Revealing Reveiling: Islamist Gender Ideology in Contemporary Egypt.

With all the ink that has been spilled trying to gauge the nature and reach of what are variously called "Islamist," "fundamentalist," or "revivalist" movements in contemporary Arab societies, there has been little serious attention -- outside of a very few scholarly articles -- to the ways gender permeates the belief systems of these movements, or to situate women (other than the prominent Egyptian activist Zaynab al-Ghazali) as members within them. This is all the more striking as the "Veiled Woman" is probably the central (and undifferentiated) image that stereotypically represents these movements to outsiders, certainly to outsiders in the West. That stereotype has a history, and as in the past, it serves as a central icon in the construction of an "us-them" dichotomy with continuing political significance.

Sherifa Zuhur has combined historical and sociological methods in her attempt to understand the appeal of the "moderate oppositionist" Islamist message to women. Her approach relies on the concept of self-imaging, or what Jung termed "syzygy;" she examines how women invoke and measure themselves against historical archetypes that have come to represent competing images of "the ideal woman" -- Hawwa (Eve) to 'A'isha bint Abi Bakr to Huda Sha'rawi. Zuhur examines the construction of ideal female types in the "official" discourse of the Islamists (relying especially on the works of Zaynab al-Ghazali), and alternatively in the discourse of the State, as both have evolved historically. She shows how these ideal types, so rigid in their outlines, are assumed to be malleable by the contemporary women at whom they are aimed, for these women must handle several roles simultaneously. Zuhur finds that the image of the secular, elite woman propagated in recent history by the dominant ideology is losing ground to that advanced by the Islamists. But the life circumstances of most women in Egypt do not encourage their unqualified acceptance of the Islamist image of the ideal woman. A strength of this work is its emphasis on how women negotiate and shape the very images that are presented to them, and how this has been to the benefit of the Islamists. Zuhur argues convincingly that ". . . the oppositionist message to women has gained support through its flexibility in key areas that affect women. Furthermore, women have demonstrated an elasticity in interpreting and applying the Islamist message . . . . Certain positions on gender issues have become negotiable rather than fixed . . . . " Notable among these, of course, is the issue of women working outside the home.

At the center of Zuhur's analysis are fifty Egyptian women whom she interviewed at length in Cairo in 1988, 62 percent of them "veiled" (her term; in setting out her data, Zuhur differentiates sometimes but not always between muhaggaba and munaggaba). Noting that previous studies of Islamist-oriented women have focused on university students, she emphasizes data on older women and on those outside the university context, for age and socioeconomic status are the variables that she finds most salient in determining whether women will veil. (It appears that most of the younger women she interviewed were students.) At the same time, she stresses that the usual explanations given for why women don the hijab do not explain its appeal to certain groups, notably "older women, elite women, and daughters of publicly active women." Her presentation of women's responses to questions on self-image and religiosity, and of their reactions to Islamist programs for women, makes clear the complexity of women's interactions with the foremost oppositional force in Egypt today. It also suggests many similarities between positions that are usually regarded as being poles apart.

Zuhur is careful to note that she is not trying to delineate typicality on the basis of her small sample. At times, though, she veers into generalization; it is not always clear whether general statements are based only on her sample or on other material as well, and in general the book would have benefited from more editorial attention. It is not clear, either, how she chose her sample (other than by chance meetings and contacts), or whether the process of choosing it might have affected her data and hence her conclusions. But this thoughtful book is an important addition to the growing body of scholarly literature on Islamist movements. It can also be highly recommended as a work that explodes gendered stereotypes of the Middle East found in the popular and official discourses of American society. And Zuhur herself points to one reason why such works as this may become increasingly important: As Islamist groups in Egypt have failed to make inroads on many areas on state policy, they may "increase their concentration on gender issues where they have realized substantial results."