Muslim women's veil.

 The Muslim women's veil, contrary to what Muslims believe, has little to do with their religion. The veil actually predates Islam by many centuries. In the Near East it was the Assyrian kings who first introduced the veil. Prostitutes and slaves, however, were told not to veil, and were slashed if they disobeyed this law.

Beyond the Near East, the practice of hiding one's face appeared in classical Greece, in the Byzantine Christian world, in Persia, and in India among upper caste Rajput women. Muslims in their first century didn't give a hoot about the female dress. When the niece of one of the prophet's many wives, Aisha bint Talha, was asked by her husband Musab to veil her face, she told him, "Since the Almighty has made me beautiful it is my wish that the public should view my beauty. On no account, therefore, will I veil myself."

As Islam reached other lands, regional practices, including the covering of women, were adopted by the early Muslims. Yet it was only in the second Islamic century that the veil became common, first used among the powerful and the rich as a status symbol.