»Each Person Explains Veil in His Own Way«: Veiling among Slovenian Bosniaks

Abstract

The article is based on the detailed fieldwork that I conducted between 2003 and 2006 in Jesenice. It is exploring the practices of covering among Slovenian Muslim women, specifically Bosniaks. It describes concrete practices of covering, analyses Koran ayat and hadith, religious foundations for covering, presents the most widespread interpretations by Islamic intellectuals and researchers, and lastly turns attention to Bosniak interpretations of primary Islamic sources and their concrete implementation in practice. Interpretations of Koran ayat and hadith in which the covering is justified, are various and are in different environments manifested through very different material shapes and practices. Different understandings of the practice of covering are influenced by factors such as individual’s interpretations of Islam, education, personality and environment in which those interpretations take place, and is more important than Islamic sources, i.e. the text. The same is relevant for Slovenian Muslim women, the Bosniaks.