Modesty, decency and reticence: the islamic virtue known as ḥayāʾ

Abstract

This paper surveys the moral quality known as ḥayāʾ, prompted by contemporary Islamic debate in relation particularly to women’s dress. On the basis of an interrogation of the foundational Islamic literature (the Koran, the Prophet’s Sunna) and other tradition based or morally oriented writings (e.g. Abū Dāwūd’s Kitāb al-zuhd or Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s Makārim al-akhlāq), and with the help of classical lexicography, ḥayāʾ, usually translated as ‘modesty’, emerges as an essential element in the life of every believer, not confined to the world of women, nor to external appearances. It is rather a question of a wide-ranging decency, rooted principally in an abstention from looking, as much as from displaying, and equally in verbal reticence, and goes hand-in-hand with a respect for oneself and for others, such as may be readily understood, even shared, by those belonging to different cultural traditions.