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In a predominantly Muslim society, as many as 90% of women in Egypt have adopted a form of veiling. A majority of Egyptian women cover at least their hair with the hijab. A ''hijab'' refers to a head covering that is worn by Muslim women. Although the phenomenon of wearing the niqāb, a veil which covers the face is not as common, the ''niqab'' in Egypt has become more prevalent. While many women in Egypt wear a black ''niqab'' along with a billowing black ''abaya'' as seen in countries such as Saudi Arabia, many choose to wear different colors of the ''niqab'' or manipulate the ''hijab'' to cover their face. Regardless, the growing trend of ''munaqqabat'', or women who wear the ''niqab'', has alarmed the authorities. They have begun to see this dress as a security threat, because it hides the face, and because it is perceived as a political statement, a rejection of the state in favor of a strict Islamic system.〔 Controversies over the ''niqāb'' appear to have emerged in Egypt's recent history. Particularly, a highly emotional response from Egyptian society occurred on October 8, 2009, when Egypt's top Islamic school and the world's leading school of Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University, banned the wearing of the ''niqāb'' in all-female classrooms and dormitories of all its affiliate schools and educational institutes. However, the ''niqāb'' has had a long and contentious history in Egyptian society. The meaning of the ''niqāb'' worn by upper class Egyptian women at the turn of the century is different from what is worn by women today. ==The niqāb during the early 20th century== In the early 20th century, the niqāb was not a practice confined to Muslims, but was worn by both Muslim and Christian elite women. This urban phenomenon originated in Istanbul and was part of the harem tradition, in which concubines and freeborn women of the Ottoman-Egyptian elite were secluded in harems that were guarded by eunuchs. During this time wearing a face veil was described as “a national Egyptian dress for upper-class women, and it was called ''al-habara''. It consisted of a full-length skirt, a head cover, and ''al-burqu’'', which was the face-cover from below the eyes down to the chest. Although these ''hareem'' women are the most visible class of women in chronicles of nineteenth century Egypt, they actually constituted no more than 2 percent of Egypt's five million female population in the late eighteenth century. Although they were numerically insignificant, the elite women's secluded lifestyle was considered the ideal and was envied by lower classes of women.〔 Seclusion and veiling was a luxury that poorer families could not afford; so, Cairo’s lower class women could not cover their faces with the ''burqu''. Having to attend to their work in the villages and the city, it was impossible to inhibit their movement with seclusion or cover their faces like the elite women. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Niqāb in Egypt」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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