Taqiyah

The same short rounded cap is worn by Muslim men across the world under a long list of local names. Taqiyah is the general Arabic term. In West Africa and among African American Muslims it is the kufi. In South Asia it is the topi, and the openwork crocheted white cap of Bengali and north Indian usage is a distinct and recognisable form of it. In Indonesia and Malaysia the songkok or peci is a stiff brimless cap, usually black velvet, of a quite different cut. Central Asia has the square embroidered doppa and the araqchin.

Its commonest function is as a base. A turban is wound over a cap rather than directly onto the head, so a taqiyah is worn under the imamah in traditions that use one, and under the larger headcloths of the Gulf under the agal. Worn alone it is simply a cap.

There is no single religious specification for its colour, material or shape, which is why the regional forms vary so freely. White is common for prayer and for pilgrimage; embroidery, colour and pattern are matters of local dress. The cap is also, in several countries, a marker of something other than piety alone: the peci became a national symbol in Indonesia, worn by presidents of every religion at state occasions, which is not a religious use of it at all.

The juristic position is settled and it is modest. A man's prayer is valid with his head uncovered. Covering it is treated as recommended, as a matter of adab, of good manners before God, on the reasoning that one would not appear bareheaded before a person of consequence in societies where a covered head was the norm. Some jurists have described praying bareheaded without reason as disliked rather than forbidden, and that is the strongest position ordinarily taken.

That is precisely why the practice varies so widely without becoming a dispute. Where a legal obligation exists, difference in practice produces argument; where a recommendation exists, difference produces regional custom, and the Muslim world has a great deal of it.

The contrast with women's covering is instructive and often misunderstood. The requirement of covering in prayer is stated differently for women in the classical discussions and is not the same question as this one, so the cap is not a male counterpart to the headscarf and is not treated as one within the tradition.

Its political charge is entirely modern and entirely local. In some countries it reads as ordinary dress and in others as a statement, and the same cap can be a national costume, a religious observance, an ethnic marker or simply what a man's father wore, depending on where he is standing.