c. 2006 Religion News Service

CAIRO, Egypt _ In the midst of a fiery debate over the implications of wearing veils, one young Egyptian woman made the decision about two weeks ago to wear a hijab, or head scarf, as a way to reconnect with Islam.

Mai Esmat Mohamed, a 22-year-old self-admitted “rebellious Americanized girl,” found herself questioning her choice to date an 18-year-old American boy over the Internet. Her drinking and smoking bothered her, and she realized that not only was she unhappy, she was drifting farther away from Islam.

Before heading out to a friend’s house on a recent Saturday, Mohamed wrapped a simple black hijab around her head, the first time she had worn a hijab since she was 14. “I’m just going to try it on,” she told her mother. “I think it looks cool.”

Her motivation to veil may place her in the minority of Egyptian women, but also illustrates the differences in beliefs surging to the surface in Egyptian society. While Mohamed’s decision came after reflecting on her religion, she speculates that many other Egyptians don the hijab without as much thought. Her internal turmoil also underscores just how complicated the underlying issues really are.

The overwhelming majority of women in Egypt wear colorful, patterned and sequined hijabs, head scarves that wrap around the head and neck but leave the face exposed. The dress is considered mandatory by many Muslims since the Quran instructs women to dress modestly.

But paralleling the rise of fundamentalist Islam across the Middle East in the last decade, a growing minority of Egyptian women are donning the black niqab, the full-face veil that leaves only an eye slit visible to passersby, along with a full-length black gown, often worn with black gloves.

After several British government officials questioned the full-face veils _ Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, said he wanted women visitors to remove them in his office _ several Egyptian universities instituted partial bans on the veils.

Helwan University, to the south of Cairo, and the influential Al Azhar University both have banned the full-face veil in women’s dormitories. Despite protests from students at both schools, administrators said the measure was necessary to prevent men and non-students from entering the dorms.

“The question of security may be a valid one, or it may be that there is something else going on here,” said Kecia Ali, a religion professor at Boston University. She pointed out that there is no religious reason why a woman in Islam should feel obliged to remain fully veiled in the presence of other women.

For her part, Mohamed called the bans “ridiculous. It’s a person’s free will.”

Pamphlets in Arabic passed out by hard-line Muslim sects in Cairo assert that women can connect with God only by wearing the niqab. Revealing even the slightest amount of skin is unacceptable, they say.

On the other extreme of the debate, a recent string of editorials in several state-run newspapers blasted even the idea of niqabs and hijabs, calling them completely unnecessary and deploring women to take them off.

“The niqab controversy is not about freedom of dress or faith, for niqab is neither an ordinary item of clothing nor a religious duty,” columnist Salama A. Salama wrote in the state-run Al Ahram newspaper on Oct. 19. “It is a statement of modesty gone astray.”

The Egyptian government has no position on whether women should wear them, leaving it the choice to the individual. But the editorials, published at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, amount to a tacit condemnation of the practice of veiling.

“I think what is complicating things is when the government does come out with these stances,” said Helen Rizzo, a sociology professor specializing in women’s studies at the American University in Cairo. The risk is that “it becomes this perception of the government being pressured by the West” to adopt that agenda.

Even if Western influence has nothing to do with it, Rizzo said, the immediate response of Muslim women may be to adhere more strongly to their convictions about veiling, a view shared by other experts.

“Historically, making hijab, or niqab for that matter, a point of contention … has always backfired,” said Ali, from Boston University. “The more cultural weight and religious weight that gets pushed onto veiling … the more entrenched it becomes as a practice.”

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Religious scholars agree that there is no edict in the Quran specifying exactly what women should do to be modest. To be sure, Western dress mixes with hijabs along every sidewalk in downtown Cairo, especially near the campus of the American University in Cairo. Stores with mannequins dressed in colorful gowns and hijabs also hawk lingerie that is slinky even by American standards.

A decidedly small percentage of Egyptian women spurn hijabs completely and wear their hair down; considerably more maintain their hijabs but dress in tight, form-fitting shirts and pants.

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Theories abound as to why exactly a growing number of women in Egypt are opting for the veil. But in a country of more than 70 million people _ the most populous in the Arab world _ generalizations are nearly impossible.

“I think it’s a combination of, for some women feeling that this is the appropriate interpretation of the (Quran’s) call for modesty, that they feel they are following the religion better,” Rizzo said. “But I wonder for some women if it is this kind of peer pressure idea. As more women put it on, do other women feel pressure to put it on?”

Mohamed agrees, and worries that not all women are putting enough spiritual thought into veiling. For her, it is much more than a head-covering, and far from being a symbol of oppression. The act of taking the veil is a way to focus her spirituality and marks a shift in her life.

“People here in Egypt make a huge deal out of veiling,” she said. “They don’t understand that it can be confusing.”

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So far Mohamed’s hijab has stuck, even at her work, an American-owned timeshare company where technically the veil is banned. She has hardly cast aside all her rebellious tendencies, though. One day recently she wore her hijab along with a T-shirt splashed with the word “Playboy” to work. And there is still a metal-studded leather cuff on her right wrist, a holdover from her dream to become a rock star in America.

“I’m still confused with the whole change that happened to me,” Mohamed said. She could see herself wearing the veil for the rest of her life, but “sometimes I think, I don’t think I’m going to be this religious.”

KRE/JL END SACHSEditors: To obtain photos of women in Cairo wearing the full-face niqab, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.