The Chronikler

Religious freedom at stake in Egypt

By Osama Diab

If you don't fast during Ramadan in Egypt, lie about it; hide it. Otherwise, you might land in jail.

26 August 2010

Tarek Elshabini, a 21-year-old engineering student, is Muslim, but only according to his personal ID card. Every year when Ramadan comes, he faces a dilemma: he doesn't fast because he's an atheist, but everyone, including police officers, expects him to fast because he was born to a Muslim family.

In order to avoid any possible clashes between Elshabini and his family due to his non-religious credos, he decided to move away for a while until they are able to live with this new reality. Most families, in what was called the most religious country in the world by Gallup, would find it bitter to swallow the fact that their son does not believe God exists.

Elshabini managed to find a job in Hurghada as a bar tender in a night club to make his getaway, and on his second day in the Red Sea tourist city, he had to go to the police station to acquire the certificate of good conduct required by his new employer. After a few hours of struggling with governmental bureaucracy, Elshabini got his clean criminal record and was out of the police station at noon.

To kill his thirst, Elshabini stopped at the kiosk across from the police station for a soda. He stood there, bought a can of soda and lit a cigarette. Elshabini had no idea that last Ramadan at least 150 people were arrested in Aswan and Hurghada, where he just arrived, for eating, drinking or/and smoking in broad daylight during Ramadan. This was new and it was the first time it had occurred in Egypt.

It wasn't the last time though. This year, two micro-bus drivers were also arrested in Cairo for the same reason. A Ramadan crackdown was also carried out by police officers in Hurghada to arrest those who eat, smoke or drink publicly before sunset.

While Elshabini was smoking his cigarette and drinking his soda, a plain-clothed officer came up to him and asked what his name was before he invited him into the police station. "At this point, I thought that I might have forgotten something inside while getting my papers, and this very nice man was going to help me get it," explains Elshabini.

The officer knew from his middle name, Ahmed, that he was a "Muslim".

In Egypt, personal ID cards state the citizen's religions. The government of Egypt only recognises the three Abrahamic faiths: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Therefore, atheists like Tarek, have to state one of these religions in their ID cards.

The officer then told Elshabini he was arrested on the charge of "public breaking of the fast" and locked him up in detention. For three hours, no one would talk to him or tell him what was happening until the officer who arrested him came back. "I kept telling him I was sorry, and that I forgot that it was Ramadan and that I was fasting; anything just to get myself out of this," says Elshabini.

Heba Morayef, a Human Right Watch researcher, explains that there is no such crime as "public breaking of the fast". "The arrest of people for smoking in public during Ramadan is illegal under both Egyptian and international law. These arrests are arbitrary in the absence of any legal provisions under Egyptian law," says Morayef.

After three hours of begging, Elshabini was finally released. "I'll believe you this time, and I'll let you off with no police report. How's that for a favor?" Elshabini says the officer told him.

Morayef also believes that these arrests seem to be occurring as a result of initiatives of individual police stations rather than a top-down policy by the ministry of interior. She believes, though, that this does not absolve the government of the responsibility for these illegal arrests. "The government must clearly issues instructions that its security officers do not have the right to arrest people who appear not to be fasting," she adds.

"Ramadan is the time of year that I would very much like to disappear from the face of the earth. Everybody is badly infected with this mass religious hysteria, and people start to interfere in other people's business," says Elshabini.

The story of Elshabini shows how Egypt's relatively secular police is becoming increasingly intolerant when it comes to freedom of religion. It also demonstrates the government's failure to acknowledge that there are people who might not believe in Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Egyptian law still does not address this issue either. Until last year, members of the Baha'i faiths had to write Muslim on their ID cards because the law does not recognise the Baha'ism as a religion. Last year, the court allowed Baha'is to choose to leave the religion field blank.

These arrests also show that freedom of religion and belief is in danger in Egypt which has always been known for its relative religious tolerance, especially in contrast with more theocratic regimes in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf countries, Sudan and Iran, but for a second year in a row, this seems to be changing, at least on an unofficial level.

"After three of the most humiliating hours in my life, I couldn't believe what was happening. At some point, I thought that this was a TV show or something; that this was a trick, but unfortunately, every part of what happened was real," says Elshabini.

