Global

histories a student journal

Contesting Imperial : The Life of an Early Twentieth Century Egyptian Activist Bella Ruhl

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2021.412

Source: Global Histories, Vol. 7, No. 1 (May 2021), pp. 112-135. ISSN: 2366-780X

Copyright © 2021 Bella Ruhl

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Publisher information: ‘Global Histories: A Student Journal’ is an open-access bi-annual journal founded in 2015 by students of the M.A. program Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. ‘Global Histories’ is published by an editorial board of Global History students in association with the Freie Universität Berlin.

Freie Universität Berlin Global Histories: A Student Journal Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut Koserstraße 20 14195 Berlin

Contact information: For more information, please consult our website www.globalhistories.com or contact the editor at: [email protected]. Contesting Imperial Feminisms: The Life of an Early Twentieth Century Egyptian Activist

by BELLA RUHL

112 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h ABSTRACT

| In “Contesting Imperial Feminisms: The Life of an Early C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F Twentieth Century Egyptian Activist,” I make the argument that first-wave Egyptian was inextricably bound to nationalist discourses, and was both produced whole-cloth and adapted from European models by Egyptian activists in response to changing economic and political conditions. Using the life and political work of Huda Sha'arawi, a women’s rights activist and nationalist who lived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I complicate the euro-centric view that feminism in was the result of western intervention and was uncritically adopted by colonized women. Instead I try to draw attention to the ways in which Sha'arawi and her comrades formulated a feminism predicated on decolonial liberation and indigenous values, while navigating the political realities of British colonialism and industrialized modernity. A microhistorical study with far-reaching implications, this article analyzes Sha'arawi’s rhetoric and actions, including her performative political unveiling, to gain a deeper understanding of the political contributions of early twentieth century Egyptian feminism. My objective is to return some agency to intersectional actors whose politics have been unjustly framed within the historiography as derivative of (white, European) feminist and (patriarchal) nationalist frameworks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bella Ruhl is a historical researcher and a student in the MA Global History at Freie Universität Berlin. Her interests include gender and postcolonial history, material culture, and archival studies.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 113 I. INTRODUCTION oppressive gender-segregated culture of the Islamic In support of her husband’s is a component of Orientalism—a declaration of retribution against system of representation that the perpetrators of the September systematically depicts Eastern culture 11 attacks in New York City, then- as hyper-sexualized, violent, and First Lady of the Laura primitive.3 The particular gendered Bush made a speech on live radio. malignment of the world C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | Framing the invasion of Afghanistan established a tradition of justifying

as a protection of human rights, colonial interventions into the cultural she claimed that “[t]he fight against practices of Middle Eastern Muslims 4 B e l a R u h terrorism is also a fight for the as a necessary humanitarian act. A rights and dignity of women.”1 The potent example lies in the fact that implication of this sentence, and the the British controller-general Lord perspective it articulates, have been Cromwell, who acted as the head analyzed in depth by Islamic feminist colonial agent in late nineteenth scholars in the intervening years. The century Egypt, “opposed feminism most notable example was an article in...England, [yet] espoused in published by the anthropologist and the colonial context a rhetoric of theorist Lila Abu-Lughod in 2002, feminism that attacked Egyptian men where she posed the question, for upholding practices that degraded “Do Muslim Women Really Need their women.”5 The effects of this Saving?”2 In her sharply articulated particular mobilization have had a analysis, Abu-Lughod situated Bush’s lasting negative impact on the social seemingly humanitarian rhetoric perception of women’s activism within a long history of feminist within the Middle East. As historian discourse mobilized towards imperial and theorist explains, domination in the Middle East. the use of feminism by colonizers to The idea that it is in the best enforce hegemonic cultural norms interest of Arab women to be rescued and undermine indigenous social by a white savior from the reputedly structures “has...imparted to feminism in non-Western societies the taint of having served as an instrument of 6 1 Laura Bush, “Radio Address by colonial domination.” Mrs. Bush,” The White House Radio Address Archives, November 17, 2001, https://georgewbush- 3 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New whitehouse.archives.gov/news/ York: Pantheon Books, 1978). releases/2001/11/20011117.html. 4 Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women 2 Lila Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Need Saving?,” 785. Really Need Saving? Anthropological 5 Fadwa El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Fashion Theory 3, no. 1 (1999): 67, Its Others,” American Anthropologist DOI: 10.2752/136270499779165626. 104, no. 3 (September 2002), https:// 6 Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in www.jstor.org/stable/3567256. (New Haven, CT: Yale University

114 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h Historically, it was not only framed women in terms of nationalist white Westerners who engaged motherhood, rather than as equals to

| with discourses that framed men. C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F Eastern “backwardness” in gender Today a radical effort is relations and societal organization being made among Middle Eastern in contrast to the “progressive” feminists to formulate an indigenous West. Middle Easterners with a stake articulation of women’s rights and in the hegemonic colonial project protections, grounded not in the participated in this endeavour post-Enlightenment ideologies of as well. The upper middle class Western , but in the particular Egyptian social reformer Qasim cultural traditions and beliefs of the Amin, for example, wrote a book southern and eastern Mediterranean in 1899 entitled The Liberation and surrounding regions. Islamic of Women (Tahrir al mara’a) that Feminism, which seeks to translate, sparked controversy in Egypt over interrogate, and reinterpret the veiling practices and segregation. holy Islamic texts apart from the The book criticized Egyptian familial influence of patriarchal norms, is structures and, in particular, the one such intellectual initiative. Leila system of segregation as contributing Ahmed and other scholars of Middle to its economic “backwardness” Eastern women’s history, such as in comparison to Europe. In his Fatima Mernessi, have identified effort to Europeanize Arab culture, historical periods in which women Amin framed the veil as “a huge enjoyed relative autonomy and legal barrier between women and their protection.8 While there is no doubt elevation, and consequently a that has played just as barrier between the nation and its dominant a role in social formation advancement.”7 Instead of seeking and the regulation of reproduction in women’s liberation for the sake the Middle East as in Europe, there of equality and opportunity for is an effort underway to define the women, he drew upon imperialist deconstruction or transformation modernization discourses, which classified civilizations according to a racialized hierarchy and a linear 8 For two examples, see Fatima model of development. Grounded Mernissi, The Forgotten Queens in the epistemologically violent of Islam, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland discourses of scientific rationality, (Minneapolis, MN: University of the earliest calls for women’s rights Minnesota Press, 1993); and Huda were fundamentally misogynistic and Lutfi, “Manners and Customs of Fourteenth-Century Cairene Women: Female Anarchy versus Male Sharʹi Order in Muslim Prescriptive Press, 1992), 167. Treatises,” in Women in Middle 7 , Tahrir Al Mara’a. Eastern History, ed. Nikki Keddie and (1899) 45, cited in Guindi, “Veiling Beth Baron (New Haven, CT: Yale Resistance”, 61. University Press, 1991), 99-121.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 115 of these systems as a response feminist activism, strategies, and to actual locations, situations, and principles were one resource to historical contexts, rather than as a which Middle Eastern women’s legacy of colonial intervention. rights activists looked for inspiration, In the early twentieth century, they were also nonetheless however, this approach was in its “committed to constructing an infancy. It was not until the 1980s that indigenous movement that would postcolonial theory and second-wave be both modern and authentic.”11 C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | feminism combined to produce the Rapidly changing social and

