THE MEANING OF RELIGIOSITY AMONG ‘SLANG HIJAB’ WEARER: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

Wearing hijab is an obligation for every Muslim woman as clearly stated in the Qur'an. Hijab is defined as a wide veil that women use to cover the aurat ( covering head and neck down to the chest). It is believed that t he correct use of hijab bring s benefits and virtues to the wearers, especially in its religious attitudes and behavior. Thus, wearing hijab is a representation of religiosity. Religiosity can be interpreted as the degree of attachment of a person to the religion and gives a positive impact in social life. Religiosity consists of five dimensions, including: dimension of Aqedah /ideological, ritualistic, experiential, knowledge, and practice dimension ADDIN CSL_CITATION { citationItems : [ { id : ITEM-1, itemData : { author : [ { dropping-particle : , family : Glock, C. Y & given : R, non-dropping-particle : , parse-names : false, suffix : } ], id : ITEM-1, issued : { date-parts : [ [ 1965 ] ] }, title : ”Religion and society in tension,” San Francisco: Rand McNally., type : article-journal }, uris : [ http://www.mendeley.com/documents/?uuid=ed0116b3-628e-4fa7-9071-380702679df7 ] } ], mendeley : { formattedCitation : C. Y & Stark, 1965), plainTextFormattedCitation : C. Y & Stark, 1965), previouslyFormattedCitation : C. Y & Stark, }, properties : { noteIndex : 0 }, schema : https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json } (Glock, C. Y & Stark, 1965) . The use of hijab for Muslim women can be considered as a form of being religio u s. Nevertheless, the development of modernity that strongly strike society makes the hijab function no longer as the basis of religious obedience but rather to follow the demands of modernity that lead to the behavior of showing off the aurat . H ijab gradually losses its function and becomes one of the complementary materials in dressing. The use of hijab as described above is known by the term slang hijab or hijab that is not in accordance with Islamic law (syar’i). This is evident from the phenomenon of widespread use of slang hijab among female students. The influence of mass media be one of the factors causing the use of hijab has shifted the good value both of its functions moreover the model it offers. This study discussed about the meaning of religiosity among women wearer of slang hijab in a major state university in Yogyakarta, Indonesia . Data were collected by qualitative method in particular the phenomenolog ical approach. Three respondents were interviewed in depth to reveal their meaning of religiosity. The results showed that basically all respondents had a good religious understanding including the obligations of being a Muslim women. However, the understanding of the religion tend to be interpreted in a subjective and flexible way. So it is not surprising if there are many variety of opinions, especially about the obligation to wearing the hijab. In addition, cultural, racial, and climatic differences between Indonesia and Arabs are the reason for the justification of respondents wearing hijab that are not according to Islamic orders. Finally, the cynical view of the opposite sex also gives a negative impact so that the use of hijab according to religious orders increasingly unimaginable.