However, many Egyptians are against these arrests. A facebook group called 'Egyptians from all beliefs are against the arresting of non-fasters in Ramadan' attracted some 800 members in just a few days. "Respect expected by people who fast should be based on personal choice," says Hany Freedom, the creator of the online group who chose to go by his Facebook name. "Otherwise, how would the faster know if others are considerate out of conviction or only because they are forced to."

This article first appeared in The Staggers blog of The New Statesman on 23 August 2010. Republished here with the author's permission. Read comments on this article here. ©Osama Diab. All rights reserved.

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Malta’s mash of civilisations

By Khaled Diab

Malta's complex heritage is living proof that cultures mash more than civilisations clash.

4 August 2010

Mdina, Malta's one-time capital. ©Khaled Diab

A fifth the size of Greater London, Malta is the smallest country in the European Union and one of the smallest in the world. Given its tiny proportions, it is no big surprise that Malta, which is actually geologically in Africa and less than 300 km away from Tunisia, does not register high in the consciousness of most Europeans, some of whom actually believe that Maltesers come from there.

After having spent a week on the island, I can reliably report that no aged Maltese artisans work with their young apprentices in little chocolatiers patiently passing down the secret of how to get the crunchy bit inside the chocolate ball.

Although the island is no Charlie and the Chocolate Factory wonderland, it is nonetheless a fascinating place where so many cultures have mixed and mashed that Malta has created its own rather original flavour.

Take the language. Maltese, an official language of the EU and the only Semitic language to be written in Latin script, sounds almost as if it is a dialect of Arabic, with Italian and English vocabulary thrown in. In fact, to my ears, it sometimes sounded more comprehensible than the Algerian dialect!

Given that the Arabs only ruled Malta for less than two centuries and the island is overwhelmingly Catholic, it is somewhat surprising that Arabic provides Maltese with its basic structure and an estimated 40% of its vocabulary. This is all the more impressive when you consider that Maltese is derived from Siculo-Arabic, a language that has died out in neighbouring Sicily.

Although the architecture of Malta, which has a strong Baroque character, has less of an Islamic feel about it than Sicily's, the evidence of the Arab presence lives on in a large number of place names, from the old capital, Mdina and its suburb, Rabat, to all the Marsa-this and the Marsa-that ("Marsa" means port in Arabic).

The Arab influence also survives in the cuisine and culture, including some forms of traditional Maltese music. For example, the improvised singing duels of traditional Maltese għana (derived from the Arabic for "song" and "wealth") bear a striking resemblance to the witty exchanges of poetic fire involved in traditional zajal.

This not only indicates an Arab influence but, more profoundly, reflects – as do many aspects of daily life, ancient superstitions and beliefs in the region – an underlying Mediterranean heritage predating both Christianity and Islam. In fact, given their long centuries of shared history, it could be argued that many Mediterranean countries have more in common with each other than with their coreligionists in, say, northern Europe or Arabia.

Despite Malta's obvious cultural mash, many will argue that the island is essentially European, and that the Arab and Islamic influence are the accidental leftovers of an unwelcome conquest. But this raises the tricky and thorny question of what exactly is 'European'.

If, by European, we mean Christian, then Malta probably qualifies more than most. It is not only home to one of the world's earliest Christian communities, it was also the base of the Knights Hospitaller. The knights, drawn as they were from all over Europe, have been described as the "first embryonic council of Europe", and their successful repulsion of a far larger invading Ottoman force in 1565 is the stuff of legend.

And it is this kind of standoff that people who believe in a monumental 'clash of civilisations' draw upon to justify their views. Two major failings of this theory, as I've argued before, are that it ignores the very real conflicts within individual civilisations, and it overlooks the fact that political alliances are multiple, shifting, and often cut across self-defined civilisational boundaries. This is because, although societies may sometimes come to blows over abstract principles, more often they clash over conflicting interests.

Malta's own history demonstrates this. Along with Sicily, it fell into Arab hands following an appeal for Muslim support from its Byzantine ruler in his power struggle with the Byzantine emperor, Michael II.

In addition, the clash between Catholics and Protestants has often been far more bitter than the clash between Islam and Christianity (a similar situation exists between Sunni and Shia Muslims). In Malta, Napoleon's occupation of the island was hugely unpopular because of its hostility towards Catholicism, not to mention its high taxes. Following British rule, Malta actually found common cause with other post-colonial states, such as Egypt, and became a member of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In an increasingly secular age, the suggestion that Europe is just a modern rehashing of what used to be known as 'Christendom' is not appealing or desirable to many, and they will argue that the EU is a union of values. And in terms of democracy and voter turnout, Malta is an exemplary member of the European club.