discursive resources foundational economic conditions throughout the to its ascendancy. That is not to say nineteenth and twentieth centuries

B e l a R u h that all aspects of Middle Eastern autonomously raised questions and women’s rights activism before produced solutions rooted in local the late twentieth century were beliefs and values. intrinsically foreign, colonialist, and In order to gain a better formulated with little regard to the understanding of the ways in which actualities of women’s lives. Indeed, Middle Eastern women in the early women’s rights discourses were twentieth century engaged with highly contested, adapted, and feminist discourses and responded to rejected by indigenous feminists from the increased pressures on traditional the beginning. Even before Qasim gender systems, I undertake here Amin published his call for women’s a contextualized microhistorical education, for example, salons, analysis of an individual woman – the literary correspondence, and small- Egyptian activist Huda Sha’arawi. scale publications were exchanged As a member of the privileged among growing circles of educated elite classes of , Sha’arawi’s middle- and upper-class Egyptian experience was by no means women.9 These platforms functioned representative. Her publications, as consciousness-raising initiatives, however, offer a great deal of allowing women to critically historical insight into the channels analyze their position in relation along which feminist ideas emerged to social structures and dominant and circulated, and the ways in discourses.10 While European which these ideas were integrated and reformulated within the particular context of local, national, 9 Beth Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven, CT: Yale University vol14/iss2/5. Press, 1994), 188. 11 Mary Ann Fay, “Introduction,” Journal 10 Nabila Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 of Middle East Women’s Studies Egyptian Revolution: From Feminist Special Issue: Early Twentieth- Awakening to Nationalist Political Century Middle Eastern Feminisms, Activism,” Journal of International Nationalisms, and Transnationalisms Women’s Studies 14, no. 2 (March 4, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 5, doi:10.2979/ 2013): 40, https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/ mew.2008.4.1.1.

116 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h and regional culture and politics. II. A TELLING EXAMPLE Sha’arawi’s position as a leader in

| the struggle for women’s rights under The principal source on C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F the British imperial protectorate and Sha’arawi’s life is a memoir that the newly formed Egyptian nation, as she wrote in her later years, which well as her reputation as a relatively was translated and published liberal, Westernized figure, make posthumously by the American her an interesting starting point in historian Margot Badran in 1987. seeking to make sense of these As part of her editing process, dialectal conduits. Her life also offers Badran arranged and abridged insight into the lives and ideas of her Sha’arawi’s manuscript, included more radical peers. photographs alongside the text, and Through an analysis of provided contextual information and Sha’arawi’s published writings, it is explanations which make the text possible to gain an understanding more accessible to a Western reader. of early twentieth century feminist Reading along the grain of these at activism as it emerged in response to times heavy-handed interventions colonial and industrializing conditions, requires a multilayered assessment global discourses, and the individual of the text that acknowledged experiences of influential figures. The its position as a historiographical sources reveal sites of resistance to interjection into the late twentieth the imposition of European hegemony, century debate over women’s history even among the more Western- in the Middle East. At the same oriented and socially sequestered, time, it is necessary to approach such as the elite Sha’arawi. Two the work as a detailed first-person of these sites, namely nationalist account of Sha’arawi’s childhood and feminisms and politicized veiling a rhetorical document – a didactic practices, offer considerable insight and pathos-heavy articulation into the dialectic exchange between of feminist principles, written by indigenous and hegemonic modalities. Sha’arawi as a mature woman in her It becomes clear through a close fifties. The memoir describes her reading of Sha’arawi’s rhetorical work childhood within the , as part that the formulation of early twentieth of the last generation to be raised century Middle Eastern feminism was in this spatial and cultural context, critical, contestory, and anticolonial in and the particular observations its engagement with liberatory politics, and experiences which shaped her and was actively resistant to imperialist feminist consciousness. She very mobilizations of feminist discourses. intentionally highlights the particular Nonetheless, Middle Eastern feminists’ inequalities and limitations which experiences were situated within a marked her gendered experience, colonial context, and they responded including her more limited access to to their surroundings as pragmatic education and her early marriage. political strategists. Although she intended to publish her

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 117 memoir for an Egyptian audience, it memoirs describe a childhood fixated was left incomplete at the time of her on the closed internal relations death. within her home; her competitive Born in 1879 to a wealthy relationship with her brother, her family in Cairo, Sha’arawi’s childhood education, and her relationships world was circumscribed by with family friends, many of them architectural and social constraints, foreigners, dominate recollections yet characterized by a rich social of her youth. Unlike many young

C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F 12 | and intellectual exchange. Her women at the time, Sha’arawi was

father was a regional governor in encouraged to memorize the Quran the rural province of Mina, where he alongside her brother, a feat she

B e l a R u h amassed so much land and political accomplished at the age of nine. influence that he was referred Beyond this, however, she was to as “the king of upper Egypt.”13 not encouraged to venture into Like many increasingly powerful knowledge of Arabic, and despite her provincial administrators, he set up pleas to the eunuch who oversaw a household in the Egyptian capital her care and education within the as part of an influx of families to harem, Said Agha did not permit her Cairo and .14 At the same to continue to study the language. time, the modernization program In a typical metareferential passage, initiated by Ali in which returns the reader to an the early nineteenth century was awareness of the text’s rhetorical encouraging rural to urban migration, purpose, Sha’arawi recollects “hating and fostering a growing class of being a girl because it kept [her] white-collar bureaucrats and an from the education [she] sought.”15 increasingly complex administrative Characterizing her privileged mechanism. As in other regions childhood from a distance of years, worldwide, these changes created Sha’arawi emphasized the feelings unprecedented opportunities for of deprivation that arose from the mobility, destabilizing deeply rooted limitations placed on her education, social systems. in an effort to promote equal access To a young Sha’arawi, to education for girls and women. growing up within the vestigial She grounded this argument not household structure of the Ottoman in colonialist civilizational terms, as Empire, these shifts were peripheral Amin had, but rather by drawing on to the realities of daily life. Her

