Caro and Charles come to visit

Goethe Institute fashion show

Went to a fashion show at the Townside Gallery downtown last week with a couple of friends. Students from the German University of Cairo were displaying their semester projects. The night was hosted by the Goethe Institute, the German Embassy in Cairo's cultural center. It was a fun evening—and especially fun to see the Egyptians going absolutely bonkers over the models and their outfits. Some of the outfits were really cool, others were pretty bad. The theme was apparently Africa chic, sort of like that recent ad campaign by a major fashion designer to appropriate the "fashion" of the untouchable caste in India for global retail sale.

Jazz Factory kicks off

By Elliott D. Woods
First Published: November 7, 2008

An array of jazz traditions is on display at the international festival.

If you had gone to Manial Palace late Wednesday evening, you would have passed through a long tunnel of tangled banyan trees, glowing white under soft light, adorned with the flags of 18 European and Arab nations.

You would have heard lighthearted chatter in as many tongues. You might have thought you’d stumbled on a secret meeting of the United Nations’ social hour. However, the summit at Manial wasn’t for diplomats, but for a colloquium of the world’s hottest jazz ambassadors.

German percussionist Wolfgang Haffner, Cuban saxophonist Nardy Castellini, Norwegian trumpet player Nils Petter Molvaer, and Cairo’s native son, keyboardist/composer Fathy Salama, each played a set with their respective band to kick off Jazz Factory, a series of concerts and workshops sponsored by the European Commission in Cairo.

In front of a backdrop of skyscraping palms, dignitaries took the stage to welcome the musicians and the crowd to Jazz Factory: “Music is a language without borders, and that’s why we’re here,” said the Norwegian ambassador. His Spanish counterpart proclaimed, “Jazz Factory is a factory for peace, a factory for knowledge, a factory for better relations between our countries.”

Musicians gathered at the pre-concert reception shared the ambassadors’ enthusiasm, looking forward to 10 days of global give-and-take with contemporaries whose styles range from Sharkiat’s Arabic-inspired fusion to Nils Petter Molvaer’s techno-blend of digital beats and trancelike trumpet loops.

In the words of artistic director and celebrated Slovakian jazz vocalist Peter Lipa: “[Jazz] music’s ability to survive is so strong, that it has overcome all boundaries, oceans, and is now being played all over the world. I do not think I am off the mark when I say that in the past two decades there has been a noticeably strong rise of ethnic elements in this music. A firm place for these influences is held by European and Arab folk. I believe that the Jazz Factory will become a true factory for new music, which will take into account these influences.”

Nardy Castellini, originally from Matanzas, Cuba, thinks of Jazz Factory as a “workshop for history.” Nardy’s Jazz Quintet, based out of Granada, Spain, will play several sets this week with Nubians, a group of young traditional percussionists from Aswan, in Upper Egypt. The quintet mixes Afro-Cuban rhythms with contemporary piano and saxophone improvisation, creating an explosive blend of rumba and salsa. Castellini plans to record an album with Nubians while in Cairo, and he also expects to collaborate with British pianist Alex Wilson, a longtime friend and stylistic inspiration.

Fathy Salama, the Grammy Award-winning leader of Sharkiat, serves as the artistic advisor for Jazz Factory. A long time teacher and the inventor of “jeel music,” which has come to dominate Arab pop, Salama continued, “I believe that the ‘Jazz Factory’ could be the answer for a rising Egyptian and Arab interest in jazz both by musicians and the public.”

Nothing could be more culturally diversifying or musically progressive than the mélange of heavy, somber Norwegian melodies and microtonal oriental harmonies produced when Sharkiat took the stage with Nils Petter Molvaer’s trio and the duo of saxophonist Trygve Seim and accordionist Frode Haltli. Seim and Haltli have been studying with Fathy Salama since 2005, and the fruit of their cross-cultural labor is abundant, not to mention abundantly cool.

“In Europe, we are not as responsible to the American jazz tradition as the Americans are,” Seim said. “We have our own musical traditions, and we can turn to those traditions when we want to create something new.”

As the concert showed, jazz musicians are like musical sponges with attitude — they absorb drops of style from all over the world, from all points along the chronology of man’s musical history, from Nubian percussion to electronica, a microtonal scale from Egypt here, an accordion riff from rural Norway there. Jazz musicians are quintessential rolling stones, and while they may not gather moss, they certainly gather impressive repertoires.