However, some traditional values that go against what we regard as fundamental freedoms in the modern age continue on the island. For example, divorce is still illegal in Malta, and the public controversy surrounding a bill to legalise it does not bode well. Abortion is also illegal in Malta, whereas, for instance, Albania has some of the most progressive abortion laws in the world.

Malta's complex and mixed heritage, and its continuing cultural and economic ties with the southern Mediterranean, made the island the most reluctant of the new member states to join the EU. Union membership remains something of a contentious issue on the island, as demonstrated by former Labour prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici's recent pronouncements on the subject.

I personally do not think that Malta should pull out of the EU. Rather, the prospect of future EU membership should be extended to other Mediterranean countries who manage to meet the necessary legal, political and economic criteria. This would not only finally lay to rest the notion that there is some kind of inherent 'clash of civilisations', it would also enable the EU and its Med neighbours to benefit from the region's young population and (renewable) energy resources.

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The bold and the brilliant

An Arab-American Miss USA may have put Muslim beauty on the western map, but let's also recall all those women of courage and talent.

It surprised me that my previous article was the most read on CiF on the day of its publication. But equipped with the wonders of hindsight, I should’ve realised that it had all the ingredients of a ripping yarn: a dastardly conspiracy (theory), beautiful but dangerous undercover (or is that uncovered?) double agents armed with sexy bombshells, and mad neo-cons hatching far-fetched plots.

Quite a number of readers found that Miss USA, Rima Fakih, dependent as she is on her looks, was not the most rousing role model for Muslim female empowerment and asked why no similar attention was accorded all those successful and inspirational Muslim women who have made inroads into what is still largely a man’s world.

So, in tribute to the many remarkable women in the Muslim world (including non-Muslims) throughout the centuries – both remembered and forgotten, loved or ridiculed – here’s a list of 10 mould-breaking women. They appear in chronological order.

1.      Mother of the faithful

Khadijah bint Khuwaylid (555-619), “Ameerat Quraysh” (the Princess of Quraysh), Mecca’s wealthiest and most powerful woman, was Muhammad’s first wife. She has the distinction of being the world’s first convert to Islam.

2.      Battle of the sexes

The battleground is one oft-forgotten theatre of the battle of the sexes. Although women have fought alongside men ever since the earliest days of Islam right down to the modern struggle for Algerian and Palestinian independence, their direct contribution to the defence of the community is regularly overlooked because it does not conform to the subdued image of the woman as wife and mother.

Muhammad’s youngest wife Aisha bint Abu Bakr (died 678) is a controversial figure, particularly in the west, because of the young age at which she appears to have been betrothed to the elderly prophet. Less well known is that she was not only a central figure in spreading Islam after his death, earning the title Mother of the Believers, but that she also led  an army into battle.

But the title of the fiercest Arab woman of all must go to Hind bint ‘Utbah - despite her demonisation and unfounded rumours of her commiting cannibalism on the battlefield - who was as daring in her opposition to Muhammad before her conversion as she was in his defence after it. 

3.      Universal woman

At 12 centuries old, the University of  al-Qarawiyyin in Fes (Morocco) is reportedly the world’s oldest academic degree-granting university in the world. This esteemed establishment was set up by Fatima al-Fihri (died 880) in 859.

But medieval Muslim women were not only patrons of academic establishments, they were also prominent scholars. According to the 12^th-century Sunni scholar Ibn Asakir, girls and women could study and earn ijazahs (academic degrees), and qualify as scholars (ulema) and teachers. He, himself, studied under 80 female teachers. In the 15^th century, the Egyptian scholar al-Sakhawi devotes an entire volume of his 12-volume of his biographical dictionary Daw al-lami – an early Who’s Who – to over a thousand female scholars.

However, things got progressively worse for women until the modern emancipation movement began in the late 19^th century. Today, female enrolment in universities is as high, or even higher, than male enrolment. However, the number of top women scientists is relatively small due to the 'glass ceiling'. Nevertheless, there are award-winning women scientists who are at the top of their field.

4.      Around the throne in 80 days

From modest beginnings as a slave of probable Turkic origin in the royal household, Shajaret al-Durr (died 1257 ), whose name means Tree of Pearls, rose to become the wife of the Ayyubid Sultan as-Salih Ayyub. When her husband died at the most inopportune moment possible – during the landing of the Seventh Crusade in Damietta on the Nile Delta – she decided to conceal his death until the successful completion of the campaign to repel the crusaders. 

