Why are Western publishers so keen on shrouded cover models?
Click here to see a slide show about Muslim cover girls. MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, both of whom have recently spoken out against full-face veils, have an ally in me, an American-Muslim woman who believes that Islam does not require women to veil—or even to wear a head scarf. I just wish I felt supported by the image-makers of the West, who seem to have a veil fetish. They are doing the exact opposite of what the European politicians suggest: They’re imposing the veil on women. I barely escaped the same fate myself. Publishing houses, art directors, and photo agencies are increasingly using stock photos of (supposedly) Muslim babes with piercing kohl-lined eyes framed by the pitch-black niqab—the black shroud favored by puritanical Islamic ideology—to sell books about the Islamic world. A Google search for “Muslim woman” and “stock photo” reveals the plethora of veiled images into which the West’s creative directors can
