Regarding the historicity of hijab among Malays, religious scriptures are not sources. Perintah Allah is irrelevant to the discussion. Kewajipan is not sejarah. Whether you think all historical Muslim women should have worn hijab or not, it doesn't mean they did in practice
This conjures the mental image of newly-converted (oh sorry, "reverted") women scrambling for scraps of cloth to cover their hiasan. Humor aside, it's not even true. Head coverings were customary among medieval Arabs, but not all Arab women wore them
How sure are you that ummat Islam "faham arahan suruh tutup aurat dengan sempurna" for 1400 years? Wonder if this guy's ever seen all the paintings of Persian women with exposed hair hmm..
That's another story for another time. Here we have vintage photos of Indonesian women with heads covered. Remember that Aceh was the first part of SEA to adopt Islam so it's viewed as more religious. Does this mean Malay women did cover their heads?
You bet they did. Not with tudung but usually with a selendang draped over the head. They varied in style and material. As you can see, the hair was quite visible and the fabric was often transparent. So tudung is not traditional, selendang is. My grandma wore this too 
But wait, why is this girl "freehair"? Westernisation? Nope. The fact is not all Malays wore it, even within the same community. Some did, some didn't. It may have varied by region. The British noted that Malays of the west coast cities were more exposed to foreign Muslims
We can't cherry-pick but we also shouldn't misconstrue all headgear as being some form of hijab. The iconic Minang tingkuluak has nothing to do with Islam or aurat. We can see similar headdresses among neighbouring non-Muslims like the Red Yao of Vietnam here
So how common was the veil? Here's Aceh's hero Cut Meutia who fought the Dutch in the late 1800s. Depictions of her are always freehair. When this banknote was released, neocon revisionists whined about why her hair is uncovered. But her own descendants say she never wore hijab
Her great-grandson continues
"Jilbab itu kan baru2 ini. Orang Aceh pakai jilbab itu kan baru sekarang2 ini"
Aceh, the hardliner state of syariah, golongan awal peluk Islam, and yet not every woman in the 1800s was wearing jilbab. Here's another pic of an Acehnese girl sans veil
"Jilbab itu kan baru2 ini. Orang Aceh pakai jilbab itu kan baru sekarang2 ini"
Aceh, the hardliner state of syariah, golongan awal peluk Islam, and yet not every woman in the 1800s was wearing jilbab. Here's another pic of an Acehnese girl sans veil
But aren't these pictures all from the colonial period? What if we were influenced by the evil uncovered heads of the colonists? Maybe that was part of their conspiracy to send us all to hell? Nope. Here's a 16th-century illustration of a typical Malay man and woman. Rambut bebas
And doesn't observance of aurat go beyond just the head? Shouldn't the body be covered too? But Malay women commonly wore tight clothing that showed the shape of the hips and exposed the shoulders. This is a modern illustration but it's accurate. Note the social classes
