The "return" to the veil invites women who have left "their" place (the "their" refers to the place that was designated for them) to leave their newly conqured territories. And it is implied that this place in which society wants to confine them again is to be marginal, and above all subordinate, in accordance with the ideal Islam... [The Qur'anic verse about the veil] introduced a breach in space that can be understood to be a separation of the public from the private, or indeed the profane from the sacred, but which was to turn into a segregation of the sexes. The veil that descended from Heaven was going to cover up women, separated them from men, from the Prophet, and so from God. Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite, translated by Mary Jo Lakaland, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1991. P 24 and 101