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Business English: Attack on hijab sparks fury in Egypt
The Islamic headscarf is more and more popular - part religiosity, part fashion, part respectability. In Cairo’s fashionable shopping malls, girls can be seen in skin tight jeans, clinging lycra tops and colourful headscarves.The Islamic headscarf, or hijab, has been arousing controversy not only in the west. In Egypt, remarks by Farouk Hosni, the culture minister, describing it as a sign of " backwardness", have unleashed a storm of anger, with 130 deputies in parliament from both the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and the ruling National Democratic party calling for his resignation. Mr Hosni's views were bound to provoke wrath in a society where most women wear the hijab. Most view it as a religious obligation as well as a sign of respectability.
His words played into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood which saw them as an opportunity to lash out at the government confident that on this issue the group had wide popular support. "The Islamic movement has succeeded in exploiting Farouk Hosni's words to force a general debate placing hijab at the heart of politics - something the government had managed to avoid for years, preferring to treat it as a social issue," said Gamal Abdel Gawad, an analyst with the Al Ahram centre of strategic and political studies. "I think now the balance of power will have to be adjusted and the government may have to make concessions to hijab wearers reflecting an advance for the conservative powers."
Until now the government has had an ambiguous policy on the hijab. Unable to stop its popularity in society, it has insisted on limiting its presence in the higher echelons of the state and keeping it off state television. Presenters who choose to wear it are immediately transferred to off-screen jobs. But Mr Hosni's words proved so embarrassing to the regime that senior figures in the ruling party scrambled to chastise him in public.
The minister's defenders come from Egypt's ever-thinning class of secular-minded intellectuals. But their voices have been drowned out by the wave of protest from conservatives. The liberals' argument that the hijab is not a religious obligation but rather a personal choice, drew a strong response from Al Azhar university, the highest religious institution in Sunni Islam. "This matter is one of the givens of Islam and must not be subject to debate," said a statement from Al Azhar.
The growing popularity of the hijab in Egypt over the past two decades has been extraordinary. In the 1960s it was the norm for educated working women to be bareheaded, but by the mid-1990s the headscarf had become commonplace. Social scientists offer many explanations, including the rise of political Islam and the large numbers of Egyptians who worked in the oil-rich Gulf states.
But analysts caution that for most Egyptian women, the hijab does not necessarily indicate an Islamist political orientation. "For many women wearing the headscarf is part of their religiosity," says Farha Ghannam, an anthropologist. "For others it could be about social acceptability and adhering to accepted social standards [about respectability]. But it could also be about fashion. Young women now find on the market many different styles of covers and they think it is beautiful."
The modern colourful hijab worn by Egyptian women is a far cry from the all-enveloping black coverings of Saudi Arabia or Iran in the early days of the Islamic revolution. In Cairo's fashionable shopping malls, girls can be seen in skin tight jeans, clinging lycra tops and colourful headscarves tied in elaborate styles with names like "Spanish" or "gypsy". "Here in Egypt we have made hijab dance," said the head of a women's organisation, her head wrapped in two headscarves in contrasting pink and purple to match her linen suit and shirt.
But as the uproar caused by the minister's remarks indicates, hijab, remains a potent political symbol - ripe for exploitation by the Islamist opposition, and a source of anguish to a government still uncertain about its vision of the relationship between religion and state.
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FTD.de, 14.12.2006
© 2006 Financial Times Deutschland,
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