I ran into an unsourced claim form one of the commenters of the Economist where the user makes a claim about the frequency of women wearing burqas and veil two generations ago (how much time spans a generation? 20 years?).
In a rare instance, KAL is on the wrong side of this issue. The wearing of Islamic garb has risen with the rise in radical Islam. Two generations ago, women across the Islamic world rarely wore veils, burqas or, in some places, even hijabs.
Is there evidence to suggest that what the commenter says is true?