25 Eerie Vintage Photographs Capture Muslim Women Wearing Dark Face Veils on the Streets of Sarajevo

In Bosnia-Herzegovina the niqab is called “feredza.” During Ottoman times some Bosnian women used to wear them, before communism banned it.

A niqab is a garment of clothing that covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of a particular interpretation of hijab (modest dress). According to the majority of Muslim scholars and Islamic schools of thought, face veiling is not a requirement of Islam; however a minority of Muslim scholars, particularly among the Salafi movement, assert that women are required to cover their faces in public. Those Muslim women who wear the niqab do so in places where they may encounter non-mahram (non-related) men.

These photographs were taken in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina from the 1920s to the 1940s, when niqab used to be the norm there.