Jazz Factory performers will barely have time to catch their breath, let alone sit, with regular concerts held every day until Nov. 15. The performers are here to learn and to teach, but they are also here to have fun, and there’s nothing better than watching a musician who’s having a good time, perhaps even an epiphany, right there on stage.

If that’s not enough to get you out to the Manesterly Palace in Manial, the Geneina Theater in Al-Azhar Park, the Culture Wheel in Zamalek or the “After Hours” performances on the Nile Dragon Boat, take these words from Peter Lipa about the importance of Jazz Factory:

“In 2008 we will lay down the building block of our joint Euro-Arabian musical future”

Full details about location, show times, and a list of performers are available at www.mawred.org/jazzfactory.htm or by calling (02) 2362 5057. For information about After Hours at the Trianon Nile Dragon Boat, call 010 601 7928.

Jazz Factory

This week was the start of Jazz Factory, an international jazz festival and concert series sponsored by the European Commission. I've been going to see some of the groups, and I took these photos on Wednesday night at Manial Palace, during the opening night festivities. It's so much fun to take pictures of people who are clearly enjoying what they're doing, especially when they're surrounded by nebulous clouds in every color of the cosmic rainbow—practically looks like they're standing in the Milky Way. Smoke machine is a pain, but what can you do.

Nils Petter Molvaer (trumpet) and Eivind Aarseth (guitar), Norway

Nardy Castellini, Cuba

Nardy Castellini and Nubians, Cuba and Aswan, Egypt

Nils Petter Molvaer, Norway

Sebastian Studnitzky, Germany

Frode Haltli, Tora Augestad, and Trygve Seim

I've been covering a lot of jazz recently, all over town. Last week we had the Nights of Eastern-Western Fusion concert series, hosted by the Norwegian Embassy. I got to see saxophonist Trygve Seim, cabaret vocalist Tora Augestad, and accordionist Frode Haltli at a place called El Sawy Culture Wheel just around the corner from my house. You can read my writeup below. I spoke with the three of them after the show—which was wonderful, by the way—and found out that Trygve Seim's wife is Asne Sierestad, the author of The Bookseller of Kabul. She's exactly where I want to be in ten years, having written several booklength documentary works and a slew of magazine pieces and news stories. Maybe I won't be content with success though, because I don't think I'll settle until I get to be Barack Obama's press secretary during his second term.

Aim high.

A melancholic northern breeze

By Elliott D. Woods
First Published: November 5, 2008

Norwegian saxophonist Trygve Seim and vocalist Tora Augestad at the Culture Wheel on Sunday, Nov. 2. Norwegian accordionist Frote Haltli.

Nights of Eastern-Western Fusion, a concert series organized by the Norwegian Embassy in Egypt, brought saxophonist Trygve Seim, accordionist Frode Haltli, and vocalist Tora Augestad together at El Sawy Culture Wheel on Sunday night, where they opened with a traditional Norwegian “welcome song.”

It was a welcome to a melancholic tonal landscape where foghorns hung in the damp air above the fjords with the weight of memory, calling the lonely and longing out into the mist.

In the Norwegian folk tradition, “Even songs that describe summer and spring are melancholic,” explained Augestad. Raspy, drunken notes from Seim’s battered Conn saxophones suffused Wisdom Hall with a palpable sense of nostalgia, deepened by the accordion’s atonal chorus and Augestad’s siren song. Dwelling on the aching solitude, the trio brought dreamlike continuity to a repertoire of traditional and modern arrangements stretching as far away in time and place as medieval Iran, where Ibsen-inspired ennui comes into perfect harmony with the poet Jalaluddin Rumi’s lyrical meditations.

Frode Haltli and Tora Augestad tour regularly with Trygve Seim’s eponymous ensemble, but Sunday night’s performance was the first time the three have performed as a trio. Their backgrounds are diverse: Seim, 37, studied modern jazz and composition at the Trondheim Conservatory.

Seim has developed strong ties with Egyptian jazz great Fathy Salama since 2005, when the two met after Seim’s concert at Nile Hilton. Seim and Salama have hosted each other numerous times in their respective countries.

Seim’s Egypt connection also extends to Dr Alfred Gamil, leader of Qithara, with whom he is currently studying Arabic music.

