Tudong

The tudong (Malay: tudung, Jawi: تودوڠ) is a style of headscarf, worn as interpretation of the Islamic hijab, prevalent amongst many Muslim women in the Malay-speaking world; Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Today, the tudong forms part of the standard dress code for many offices in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as in school uniforms and formal occasions.

Its origins lie in the mid-to-late 1970s, when the Islamic revival, fuelled by the rise of “Petro-Islam” and the buildup to the Iranian Revolution, began to emerge in the Middle East.

Before the 1970s, interpretations of hijab varied amongst women in Malaysia and Indonesia, the most notable form being the selendang, a patterned shawl-like scarf loosely draped around the shoulders or around the head, usually not covering the front of the hair or the ears.

[3] The tudong was intended to reaffirm these students’ identity as pious Muslims, to reject Western fashion in the same way that Iranian women increasingly were, and to foster a sense of solidarity among themselves.

By the mid-1980s, within six years of the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic revival in Malaysia, tudong-clad women were becoming the majority in institutions of higher learning, and in the civil service.

[4] By the end of the 1980s, the tudong had visibly replaced the selendang as the form of headscarf most commonly worn by women in Malaysia, spreading from university campuses to schools, workplaces and eventually to the kampongs.