15 Huda Shaarawi, Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist 12 Sania Sharawi Lanfranchi, Casting off (New York: The Feminist Press at the the Veil: The Life of Huda Shaarawi, City University of New York, 1986), Egypt’s First Feminist (London: I. B. 40. She further expresses an early Tauris, 2012), 1. awareness that “being a female 13 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 1. became a barrier between [her] and 14 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 8. the freedom for which [she] yearned.”

118 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h her own lived experiences, framing neglect caused by her husband’s the debate in terms of the emotional previous relationship with a

| and internal experiences of a young concubine, to draw attention to C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F woman kept from her desire to the interpersonal challenges that learn.16 her unwanted marriage had on her Similarly, Sha’arawi mobilises early life. When Sha’arawi’s husband her biographical experiences with returned to his first wife after just marriage to support her mature two years, however, the teenager political position. Married at age was elated to have the opportunity thirteen to a cousin twenty-six to continue her life and education years her senior in order to retain undisturbed.17 familial control of her extensive Instead of Arabic, Sha’arawi inheritance, Sha’arawi became a studied French, piano, and other strong advocate for a legally codified Europeanized skills considered minimum marriage age for women necessary for a girl of her social and for limitations on polygyny. Her class. Her companions were often description of her lavish wedding Europeans, and these women also and spousal responsibilities are proved influential on her feminist contrasted with her childlike thought as she grew. Among daydreams, love of reading, and Sha’arawi’s friends and ideological playful activities, painting a dissonant influences was Eugénie Le Brun, picture of her youth. Rather than a Frenchwoman who had married making the claim that such cultural an Egyptian politician. Le Brun’s practices were “backward” or transnational experiences led her indicative of a societal deprivation, to write two books on the subject as Orientalist commentators of women in Egyptian culture, for a argued, Sha’arawi grounded her predominantly Western audience. desire for social change in her lived The first of these texts, entitled experiences. She describes in detail Harem et les musulmanes (The her feelings of marginalization and Harem and Muslim Women) was written “to describe the life of the Egyptian woman, as it really is, to enlighten Europeans.”18 Her aim in 16 To interpret her position as a proponent of education as an writing it was to counter Orientalist imported feminist principle is to presuppositions about the harem render invisible the rich history of and the women among Europeans, Islamic and Egyptian scholarship and she was able to bring many and knowledge production. Though European readers to the conclusion these sectors had generally been inaccessible to women, there that “ seemed not unlike was also a precedent of female intellectuals and itinerary figures embedded in Egyptian, Islamic, and Ottoman traditions. See Mernessi, The 17 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 21. Forgotten Queens of Islam. 18 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 80.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 119 themselves.”19 Despite this step the conversation away from one- towards cross-cultural understanding, dimensional, Orientalist depictions. some among Le Brun’s female Le Brun’s more nuanced perspective readership in Egypt felt that she left a lasting impression on Sha’arawi was criticizing their condition, and and was far more attractive to the expressed this to her frankly.20 young activist than the views of other Well-aware that through Western European women she encountered, eyes they appeared powerless and who bought fully into discourses C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | exploited, Egyptian women resisted which patronized and othered Middle

this characterization, asserting their Eastern women.23 active role within the household and At the weekly salon for

B e l a R u h their extensive reach into matters women which Le Brun hosted in of social and political relevance. the mid-1890s, Sha’arawi had the Their critical awareness of the ways opportunity to discuss a variety of in which they and their culture topics with both European and Arab was represented thus reveals a women, including social practices contesting relationship between such as veiling and seclusion.24 Egyptian women and European It was in this context that she feminist discourse, even if the latter first encountered European anti- was well-meaning. veiling rhetoric. A guest in the Despite these criticisms, Le salon expressed the Orientalist Brun can be understood as having perspective that “Egyptian women had a relatively nuanced view which could camouflage disreputable contradicted many of the colonialist deeds behind a mask,” and that the discourses on women that her fellow behaviour of European women was Europeans espoused. She was a better because their faces were convert to Islam, and defended the uncovered.25 Le Brun defended in feminist terms, arguing Sha’arawi against this malignment, that “Islam...has granted women but later confessed to her younger greater justice than previous friend that “although she admired .”21 This claim extended to the dress of Egyptian women, Islamic law, which she identified as she thought the veil stood in the ultimately just, though corrupted by way of their advancement.”26 The patriarchal tradition.22 While it is clear precise impacts of these statements that she was in no way producing a radical alternative to colonial feminist discourses, it also appears 23 Leila Ahmed, “Between Two that she was invested in moving Worlds: The Formation of a Turn- of-the-Century Egyptian Feminist,” in Life/Lines: Theorising Women’s Autobiography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell 19 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 80. University Press, 1988), 171. 20 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 80. 24 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 78. 21 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 81. 25 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 78. 22 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 81. 26 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 80.

