History Main / HidingInAHijab

* Epically done in Creator/JackieChan's ''Film/TheAccidentalSpy''. While being pursued by enemy agents, he notices large swathes of cloth hanging from rafters, which he acrobatically wraps around him. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=roRnF4R_NZk#t=118s See for yourself.]]

Ah, [[UsefulNotes/IslamicDress the hijab]], and its close cousins the niqab and the burqa; these articles of clothing are most associated with Muslim women for religous modesty. They also have the distinctive properties of being 1. Extremely common in certain locations and 2. Face-concealing. This means that if you as a fictional character are on the lam in {{Qurac}}, running through the ubiquitous out-door marketplaces in an attempt to dodge your pursuers by leaping over apple-carts, you have a perfect means of evading capture: Simply don one of those big, black outfits the women are wearing, and [[LostInACrowd vanish right into the crowd]].

* ''Anime/LupinIIIPartII'': In one episode, Lupin and his gang steal burqas to hide from Inspector Zenigata. Zenigata tracks them to a well where women are doing the laundry. Finding the gang's discarded clothes, he forces the women there to remove their veils, and promptly subverts the trope when its revealed the ladies are actual ladies, who promptly make their displeasure known with wooden laundry mallets. Later in the episode, it's played straight when the gang actually does disguise themselves in burqas. Afraid of getting beaten again, Zenigata lets them go without an inspection.

* {{Tintin}} and Captain Haddock sneak past [[{{Qurac}} Khemed]] guards while wrapped up and balancing urns on their heads in ''The Red Sea Sharks''. The captain trips, nearly swears, and manages to keep the urn balanced to the guards' unhidden admiration. Later at a well they meet another robed woman who questions them in Arabic. When neither answers, she rips off the (bearded) captain's veil. [[SoMuchForStealth Who starts yelling at her as Snowy pops out of the urn and starts barking at her.]] Fortunately they escape before the guards can find them, but alarm is raised and they're saved only by their pursuers' [[FriendlyFire incompetence]].

* A PoliticalCartoon published in an issu of French news magazine ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Obs L'Obs]]'' ([[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror not very long after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan]]) featured two burqas wearing characters walking in a desert, with the following speech balloons:

* ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'': During Wally's escape from his Afghan tribal captors he was taken in by an orphan girl who dressed him up in a burqa to hide him from said tribe.

* ''Film/SuperCop'' has Inspector Yang doing this during the stake-out in Malaysia, where Yang disguises herself as a local Malay woman by donning a hijab, before suddenly revealing herself to beat up a few prison guards. It helps that Yang's actress, Michelle Yeoh, is a Malaysian and can speak the native language really well.

* ''Series/TopGear'''s Middle East Christmas Special had the presenters take a meandering journey from Iraq to Bethelehem. Driving through Syria, the guys unexpectedly discovered that ''Top Gear'' is [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff extremely popular in Syria]]. Which posed a problem, because Israel doesn't allow entry to people who have been in Syria.[[note]]Having a second passport without evidence of travel to Syria is the usual workaround, but they feared "Top Gear Visits Syria" publicity might precede them.[[/note]] After their attempt to pass through the empty Syrian desert ended with James being hospitalised with a serious head injury, they then decided to don burqas instead to pass unnoticed. This cunning plan didn't work all that well, as three people in burqas driving bizarrely-modified convertible sports coupes still tend to draw attention.[[note]]In any case, they eventually made it past the Israeli border crossing without incident.[[/note]]

* In ''VideoGame/SyphonFilterTheOmegaStrain'', the female version of Cobra dresses in a burqa for the [[NoGearLevel Arms Bazaar]] [[StealthBasedMission mission]] in Yemen. As usual, certain guards can see through the player's disguise, although the others don't seem to notice when you're carrying a weapon and wearing night vision goggles on the ''outside'' of the veil. Just don't walk around with the gun drawn.

* [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] journalist John Simpson reportedly sneaked into Afghanistan in 2001 wearing a burkha. After this a colleague got a call from his editor asking, "Why aren't you in there too, dressed up as a tent?"

* Michael Jackson once [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4650420.stm wore traditional Islamic women's garb to hide from paparazzi.]] He was found out when he used the ladies restroom and someone walked in on him.

[[/folder]]

* In 2021, an Indonesian man with Covid-19 [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/07/21/man-covid-disguised-wife-plane/?sh=17546bb81ac9 used a niqab while (unsuccessfully) attempting to disguise himself as his wife when boarding a domestic flight]].

