Veiling Infitah with Muslim Ethic: Egypt's Contemporary Islamic Movement

Abstract

An examination of the contemporary Islamic Movement in Egypt shows it to represent a creative alternative to institutional Islam. Alternative Islam serves to bind Egyptian youth on university campuses as Muslim brothers and sisters in one community. Its two fundamental features-egalitarianism and sexual segregation-are analyzed in the context of the cultural correlates of Infitah and the social correlates of development. Within this community a new Egyptian woman is emerging-educated, professional, nonelitist, and veiled. The veil is part of an assertive movement with a powerful message symbolizing the beginning of a synthesis between modernity and authenticity. One recent phenomenon incomprehensible to many observers of the Egyptian scene today is the visible presence of a new Egyptian woman: the young urban college student on her way to or from the university campus-carrying her books, wearing eye glasses, alone or in the chatting company of other college women, and completely veiled-face and body. Confused at the thought of a future veiled doctor, engineer or pharmacist, such observers, in particular those of the modernist tradition, do not tire of speculation. Is it identity crisis, misguided leisure, a fad, youth protest, ideological vacuum, individual psychic disturbance, life-crisis, social dislocation, or something else? They often resort to some oversimplified theory of causation and try to explain the phenomenon away. Also bewildering to many is the apparent contradiction of being modern, college-educated and career-oriented yet also being veiled and apparently fundamentalist and backward. There is irony here, also, if one recalls the many social and cultural obstacles confronting Egyptian feminists until Huda Sha'rawi's dramatic act of public deveiling in 1923. Many saw this as a major Egyptian feminist achievement, marking the end of veiling-until women resumed veiling after the 1973 Ramadan War (known locally as al-'Ubur, the crossing). The new Egyptian woman as yet represents a relatively small although rapidly increasing segment of women college students, and among Egyptian women; however, as a collectivity, she has a qualitatively strong, dominant presence and represents a social entity with a definite cultural message.