When most of the world sees a woman in a niqab, a face veil that covers everything except the eyes, the assumptions are predictable — and harsh.
Recently, in Dubai, a tourist filmed a woman in a niqab eating at a restaurant. The tourist and her friend were treating the woman as if she were entertainment for them, rather than as a person trying to enjoy her dinner. Eventually, when the video clip went viral on social media, the Dubai Police issued a statement that they were investigating the matter.
Even in a Muslim-majority country, the woman could not simply be out in public without becoming a spectacle.
In 2017, Australian Senator Pauline Hanson wrote about the burqa, which covers the whole body and face:
"I have long believed that full face coverings, such as the burqa, were oppressive, presented barriers to assimilation, disadvantaged women from finding employment, were causing issues inside our justice system, presented a clear security threat and has no place in modern Western society."
In 2014, Australian Senator Jacqui Lambie said about burqas:
"I believe it's a national security issue and it's a security issue and it's just like anything else. It's like a motorbike helmet or it's like a balaclava. You cannot wear one. I will not allow you to wear that into my office because it's a security risk."
The same year, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott commented on burqas:
"I have said before that I find [the burqa] a fairly confronting form of attire. Frankly, I wish it was not worn but we are a free country, we are a free society and it is not the business of government to tell people what they should and shouldn't wear."
The language, from there, gets harsher. In 2018, the year before he was elected prime minister of Britain, Boris Johnson compared niqab-wearing women to "letter boxes" and "looking like a bank robber."
One critic has described the face veil as "not an article of clothing — it is a mask, a mask worn at all times, making identification or participation in economic and social life virtually impossible."
Academic discourse is not much kinder. Sahar Amer, a scholar at the University of Sydney, wrote in 2014 that "many non-Muslims perceive veiling — the burqa and niqab especially — as a sign of religious extremism and possible political militancy."
Sara Silvestri at City University London noted in 2016 that "this type of dress is associated with Islamic extremism."
One commenter on X even referred to the niqab as a "garbage bag" revealing the complete dehumanization of the women who choose to wear it.
I decided to speak to one woman who wears the niqab: my mother, Alya.
An Emirati living in the United Arab Emirates — one of the world's most successful countries and a model of stability and prosperity — she faces no religious, legal, or family pressure. She wears a niqab entirely by choice.
My mother is fortunate. She made her decision freely — without pressure or fear. Many women do not have that choice. Her good fortune shows what the veil can mean when it is not forced.
So, why does she wear it?
Me, I have no problem wearing a bikini on the shores of Formentera. When I ask my mother why she decided to wear the niqab, she looks at me, puzzled. "Decide?" she repeats, as if I had asked why she "decided" to speak Arabic. "We see other women wear it, so we wear it."
She was raised to cover her hair -- everyone did -- the same with the niqab. She was not wearing it when she first got married, but over time, more women around her started to wear one, and it became the norm.
It was not from an ideology, or a "personal statement" or a religious "awakening." Just something that became part of the landscape — like the food you grow up eating.
"These things are not strange to us," she says. "They are customs."
She manages her own stock portfolio entirely in Arabic, checking market movements on her smartphone, following financial news, and making investment decisions with ease. Her portfolio has grown steadily over the years, although she notes that "wars slow things down, yet when there are wars, gold goes up."
She also manages her bank deposits. When asked what she thinks of interest, she explains that interest has multiple meanings. When someone is desperate or helpless and needs a loan with interest, that is unacceptable — it exploits the needy. But interest on her own deposits? That is her money "working" to bring more money.
She invests exclusively in UAE companies — semi-private or government-owned. Supporting her country's stocks feels safe and aligns with her values. She does not trust foreign stocks. Even locally, she is selective about private ventures, such as new hotels. "It is never clear what they're doing exactly," she says. "They could be financing prostitution."
When I ask her about her values, she is again puzzled. "Islamic values," I emphasize, what, as a Muslim, she finds important. She answers, "kindness, good deeds, being close to family." She insists on family cohesion above all and has no interest in ideology or politics. She believes that with modern life, family cohesion has started to weaken and wants us to "work more on that."
