Trendy
Devout
Ultraconservative
"National Dress"
Women light up the country
Hijab or “covering” in Egypt doesn’t look like what Westerners see on television.
No sober, faceless army of women gliding darkly through the city. The streets of Cairo and the shores of Alexandria enjoy more than their share of curvaceous and coutured young things. Body skimming shirts trace down to well-turned waist, where long skirts slink down to billowing hems.
Scarves change color and pattern every season (spring of 2008 showing polished cottons, fall color favs of green and yellow, spring 2009, the sphinx look). The way of wrapping is also a matter of fashion; fashion magazines come out regularly with step-by-step instructions.
Scarves are ubiquitous and not just on heads. It's essential that one's scarf coordinate with one's outfit, so markets flutter with them and the walls of dull shops are transformed into waterfalls of color.
Yet for all the thoughtful accessorizing, these are women who have had to make a commitment to wear the hijab according to their own values (although sometimes a husband will simply require it.)
For many Egyptian women, wearing the hijab is a serious religious commitment. Safinaz (not her real name) is a college student; she adopted the veil at 12 in face of strong objections from aunts in her family who, in the forties and fifties, never even thought of covering their heads
Six years later and Safinaz still treasures the hijab, which she ways helps her concentrate on what's important: the quality of her mind, heart and spirit.
"It's dedicating yourself to Allah, she explains, her eyes sparkling. "Something like becoming a nun but witheout the ecclesiastical order of the celibacy."
And it says nothing about her plan to finish university, work, marry and have children.
Her mother started wearing the scarf long before most other women did and, bedevilling the family's fear that she would drift towards the medieval, now makes a living teaching Photoshop, with her headscarf on--of course.
The devoted follower is not necessarily fundamentalist. That position is claimed by women wearing the "niqab" , usually an all black kaftan topped by head cloth and face veil that leave only a slit for the eyes. Many wear black gloves (often lacey at the wrist) which dramatize the fingers - especially when they tiptoe over a pile of orange peels in the market.
The niqab is a source of heated discussion. For one thing, it's got to be a sweat box inside the dark, heat attracting colors. Teachers and employers say communication, much of which is done through facial expression, with the women is sabotaged. Many wonder if the women feel ashamed somehow; others think its just too extreme and its just an import from Saudi Arabia and not really Egyptian.
There have been debates on whether niqab'd nurses have the right to wear their gloves while caring for patient. More recently Al Azhar University (followed almost immediately by Cairo University) decided to forbid face coverings in the classroom and leading Muslim clerics declared the niqab un-Islamic; as related by the BBC, both announcements have stirred up controversy.
The fact is that most Egyptian women are Muslims of average devotion. They may pray; they might not, although most have a clear moral sense based on Islamic teachings.
Some drop a black kaftan over their clothes when they go out- sometimes as much to keep them from getting dusty as to signal religious commitment. Others say that the drape protects them from the wave of catcalls which can follow young women down the street; some argue that the cloak makes the catcalls worse.
Finally, some choose hijab because it's become an Egyptian national dress. It isn't western; but it isn't uninfluenced by western fashion either. It's contemporary Egyptian, a combination of European and Middle Eastern culture.
It's attractive, inventive, colorful, and often very, very sexy.
The women light up the country.
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November, 2009
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