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Loading... A Quiet Revolution: The Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America (edition 2012)by Leila Ahmed1   markon | Apr 14, 2014 |   Some highlights that I learned: women start embracing the hijab as a way of separating themselves from society. They want to stand out. It also helps reduce sexual harassment from men. As the trend becomes more mainstream through, women are gradually forced to veil by society. The book also reports that although perhaps the vast majority of Muslims are moderate, there almost isn't a single moderate Muslim organization. They are almost all Islamists and are bidding their time to take over countries with their philosophy. (  ) kikowatzy | Jul 18, 2017 | Leila Ahmed, currently teaching at Harvard, writes from her perspective as a Muslim women born in the 1940s in Egypt and raised during a time when it was normal for women of her family (upper middle class, educated, urban) not to wear hijab (head covering). Thus, her experience of the advocacy of a return to a “pure” form of Islam, coupled with an increase in the wearing of hijab as a sign of this return is not welcome. In Ahmed’s understanding, the rise of hijab is coupled with the rise of a type of Islam that calls for political activisim on the part of its practioners. I found Ahmed’s account a content-rich description of the combination of political and religious activism of Muslims in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia in the last decades of the twentieth century. In addition, it covers the influx of students and later immigrants to the USA from majority Muslim countries in the last half of the twentieth century, and the development of several organizations in the US. This was the fascinating part. Unfortunately, the entire discussion is laced with the word Islamism, which is never clearly defined. This makes it difficult (impossible?) to be clear about what Ahmed’s position is. At the first use of the word Islamism (page 3, Introduction) Ahmed states the appearance of hijab signals, to her, the presence of Islamism, a political form of Islam which she associates with the Muslim Brotherhood and, by implication in the next four paragraphs, with violence. Thus the word carries a negative connotation. On page 9 she refers to Islamism as a term that becomes popular in the 1990s to describe a wider continuum of movements, from moderate to militant. The confused meaning of Islamism coupled with a lack of thesis statement made this book disappointing. I do appreciate Ahmed’s attempt to put the rise of hijab in historical and political context. This is, to me, a very helpful way of looking at it, and a perspective I haven’t run across before. (  )1 markon | Apr 14, 2014 |  ) joycegreene | Jul 18, 2011 | |
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Leila Ahmed, currently teaching at Harvard, writes from her perspective as a Muslim women born in the 1940s in Egypt and raised during a time when it was normal for women of her family (upper middle class, educated, urban) not to wear hijab (head covering). Thus, her experience of the advocacy of a return to a “pure” form of Islam, coupled with an increase in the wearing of hijab as a sign of this return is not welcome. In Ahmed’s understanding, the rise of hijab is coupled with the rise of a type of Islam that calls for political activisim on the part of its practioners.
I found Ahmed’s account a content-rich description of the combination of political and religious activism of Muslims in Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia in the last decades of the twentieth century. In addition, it covers the influx of students and later immigrants to the USA from majority Muslim countries in the last half of the twentieth century, and the development of several organizations in the US. This was the fascinating part.
Unfortunately, the entire discussion is laced with the word Islamism, which is never clearly defined. This makes it difficult (impossible?) to be clear about what Ahmed’s position is. At the first use of the word Islamism (page 3, Introduction) Ahmed states the appearance of hijab signals, to her, the presence of Islamism, a political form of Islam which she associates with the Muslim Brotherhood and, by implication in the next four paragraphs, with violence. Thus the word carries a negative connotation. On page 9 she refers to Islamism as a term that becomes popular in the 1990s to describe a wider continuum of movements, from moderate to militant.
The confused meaning of Islamism coupled with a lack of thesis statement made this book disappointing.
I do appreciate Ahmed’s attempt to put the rise of hijab in historical and political context. This is, to me, a very helpful way of looking at it, and a perspective I haven’t run across before. (