There is a tension between the accordion’s antique sound and the improvisational technique at the core of Haltli’s style, a tension that mounts as Haltli weaves a complex lattice of foreboding, sustained bass notes and flitting high notes around Seim’s somber sax melodies. One doesn’t normally think of the accordion as a conduit to the blue and brazen world of jazz, but the exchange between Haltli and Seim is nothing short of profound — the reward of seven years of collaboration. Their first joint album “Yeraz” came out this year to high acclaim.

Sunday’s songs circled around themes of juxtaposition and irony: the child who “dreams of growing up,” only to realize as an adult that “all of the beauty was when he was a child;” the warmth and beauty of the sunrise quelled by the chill of its descent; peace finally attained just moments before death. Referring to a traditional welcome song, Augestad said, “It doesn’t sound like one, because it’s very dark, and I think that’s because it’s often very dark in Norway.”

Though a certain blue pall enshrouded the majority of songs, Augestad’s soaring voice offered brief glimpses of light through Seim’s and Haltli’s clouded, subdued phrases.

“I try to color the phrases,” she said, “because it’s important to be able to tell the audience what the music is about,” especially when the language barrier makes lyrics incomprehensible.

Augestad has a soft spot for traditional Norwegian music. “I don’t sing them as traditional folk tunes,” said Augestad; instead, she adapts them to whatever emotional and physical context she finds herself in. “There’s so much freedom when you play songs like these,” she added.

The trio profits from the work of legendary composer Johan Kvandal, who transcribed many songs from Norway’s folk tradition over the course of his prolific career. Before Kvandal, Norwegian folk songs were passed from generation to generation aurally, keeping them local and preventing them from entering the broader world of music theory and composition. Thanks to Kvandal’s generation, Norway’s folk tradition is gaining international attention.

Sunday’s concert demonstrated the ease with which Norwegian folk songs lend themselves to contemporary adaptation. Skevs — short improvised songs — blend perfectly with the improvisational technique prized by musicians like Seim, Haltli, and Augestad. The Norwegian folk tradition heavily relies on minor scales, or modal scales, which generate a haunting tonal aura, perfectly in-line with Seim’s style of jazz composition, based on improvisation, space and eerie transitions.

“We do traditional songs in a way that we normally play,” said Seim. “We don’t do it exactly the same every time,” he added. “We put some Arabic in it tonight.”

Under Seim’s leadership, the trio charts a course through a world of binary opposition. Light and airy melodies are always undermined by the slightly dissonant whine of the accordion, or the throaty rumble of the tenor sax.

“This music is very honest,” said Augestad, referring to the constant wrestling of competing themes — love and loss, hope and despair, happiness and sadness, youth and age, masculinity and femininity.

While melancholic, the trio’s music is never melodramatic. The only certainty on offer is the undeniable truth that life is predicated on paradox, and that we spend the majority of our time on Earth in a futile, sometimes laughable struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible.

In their final number, the trio turned back to Jalaluddin Rumi’s poem, “On the Day I Die,” with lyrics translated by Coleman Barks and music by Trygve Seim. A cool air of calm spread across the theater, tensions finally resolved with a promise: “Death has nothing to do with going away/ The sun sets and the moon sets but they are not gone/ Death is a coming together.” But we’ll never be content to believe it.

Catch Frode Haltli, Tora Augestad and Trygve Seim tonight, 7 pm, at El Geneina Theater. Tel: (02) 2362 5057.

Goodbye sweet little Timer dog.

Timer died on Friday. Timer was my thirteen year-old beagle that I loved immensely. Her dad, Lucky, was the state field trial champion from Pennsylvania, and her mom, Tinkerbell, was the state dog show champ. I'm sure they're both gone by now too. Long gone. They say it's a sign of an exceptional beagle pup when its ears stretch all the way around its nose. Timer's overlapped by at least an inch. She was a petite little beagle, never got fat like most beagles do. She stayed fit and spry right up until the end, at least until the last couple of months of her life. She went downhill fast, perhaps the result of a short bout with cancer this year, perhaps due to organ failure. Whatever her ailment, she couldn't beat it and it became too painful for my mom to watch.

My mom called me tonight to tell me, and as soon as she let the words out of her mouth she started choking on them, crying hysterically, saying "I've never cried so much in my life." My mom put her to sleep because she was having trouble standing up, she was totally deaf, and she was completely incontinent, and my mom could tell that she was in pain. The vet said it would be the best thing to do. I already cried a lot when I said goodbye to Timer before my mom drove me to the airport for my flight to Cairo, so when my mom told me on the phone today I just felt numb. I had been expecting it—but still, I think it just hasn't hit me yet.