Amid the political turbulence that ensued, the former slave girl was chosen by the elite slave warriors known as “Mamluks” as Egypt’s Sultana, the first and only female ruler of Egypt in Islamic times. After only 80 days as queen, she passed the throne to her new husband, but continued to rule by proxy, despite her husband’s better efforts to contain her. After she had him murdered, she was confined to a tower and then brutally murdered herself.

Shajaret al-Durr left a profound legacy on her adoptive land: she not only helped defend it against the crusaders but she also established the prosperous and dynamic Mamluk era of Egyptian history when the country underwent the unique experiment of being ruled by elite slaves.

Another prominent woman ruler and contemporary of Shajaret al-Durr – who also happened to be a former slave of Turkic origin – was Razia Sultana who sat on the throne in Delhi from 1236-1240. 

In modern times, many Muslim-majority countries – including Pakistan (Benazir Bhutto), Indonesia (Megawati Sukarnoputri), Bangladesh (Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina) and Turkey (Tansu Çiller) – have been led by women.

5.      Forgotten feminist pioneer

Hoda Sha’rawi is widely considered to be the founder of the modern feminist movement in Egypt and probably the entire Arab world. Given how she rebelled against the male order and placed women at the forefront of the struggle for Egyptian independence, she certainly deserves her place in the history books.

However, she was by no means the first, and she has plenty of predecessors who have been lost to the mists of time. Thanks to the posthumous efforts of her younger brother, the memory of one of these early 'unknown soldiers' was rescued from, quite literally, the 'no man’s land' of collective oblivion. History, after all, is not only written by the victor, but usually by men.

Malak Hifni Nassef (1886-1918) scored a number of impressive firsts in Egypt: the first woman to get a degree from a government school, the first woman to lecture publicly, and the first to publish poetry in a mainstream journal – and at the age of only 13. We know little about her life, but the list of major figures at her funeral attest to the esteem she was held in during her lifetime. And, in contrast to other early women reformers who tended to be from the upper class, Nassef was from the middle class.

Inspired by events in Egypt and the Egyptian Renaissance, women in the Levant also took up their cause. One prominent figure was May Ziade (1886-1941), a Palestinian-Lebanese Christian poet, essayist and translator. 

 6.      A mighty pen

Despite being a physician and psychiatrist by training, Nawal el-Saadawi (born 1931) describes herself as “a novelist first, a novelist second, a novelist third”. She  has, in more than 50 novels, revolutionised the treatment of Egyptian women in fiction, and wielded her pen as her mightiest weapon in the battle for female emancipation.

Her writings have covered numerous controversial feminist themes, including women’s inferior position in religion and female genital mutilation, and their author has endured imprisonment, death threats and attempts to forcibly divorce her from her husband.

Luckily for Egypt, which is in danger of seeing certain gains scored by women reversed, the fight has not died in Saadawi, despite being almost 80. “I am becoming more radical with age,” she recently told the Guardian.

 7.      Bright and constant star

Known as 'Ambassador to the stars', Fairuz is not only the national pride of Lebanon but is the most famous living singer in the Arab world. She was born with the name Nouhad Haddad into a poor Maronite Christian family in 1935, and Arabs may have been deprived of her beautiful voice had her conservative father not relented and allowed her to attend the Lebanese Conservatory, albeit with her brother as chaperon.

Her breakthrough into the big time came in 1957 and throughout the 1960s she was the “first lady of Lebanese singing”, although she was overshadowed on the Arab stage by the giant Umm Kalthoum. Widely regarded as the enchanting voice of Arab nationalism, her output has been prolific and has included hundreds of songs and musical operettas.

Throughout her long career Fairuz showed enormous courage: she refused to give private concerts to Arab leaders (for which she once got banned) and never left her country during its tumultuous civil war.

 8.      Across enemy lines

Everyone recalls, whether approvingly or critically, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s audacious trip, in 1977, to Jerusalem to talk peace at the Israeli Knesset. But he was actually beaten there by a fellow Egyptian woman, though history has condemned her to oblivion.

