Today, no female image invites a multitude of mixed reactions than that of a woman wearing a tudung (head scarf). A naked woman generally evokes one big reaction and then that's it.

The tudung itself, or versions of it, is called by different names in different languages. In this article and because I am writing primarily for a Malaysian audience, I will use only the Malay word tudung to refer to that article of clothing that Muslim women wear to cover their hair, ears, neck and shoulders.

The tudung is international. It has a variety of colours and styles and it frames just as diverse a spectrum of faces. The skin colour of those faces may vary just as the colour of the eyes in those faces may vary. Those faces may, or may not, be made up.

There are more Muslim women who wear the tudung than there are those who wear the type of veil which partially or completely covers the face. Some Jewish and Christian women too wear, or have worn, a type of tudung .

But the Islamic tudung has somehow become more distinguishable and visible. So what kind of image does the Islamic tudung continue to generate in the world today?

Is the woman who wears the tudung forced to do so by her father, mother or husband? Did her ancestors wear it? Does she choose to wear it? And if yes, why does she choose to wear it? Does she believe that this choice is totally independent of, and not influenced by, the setting and circumstances in which she finds herself?

Does she realise that when she defends her right and freedom to wear the tudung she is also invoking a modernist, Western discourse? How does she perceive herself when she is wearing the tudung in public and when she is not wearing it in private?

Has her social status improved because she wears the tudung ? Does she feel oppressed? Would she like to take her tudung off ? Is it too hot to wear one? Does she consider herself modern or old-fashioned? For the more cynical, does she have a bomb strapped to her neck under her tudung ?

Chilling image

A woman who wears the tudung is not automatically a terrorist or terrorist sympathiser, but the fact remains that the Chechen women kamikazes, part of a group of terrorists who held a theatre in Moscow under siege in October 2002, were wearing the tudung . The majority of the hostages were saved, but many died along with their captors because of a mysterious gas used to knock out the terrorists.

Who can forget those chilling images of the dead female terrorists, lying in their theatre seats, their bodies stiff and their mouths open? These women were photographed with their rifles and their black tudung still more or less in place but lifted slightly to show the wires and explosives underneath.

To what extent has this image of killing damaged the image of the tudung and Islam itself? Perhaps not very much because of course people know that not all women who wear the tudung and not all Muslims are terrorists or even remotely sympathise with terrorism. But it is an image that provokes the reaction: why do we not hear throngs of Muslim women speaking up against all the horrible things that are being perpetrated in their image and in the name of their religion?

Despite the presence of the tudung within the context of terrorism, there is by and large widespread tolerance for what people wear, and sometimes don't wear, in the streets. Women wearing tudung walk alongside women wearing mini-skirts or military trousers. But those trousers, if worn by a soldier, male or female, in a battlefield, are no longer simply just casual clothes but they too become an image of killing.

The meanings of objects and symbols change continuously depending on their context. For a Jew living in Spain during the Middle Ages, a crucifix probably stood for the Inquisition whereas today the cross has acquired and inspires very different meanings.

Illusion of sameness

Nowadays when faced by a woman wearing a tudung , perhaps the last question that pops up in the mind is the most obvious one of all: What does a woman wearing a tudung look like without it? What is her hair like?

Many thoughts may run through the minds of those who are looking at a woman wearing a tudung , irrespective of whether they share her religious faith or not.

How, instead, does a woman who wears the tudung view other women who don't, especially those of her own religious faith?

How have some Muslim girls chosen to cope with the recent legislation in France forbidding Muslims girls to wear the tudung in school? Some, in order to abide by the law, do not wear the tudung in school but do so outside. Some have decided to stop wearing the tudung altogether. Yet others have chosen to wear wigs to school which also happens to be an old Jewish custom for married women. They are willing to do this because they know that their own hair is covered and hidden from the public eye, and so they believe that they are not violating their religious faith. But others don't know this. Others look at them and think that their fake hair is real.

This illusion of sameness tells us that if differences in what people wear were not determined by religion but by choice and taste, it would be very difficult to tell, just by looking at a person, what her or his religious convictions are. In fact there are young people who wear the cross as jewellery but don't even consider themselves Christian.

Some models in Italy have been shown catwalking in transparent or sometimes altogether absent fabric while their heads are covered not quite with a tudung but the association is there.

An Islamic symbol has been appropriated in a non-Islamic context and is thus stripped of its original meaning and is no longer culture specific. The chaste is mixed with the unchaste, the sacred with the profane.

Four volunteers of the NGO 'Bridges to Baghdad' were kidnapped in Iraq on the Sept 7. Three of them are women: Simona Pari, Simona Torretta and Mahnaz Bassam. Images of Simona, Simona and Mahnaz in the media often show all three wearing the tudung . But the two Simonas are Italian and Mahnaz Bassam is Iraqi.

It is unlikely that viewers in Italy expect or assume the two Simonas to be Muslim even though they wear the tudung . Their wearing the tudung is interpreted as a sign of their willingness to adapt culturally to their Iraqi surroundings. Probably the two Simonas do not wear the tudung when they are in Italy.

In a documentary on Italian television, a Muslim woman is interviewed while a strong gale is raging around her. The wind insidiously blows back her tudung , revealing her hair while she desperately tries to adjust the piece of cloth, and not just because she knows that a tight tudung , as the late (actress and Queen of Monaco) Grace Kelly has shown us, is very useful in keeping the hair from going wild in the gusty wind. Her fidgeting dominates the entire interview. The image is suggestive: the tudung is on, then it's blown off, it's on, it's off, it's on.

Women have chosen to give meaning to the tudung , and sometimes its meaning has been chosen for them. The tudung means different things both for the one who is wearing it and for the one who is looking at the one wearing it.

Whatever the case, the meaning of the tudung is never fixed and can only be temporarily imposed.

Just as there are women who have chosen to wear the tudung , one day there may be women who choose to take it off. And they will be responsible for transforming once again the image of Islam.

MASTURAH ALATAS, a former print journalist in Malaysia, now lives in Italy. She has previously written on the nature and impact of the image in contemporary culture.