120 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h on Sha’arawi’s ideology was not these needs with an immutable immediately clear, but she continued sense of decorum grounded in

| to cover her face in public for more Islamic morality. The veil (then and C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F than a decade after, indicating that still a potent political symbol in her later decision to unveil publicly struggles over female agency and was influenced by far more complex national identity) was a key site factors than solely Orientalist rhetoric. of Sha’arawi’s political action. In a Despite the fact that many profile of Sha’arawi written in 1927 of her friends were European, her for the American feminist periodical social language was interspersed The Woman Citizen, journalist Anne with French loan words, and the Hard made a point of contrasting interior decor of her home was “a the Egyptian’s modest and high- melange of oriental and western necked dress with the décolletage of styles,” Sha’arawi recounted many her European guests.30 The picture instances of staunch resistance accompanying the profile depicted to the Westernizing forces which Sha’arawi in a chic head covering surrounded her.27 One such instance and long-sleeved black gown. Her from a similar period of time involved adherence to Egyptian standards of an acquaintance inviting her to tea in moral rectitude was a reputation she a commercial shop “which accorded leveraged throughout her life, both neither with [her] preferences nor as part of her cultural identity and as [Egyptian] customary behavior” as the a form of nationalist activism against tea shop was patronized by both men the encroachment of European and women.28 She further refused to cultural hegemony. attend the same woman’s mixed-sex parties as a married woman attending without her husband.29 This selective III. NATIONALISM AS FEMINISM and critical adoption of Westernizing mores remained a theme throughout Sha’arawi’s nationalist Sha’arawi’s life. activism extended far beyond Clothing, in particular, proved her public appearance, however. demonstrative of this resistant stance. Participation in the nationalist Though Sha’arawi loved European movement, precipitated by her styles and, as a leading lady of Egypt, husband’s involvement in the found it her duty to be consistently in newly formed Wafd party, became the height of fashion, she balanced

30 Anne Hard, “Madame Hoda 27 Margot Badran, “Introduction,” in Charaoui: A Modern Woman of Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egypt,” The Woman Citizen. 12, no. Egyptian Feminist; El Guindi, “Veiling 4 (September 1927). https://link.gale. Resistance,” 59. com/apps/doc/EHWNAL819703162/ 28 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 79. NCCO?u=uarizona_ 29 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 79. main&sid=NCCO&xid=3dae96b5.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 121 Sha’arawi’s first major experience historian Mary Ann Fay remarked with political activism. Among that “[t]he women’s groups that Egyptian feminists it was widely emerged in the early twentieth accepted that before women could century were liberal reformist in their assert their political agency within goals and strategies, that is, they an Egyptian state, such a state had were not revolutionary,”32 she entirely to be formed. Nationalism, itself a neglected the fact that these women contested concept with origins in the were revolutionaries. They were C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | West, became a “vehicle for feminist actively involved as participants in

demands,” in that it was understood the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, and as the only viable avenue towards their institutionally-aligned advocacy

B e l a R u h political autonomy and potential was premised on the fight for the political agency.31 formation of new national institutions. For colonized women, Women’s rights movements the feminist fight was not against grounded in nationalist liberation their own men, but alongside sought to break away from colonial them, against Western oppression. imperatives and establish new and Imperialist feminisms sought to insert independent political structures in a white savior between the colonized which feminist utopian ideals could man and woman, working on the be manifested. premise that Islam was inherently Though both feminism and more sexist than Christianity, and that nationalism had ideological ties it was not possible for communities to the oppressor, nationalism as in the Global South to negotiate feminism was intrinsically resistant gender and modernity legibly within to imperialist discourses. It stood an indigenous cultural framework. By in opposition to colonial forces, allying with their countrymen against which enabled a highly patriarchal Western oppression, colonized order in which colonized men were women exerted their political power incentivised to utilize European and demanded enfranchisement on patriarchal tools to contribute to their own terms, not on terms set the further oppression of colonized by white Western oppressors. This women.33 Unfortunately, despite came with the understanding that women’s active involvement in many alongside liberation from colonial global nationalist and anti-imperialist control existed the potential for movements, they were frequently left women’s rights to be encoded in new out of newly established postcolonial government systems. It was through governments.34 Nevertheless, an the anticolonial struggle that Egyptian women asserted their political voice and demanded autonomy. When 32 Fay, “Introduction,” 2. 33 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 Egyptian Revolution,” 43. 31 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 34 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 Egyptian Revolution,” 39. Egyptian Revolution,” 40.

122 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h understanding of the connections both a state and political agency in that women in Egypt made between relation to that state. Among leaders

| their oppression as colonized of the nationalist movement, the C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F subjects and their oppression as action was praised for its symbolic women marks a critical point of potency. In the context of the anti- departure from the hegemonic norms imperialist revolution, “[w]omen’s of imperialist feminisms. unprecedented acts were welcomed More immediately, however, and justified by national needs.”37 the nationalist movement gave According to historian Egyptian women an opportunity to Fadwa El Guindi, “Egyptian women, establish themselves as political Muslim and Christian, [positioned] agents with influence and a direct their liberation vis-à-vis the relationship to the state. In 1919, simultaneously rising nationalism following the rejection of the Wafdist that grew up in response to colonial petition for national liberation intervention.”38 The two movements from the British, Sha’arawi and her were inextricably linked in both compatriots organized a march ideological and organizational terms. in protest of the occupation.35 Unable to participate alongside her The “Ladies March”, as it came to husband in the nationalist Wafd be referred to in the press, was party, Sha’arawi founded a women’s an unprecedented expression of auxiliary, the Wafdist Women’s women’s collective political agency Central Committee, in 1920.39 Like the in modern Egypt, and marked an party itself, the WWCC was open to interesting turn in self-conception people of all faiths and social classes. among its proponents. Women Under Sha’arawi’s leadership, from all social classes and walks of the Committee “consciously set life participated, from elite harem out to be if anything even more women in cars to unveiled prostitutes comprehensive” in its diverse marching on foot.36 In demonstrating participation than the Nationalist publicly for an Egyptian state, these party was.40 This diversity translated women were declaring a political to the makeup of the Egyptian influence on the governing body, Feminist Union, which Sha’arawi as citizens and as individuals formed in 1923 as a feminist splinter with bearing beyond that of their organization of the WWCC. The husbands and households. The overlapping membership of the march was, in short, both a nationalist two organizations underscores and feminist demonstration, as the intrinsic interrelation between women asserted their demands for nationalism and feminist activism

35 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 37 Shaarawi, Harem Years, 112. Egyptian Revolution,” 45. 38 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 60. 36 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 39 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 73. Egyptian Revolution,” 46. 40 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 74.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 123 that characterized women’s priorities, and translated to activism early twentieth century political in the form of petitions, protests, and engagement in Egypt, as in other editorial journalism. parts of the colonized world.41 The EFU also remained Established in preparation engaged in the nationalist fight, for the 1923 conference of the seeing political sovereignty as a International Women Suffrage precondition for the furthering of Association in Rome, the EFU their agenda. The relevance of this C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | selectively and critically incorporated connection became even more

Western strategies into its agenda apparent when it was recognized according to a discriminant that “the British [had] sought to limit