God I loved that dog. Sometimes I loved her more than anyone else in my family—don't be hurt by that comment if you're reading this, sisters, it's just that she was a really special dog. She was always there, always happy, and always excited to see me. I hope she's happy in dog heaven. I bet she's eating a lot of cookies and running free as fast and as far as she can go, sniffing everything in sight and loving the fact that she doesn't have to wear a collar or get electrocuted all of the time. I just wish I could chase her around the yard one more time, and watch her leap toward me with her teeth bared, one paw raised to strike, totally faking it, because she didn't have a violent bone in her body, and then she would cock her head to one side, anticipating my next move, just for a split-second, and then she'd take off into the next room, sliding on her paws on the wood floor, trying to take the turn too fast, but escaping all the same. But she would always come back, and the second I made the overture of peace, a change of facial expression, softening around the eyes, a gentle "come here girl," rubbing the floor with my hand where I wanted her to come and roll over, she'd be there, sucking up the attention, soaking in the love, belly bared to the ceiling, loving the dog's life, loving me.

How I'll miss those satin ears, cocked in curiosity, always on the verge of bounding away, or bounding into my arms.

Colin Powell endorses Obama, Army kills 25 more civilians in Afghanistan

As overjoyed as I am by the fact that Colin Powell recently endorsed Barack Obama—going as far as to say that he would've done it 10 months ago if he based his vote solely on historical considerations—I am also confused as to why the NATO forces (read: U.S.) bombed and killed another 25 civilians in Helmland Province in Afghanistan. We are losing the war there, and it's rapidly devolving into chaos, according to just about all parties involved—including the U.S. military. One of the reasons the Taliban has such widespread support is because NATO forces keep icing civilians.

When are we going to learn? And this most recent catastrophe comes just after Gen. David McKiernan launched an initiative—a fatwah of sorts—about the absolute necessity of reducing, or better, eliminating, civilian casualties. Well how can you avoid civilian casualties when you're dropping bombs on civilian population centers? What civilian in their right mind would see the NATO forces as anything other than enemy forces? Who would not be terrified, and terribly resentful of the NATO occupation?

I would be interested more in hearing what Colin Powell has to say about Afghanistan than about Barack Obama. I've long since believed that Colin Powell was deeply dissatisfied with the role he played in the buildup to the Iraq invasion, though I have little to base that belief on other than the fact that apologized to the UN for presenting false evidence. I'm sure a Powell-designed occupation strategy in Iraq, as opposed to Rumsfeld's and Bremer's strategy, would've saved lives on both sides. But, at the end of the day, I still can't forgive Powell for not speaking out when it mattered most, as Gen. Eric Shinseki—former Chief of Staff of the Army—and many CIA analysts did. They lost their jobs as a result, but they kept their integrity intact. I can't say exactly the same for Powell, but his recent endorsement of Obama shows that he's definitely not one of "them"—that gang of insiders that drove our country straight off a cliff beginning in 2001.

Learning to rock with Baraka

By Elliott D. Woods
First Published: October 14, 2008

Photos by Elliott D. Woods Baraka front-woman Mariam Saleh brings oriental vocals to the band's rock foundations, Rawabet Theater, Saturday, October 11.

Judging by the crowd piled outside the Rawabet Theater on Saturday night, a passerby would surely have assumed that a well-established act was about to take the stage. On the contrary, Baraka — led by singer Mariam Saleh, 23 — is fresh from the cradle.

Saturday’s concert was only their second since forming in May 2008, but their reputation has already spread thanks to a thriving arts culture among Cairo’s hip 20-somethings. The band’s lyrical base comes from the famous Sheikh Imam revolutionary anthems that were banned during the 1960s.

Sheikh Imam songs — penned by the legendary, oft-imprisoned Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm — have become fashionable in recent years, providing today’s alternative musicians with a connection to both oriental musical traditions and local dissidence.

“Lyrics are prioritized in Arabic music,” explained Yasser Ali, 23. However, when poetry is at the heart of a band’s repertoire, Yasser explained, the music often suffers.

