eudaimonia & anagnorisis

I have many an update and the beginning of an explanation for the bloglessness, but first:

You would think that after living in Egypt for 10 months that naqab (the usually black veil that covers a woman’s face exposing only her eyes) would no longer phase me but it seems my time here has only mystified the idea of Islamic modesty and made my views on the whole concept more convoluted.

The rise of the Islamic chic – women who wear the veil with western clothing, or dawn multi-colored haute couture style veils with varying layers and textures – the concept of hijab alone is one that it changing and complex. Why women weae the veil for me has always been a personal decision, but living in Egypt I realize this is hardly the case in the Arab world… For some women it is a family decision or even a family requirement, for others it is simply a product of habit (“I wear the veil, because... I’ve always worn the veil…just because that’s…what we do”) for others it’s a sense of protection – without the veil they are exposed to the criticism and comments of unfamiliar men. But this last reason doesn’t sit well with me. My former flatmate made a wicked interesting comment: It seemed that she received more catcalls and undesirable comments on the streets when she was – not veiled, of course – but covered up and more or less dressed modestly than the days when she seemed straight off the streets of Brooklyn during June. She attributed this to the “normality” factor of Cairo streets, as if when she appeared like a local, she was therefore game for the harassment, but appearance as a foreigner made her, somewhat unappealing for harassers. Another friend covered street harassment from an anthropological view and noticed several shades of street harassment ranging from complementary to perverted, but in his case he noticed no difference in the women being harassed and their wearing the veild, dressing modestly, or dressing “western”. Personally, having worn a pseuo-veil since I arrived, I can’t find the science of the street folks judgment either.

The most disconcerting observation I’ve made abroad is the image of young girls, maybe seven - sometimes five, running around with finely tucked hijabs. Qur’an and the sunna of Prophet Mohammed suggests that girls wear the hijab after puberty, never earlier than the age of 9. So why? Why - I ask myself - are these small girls wearing the veil when they should be wearing play clothes, running around with their hair in the warm springtime wind being little girls, playing with other little girls and little boys? Some of these girls might not even know how to read yet, let alone understand the religious implications of the attire they are porting from the Qur’an itself. I know women who take the veil after highschool as a personal choice, and that seems to me so much worthwhile, so much more meaningful. I know others who refuse the veil on the basis that it doesn’t fit their understanding of Islam, or at least isn’t essential to it.

It is usually ground-shattering news to my male Egyptian friends when they hear that hijab is actually not required of Muslim women by Islam. It is even more ground-shattering, even to myself, to know that hijab need not even be worn in a mosque unless the wearer intends to pray. Which leads my to another disconcerting observation!

So commonly people criticize people who wear both the veil and make-up as if it is some sort of contradiction. This used to bother me…who cares if a girl wants to wear a veil and some lipstick? But the true contradiction of hijab and make-up as become more apparent to me now. We all know there is a difference between make-up and well… a LOT of make-up. I see veiled women downtown wearing a LOT of make-up: thick concealer, fake eyelashes, layers of lipstick, finely outlined eye brows, and several tones of eye shadow. Let’s take a moment and think about this: Ideally, the reason women wear the veil is so that they are dressed to pray throughout the day (since a woman is only required to cover her hair and other body parts while praying), and before Muslims pray they perform a ritual cleansing called wudu which requires the washing of the face, hands, and feet with water. Are these women washing their faces and reapplying all that make-up several times a day? I can’t believe that …but I won’t jump to conclusions. The point is, I now agree that copious amounts of make-up and the veil is indeed a contradiction. How modest is half an inch of CoverGirl?

Every woman I see wearing a veil, regardless of style, shade, or fashion, is a caricature of a misunderstood faith and an object of complete mystery to me.