This study explored the veil as norm among modern middle and upper-middle-class women, a class that historically had rejected the veil until recently. The study sought to identify the loci of the forces pushing the wearing of the veil. The study is based on the integration of historical analysis with qualitative methods and content analysis. Specifically this research is based on triangulated data from (a) detailed interviews conducted with 65 young Muslim Egyptian women during the summer of 2008, (b) content analysis of 70 sermons delivered by four of the most influential preachers today, and (c) a survey of the history of the veil in Egypt.

Findings showed that the veil has become a unique instrument of power employed by several actors at three new and interrelated arenas of struggle. At the social level, women are using the veil to redefine their roles in society. At the political level, they are using various forms of the veil to declare full or partial alliance with counter-hegemonic forces challenging the state’s moral authority and the state’s political liberalization policies that have targeted women. At the global arena of power, women are engaged in a solidarity movement against the West and the forces of globalization. All these tension zones are influenced by new patterns of immigration in the Arab world and by new forms of intraregional globalization fostered by a newly emerging Arab satellite industry.

This study was the beginning of research that should continue to investigate through the utilization of novel and more focused integrated methods this particular phenomenon. The struggle to remove the bonds of the West, in particular, invites future research to dissect the many aspects of interregional and intraregional globalization and their impact on religious identities across the world. This research also suggested that the attitudes towards the veil, women, the state, and the West are in a state of flux, requiring the use of novel identity barometers to assess the direction, magnitude, and implications of these changes on the relationships between the West and the Muslim world.