A burqa (Arabic pronunciation:  also transliterated burkha, burka or burqua from Arabic: برقع‎ burqu‘ or burqa‘ ) is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering (Arabic: jilbāb), plus the head-covering (Arabic: ḥijāb, taking the most usual meaning), plus the face-veil (Arabic: ).

There is evidence that this type of dress was worn by some Arab and Persian women long before Islam. For example, the Roman African Christian Tertullian, writing in Chapter 17 of The Veiling of Virgins around 200 AD, praises the modesty of those "pagan women of Arabia" who "not only cover their head, but their whole face...preferring to enjoy half the light with one eye rather than prostituting their whole face."[1] Strabo, writing in the first century AD, also refers to covering the face as a practice of some Persian women (Geography 11.13. 9–10).

Many Muslims believe that the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, and the collected traditions of the life of Muhammed, or hadith, require both men and women to dress and behave modestly in public. However, this requirement, called hijab, has been interpreted in many different ways by Islamic scholars (ulema) and Muslim communities (see Women and Islam).