When I ask if it bothers her to see people from other countries dressed differently, she says it does not. "I know that is who they are." She says she appreciates it when visitors dress modestly — not necessarily covered, but considerately and decent -– but she is repulsed by revealing clothing: "Don't they know they are in a Muslim country?" she asks. When I suggest this sounds religious, she corrects me: "Not really, it is just unfamiliar to my eyes. I am used to something else."
For her, the problem is not about religious rules but environmental norms — the difference between what feels familiar and what feels jarring.
When I point out that Europeans might be similarly jarred by niqabis on their streets, her response is matter-of-fact: "Niqabs are banned in France."
No anger, no sense of injustice. Just accepting that different places have different ways.
Her understanding of world events is always practical, never ideological. When Americans were protesting wars, she was confused. Why would they care about people so far away? Why invest emotionally in distant conflicts? It made no sense.
I explained how much of their earnings go to taxes — close to half, sometimes.
"Ah" she said, "that is why they are protesting." Once she understood that Americans were funding the wars with their own money, their outrage made perfect sense. It was not national security or moral idealism; it was financial logic.
All the same, when she watches Indian soap operas dubbed into Arabic, she forms totally different cultural connections. Watching a drama about family betrayal, she said: "Indians are like us. They feel shame when they do something wrong." She recognizes a shared heritage of family honor and emotional accountability. With Indians, she sees cultural kinship based on values -- again, not ideology.
Every month, she drives our domestic worker to the money transfer office. During the rides, the women share frustrations about husbands spending everything, extended families making endless demands, and the pressure to send every dirham (UAE currency) back home.
Her advice is always the same: Save your money. Build a home. Make the sacrifice worth it. She has seen the pattern: Women who save money end up building houses and educating their children. The ones who send everything home often find themselves starting over repeatedly, never able to break free. She even acts as a shield for our worker. When the pressure gets intense and she does not know what to say, my mother lets her use the excuse: "The lady I work for will not allow me to send money."
Her social circle includes women from social clubs, longtime neighbors, and fellow Arab homemakers from different nationalities. Their ties have lasted decades. They celebrate weddings and graduations, and support one another through funerals and family crises.
She drives wherever she wants to go, usually preferring the traditional desert roads to the busy highways. Her choice reflects her personality -- independent, taking the path that feels right rather than the one everyone else travels.
When young Emirati doctors come to our home to treat my grandmother, they always make the same mistake. They see me — in Western clothes, bilingual, outgoing — and assume I must be the one managing her care.
My mother, they soon find out, knows every detail. Every medication, every reaction, every preference. She coordinates doctor visits, advocates for her mother's wishes, and navigates the complexities of caring for an older woman who despises hospitals. When my grandmother insisted on getting a formal letter stating she would only be taken to the hospital in a genuine emergency, my mother made sure it was documented and legally binding.
"Ask my mother," I tell them. "She knows everything."
They are surprised. But they should not be.
Watching so many politicians talk about my mother's niqab, I do not see bad intentions. I see concern. People want to protect their culture. They worry that foreign customs might slowly replace their own. It is true of people in the West, as well, who might worry that people could be in their midst who wish to replace miniskirts with burqas.
This response is not prejudice. What people are picking up on — sometimes without knowing how to name it — is that people wish to protect what matters to them.
Panic, however, does not help. It hardens people and can push them to extremes. If the goal is to preserve Western heritage, what is needed is confidence: how one can protect a cultural heritage without apology.
This confidence probably begins with knowing what you are trying to protect. Some customs are spiritual, such as praying or fasting; others are tangible: things you can see and touch — passed down, worn, spoken, tasted, lived in.
It might mean knowing when, where and how which customs belong, and how to protect them without anxiety. Like church bells in Salzburg or kimonos in Kyoto, they belong to a place, and they deserve to be protected.
In the end, my mother's story is not really about the niqab. It is about how to stay rooted in a world that keeps shifting.
This means being yourself within the world as you find it, not demanding the world to change for you. That is the kind of wisdom we do not talk about enough.
Sara Al Nuaimi is an Emirati who lives in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on X @saranuaimi.
Bettina