I think it´s all due to this new "biometric" (biometrical?) fad and use of computers for recognising faces. Apparently computers go bananas when they see a smiling face Recently I had to have my little one photographed for his passport. Fortunately it´s just a temporary one, valid for one year so it doesn´t have to be biometric. I cannot imagine making a lively 11-month-old sit still till all is positioned. Also, I don´t think there´s a need for hidden lines in cameras, after all, 90% of photos are digitally processed. It was the same with my son´s photo - I was holding him, the photographer took a photo of both of us, then cut me out and set the zoom to demanded properties (and in the machine used for processing there were lines so that proportions of head/neck are kept)

 Same here. And it is very difficult not to smile on a photo just as much as it was to produce a nice and natural smile in the past when it was allowed! Because you are so used to it, now that when you don´t smile, your face looks all forced, or even worse: angry and moody.

It is said to distract your facial features, but I think that is such nonesense. How much can a persons face change if he smiles? After all we are not talking about ing or -ing here!

 I normally look angry and moody when I travel internationally!  (I hate to fly) Perhaps it is best that I don´t smile then?

 My passphoto pictures would be great for you The last one I had taken was very nice (made in Turkey I have got perfect skin colour and my hair looks very healthy and good ), but the 2 before that I look rather angry and strict

 Can you put it here?

 OK D_K, i will try to explain more.

Our society years ago till 1919 women were wearing things called Yaþmak...Ýts not Hijab, and not Burka, its smoething put on the face but actually doesnt hide it..it was worn at Osmanlý time

Came 1919 and it was revolution on 2 scales, politicaly wise, and women wise

Ýt was our whole nation against the British and it was the first time girls at the schools and women join, so women joint side by side with men and been killed also same like men

Since that time women took off yaþmak, and they didnt wear hijab and they wore like Westerns, hair styles, mini skirts..tight clothes..etc

That happened at cities, in country side they were more conservative.

At a time they didnt even know that hijab is an order from ALLAH, actually at cities people didnt know even they should pray, only elders knew it and they didnt teach it to youngers...what they really did was fasting at Ramazan, all kept that very much along of course with Salat...Ramazan was and still a festival on all counts!

Anyway, by time and due to wars, and many people started to read and know more about religion, after we sent our teachers to gulf and they saw women there wearing hijab, they started to search and bit by bit hijab started to get into our society

So actually you would see the daughter was wearing hijab but not the mother !

Or grandmothers putting scarf on their hair but not hijab, meaning not actually covering the hair, but they said our mothers at the good times were wearing like that...that is what haným wear when she goes out but without wearing long dresses or long sleeves

By the time daughters told the mothers that it is an order from ALLAH and not a tradition, taught the mothers, and now you see many women wearing it.

So actually in our society you dont wear hijab to feel safe...we had/have various code of clothes, and you can pick

So the point, wearing hijab or not wearing hijab are treated same here...because almost all families were having a mother or a sister or a relative not wearing it, beside there are many girls who dont wear it still.

You would listen to an expression called ´When im convinced!´ in my society it doesnt mean when im convinced that it is an order from ALLAH then i will wear, but it means, when im convinced that i will be capable of wearing it i will..and yes they know it is an order from ALLAH too...i was one of them  !

So you see, you dont just have 2 cases of societies...but that is another case too.

A society where women have the chance to choose to wear or not to wear and they already took it off in the past and wear it recently

So i would feel more comfortable here actually, i would wear or not wear and at both cases men will look at me same because they know its my choice !

And i dont deny there are societies where its forced on them one way or another.

A popular myth.

Canli, I like you....but I am never sure if you know what you are talking about.

YASMAK is a way Turkish ladies tie their headscarf while working in the fields (btw, they still do). One hanging end of the scarf is run across the face to provide temporary protection against sun, wind and dust. Very mush like the handkerchiefs American cowboys carry aound their necks, while running big herds in the desert. There were transparent  "high fashion" models of yasmak used by city girls, but the idea there was not to hide their faces; it was more to accentuate the beauty of their eyes.

Where I come from, if you approach a lady with yasmak, working in the field and salute her, she will stop work and drop her yasmak before she returns your salute.. It would be considered very impolite, if she mumbles her reply from behind her yasmak.

I dont really know which Moslem country it is where people waited until 1919 to suddenly discover hijab was God´s orders. With Koran freely available for reference and zillions of Imams to explain what it means, it should have taken less than 1400 years to grasp this fine point.

I bet your grandmothers were covering their hair. Even I was covering it while in Saudi. I will let you guess why I was doing it.

Are you sure somebody is not pulling your leg?

 Alpha seems you didnt read my post well

They were wearing it before 1919, i believe all of them were, but after 1919 women took it off specially at cities, actually i dont know if they wearing it on that time because it was an order from ALLAH or because it was a tradition...that i have no information about but i can try to find.

But i believe in the past it started as an order from ALLAH then turned out to be a tradition because even Christian women used to wear it too.

As for Yaþmak i agree about what you said at cities, thats what i saw at the pictures but at the fileds that i dont know anything about, Still, women were removing it to greet you if they knew you, donest matter man or a woman but if a stranger, they dont remove.

And no, my grandmother was not covering her hair actually, she did recently at the late of her life in the 80th i guess and i remember watching her without it and later she put it on after her daughter ´teyze´ did. But yes, my great grandmother ´grandmother mother´ was covering her hair tho but not wearing Yaþmak.

My aunt ´hala´ on the other hand kept the tradition till the day she died and used to put þifon scarf on her hair when she got older while she go out, thinking a lady should do that and refused to go out without it, needless to say a þifon scarf wasnt actually covering her hair of course it was elegance to her i believe and till she died she refused to consider herself wearing hijab..she actually wasnt! 

So you see Alpha, i know what im talking about..it happened that way in my family too .

Of course Korans are/were available and many imams are/ were there but not many people on that time were able to read, so they couldnt read it at koran and start ask about it as it happened later.

And as for imams, well i actually dont know, they should have told people, but it was a political trend to adopt the Western life style, that is what the King at that time wanted beside we were captured by Britain , and covering hair was seen as backward thing and women were actually taking off Yaþmak after 1919 and participate more in that life style surely it started with educated women/girls and then spread at most cities.

Ý remember at high school our teacher used to tell us about that period and she said girls at schools then ´60th´ didnt even know they should pray !

But of course there were also religious families out there or at least they were keeping the traditions as their parents did.

My mother told me yes she used to watch her parents praying but she never thought to do and also her parents never told her to do so !

Ý believe the religion awareness on that time were not having much attention at the society, so being religious meant to be backward, but keeping traditional things were ok.

Ýt was after that when people realized its not what you wear that makes you backward but what you are !

Actually Alpha i have no idea why would you cover your hair at Saudi other than maybe because its very sunny and hot there ?!

 Doesnt knowing about it, doesnt mean its not there !

And thats why many women now wearing it after they got both the education to read and the knowledge .

...i would like to find it in quran...could you please point out the exact location in quran? thank you