B e l a R u h ideological framework. Feminist the activity of Egyptians by actually Hanifa Khuri, “in recounting the closing down schools,” stinting the work of the Egyptian Feminist possibility of free public education for Union, asserted that Huda Sha’arawi girls, and putting new hurdles in the had always urged the adoption of path of activists.44 In fact, as Ahmed European customs ‘that are suitable points out, “[t]he British occupation for Muslims’ and the rejection of in fact retarded women’s education those that are ‘reprehensible.’”42 in a number of ways.”45 Once Reflecting principles “previously again, the struggle against British formulated by ,” imperialism was synonymous with the EFU defined its goals as “social, advocacy for women’s rights, and political, legal and moral equality feminist nationalism marked a site of with men,...the right to higher resistance to imperialist interventions. education for girls, [the prohibition Feminists campaigning on of] polygamy and divorce without both fronts were quick to point out the woman’s consent, [an increase the ways in which colonialism and to] the age for marriage to sixteen, the economic developments of the and [the promotion of] public health nineteenth and twentieth centuries and hygiene in Egypt.”43 Of these, brought changes which negatively education and marriage reform affected women’s rights. Middle- emerged as the most immediate class feminist Nabawiya Musa, in her address to the International Women Suffrage Alliance in 1923, made it 41 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 very clear that a historical precedent Egyptian Revolution,” 40. for existed within the 42 Charlotte Weber, “Between Islamic Middle East that equaled or Nationalism and Feminism: The surpassed that of Western Europe.46 Eastern Women’s Congresses of 1930 and 1932,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 4, no. 1 (Winter 2008): 98, https://www.jstor.org/ 44 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 123. stable/10.2979/mew.2008.4.1.83. 45 Ahmed, “Between Two Worlds,” 157. 43 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 104- 46 International Women’s Suffrage 105. Alliance, Report of the Ninth

124 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h Yet foreign intervention, particularly and nationalist agitation remained the economic and social influence of rhetorically and practically tied to

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Britain and France, had imposed a the advancement of women’s rights C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F specific, Western-oriented version of and political agency within the new modernity on the developing state. state. In 1924, as part of a further Economic and religious suppression, push to dislodge British intervention along with the suppression of in the Egyptian economy, Sha’arawi education, had had lasting effects, launched a nationalist boycott of and were inextricable from women’s British goods, patterned off the rights issues and the agenda of the nonviolent resistance movement EFU. Just as he had cut budgets for in India.48 Since women in Egypt, education and specifically limited as elsewhere, were the primary the education of girls and women, consumers for their households, the British controller-general Lord a strike against British economic Cromer “had actively discouraged hegemony became simultaneously industry in Egypt” in order to maintain an exercise of Egyptian women’s a trade imbalance and “preserve political and economic power.49 Egypt as a market” for processed Such expressions of British goods.47 women’s political agency marked the Grounded in the economic nationalist struggle as a turning point principle of mercantilism, and in the women’s rights movement prototyped in British India, this in Egypt which effectively made it strategic obstruction of economic a public political movement, rather development established imperial than a cultural debate taking place domains as a constant supply of raw privately in and literary materials and a market for finished circles. It also meant that a coalition products. This had had a massively was formed of women from diverse detrimental impact on the Egyptian backgrounds, who were involved in economy and on development, both nationalist and feminist activism. which had stagnated since British This coalition spanned generations, officials, following the Urabi Revolt classes, and religious faiths, and of 1879, halted Muhammad Ali’s found common ground in its hopes industrialization plan. Production for an Egyptian nation designed to and consumption remained critical facilitate and protect the needs of arenas in the anticolonial struggle, women. Emphasis was placed on institutional reform, and the diversity of the movement required a certain Congress: Rome, Italy, May 12th inclusivity of language. to 19th 1923 (Dresden, Saxony: B. G. Teubner, 1923, accessed via This became particularly Alexander Street “Women and Social apparent in the issue of secularism. Movements, International” database), 170. (hereafter IWSA, Report of the Ninth Congress). 48 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 113. 47 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 123. 49 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 114.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 125 For Ahmed, “[t]he dominant voice of the International Women Suffrage feminism,” which she equates with Association in 1923. The flag Sha’arawi, was secular in nature, consisted of a “white crescent and and, by extension, the product crosses against a green background, of European cultural imperialism replacing the stars of the national (secularist humanism being the flag,” symbolizing the unity of underlying ideology on which Christians and Muslims in pursuit European feminism was based).50 of the nationalist cause.53 While C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | An alternative interpretation of Sha’arawi was confessionally Muslim,

the relative absence of religious her political rhetoric was largely appeals in the publications of free of appeals to Islamic thought or

B e l a R u h the Egyptian spirituality. This was likely as much a mainstream, however, is taking into result of the multireligious makeup account the diversity and plurality of her audience and fellow activists of the movement itself. Egypt in and a desire to appeal to a large the early twentieth century was a constituency as it was an interest in religiously diverse region, which secularism. had been incorporated repeatedly Despite her strategic into multiethnic land-based empires. rhetorical neutrality when addressing In 1919 the region was inhabited a mixed-faith audience, the by indigenous, Arabic, and Turco- nationalist-feminist vision Sha’arawi Circassian Muslims; Coptic and articulated was firmly grounded in European Christians; and a small but Arab and Islamic tradition. According politically active and long-established to her cousin and biographer, urban Jewish population.51 Sania Sharawi Lafrancha, the Among the earliest and most activist defended both cultural and sustaining participants of both the religious Islam, as well as Islamic nationalist and feminist movements law. These assertions are affirmed in Egypt were Coptic Christians.52 by archival speeches and articles One concrete example of this which Sha’arawi published in alliance is the flag flown at the 1919 l’Egyptienne, the francophone journal women’s march and displayed by of the EFU.54 In these sources she is the delegation to the conference of recorded arguing in support of the implementation of Islamic law (rather than a law code based on European 50 Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, models) in the new Egyptian state, 156. seeing the Sharia, the corpus of 51 The Jewish population of Egypt was Islamic religious law, as the only almost completely eradicated in the second half of the twentieth century acceptable basis for productive legal as a result of deportations and and civil reform in Arab-majority popular hostility in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. 52 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 53 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 95. Egyptian Revolution,” 46. 54 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 102.

