Beyond the veil: London's burka wearers go on the defensive

Fatima Barktulla, 31, a cheery pregnant mother of three boys who was born and grew up in Hackney, elaborates: "I started with the hijab, but when I got married I wanted to wear the niqab It isn't a rejection of society, or an attempt to be different. It's not a political statement either."

Does she feel it might be perceived as such? "No woman I know who wears a niqab is doing it to make a huge point. It's a personal, spiritual conviction. And I know that the niqab is a virtuous option and it is not obligatory."

Barktulla, an Arabic studies lecturer, says that taking up the veil simply allows her to feel closer to God. "It doesn't contradict my being British either," she insists. "I love this country — it's my home. Mine and my husband's parents come from India but it's alien to us.

People ask whether we wouldn't be better off living in an Islamic country' but it's only because we're brown-skinned and not part of the indigenous population. What would you say to the white English convert whose family has been here for centuries? Where would they go?"

Modesty in Islam is key for both men and women. But most Islamic scholars agree that the adoption of the full-face veil among Muslim women is more to do with culture than religion. Its purpose is to diminish a woman's sexual allure.

Yet perversely, it is arguable that by wearing one a woman is defining herself as little more than a sexual object. While in Riyadh a burka would go unnoticed, in London, a veiled Muslim woman attracts attention. I ask Barktulla if she doesn't feel that wearing one here contradicts its purpose.

"It's a different type of attention though," says Barktulla. "On a day to day basis, it's really not that problematic. I don't think people stare at me in London any more."

Does she place any legitimacy in Angela Merkel's recent comments about the failure of multiculturalism? "If multiculturalism really is a genuine desire to allow people to express themselves in their different ways, then it works," she says. "If the idea was to allow immigrants to have their traditions and hope their kids would be wholly assimilated, then it doesn't. I don't think that was the idea though. This is a liberal democracy."

Amoola Ismail, a 26-year-old British- Somalian care worker whose beautifully made-up eyes are all I can see over our coffee in Aldgate, agrees: "The irony is that when people get hot and bothered about Islam and criticise it for oppressing women and forcing them to cover up, they forget that removing any woman's individual right to choose makes them oppressors too."

Ismail believes it's not just patronising but chauvinistic for the debate on burkas to be conducted in the press and among politicians without involving the women who actually wear them. "We're not delicate little creatures," she scoffs. "We don't need to be saved. We need to be heard if they want to take this debate seriously and stop using it as a weapon to attack Islam."

Not everyone sees the issue as a "clash of civilisations". "We are a new culture here," says Dr Riffat Majeed, a GP from Watford. "We're very British Muslims. I don't identify as being Pakistani like my parents. Our generation is taking advantage of the fact that we're living in the information age. When you grow up in the West, you question everything. You want to find out who you are, where you fit in. Having doubts and getting answers to those questions is perhaps why we're more religious than the first generation."

Majeed believes Muslim immigrants in the Sixties and Seventies, practised "a more cultural form of Islam", whereas now their offspring are better-informed and more observant. Majeed has worn the hijab for 13 years and a jilbab (a full-length cloak) for almost the last decade, inspiring her mother to do the same. I ask if she ever feels restricted by her self-imposed uniform — whether she misses dressing up?

"It's not like you get locked away and you're like an old woman; I still dress up. We have a lot of family and social dos. Women are segregated outside of close family events so I get my hair done, have my nice outfit and jewellery on but I don't resent my choices. It hasn't limited me, it feels natural."

Maryam El Hajbi, a 24-year-old British-Moroccan researcher working for the anti-extremism think-tank Quilliam, believes the bigger problem is "the way in which the debate has become politicised. The niqab has been taken out of context and is being used as an ideological tool, an excuse to talk about immigration, integration or the failure of multiculturalism."

El Hajbi finds it difficult to understand the feminist position that many veiled women maintain on account of the niqab making them feel empowered, but respects their choice. "A state ban would be totally counter-productive. The only real issue is where women or girls — such as at the school in Tower Hamlets — are forced to wear it."

The Madani School for Girls has so far refused to speak to the press about its policy — niqabs for pupils aged 11-18 are mandatory on the journey to and from school.

The headmistress, Mrs Amra Bone, tells me it might be time to set some facts straight: "First, this policy has been in place since 1991, when the school was set up," she explains. "It's not new. Second, the uniform was already under review and subject to potential change before [the press attention]. The girls don't have to wear niqabs in school and lots of them don't put them on until they reach the school gates."

Mrs Bone admits she doesn't personally agree with the niqab but she says the school will continue its review with staff, students, parents and its management committee and will not be pressured by headlines.

Even so, the controversy around the veil remains. A guest at a debate on religious tolerance at the Battle of Ideas conference last weekend, said the sight of women wearing them in London made her feel violently sick. Another questioned whether moral relativism and liberalism were acceptable excuses to ignore the so-called "threat [burkas] pose to civil society".

Whether one agrees with the choice London Muslims make (when they do choose) to cover their faces or not is irrelevant; protecting the freedom to allow that choice is a basic tenet of British life.

Some names have been changed.