Baraka opened with a grungy, distortion-laden number that recalled semi-electronic acts like Portishead and Evanescence. The somber opener gave no indication of the variety of songs to come; an eclectic collection ranging from bass-heavy funk, to fast-paced California ska, to gritty ballads inspired by Ozzy Osbourne.

No matter where their occidental departures took them, Baraka always managed to return to oriental roots. The audience clapped and sang along to Sheikh Imam songs like “Nixon” and “El-Bahr Beyedhak Leh.” Toward the end of the show, front-woman Mariam brought the crowd to a hush with a haunting tribute to her father, Saleh Saad, a famous writer who died in the September 2005 Beni Suef theater fire that claimed the lives of over 30 artists. Saturday would have been Saleh Saad’s 52nd birthday.

Baraka claims a broad range of influences, from psychedelic classic rock bands like Pink Floyd and The Doors to contemporary alternative acts like British rock outfit Muse. Contemporary Egyptian influences include El Dor El Awal, Nagham Masri, and Dima Band.

“I love hard rock and I love the darawish music,” said Mariam, “and I would like to mix them both . . . but I don’t want to make oriental rock — I want to make oriental and rock.”

Guitarist Wissam Sultan, 31, played with Dima Band before joining Baraka. In previous bands, Sultan’s preference for rock has been restrained. But with Baraka, Sultan said, “I play whatever I want.” Rather than trying to “orientalize” rock — an undeniably occidental genre — Baraka lays Darwish-inspired oriental vocals over a range of stylistically diverse rock arrangements, staying true to both worlds while creating something new. While most of the songs are lyrical covers, the rock beneath belongs entirely to Baraka.

Rawabet Theater was filled to capacity on Saturday, with dozens of people sitting on the floor and still more standing at the entrance. Baraka has not been around for long, but, as Mariam Saleh explained, “we have a big base.”

“Rock is growing up in Cairo,” said guitarist Sultan, the oldest member of the group, and Saturday’s crowd proves that there is a subculture that craves what bands like Baraka have to offer.

In terms of both musical fluency and stage presence, Baraka has a long way to go before they play with the combination of ease and frenetic energy that makes true rock shows such explosive, sweat-soaked events.

Saturday’s show — despite overtones of Black Sabbath and Parliament Funkadelic — was a pretty quiet affair. Audience members remained seated throughout Baraka’s performance. Vocalist Mariam — clad in a punk rock getup composed of an army green vest, a communist star pendant, rainbow colored legwarmers, and a lip ring — gave a spirited performance, bouncing around the stage, engaging audience members directly. But the rest of the band appeared a bit rigid, and breaking free from that rigidity will be Baraka’s biggest challenge.

Baraka will share that growing pain — learning to loosen up, learning to rock with reckless abandon — with the Cairo rock scene in general, in which audiences, despite enthusiasm, rarely quit their seats. Suffice to say, you simply can’t rock sitting down.

The modern day hijabis

By Elliott Woods
First Published: October 10, 2008

One-piece hijabs on offer at Zalaat Shop on Sherif Street, Wust al-Balad. A typical bonni, an expensive one-piece hijab often worn for formal occasions, available at Zalaat Shop on Sherif Street in Wust al-Balad.

CAIRO: For those unfamiliar with the Islamic practice of veiling, the many variations of the hijab found on the streets of Cairo can be perplexing. Why are some hijabs bright, fashionable — sometimes downright flashy — while others seem conservative in the extreme — solid black, un-textured, and designed to cover as much of the wearer’s body as possible?

Then comes the full-face veil, or niqab. Why do some women cover every inch of skin, sometimes wearing black gloves and eye-screens, while others sport body-hugging undergarments and designer jeans? Is there any doctrinal difference between the Islam of a woman who wears a niqab and the religion of a young woman whose Italian silk hijab is as much a fashion accessory as a gesture of modesty?

With these questions in mind, I set out for downtown Cairo on Thursday evening, where I spoke with women of all ages, wearing all sorts of different veils. What I found was surprising — I expected to discover a lexicon of terms for all of the different styles of veils, but the lexicon is meager at best.

There is the niqab, of course, which is always accompanied by a full-length abbaya, the female version of the traditional galabiyah. And then there is the khemar, which — like the niqab but without covering the face— descends over the shoulders, down to the elbows, and is also accompanied by traditional clothing in subtle colors. Finally, there is the hijab.