More than three years earlier, at a time when the only Arabs and Israelis who met were soldiers or spies, Sana Hasan, a PhD student in her mid-20s, went to Israel as the Arab world’s first, albeit unofficial and ostracised, peace envoy and probably its most unusual. Her six-week trip turned into a three-year sojourn, from 1974 to 1977, in which she seems to have met, well, just about everyone in Israel, in an attempt to understand her people’s enemy and build bridges to peace.

9.      Scholar and state-builder

When it comes to the Palestinian struggle, one should not forget Hanan Ashrawi (born 1946), who played a pivotal role in the First Intifada and subsequent peace process, where she served as the Palestinian delegations spokesperson.

She has also been elected numerous times to the Palestinian Legislative Council and established the Department of English at Birzeit University. She currently runs Miftah, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy.

10.  The right fight

Across the Arab and Muslim world, courageous women are active as human rights activists. One prominent example is Asma Jahangir (born 1952), the prominent Pakistani lawyer who has built a career defending the rights of women, children and religious minorities. 

During her long career, Jahangir has put herself in the firing line defending Muslims and Christians who have fallen foul of Pakistan’s controversial and intolerant 'Hudood' ordinance and blasphemy laws which were put in place as part of Pakistani dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s 'Islamisation programme'.

Jahangir is currently the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

This is the extended version of an article which appeared in The Guardian's Comment is Free section on 25 May 2010. Read the related debate.

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For Allah’s sake!

By Khaled Diab

Christians across the Muslim world use ‘Allah’ to refer to ‘God’, so why has this led to violence and controversy in Malaysia?

12 February 2010

Malaysia is often held up as an example of how different ethnic and religious groups can live side by side in peaceful coexistence. But this feted tolerance is being put under enormous strain and all, ostensibly, because of a word.

The word in question is ‘Allah’ and the controversy revolves around whether Malaysian Christians have a right to use it in their Bibles and liturgical services. Many Malaysian Muslims find it offensive and unacceptable that Christians use what they see as exclusively their own word for ‘God’, and a small number of extremists have taken matters into their own hands and firebombed three churches.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court has upheld the right of Christians to refer to God as Allah but the government, to its enormous discredit, is playing the populist card and is appealing the verdict, perhaps in a bid to prop up its popularity with the majority by positioning itself as some kind of ‘defender of the faith’.

The court’s decision is, of course, right, as anyone with a sense of history and a knowledge of semantics and etymology knows. After all, ‘Allah’ is simply the Arabic word for ‘God’ or ‘god’. That’s why it has always irritated me when translations of the Qur’an talk of Allah, not God, and certain western Christians claim that Allah is not the same god as the one they worship.

The word itself – which is a contraction of the Arabic al-illah (the God) – predates Islam. It was used by the Arabs to refer to the chief god of Mecca, the creator of the world and the giver of rain, who – along with his daughters al-Uzza, Manat and al-Lat – was venerated around the black stone of the Ka’aba.

With the advent of Islam, Allah became the only God, but he also acquired an additional 98 names, each referring to a different attribute of the single deity – or looked at laterally, the 99 attributes could be seen, like the Christian Trinity, as a form of light polytheism which survived the monotheistic purges.

Even under Islam, the word ‘Allah’ has not lost its general sense. For example, the beginning of the shehada, or Islamic creed, tells us that: “La illaha ila Allah”, or “There is no god but God”. The word is also used in the plural. For example, the ancient Egyptian gods are known as ‘allehet el-misriyoun el-qodama’ and Eros/Cupid is described as ‘illah el-hob’ (‘the god of love’).

For this reason, and the fact that the three main monotheistic faiths worship the same Abrahamic god (though they disagree on how they should worship ‘It’), Christians and Jews in Arab countries and other parts of the Muslim world have, for centuries, referred to God as Allah. In Egypt, for instance, Copts say “Allah mahaba” or “God is love” and I have met Christians whose name is Abdullah (Servant of God).

So, what is behind the controversy? Is it simply about an article of faith or is there more to it? Part of the problem could simply be ignorance and confusion, since Malaysian don't speak Arabic and so may not be aware of the broader uses of the word 'Allah'.

Fellow Chronikler Christian Nielsen suggests that it may have something to do with the ideas of the ‘One Malaysia’ or ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ movement, which started life as an affirmative action programme to empower the country’s indigenous populations (50% of the population is Malay and 60% are Muslim). Ethnic Indians and Chinese – many of whose forefathers were brought in by the British to work the mines and plantations or bring in professional expertise – seem still to be viewed by certain Malays, who regard them as a by-product of colonialism, with some distrust.