126 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h nations. In a 1944 speech to the Arab the level of the whole country” Feminist Conference, for example, through women’s education and

57 | in support of a bourgeoning pan- a modernization of Islamic law. C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F Arab feminist movement, Sha’arawi The pervasiveness of this type demanded that Arab women have of imperialist rhetoric, found “restored her political rights, rights mixed into much of the public granted to her by the Sharia” and literature produced by colonial and by the Quran.55 Framing religious anticolonial agents alike, makes it texts in terms of their utilization for nearly impossible to untangle the the modern state, she pointed to “indigenous” from the “imperialist.” It the fact that “Islam [grants women] reaffirms the impossibility of a clean the right to vote for the ruler and distinction between the two in the has allowed [them] to give opinions conceptual history of anti- and post- on questions of jurisprudence and colonialism. Despite attempts to religion.”56 These claims illustrate return agency and generativity to the her advocacy for a reinterpretation rhetoric of colonized peoples, there of Islam that returned to the original is no way to fully escape the fact that sources to address the needs of the the discursive field in which these present, a perspective resonant with debates took place was already the aims of the marked by the violent epistemologies movement, or Salafism, which had of imperialism, articulated with a emerged in the previous century. In vocabulary circumscribed by the framing both her anti-imperialist and oppressor. feminist points, Sha’arawi drew on Egyptian traditions and genealogies, articulating a feminism which was not IV. DISCOURSES OF THE VEIL simply imported, but critical, globally informed, and locally situated. The issue at hand–that is, Yet Sha’arawi’s politics the contested nature of feminist remained marked by discursive discourse in the colonial context relations of inequality. It would be –is a pertinent illustration of the remiss to neglect the fact that her complexity of this phenomenon speeches leveraged the colonial of discursive inequality. Because terminology of “backwardness” industrial development in Egypt and expressed a desire to “[raise] occurred in tandem with colonial intervention, distinguishing which calls for changes in women’s status 55 Huda Shaarawi, “The Opening were caused by practical necessity in Speech,” in Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, response to economic conditions and ed. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke which were imported from Europe (Indianapolis, IL: Indiana University Press, 1990), 338. 56 Shaarawi, “The Opening Speech,” 338. 57 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 102.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 127 as a product of cultural hegemony is El Guindi summarizes rife with difficulty. This is, however, Ahmed’s thesis succinctly: “[h]ad an important distinction, and one Nasif lived longer...it is very likely that that has a critical bearing on present two parallel (organized) feminisms debates. It is most clearly elucidated would have developed—one in the following passage from Women grounded in Arabo-Islamic culture, in Islam: the other in European culture and feminism.”59 Instead, in Ahmed’s C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | “The dominant voice of telling, the Arab-Islamic strand

feminism, which affiliated remained dormant after Nasssef’s itself, albeit discreetly, with premature death, while the liberal

B e l a R u h the westernizing, secularizing Westernized strand dominated tendencies of society...assured the subsequent half-century. The the desirability of progress postcolonial turn in feminism, she towards western-style societies. claims, laid the groundwork for vital The alternative...searched new intellectual approaches and for a way to articulate female a return to indigenous feminisms. subjectivity and affirmation Writing in the late 1990s, Ahmed within a native, vernacular, had a strong stake in locating and Islamic discourse- typically uplifting indigenous feminisms, but in terms of a general social, in her effort to legitimize the budding cultural, and religious field, she creates an overly binary renovation.”58 and un-nuanced distinction. More strikingly, she fails to acknowledge In this passage, Ahmed the ways in which Sha’arawi utilized attempts to draw a clear line between and adapted extant discourses the imported and the indigenous, to accomplish tangible assets for claiming that twentieth-century Egyptian women, including greater could be empirically access to education and healthcare. divided into camps which aligned Her assertion fails to take into themselves with each tendency. In account the complicated navigation subsequent paragraphs, she explicitly of colonized power structures that associates Sha’arawi with the former characterized colonized Egypt and group, and compares her ideology overdetermined the vectors of extensively with the perspectives of possible political action and utopian a lesser-known contemporary, Malak ideology available to early twentieth Hifni Nassef, who, despite dying century feminists. Sha’arawi’s young, produced an extensive body feminism did in fact arise from a of feminist work which was deeply particularly Egyptian context and rooted in Arab Islamic culture. did not buy into European feminist

58 Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 156. 59 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 67.

128 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h ideology whole-cloth. However, she To gain a broader was limited by the fact that national understanding of the considerations

| liberation and anti-colonialism were at play in this debate, and to C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F necessary preconditions to feminist respectfully complicate Ahmed’s advancement. strategic essentialism, some historical As usual, it appears, the most context is necessary. Veiling was a potent heuristic remains the veil. common practice throughout the Unlike Nassef, who remained publicly Mediterranean world since ancient veiled until her premature death in times. It communicated status and 1918, Sha’arawi chose to publicly modesty, was principally reserved unveil as a performative political for free (non-enslaved) women, and act in 1923. Upon her return from was worn as a protection from the the Conference of the International sun in many pre-Islamic cultures.61 Women Suffrage Alliance in Rome, Veiling and seclusion, though not she removed her face covering in unambiguously mandated by the the Cairo train station in front of a Islamic holy texts, were, along with crowd of supporters, journalists, many other wide-ranging cultural and onlookers. This action is one practices, enshrined in religious of her most enduring legacies, and law and codified, particularly during one of the most controversial. It is the intensely patriarchal Abbasid used within the historiography as period, as a means of controlling a shorthand for the depiction of reproduction.62 Gender segregation Sha’arawi, along with most of the practices were used by the elite participants of the early twentieth classes, in the Islamic world as century Egyptian feminist movement, in Europe, to ensure patrilineal as passively receptive to hegemonic bloodlines and to communicate a European feminisms. In fact, the family’s wealth and status. This was historiographical discussion has been limited to the wealthy and privileged influenced by an overly simplistic classes, while the majority of women political logic which has pervaded were forced by necessity to work the discourse of the veil and ties outside the home in the marketplace, it back to imperialist mentalities.60 as laborers, traders, or servants. This formulation equates veiling with Until industrialization began Islam, conservatism, anticolonial to precipitate wide-ranging economic nationalism, and Arab identity, and social change, strict segregation and unveiling with Westernization, remained accessible only to those imperialism, and the violent cultural who could afford the luxury and hegemony of humanist secularism. expense of maintaining a separate The reality is far more complex and deserves closer analysis. 61 Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 56. 62 Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 60 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 58. 79-80.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 129 architectural space in the home for starting in the nineteenth century women and children, who did not made the practice of segregation have to engage in productive labor, more accessible to a larger number and who were served, guarded, of people, but at the same time and accompanied by specialized persistently tested and eroded its and often highly-educated enslaved boundaries and reformulated its individuals.63 Despite its connotations cultural significance. to contemporary Western viewers, While veiling was not a C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | veiling is not a practice unique to strictly religious practice, for many

