How burka (hijab) might've come into existence
I'd like to start by mentioning that the two theories on the origin of burkas I'm about to present to you are purely hypothetical.
Theory I: Once upon a time, (long time ago, of course) there lived a very powerful caliph. Great were his powers, extremely bad looking were his many daughters. In fact they were so ugly that nobody wanted to take any of them as wives. With their clocks ticking the girls drove caliph and his wives crazy imposing on their quality time and postponing caliph's early retirement plans. Caliph's wives couldn't take it anymore and gave him an ultimatum: either he'd marry his daughters ASAP or he'd have to sleep on the couch for the rest of his life. Poor caliph thought long and hard and then came up with an idea of a fabric that was to cover his daughters' bodies from head to toe (did I also mentioned that his daughters possessed physics that were far from Elle McPherson's?). Later that month, caliph's wives made the outfits that he designed for his daughters and once they were dressed in them he summoned a few eligible bachelors from the neighboring countries to come up to meet them. However, caliph's eldest wife, being a smart woman that she was, began to worry that foreign grooms-to-be could become suspicious when they would see the girls veiled like that. She confided her fears to her husband. Once again long and hard caliph thought of the matter. By the time foreign visitors came every woman in the country was veiled from head to toe by the orders of the Great caliph...
Theory II: Same as Theory I, except that in theory #2 the daughters were so beautiful that nobody wanted to marry them because they were afraid that the beauties would cheat on them having so many men at their feet.
P.S. Sometimes I think that having a burka as a fashion accessory wouldn't be all that bad. I think Muslim women are really onto something with veiling themselves, (when they do it of their own free will, of course). Think about it. Lets say you are a woman with a very jealous boy-friend who suspects you of flirting with people left and right. You don't actually do it and besides that your relationship is great. Wouldn't a burka be a perfect solution, considering, of course, that your jealous lover will trust you not to lift it up when he's not around? Of course, it doesn't seem like a hijab ever prevented anybody from cheating and consequently getting stoned, (and not in a good way)...
Better yet, think of bad hair days or huge zits in a middle of your forehead. Think of preventing all that sun damage everybody is so concerned about. You can actually be married to somebody and pull off gaining weight, never using any make-up, having unfortunate accidents while dyeing your hair, etc. You just need to wear a burka during the day, work long hours, come back home when it's dark and only use votive candles as lighting around the house.
