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Auteur : Millennia2015
Source : Political Islam Online
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Women in the Middle East are on the move, but in decidedly different directions, depending on where you look. In less than forty years, Cairo has gone from a city of Western fashion and tendency toward the secular to a city in which the majority of women wear the Hijab (head scarf) and an increasing number, particularly in poor neighborhoods, are wearing the niqab, covering their face and body. Many attribute this trend to mounting Islamic radicalism, which is often blamed on the brand of Salafism imported from Saudi Arabia. Yet, in Saudi Arabia the King has just inaugurated a new university in which women will study alongside |
their male counterparts without being forced to wear the Hijab. Thus, observers of the Middle East now find it almost impossible to generalize about changing social patterns in different communities in the region or about the causes for these transformations.
A case in point was made through a series of events that exemplified the dichotomies in the Middle East, particularly on issues surrounding the status of women. PI Online examines events in the Arabian Peninsula, viewed as the bastion of Salafism, and in Egypt, which is supposedly more liberal, that are defying the conventional wisdom and creating an intriguing mosaic.
=> Direct Link to the 4-Page PI Article http://www.politicalislam.org/embed_doc.php?ArticleID=266
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