamic dress order

Ruth Michaelson in Gaza

The university is already enforcing single-sex classes, meaning that boys and girls attend lessons on different days of the week, which has led many to question the reasons behind the new dress code.

Although the university has said that it will not force female students to conform to what it terms “modest” dress, some students, such as Leema Majdi, tell a different story:

“In the first month of the semester, the security at the university tried to stop girls who weren’t wearing what they thought was the right thing, and to tell them how to dress," she points out. "If you didn’t comply, they would give you a ticket which says that you could be expelled if you don’t obey. The thing is, we’re all here because we want to finish our studies and get jobs, so we feel we have to go along with this.”

Majdi also argues that the rules are not consistent with Islamic teaching:

“We are all Muslims, but Islam is not about forcing people to make decisions like this," she says. "If they want to sit down with us and discuss the guidelines about how women should dress in Islamic scripture, then we would happily have that discussion with them. But it would prove us right.”

Students reported that the university had wavered on whether to enforce the wearing of the jilbab, a long dress-like garment which covers the body up to the ankles and wrists, saying that it would be possible to wear a slightly shorter version.

“We’re all there to study sport. How are we supposed to play sports with something that covers us down to our ankles?" asks sport science student Yasmin Rafeq. "We need clothes suitable for sports! Also, I often have to go between work and university, so now I have to go home and change when travelling between the two, this is just ridiculous.”

Rafeq also argues that the university is betraying many of its students who were compelled to attend for socio-economic reasons.

“Our university is a government one," she point out. "It’s designed to provide a state education to those who can’t afford private universities. If I had wanted to wear Islamic dress to class I would have attended the Islamic University in Gaza.”

The decision has brought Al-Aqsa University into conflict with President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA), which partially funds the institution, although it is situated in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.

The PA’s Minister of Higher Education, Ali Jarbawi, has called the decision “illegal and unenforceable”. For its part, the university has refused to comment to any media source concerning the decision.

Former Al-Aqsa student Maha Abualkass is now a journalist in Gaza City. Although there is nothing specifically connecting the Hamas government to the university’s decision, she argues that it fits with the political climate following their takeover of the Gaza Strip:

“This is the kind of decision-making that we’ve seen after Hamas took over," she says. "But it’s a decision that is not about religion, it’s about politics.”