Though the idea of One Malaysia originally sought to forge a coherent national identity and protect the rights of all of Malaysia’s ethnic and religious groups – Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Malay, Chinese and Indian – in recent times, it has spurred growing Malay nationalism and Islamisation.

So rather than build an identity that thrives on diversity, it seems the movement is moving slowly towards exclusion and jingoism. If action is not taken soon to transform Malaysia into a land for all its citizens, the country’s famed tolerance could be threatened and the diversity that has served Malaysia so well could further fracture ethnic relations.

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Building intolerance in Switzerland

By Khaled Diab

The Swiss minaret ban doesn't mean European Muslims are persecuted, but it makes me worry for the Europe my son has been born into.

7 December 2009

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Closing the ‘hijab murder’ file

By Khaled Diab

The life sentence imposed on Marwa al-Sherbini's killer shows that European Islamophobia exists but is not institutionalised.

16 November 2009

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Covering heads and veiling poverty

Gihan Abou Zeid

In Egypt, Hijabless women are becoming a shrinking and marginalised minority who have to keep their bare heads down.

3 September 2009

Arabic version

After dressing hurriedly, I asked my daughter if my clothes were appropriate for a public occasion in a poor Cairo neighbourhood. Smiling patiently, she told me: “You look great. Now you have to leave immediately.”

As I pushed open the door of the lift on my way out of the building, I ran into my teenage neighbour who is a year, or even a few months, younger than my daughter. “Hello, Ramadan Karim,” I said to him, smiling.

He did not answer, and mumbled to himself as if he’d seen something sinful: “A’ouz billah (I seek refuge in God).” Among the 30 or so women who live in our building, only two do not cover their heads or veil their faces, my daughter and I.

Women who bare their heads have become a minority in Egypt as a wave calling on women to cover up has swept through the country. Egypt’s streets are now teeming with colourful headdresses but the black ones are casting a longer shadow.

A superficial reading of the hijab phenomenon would reveal a rise in religiosity. A deeper analysis would uncover a wide range of economic, political and social dimensions which differ from one class to the next.

The hijab has lifted a burden off the shoulders of the poorest families, where it is used not only to cover the head but also to conceal, or at least disguise, poverty. The traditional dress, the galabiya or jilbab, is available in the market for reasonable prices. In addition, thanks to its bagginess and diplomacy in dealing with the female form, the dress can be shared by the women of the family and complemented with inexpensive scarves in a broad range of colours.

The headscarf also saves on hair care, not only in terms of money but also in terms of the time spared by women who barely have the luxury to sleep between the multiple jobs and functions they must perform.

In poorer areas, the hijab also affords its wearer a certain measure of respect as a “pious woman”. This is appreciated by the local men and reassures the women. By dressing in this way, a woman is sending out a concise and elegant message that she is adhering to the commandments of her faith.

But the prevalence of the headdress in all the poorer areas and in most middle class households raises the question of whether the hijab still carries the same religious significance.

In one of Cairo’s major hotels, I met Iman, a bright young woman who served drinks there. In accordance with the norms of the tourism sector, she was wearing a short skirt and tight clothes. But as the clock struck midnight, she underwent a major transformation. Before me stood the same woman but with her hair covered and her body concealed in a far more modest dress.

Iman informed me that she was on her way home. She told me that she didn’t want to lead a two-faced existence and that she was not happy with her false appearance at work or in the neighbourhood where she lives.

But Iman, who grew up in one of Cairo’s working class districts, knows very well that she could lose a lot if she rebelled against the local mores and refused to cover her head. In order to protect herself and her family, she wears the hijab.

Meanwhile, at the hotel, she needs to safeguard her livelihood, and so removes her headscarf. And between baring and hiding their hair, women’s identities are taken away from them, until they lose them with time, and become unable to answer the simple question: why do you cover your hair?

The hijab no longer carries the same religious significance it previously possessed. In fact, it now resembles a kind of new national dress, invented against a religious backdrop. Different rival groups compete in investing in it. Some Islamic groups see in its increasing acceptance a silent vote of confidence in their social success. Domestic fashion houses see in the spread of the hijab an appreciation of their talent for designing an endless assortment of headdresses. For their part, Egyptian families are proud of their conservative daughters.

