Abstract
In the past couple of decades debates on democracy in the Arab world have been bound up with the status of women. The veil has been singled out for keeping women subordinate and therefore preventing society and culture from achieving progress or modernity. This essay will compare representations of the veil in the English works of comprador intellectuals with those found in Arab texts in order to come to an understanding of what these differences mean with respect to the power/knowledge dichotomy of modern-day oculacentric society. In showing that knowledge of Muslim women is not the result of the veil, but rather the effect of Orientalist attitudes and knowledge/power discourses imposed on her, the veil sheds its negative oppressive connotations and is resituated within its proper religious and spiritual context. What was configured as a sign of seclusion, oppression and shame emerges as an opportunity for women to achieve sanctity, privacy and respect free from the demands and impositions of a capitalist consumer society that suffocates women's choices by treating them as objects of consumption.