Paranja

Paranja (or Paranji) from فرنجية (Паранджа) is a traditional Central Asian robe for women and girls that covers the head and body. It is also known as the "burqa" in other languages. It is similar in basic style and function to other regional styles such as the Afghan chadari. The chasmband and paranja were used by women to completely cover themselves in cities in Central Asia.

In Central Asian sedentary Muslim areas (today Uzbekistan and Tajikistan), women wore veils which shrouded the entire face. These were called paranja or faranji. The traditional veil in Central Asia worn before modern times was the faranji, but it was banned by the Soviet Communists. Tajikistan President Emomali has claimed that veils were not part of Tajik culture. The veil was attacked by the government of Atambaev, the Kyrgyz President.

The part that covered the face, known as the chachvan (or chachvon), was heavy in weight and made from horsehair. It was especially prevalent among urban Uzbeks and Tajiks. The paranja was worn in Khorezm. It was also worn during the Shaybanids' rule.

In the 1800s, women were obliged to wear paranja when outside the house. Paranji and chachvon were by 1917 common among urban Uzbek women of the southern river basins. This was less frequently worn in the rural areas, and scarcely at all on the nomadic steppe.

The unveiling by the Soviets was called the "hujum" in the Uzbek SSR.

The paranja was worn in Central Asia in cities. The paranjas were burned on orders of the Communist Soviets. Due to the fact that paranjas were worn by Tajiks and Uzbeks, in Bukhara none of the women could be seen by Lord Curzon in his travel there in 1886.

Lord Curzon remarked "I have frequently been asked since my return - it is the question which an Englishman always seems to ask first - what the women of Bokhara were like? I am utterly unable to say. I never saw the features of one between the ages of ten and fifty. The little girls ran about unveiled, in loose silk frocks, and wore their hair in long plaits escaping from a tiny skull-cap. Similarly the old hags were allowed to exhibit their innocuous charms, on the ground, I suppose, that they could excite no dangerous emotions. But the bulk of the female population were veiled in a manner that defied and even repelled scrutiny. For not only were the features concealed behind a heavy black horsehair veil, falling from the top of the head to the bosom, but their figures were loosely wrapped up in big blue cotton dressing-gowns, the sleeves of which are not used but are pinned together over the shoulders at the back and hang down to the ground, where under this shapeless mass of drapery appear a pair of feet encased in big leather boots."

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Wikipedia