Islam, and in Sha’arawi’s youth was it increasingly stood for a respected practiced by Christian, Jewish, and cultural identity, including religious

B e l a R u h Muslim Egyptians alike. Indeed, and sexual values, threatened both for most of its history, veiling “was by economic and demographic an urban phenomenon associated change and by European influence. mostly with the upper classes.”64 The European attack on segregation As urbanization and social mobility practices, as well as other aspects increased, however, so did of Islamic Egyptian culture, the prevalence and visibility of “strengthened the attachment to segregation. Once accessible only the veil as a national and cultural to the most privileged, practices symbol and gave it a new vitality.”66 of segregation were increasingly Veiling and segregation thus became utilized as a means of communicating nationalist issues, symbolic of an aspirational and upwardly mobile Middle Eastern cultural norms, in social status among the emerging response to European imperialism urban bourgeois classes. It also and industrialization. Among those became more common to see invested in the future of the country – women from the upper and middle pundits, politicians, clergy, journalists, classes out on the streets, engaging social commentators, and many in commerce, attending schools, and others who contributed their thoughts undertaking philanthropic or paid to the public debate playing out in work.65 Economic and social change the newspapers, pulpits, lecterns, and around dinner tables – the veil became a symbol of progress versus

63 Adult women in nineteenth-century tradition, or modernization versus harems were themselves often cultural preservation. It was invested enslaved, concubines imported from with religious and political meaning the Caucuses to be the highly refined and stood, synecdochally, for the and well-educated mothers of the entirety of the nationalist struggle ruling class. 64 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 62. and the divisions within it. 65 Beth Baron, “Unveiling in Early Yet, by one estimation, only Twentieth Century Egypt: Practical and Symbolic Considerations,” Middle Eastern Studies, 25, no. 3 (July stable/4283318. 1989), 378, https://www.jstor.org/ 66 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance”.

130 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h 16% of Egyptian women veiled in symbolized cultural identity, a 1919, and many of those who went recently achieved social status, and

| about unveiled had never veiled a reaffirmation of Egyptian nationalist C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F to begin with.67 Rural peasant norms, Sha’arawi’s personal and women covered their heads but gendered agency came from an not their faces, as it would have escape of the traditional boundaries been impracticable to do so given placed upon upper class women the hard labor that they performed by segregation. Nationalist political on a daily basis.68 In urban centers, activism should be understood as “[p]oorer women had always been an assertion of women’s political visible in the streets, often unveiled,” agency, a relationship to the and historical accounts from as early state, and a disavowal of external as the sixteenth century attest to (imperialist) intervention. Likewise, a persistent presence of unveiled by exercising her right to unveil (as women in the public spaces of Cairo a parallel right to that of taking up and the infeasibility of enforcing the veil), a politically active woman veiling upon them.69 The debate over in the context of an urbanizing, veiling was largely symbolic, and a industrializing society should be manifestation of larger ideological understood as articulating a demand conflicts between conservative and for individual political rights and progressive forces played out across representation, and for citizenship women’s bodies. For most, it had in relation to the newly-formed little to do with women’s individual nationalist state.71 The act of unveiling choices, but instead was a societal also indicated a desire to move out decision, to be enforced or allowed of the cloistered harem space and as it was perceived to be expeditious engage with a changing economic on a national and geopolitical level. landscape, one certainly marked Only a few feminists articulated a by imperialism, but also one of stance which emphasized choice contested modernity, and a desire and personal freedom, among them for social change after centuries of Nassef, who, despite her own choice Ottoman, and then British, imperial to remain veiled, “[approved] of control. The emergent feminist unveiling for those who want it.”70 consciousness had “evolved out of In contrast to the middle- women’s changing everyday lives class Nassef, for whom veiling in a country that had experienced overwhelming socio-economic transformation.”72 Unveiling was, 67 Baron, “Unveiling in Early Twentieth Century Egypt,” 382. 68 Baron, “Unveiling in Early Twentieth Century Egypt,” 382. 71 Badran, “Introduction,” 20-21. 69 Baron, “Unveiling in Early Twentieth 72 Margot Badran, “The Feminist Vision Century Egypt,” 376. in the Writings of Three Turn-of-the- 70 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 64. Century Egyptian Women,” Bulletin of Italics mine. the British Society for Middle Eastern

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 131 for many women, an expression and sexually available.76 As strict of a desire for and commitment to veiling was also impossible for “increased freedom of movement to these women, the garment served go out to schools, shops, and other as a heuristic signifier of individual places,” in order to engage with the character. new opportunities that Egyptian The inherently classed nature modernity provided.73 of the veil proved prohibitive to direct Furthermore, Sha’arawi, engagement across socio-economic C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | at least, saw the veil as a foreign levels, as Sha’arawi discovered when

innovation, “imposed on the women attempting to provide aid to the of the upper classes of Egypt peasants at her husband’s properties 77 B e l a R u h under the Ottoman Empire,” and at Minya. “As the lady of the manor, therefore never truly representative she was impeded by social tenets, of indigenous cultural tradition.74 and found it hard to approach...the While the veil had of course already rural poor,” whose lives she sought existed in Egypt since before even to improve.78 On a less drastic level, the introduction of Islam, segregation presumptions of seclusion also ossified within Egyptian social complicated the unity of the women’s practice as a tool of the Ottoman movement, which was represented Turko-Cisserian elites to distinguish both by elite and middle-class themselves from the Arab and women. In fact, since the nineteenth indigenous Egyptian population.75 century, “middle-class women... The system of veiling and seclusion were at the forefront of the feminist had always been as much about cause.”79 Many of Sha’arawi’s closest class as it was about gender, and allies, including Nabawiya Musa, served as a potent visual signifier were highly educated middle-class which marked women from different women, some of whom had chosen classes as separate from each other. to unveil on ideological grounds. By Classed dress also signified divisions seeking to break down boundaries in behaviour and respectability, as and create cross-class alliances in elite women were associated with pursuit of nationalist and feminist virtue, modesty, and hygiene, while aims, “[e]arly Egyptian feminism not working class women, particularly only challenged the patriarchal order sex workers or single mothers, faced but...superseded class.”80 In this stigmatization as unclean, immodest, context, unveiling was an act of class

76 Baron, “Unveiling in Early Twentieth Studies 15, no. 1/2 (1988): 11, https:// Century Egypt,” 380. www.jstor.org/stable/195212. 77 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 33. 73 Baron, “Unveiling in Early Twentieth 78 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 33. Century Egypt,” 382. 79 Ramdani, “Women in the 1919 74 Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil, 102. Egyptian Revolution,” 41. 75 Badran, “Introduction,” 17. 80 Badran, “Introduction,” 21.