[[/folder]]
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* ''Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket'': In one episode, Lupin and his gang steal burqas to hide from Inspector Zenigata. Zenigata tracks them to a well where women are doing the laundry. Finding the gang's discarded clothes, he forces the women there to remove their veils, and promptly subverts the trope when its revealed the ladies are actual ladies, who promptly make their displeasure known with wooden laundry mallets. Later in the episode, it's played straight when the gang actually does disguise themselves in burqas. Afraid of getting beaten again, Zenigata lets them go without an inspection.

[[quoteright:271:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ps3_sc_04.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:271:Creator/MichelleYeoh in ''Film/SuperCop'', using a hijab to pose as a local during the Malaysian stake-out.]]

* A PoliticalCartoon published in an issu of French news magazine ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Obs L'Obs]]'' ([[TheWarOnTerror not very long after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan]]) featured two burqas wearing characters walking in a desert, with the following speech balloons:

* ''Film/TheBattleForAlgiers'' has French soldiers on patrol and pass by two women in hijabs, only to notice that those "women" are wearing men's boots...

* In ''Literature/The Red Vixen Adventures'' Marty and Ali use this disguise while trying to move around unobserved on a space station.

Just how you're supposed to come by one of these is not important. How you find one in your size is even less so. The important thing is that you can hide your face without drawing the kind of attention a mask or hood would bring down on you, and make yourself harder to find than Literature/WheresWaldo. Often overlaps with DisguisedInDrag when done by a male character, where it's even more likely to be PlayedForLaughs than usual. MysteriousVeil may or may not include the full hijab but serves much the same purpose. Contrast with BedlahBabe, the other stereotypical clothing for Middle-Eastern women.

* [[Creator/TheBBC BBC]] journalist John Simpson reportedly sneaked into Afghanistan in 2001 wearing a burkha.

Ah, [[UsefulNotes/IslamicDress the hijab]], and its close cousins the niqab and the burqa; these articles of clothing are most associated with Middle-Eastern Muslim maidens (for their modesty). They also have the distinctive properties of being 1. Extremely common in certain locations and 2. Face-concealing. This means that if you as a fictional character are on the lam in {{Qurac}}, running through the ubiquitous out-door marketplaces in an attempt to dodge your pursuers by leaping over apple-carts, you have a perfect means of evading capture: Simply don one of those big, black outfits the women are wearing, and [[LostInACrowd vanish right into the crowd]].

* {{Tintin}} and Captain Haddock sneak past [[{{Qurac}} Khemed]] guards while wrapped up and balancing urns on their heads in ''Black Gold''. The captain trips, nearly swears, and manages to keep the urn balanced to the guards' unhidden admiration. Later at a well they meet another robed woman who questions them in Arabic. When neither answers, she rips off the (bearded) captain's veil. [[SoMuchForStealth Who starts yelling at her as Snowy pops out of the urn and starts barking at her.]] Fortunately they escape before the guards can find them, but alarm is raised and they're saved only by their pursuers' [[FriendlyFire incompetence]].

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

[[folder: Comic Strips ]]

--> [[UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden Osama]], I told you [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks the towers]] were a bad idea.
--> Shut up, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Omar Omar]]!

[[folder: Eastern Animation ]]

[[folder: Fanfiction ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* One of the short stories in ''Young Warriors'' by Creator/TamoraPierce features a nation governed by a religion that is an {{Expy}} of UsefulNotes/{{Islam}}, in which women are forced to wear garments similar to niqabs or burkas, and are not permitted education. The female protagonists organise at night to spread education amongst their people, and the government can't identify who is behind the movement because - [[HoistByHisOwnPetard shockingly]] - they're all wearing face-concealing clothing.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

-->'''James''': (''After finding out it didn't work'') I've [[DisguisedInDrag appeared on television in drag]] for nothing!

[[folder: Newspaper Comics ]]
* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'': While in Afghanistan Hedley disguises himself this way, it triggers quite a few jokes.
* ''ComicStrip/FunkyWinkerbean'': During Wally's escape from his Afghan tribal captors he was taken in by an orphan girl who dressed him up in a burqa to hide him from said tribe.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Done in ''Film/ZeroDarkThirty''; a group of soldiers wearing hijabs and hiding machine guns under them was used to capture a member of Al-Qadia for interrogation.

Just how you're supposed to come by one of these is not important. How you find one in your size is even less so. The important thing is that you can hide your face without drawing the kind of attention a mask or hood would bring down on you, and make yourself harder to find than Literature/WheresWaldo. Often overlaps with DisguisedInDrag when done by a male character, where it's even more likely to be PlayedForLaughs than usual. MysteriousVeil may or may not include the full hijab but serves much the same purpose.

* On December 1, 2017, three terrorists disguised in burqas attacked the [[https://www.dawn.com/news/1374048 an agricultural college]] in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 9 people.