Simple enough, right? Except that all veils — indeed, the entire practice of veiling — are part of the concept of hijab, which stipulates that Muslim women should cover their features and hair so as to discourage the lascivious gazes of men, allowing both women and the men to avoid sin.

In common parlance, hijab refers to the trendy veils worn by the younger generation — the ones that come in dozens of textures, dozens of fabrics, and hundreds of colors. Compared to the niqab and the khemar, these fashionable hijabs, and the tight clothes that sometimes accompany them, seem nothing short of revolutionary.

But the older generation doesn’t feel terribly threatened. “You can’t obligate the people to wear any particular thing,” said Mona, who wears a niqab, when I asked if she worried about the boisterous colors and tight clothing worn by most of Cairo’s younger women.

Mona’s husband, Salah, agreed. Many women shift to more traditional styles of veiling at the bequest of their husbands. Mona said, “It’s the decision of the husband. If he wants you to wear the niqab, you wear the niqab. If he tells you, ‘I don’t want you to wear niqab,’ you don’t wear it.”

“There are a few women who wear the niqab before marriage,” Mona added, “but not many.” Mona began wearing a niqab several years into her marriage, at Salah’s request. For his part, Salah said, “Someday God will ask us about our lives and what we did … the decision comes from inside [the husband], because he wants Allah to be very satisfied with him, because he wants to do the maximum.”

Salah also believes that a woman maintains her virginal beauty before God by leaving only her eyes uncovered, because eyes remain youthful well into old age.

As conservative Muslims, Mona and Salah, who sell spices in Khan El-Khalili, do not approve of any clothing that draws attention to a woman’s face or body. However, their attitude is far from domineering. Like other older people with whom I spoke, their sentiment could be summed up as, “Khalas. Let the kids do their own thing.”

“Every generation has its own style of hijab,” said Nehal, 19, who wore retro sneakers, tight jeans, a sparkling gold Karina shirt under a white t-shirt, and a pink and blue patterned hijab done up in a “Spanish wrap.”

Young women today model a variety of wraps; the Spanish wrap, the Gulf wrap, and the Indian pashmina, are a few of the most popular. “We wear the veil because Islam says we should wear it,” Nehal said, “but after that, we can have fun with it.”

Early Thursday night, the Continental shopping center on El-Khim Street downtown —entirely devoted to hijabs and Karina tops — was filled with women, young and old, hip and conservative, poring over the massive selection of hijabs, arranged on floor to ceiling racks throughout the hundred-meter-long arcade.

I asked Nehal how many hijabs she owns. She laughed, “Too many to count. You need a hijab in every color to match everything you wear … and you also need warmer hijabs for winter and cooler ones during summer.”

Nashwa, also 19, who works in the Continental, showed me the variety on offer at her shop, Ganna, or “Heaven.” Materials include silk and satin from Italy and India, fine linen, muslin, and synthetics; there are crinkled patterns, called mekassar, or “broken satin,” and there are even hijabs fringed with decorations, like miniature flowers and tassels.

I had a few practical questions too: how much do hijabs cost, and how long does it take to put one on? Ironically, it’s the new styles of hijab that are more costly and more time consuming. A Spanish Wrap — the tousled style that leaves the tails of the hijab dangling over one shoulder, the most popular according to Nashwa — takes as long as 15 minutes to finish, while a traditional khemar can be donned in a little over a minute. Trendy hijabs can cost as much as LE 300 in boutiques in Heliopolis and Nasr City, but most of the Continental’s hijabs fall between LE 15 and LE 30.

The best bet for time and money, interestingly enough, is the niqab.

Some women prefer a bonneh, an elaborate one-piece bonnet available at Zalaat Shop on Sherif Street, starting at LE 160. Zalaat Shop also sells simple pullover hijabs in a variety of colors for about LE 30.

The final answer is that there is no appreciable difference between the religion of a hipster in a hot pink hijab mekassar and Karina and a woman in a niqab — both groups of women are simply demonstrating their respect for Islam in their own ways. The differences in veiling practices are mostly the result of generational differences in the perception of modesty. Culture changes over time, and even a centuries-old tradition like veiling is susceptible to modern trends.

Despite the differences in their individual veiling styles, all of the women with whom I spoke agreed on one thing: the amount of women who choose to veil, in one fashion or another, has been on the rise for some time, and shows no signs of deceleration. Egypt, by all accounts, is growing more religious in the 21st century — even as Egypt’s muhajabas embrace modernity.