83 Years Since the Approval of the Unveiling Law in Iran During Reza Shah
Monday, December 17, marks the eighty-third anniversary of the approval of the unveiling law by the National Consultative Assembly.
Representatives of the National Consultative Assembly in the year 1935 approved a law on this day that prohibited women from wearing the hijab, including the chador, headscarf, and veil.
This law at that time generated both opposition and support. After World War II and with the opening of the political and social atmosphere in Iran, wearing or not wearing the hijab became optional for women.
Some consider the unveiling movement as a continuation of efforts that Iranian women had started since the late Qajar period. Qurrat al-Ayn is mentioned as one of the pioneering women during the era of Nasir al-Din Shah. However, Iranian historians agree that the unveiling was formalized during the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi.
From the mid-1920s, criticism of the hijab had become easier, at least in Tehran. Active groups in the Iranian women’s movement criticized the hijab. During Reza Shah’s period, European clothing gradually came among the people for women.
Reza Shah did not issue the unveiling law suddenly. In 1929, when King Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan visited Iran, Iranian clergy demanded that his wife observe the hijab, but Reza Shah rejected this request.
Efforts to pass the unveiling law intensified a year after Reza Shah’s trip to Turkey. In one of his letters, Reza Shah wrote to Mahmoud Jam, the Prime Minister: “For nearly two years, this matter has been occupying my serious attention, especially since I went to Turkey and saw its women who have cast off the ‘wrap’ and ‘hijab’ and work alongside their men shoulder to shoulder in the affairs of the state. I have become fed up with every veiled woman. Absolutely, the chador and chaqchur are enemies of the progress and advancement of the people. I have finally found it to be like a boil that must be carefully lanced and removed.”
After the passage of this law, Reza Shah on December 17, 1935, at a graduation ceremony for unveiled girls at the preliminary school formally emphasized the unveiling.
Some experts and women’s rights activists consider the unveiling law as the beginning of Iranian women’s presence in social spheres, the emergence of an educated generation among women, and their presence in managerial positions.
However, shortly after the 1979 revolution, the Islamic government made the hijab mandatory, and not wearing the hijab became prohibited for women.
Source: Voice of America
