Nostalgia Website: Egypt Before the Hijab "Obsession"

This Facebook collection  is called "A look at women and Egyptian society before the Wahhabi invasion and obsession with hijab and niqab  رصد للمرأة والمجتمع المصري ما قبل الغزو الوهابي وهوس الحجاب والنقاب

Egyptian Miss World, 1954

It's old pictures of an Egypt before the hijab was so widespread even among elites; I think the title shows the host's viewpoint. It's also a great nostalgia collection.

It's definitely worth a browse.

Battle over Niqab in Tunisia

With Islamists holding the largest number of seats in the Tunisian constituent assembly, a new Islamist Prime Minister in Morocco, Islamists playing a major role in Libya (though largely unrepresented in the interim Cabinet), and the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi al-Nour Party running strong in the Egyptian elections' first round, some secularists are worried that the whole northern tier of Africa is suddenly turning into a hotbed of Islamism. I think we need to see what happens next: I'm not convinced that all Islamists everywhere are incapable of functioning within a pluralist system.

Tunisia has long been the most Westernized North African country by far, where women have equal rights with men in almost every sphere, there is a French-influenced secularism in place and President Bourguiba famously once sipped orange juice during Ramadan on national television. The large number of European tourists on Tunisia's beaches are mostly French, German, and Italian, and dress as they would on beaches on the opposite shore of the Med, with the Tunisians largely not objecting.

The fact that an Islamist party, Al-Nahda, led in the elections has of course caused some concern; Tunisia is, however, not just Avenue Bourguiba (or whatever they're calling it now) in Tunis, and the beach resorts: it's Kairouan and the rural areas as well. And Al-Nahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi's daughter is one of his main spokespeople, suggesting that he at least (though perhaps not all of Al-Nahda's rank and file) is indeed moderate. (Exiled Islamists usually go to Saudi Arabia or someplace similar. Ghannouchi spent 20 years in London.)

In this transitional period we're seeing our first Islamist-secularist confrontations (well, there were a few earlier ones, but these are the first I've blogged about): over several days now, Salafis and secularists have been clashing at the University of Manouba, in a university town west of the capital, over the niqab, the full body-and-face-veil. The university refused to let women wearing niqab to take their exams. (Egyptian universities have imposed similar rules, arguing that a fully veiled woman might not actually be the student being graded.) Salafi students and Salafis from outside the university protested, shutting down classes and, or a while, holding the dean hostage. Press reports here and here, a blog post from blogger A Tunisian Girl (who was a mainstay during the revolution) here. (Though her blog is titled in English and Arabic, this post is in French.)

A video report here:



I do believe there are religious freedom issues here, but also security issues. In several Arab countries niqab-wearing women must unveil to prove their identity for certain purposes, and making sure you're not sending in a ringer to take an exam for you seems to be a valid one. On the other hand, Tunisian secularists  may just be reacting viscerally to the idea of niqab. Certainly I know many Muslim women who, even in the West, choose to wear hijab, but that's not the issue here. I can't say I actually know any women who, uninfluenced by their fathers/husbands/brothers, choose to wear niqab, but that's in part because they wouldn't engage in conversation with an unrelated male anyway. I'd be furious if Manouba University were requiring niqab, but I'm not so sure about the wisdom of banning it, if some form of security and identification procedures can be implemented.

Ah, the Radicalism of the Young: I Guess it's Not the Sixties Anymore

Okay, we old Boomers who remember the sixties are glad to see student agitators still exist, but something seems a tad different somehow. Cases in point: a) the other day, Kuwait University's student elections saw a solid victory for the Islamist movement, while the Al-Wasat al-Dimuqrati group ("The Democratic Center") ran well behind; b) while in Egypt, women and other protestors at Cairo University have staged a sit-in over the recent ban on the niqab or full face veil in classrooms. Oh, come on, at least call it a veil-in or something.

I feel old.

Banning Niqab at Al-Azhar

I've been staying away from one Egyptian story because I initially thought the reports were a bit exaggerated. The background: A week or so ago, the Sheikh al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid al-Tantawi, asked a female student wearing the full niqab (in which the face is fully covered) why she did so, since it was not a part of Islam and was merely a traditional practice. Al-Masry al-Youm played this story up, but I suspected that it was actually exaggerating a bit since it wasn't clear if Tantawi's remark was merely off-the-cuff or indicated a plan to discourage the niqab.

Then the BBC picked the story up, indicating that Tantawi planned to ban the full niqab altogether, and then a Constituional Court Ruling held that institutions had the right to ban the niqab. Now Tantawi and the Ministry of Education have officially banned the niqab from classrooms and dormitories. For those who don't read Arabic, there's an English report here.

Tantawi's ban only applies to al-Azhar and related institutions, so the Ministry of Education also acted. The Education Ministry clarified that women could still wear niqab to classes, provided they show their face to male security guards, but that the niqab would be banned in dormitories.

While Tantawi and other Egyptian clerics have emphasized that niqab is not a requirement of Islam, the comments by the Education Ministry seem to emphasize security issues; certainly the security establishment is uncomfortable with any custom which completely conceals identity and, at the same time, tends to be adopted by the most radical Islamists. (This only applies to the niqab, which fully covers the face, not the hijab, the very widespread head-scarf covering the hair.)