jilbab

/ dʒɪlˈbɑːb /

noun

1. a long robe covering the head worn by some Muslim women

Word History and Origins

Origin of jilbab¹

from Arabic

Example Sentences

She sat on a broken block from the debris of her destroyed house with her red gown, or jilbab, draped over her head down to the ground.

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More than 85 percent of Indonesians are Muslim, and in recent years women have begun to embrace conservative dress and the head scarf, called the jilbab in Indonesia.

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In Indonesia, many politicians argue that the jilbab, a kind of hijab, is mandatory in Islam and that Muslim girls should be forced to wear it from a young age.

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A 2014 national government regulation has been widely interpreted as requiring all female Muslim students in the country of around 270 million people to wear a jilbab at school.

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“The impact of religious pressures, especially to wear the jilbab, when you’re young, makes it feel like you have no breathing room,” Misbach said, using the word for hijab more commonly used in Indonesia, in a report by Human Rights Watch.

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