The pursuit of happiness : the veil as an inducer of subjective well-being in Hadia Said’s Hijab Kashif

Abstract EN

This paper aims at offering a fresh way to see veiling as a practice which induces power by means of knowledge, spiritual development and "subjective well-being".

To reach this end, the veil, as the object of analysis, is approached as a phenomenon interpreted from within the experience of fictional women; Muslim and non-Muslim, veiled and unveiled, to evaluate the possibility of its being a means of empowerment on many conceptual levels.

The analysis takes as its basis a variety of conceptual tools which constitute the framework of argumentation: Michel Foucault’s concept of technologies of the self, Ibn Al Arabi's belief that the veil is epistemic by nature, Edward R.

Canda and Leola Dyrud Furman's definition of spirituality, Ed Diener's explanation of the term subjective well-being and W.R Walker et al 's concept of the Fading Affect Bias (FAB).