The desire to cover my face explained by the use of a non-Islamic head scarf.

In the Qur'an there is nothing that literally says for women to cover their heads and faces. Actually the term hijab in Arabic literally means “a screen or curtain”. It was used in the Qu'ran to refer to a partition. The Qu'ran tells the male believers (Muslims) to talk to the wives of Muhammad behind a curtain.

LITERALLY HIS WIVES! 

"This curtain was the responsibility of the men and not the wives of Muhammad. This leads some to claim that the mandate of the Quran to wear hijab applies to the wives of Muhammad, not women generally.^[11][12] "

The only verses in the Qur'an that specifically reference women’s clothing, are those promoting modesty, instructing women to guard their private parts and throw a scarf over their bosoms in the presence of men.^[41]

A practice I fully endorse! 

Αlthough hijab is often seen by critics as a tool utilized by men to control and silence women, the practice is understood differently in different contexts.^[13]



 The contemporary understanding of the hijab dates back to Hadith when the “verse of the hijab” descended upon the community in 627 CE.^[42] Now documented in Sura 33: 53 the verse states, “And when you ask [his wives] for something, ask them from behind a partition. That is purer for your hearts and their hearts”.^[43] This verse, however, was not addressed to women in general, but exclusively to Muhammad’s wives. As Muhammad’s influence increased, he entertained more and more visitors in the mosque, which was then his home. Often, these visitors stayed the night only feet away from his wives’ apartments. It is commonly understood that this verse was intended to protect his wives from these strangers.^[44] During Muhammad’s lifetime no other women in the Ummah (Muslim community) observed the hijab. Instead, the term for donning the veil, darabat al-hijab, was used interchangeably with “becoming Muhammad’s wife”.^[45] As stated by Reza Aslan, “The veil was neither compulsory nor widely adopted until generations after Muhammad’s death, when a large body of male scriptural and legal scholars began using their religious and political authority to regain the dominance they had lost in society as a result of the Prophet’s egalitarian reforms”.^[44] Other scholars point out that the Qur'an does not require women to wear veils; rather, it was a social habit picked up with the expansion of Islam. In fact, since it was impractical for working women to wear veils, "A veiled woman silently announced that her husband was rich enough to keep her idle."^[46]

Veiling did not originate with the advent of Islam. Statuettes depicting veiled priestesses precede all three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), dating back as far as 2500 BCE.^[47] Elite women in ancient Mesopotamia and in the Byzantine, Greek, and Persian empires wore the veil as a sign of respectability and high status.^[48] In ancient Mesopotamia, Assyria had explicit sumptuary laws detailing which women must veil and which women must not, depending upon the woman’s class, rank, and occupation in society. Veiling was meant to “differentiate between ‘respectable’ women and those who were publicly available”.^[48] Female slaves and unchaste women were explicitly forbidden to veil and suffered harsh penalties if they did so. Veiling was thus a marker of rank and exclusive lifestyle, subtly illustrating upper-class women’s privilege over women in lower classes in the Assyrian community.

Strict seclusion and the veiling of matrons were in place in Roman and Byzantine society as well. Between 550 and 323 B.C.E, prior to Christianity, respectable women in classical Greek society were expected to seclude themselves and wear clothing that concealed them from the eyes of strange men.^[49] These customs influenced the later Byzantine empire where proper conduct for girls entailed that they be neither seen nor heard outside their home. Like in Assyrian law, respectable women were expected to veil and low-class women were forbidden from partaking in the practice. In Classical Rome, the Emperor Augustus encouraged his citizens all around the Mediterranean to enter temples "capo velato" literally "with their heads veiled", by which he intended clothing that did not differ much from traditional Saudi clothing for men and women today. Augustus himself appeared like this in propaganda pictures and temple portraits (see the Ara Pacis temple in Rome). The Romans were embedded in a larger Mediterranean/Middle Eastern milieu with roots in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Egypt, and they transmitted this legacy to both the eastern and western parts of the Roman Empire, which today constitute approximately the Muslim Mediterranean (and parts of the Middle East) and Europe.

By the 5th and 6th centuries, societies of the Mediterranean Middle East were dominated by Christian and some Jewish populations. At the inception of Christianity, Jewish women were veiling the head and face. In Judaic scripture, Genesis 24:65, Numbers 5:18 and Isaiah 47:2 are references in the Old Testament refer to a headcovering for women. Although there is no positive command for women to cover their heads in the Old Testament, there are non-canonical rabbinical writings on tzniut, meaning "modesty".^[50]