132 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h solidarity, defying the distinctions protections which patriarchal custom that had for so long vertically divided had denied them. Addressing the

| women from coming together to IWSA audience, Musa argued that the C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F advocate for their rights. Egyptian feminists’ “struggle is only The implications of class, aimed at the customs which nothing culture, and nation were elaborated sanctions or justifies, and [claims] a on by Musa in a speech to the IWSA right sanctioned by religion and our conference, which she attended social law.”82 Likewise, in an address as a delegate alongside Sha’arawi. to the Arab Feminist Conference In this speech Musa argued that, in 1944, Sha’arawi explained that rather than looking to European patriarchal interpretations and women as a model for desirable innovative customs (bidʻah) had taken gender relations, Egyptian women from women the rights that Islam should look to the peasant classes had granted them. She went on to of Egypt, who “[go] out with [their connect feminism and nationalism faces] uncovered, [participate in their] yet again, arguing that “the Arab man husband’s purchases and sales, [and who demands that the others give have a clear] idea of agricultural him back his usurped rights would... affairs.”81 Musa’s framework was give the woman back her own lawful more than just a particular vision rights, all the more so since he for the future of Egyptian feminism himself has tasted the bitterness of – it was an intentional effort to deprivation and usurped rights.”83 produce an indigenous model for This distinction was Egyptian gender relations. It was an important component in also noteworthy in that it explicitly understanding the rhetorical transcended class and reversed significance of Sha’arawi’s historic the structurally defined order which unveiling. El Guindi further offers a placed the secluded, veiled woman critical piece of information: “[i]n her at the pinnacle of aspiration. speech at the Feminist conference in In her speech, Musa was Rome, Sha’arawi specified the face careful to distinguish patriarchal veil [a garment referred to as the “custom” from religious “law” in an burqu’ at the time, contemporarily effort to establish both a field for referred to as a niqāb,] not the head viable reform and one of fundamental covering, as a barrier to women’s cultural significance. The perspective advancement.”84 These traditional articulated here is one which has veils were often made of a long been mentioned previously: that rectangular panel of white fabric Islam and the original laws derived from the Quran and Hadith afforded women extensive rights and 82 IWSA, Report of the Ninth Congress, 169. 83 Shaarawi, “The Opening Speech,” 81 IWSA, Report of the Ninth Congress, 339. 171. 84 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 63.

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 133 which was pinned to the head Debates over ideology covering and concealed the wearer’s and ownership, and agency and face below the eyes. It was this innovation, are not simply ink-bound garment that Sha’arawi removed, wranglings over technicalities of retaining the “in the manner that the past. They are political, activist finds support in Islamic sources.”85 claims which take on a life of their Sha’arawi’s unveiling (al-sufur) fit own and can be wielded with into a larger effort to strip back the powerful influence. Without a doubt, C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F | elements of “custom” which limited Sha’arawi’s performative unveiling

women’s ability to engage actively “has entered the lore on women’s in daily life, while retaining and liberation and, as lore, is alive and is 86 B e l a R u h upholding Islamic law and practice. continually embellished.” Within the historiography, particularly among those theorists who seek to establish an Islamic V. CONCLUSION feminist tradition purified of imperialist influence, there is a As questions of cultural tendency to interpret Sha’arawi’s imperialism, feminist ideology, and actions as an act of compliance veiling practices remain politically with imperialist imperatives, as salient, the histories of these debates rooted fundamentally in a desire to become both critically relevant and modernize and Westernize Egypt politically useful. Identifying the at the expense of Egyptian culture. origins of native Middle Eastern While her ideological perspective feminisms has high stakes in was certainly the product of many issues of geopolitical policy and convergent influences, including individual, national, ethnic, cultural, the hegemonic and imperialist, and religious self-determination. Sha’arawi’s unveiling was not a By looking back at the histories of blind, European-oriented rejection these contemporary debates, and of Arab-Egyptian cultural tradition. It the ways in which they evolved and was, if the evidence offered above ossified in the modern period, it may is accepted, an act of religious be possible to devise new strategies revisionism, of cross-class solidarity, for the future. More importantly, such and of progressivist nationalism. It a historical perspective helps to was representative of her efforts to undermine assumptions upon which navigate the conflictual political field structural power hierarchies such as of the colonized nation, and to retain patriarchy and colonialism have been both individual and cultural agency naturalized. in the formation of a specific vision of The initial inquiry that this text modernity. sought to unravel was the question

85 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 64. 86 El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” 64.

134 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l a R u h of how colonized women, with ideologies, cultural propensities, Sha’arawi as a key point of reference, regional interests, localized

| were able to articulate an indigenous conditions, and personal concerns. C o n t e s i g I m p r a l F perspective while navigating a complex and interconnected discursive field in which the indigenous and the colonial are not only inextricable, but also mutually constitutive. Above, I have tried to complicate the perception that ideology formation was a process of intellectual transfer from north to south, indicating that the existence of this perception robs early twentieth- century feminists of their agency and reinforces imperialist worldviews. The adaptation, contestation, and selective incorporation of certain elements of European ideology is presented as a form of anticolonial resistance, as well as a measured and realistic response to actual social and economic conditions. A primary objective of this reading, which belongs to a larger trend in global conceptual history, is to emphasize the agency of non-Western women’s rights activists. At the same time, I attempt to complicate a binary and politicized construction of imperialist and indigenous feminist potentialities, articulated in the context of contemporary debates, which makes claims to a purified historical while erasing the multiconfessional and transnational history of the Middle East. Instead, I traced the dynamic interchange of ideas and the highly selective formulation of independent ideologies, influenced both by the conceptions of Westerners and by a complicated matrix of preexisting

Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 135