ABSTRACT

In the summer of 1990, on my annual visit to Malaysia, I noticed that many young Malay women had traded in their black Islamic robes (hijab) for pastel colored ones, and that their headcloths (mini-telekung) were now embroidered with flowers. The effect was rather like seeing a black and white film in color. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Malaysian campuses were the hotbeds of Islamic resurgence, female students shrouded in black robes and veils some­ times appeared like phalanxes of Allah’s soldiers. Now university women were dressed in hijab outfits that had been transformed by color and more subtle touches in cut, style and decoration. As they walked around campus, many attracted the eyes of young men, who were sometimes rewarded with subdued giggles and responsive glances. The Islamic resurgence of the 1970s, emerging in its black female garb and fiery criticism of Western consumerism, official cor­ ruption and the spiritual hollowness of modern life, had settled down as a nor­ malized cultural practice in which people carried on the daily affairs of life of an affluent, developing country.