Most Americans worship with their heads bare and their shoes on. But not all Americans. As we have become increasingly aware since Sept. 11, our diversity includes the ways in which we dress in the presence of God.
Humans have been conflicted for millennia about the issue of head and feet. Is it disrespectful to cover your head when you worship? Disrespectful not to? Would God want you to have your shoes on or off? The answers vary from religion to religion and in some cases have evolved within a religion. In some cases the dress codes are as much about human weakness as they are about God.
"I see them as ideas," says Beverly Chico about hats in general and religious headwear in particular. Although certainly headwear is also about comfort and aesthetics, it speaks volumes about how both men and women view themselves in relation to God and to each other.
From Christianity to Judaism to Islam, when women are required to cover up it's all about the dangerous allure of a woman's hair, says Chico, a professor of history at Regis University and Metropolitan State College in Denver, and an expert on religious headwear. When men are required to either cover up or go bareheaded, it's usually about reverence and humility.
"The hair of a woman is a very sensual part of her body," notes Rabbi Benny Zippel of Synagogue Chabad Lubavitch in Salt Lake City. "So, out of respect to the woman's own body, once she's married she's required to cover her hair." This requirement, codified in the Talmud, applies not just to the time when she is at the synagogue but to every waking hour. The covering can be a hat, a scarf, even a wig.
Orthodox Jewish men are also required to cover their heads at all times with a yarmulke, the skull cap known in Hebrew as kippah. "It's to prevent arrogance," Zippel explains. "You're covering the highest part of the body, so it's reminding us that no matter now intelligent and capable we think we are, there's always a higher power above us."
In Christianity, headcovering was addressed by Paul in First Corinthians. "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head," Paul wrote. "But every woman that prayeth or prophesyeth with her head uncovered dishonoreth her head. . . . For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man."
In recent decades, Catholic and Protestant women have moved away from hats and scarves in church, just as they have in their everyday lives. The exceptions are Christian Orthodox churches and black churches, although here too it's a matter of choice.
"We encourage the ladies to cover their heads when they're at the front of the church," says Rev. France Davis of Calvary Baptist Church, which on any given Sunday has a fine collection of hats.
"It's a combination of carrying on Paul's advice and a sign of emancipation from slavery," says historian Chico about hat-wearing in black churches. "Hats are a way of saying 'we're free to express ourselves and to honor God.' "
At Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Christian Church in downtown Salt Lake City, some women wear head coverings and some don't. "And nobody says anything; it's a matter of personal piety," says Father Basil Hartung. In general it's the congregation's Slavic members who cover their heads, he says.
Again, it's about modesty. "You go into church to manifest worship to God and to help one another. The natural inclination of the opposite sex is attraction. . . . We humble ourselves because we are weak."
Priests and monastics cover their heads, he says, as a reminder that no matter how holy you are, "you're continually falling short."
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't wear hats in church, but both men and women do use head coverings in temple rituals. "It's equated with eternal progression in the Mormon tradition," notes University of Utah history professor Dean May.
Some of the fashion associated with Islam reflect Islamic rules on modesty or piety, but some merely reflect local culture and aesthetics, explains Lois Giffen. Now retired, Giffen is professor emeritus of Arabic literature and Islamic studies at the University of Utah and has lived and traveled extensively in the Middle East.
Muslim men are not required by their religion to wear anything on their heads, although they usually do when attending mosque. Some Muslim men wear turbans and kaffiyeh (the headdress worn by Yasser Arafat), and sometimes cylindrical caps, but so do men who aren't Muslims, including Christians in various parts of the Middle East, says Giffen. In the United States, most men who wear turbans are Sikhs, members of a religion that began in northern India five centuries ago.
"No Sikh should sit bare-headed in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikh holy book) or in the congregation," commands the Reht Maryada, the Sikh code of conduct and conventions.
Turbans predated Islam and Sikhism, Giffen reminds us, and were originally more about climate control than fashion. Turbans keep the head cool in summer and warm in winter and can double as a shield to keep out dust during a windstorm.
The style of a turban, and whether it's worn at all, is largely a matter of local custom and personal preference, Giffen says. A Sikh turban, which can be any color, is a tidy turban, wrapped and mounded and tucked in such as way that it covers the hair that Sikhs are encouraged never to cut out of respect for God.
Osama bin Laden's style of turban is generally more on the relaxed side, in the manner of those worn in Sudan and Afghanistan. Sometimes this kind of turban has a tail of cloth, a sign of bravery, says Afghan native Abdul-Qayum Mohmand, who is a graduate student in Middle East studies at the U. Sometimes bin Laden wears a smaller, thinner turban.
The turban is not prescribed in the Quran. But for Muslims, white turbans have "religious overtones," says Mohmand, signifying that the wearer is a religious leader or a student of religion. An ordinary Muslim in Afghanistan would never wear a white turban, he says. Other than that, the colors are simply the fashion of the region.
Muslim men often wear close-fitting cylindrical caps or crocheted skull caps, but "there is nothing in the Quran requiring it," Giffen says. Most young Afghan men wear these caps, called khwalay, but "after they turn 40 or 45 or 50 they change to turbans," says Mohmand, who generally wears neither.
The kaffiyeh is worn by some Arab men. A piece of rectangular cloth folded into a triangle, it is draped, rather than wound, on the head, and is held in place by a cord called an egal. It is not religious but is associated most often these days with Muslims.
The hijab worn by Muslim women — which has become more pervasive in recent decades with the resurgence of conservative Islamic groups — has its roots in the Quran, although similar head coverings are also sometimes worn by older Christian women in rural areas of the Middle East.
Women have worn veils in the Middle East, in what was then Mesopotamia, for thousands of years, long before Islam. When the religion was founded in the seventh century, the fashion was absorbed into the Islamic culture.
"Ethnic clothing often precedes religious significance," says historian Chico. "When a religion gets started, it takes what people wear at the time and gives it religious significance. Over time, these are given meaning, become formalized and then required."
For Muslims, the hijab "has been subject to interpretation down through time," says Giffen. "Even before this more recent fundamentalist revival, how much veiling is required has been a controversial question, even as far back as the 9th century."
The Quran, she says, commands that women "reveal not their adornments" (except to their husbands, certain close male relatives, and children). "Adornments" — or "beauties," as the Arabic word can also be interpreted, says Giffen — has been interpreted to mean women's hair, as well as all parts of their bodies except the hands, face and feet. In some cultures — in Morocco, for example — only the eyes are visible.
Kirin Patel, who describes herself as "half Pakistani, half American," has worn the hijab since her junior year at Murray High. Now a communication student at the U., Patel says she finds the head covering and modest clothes liberating, because she is no longer judged by how short her skirt is. She also views her modest garb as a constant reminder "not to get attached to worldly things."
Most Muslim women who wear the hijab begin doing so at puberty. Not all Muslim women, even in countries where the majority of the people are Muslims, wear the hijab, however. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, require women to wear a loose robe over their clothes, when they go out in public.
The most radical interpretation of the Quran's commandment about hijab is the burqa, the tentlike covering that includes a knit screen in front of the eyes. Required in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the burqa has been around for decades and was originally worn by Afghan women of Persian descent, says Mohmand.
Both Muslims and Sikhs require that the faithful remove their shoes before worshipping. It's about cleanliness, not about reverence to God, says Muslim Noor Ul-Hasan. Muslims wash their feet in the wudu area of the mosque before prayers.
Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, are expected to keep their shoes on in the synagogue, out of reverence to God, says Rabbi Zippel. "It's impolite to have our feet uncovered."
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