Therefore, this unofficial national dress which expresses “conformity” carries no religious significance. Today, the pious have to go a step further to stand out in not standing out by donning a baggy black over-garment which completely conceals both the hair and the body. This attire is an extreme expression of conformity with the commandments of religion.

Women who have reached this stage do not recognise the piety of their sisters who merely cover their hair and find those who go around bare-headed so alarming that they pray for their salvation.

In this dress hierarchy, the weakest are the women who bare their hair because of their shrinking ranks. Moreover, their resistance to the hijab prompts others to exert peer pressure on them, reinforcing their sense of isolation. In fact, the status of women who do not cover up has grown to resemble the ostracisation experienced by minorities.

So my silence in the face of a teenager's disapproval can be seen as the kind of prudence exercised by small minorities throughout the ages. I’m just keeping my bare head down!

Translated from the Arabic by Khaled Diab. © Gihan Abou Zeid. All rights reserved.

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The mythical European Umma

Given that only about 4% of the EU's population is Muslim, why is the fear of a coming Eurabia so strong in certain quarters?

25 August 2009

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What’s the difference between Obama and an Arab?

By Khaled Diab

John McCain has furnished compelling proof that Barack Obama is not an Arab: the Democrat is a family man.

October 2008

Just to set the record straight: Barack Obama is not an Arab. If you don’t believe me, I have it on good authority – John McCain said so. When a woman in the audience told the Republican candidate that she feared Obama because he was the scariest of all creatures, an “Arab”, the gallant McCain – who knows a thing or two about dodgy foreigners, having spent several years in captivity with them – assured her that the Democrat was nothing of the sort.

And how does he know? Because Obama is “a decent family man”.

Being an Arab myself and having lived among them for much of my life, I can confirm that McCain is not just the candidate with the most experience in foreign policy, he has also proven himself, with this penetrating insight, to be the one with the most knowledge of foreign societies.

Personally, I blame the whole sad situation on the pressures of modern life and the rat race. Family bonds are bound to break down when men are faced with the tough demands of building a career with a major multinational like al-Qaida.

How many fathers can spend quality time with their wives and children – especially when they have four of one and two dozen of the other – when they have to spend sleepless nights formulating devious and bloody plans to destroy the free world, brainstorm creative viral marketing and recruitment campaigns, and get the execution just right so as to make a killing on global financial markets?

Then, there are all the long business trips to distant places, like Tora Bora, and the gruelling but incomplete training modules, such as learning to fly but not to land, that keep many an executive up in the air indefinitely.

Besides, Arab men are too ambitious for their families’ good: they chase promotion day and night in the cut-throat business of martyrdom in the hope of gaining access to the executive club in the sky, with its 72 sexy personal assistants and rivers of gushing vintage wine. In the process, most fall by the wayside, burnt out, their nerves shot to shreds, while their families are left to pick up the pieces.

As every good conservative knows, children are led astray when there is no father figure around the house. What kind of example is an Arab role model like Osama Bin Laden setting when he walks out on his family, joins a gang and goes so AWOL that not only social services but also the CIA and US army can’t find him?

Of course, some limp-wristed liberal is bound to claim that she or he personally knows Arab men who are loving husbands and doting fathers. Well, that’s just a show put on for your benefit. Do you know what goes on behind closed doors, I ask you?

Arab Americans may take offence to McCain’s generalisation and are bound to protest that the family is the cornerstone upon which Arab society is built, and that Arab men generally take family matters very seriously. But what would they know? Self-deception and keeping up false appearances are universal Arab traits.

Yes, indeed, it must have been those delusional voices in my head that have persuaded my that my wife consider me a dedicated husband, my mum reckons I’m a loving son, and my siblings generally think that I’m a good big brother.

Come to think of it, the legions of caring Arab fathers, generous uncles, indulgent grandfathers, and strangers who make little kids laugh in child-friendly public places that I have encountered over the years must have been figments of my imagination. Of course, too many Arab fathers are a tad traditional and old-fashioned – although there are plenty of modern ones, too – but does that mean they are not decent family men? Republicans, after all, have a tendency of equating tradition with decency, and modernity with decadence.

Then again, it might be a grand conspiracy to convince the world that we Arabs are ordinary humans, too, while we quietly take over the world. Liberals, you have been warned, let your guard down against those wily Orientals at your own peril.

This column appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 16 October 2008. Read the related discussion.

This is an archive piece that was migrated to this website from Diabolic Digest

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