Word: hijab
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...Hussein's sister was being told the news. She kneeled before an older man, who was speaking softly to her, his face drawn, his eyes tortured. She cried out, "Hussein! Hussein!" in a long, shrill lament. She held her head in her hands and began to pull at her hijab while screaming out her brother's name. A young man tried to help Hussein's sister to her feet, but she couldn't bear to stand. Small children began to cry, and one little girl had a purple star sticker affixed to her forehead, a jarring symbol of childhood pasted...
...figured that the veil is only for oppressed women, and perhaps female suicide bombers with Osama bin Laden's notion of the road to paradise in mind, think again. This is a glitzy fashion show specifically catering to Muslim women who wear the veil, or hijab, an Arabic term referring to a headscarf and loose-fitting clothes that cover all but a woman's face, hands and feet. In Egypt, the largest Arab country, with a population of 72 million, the hijab has become decidedly mainstream. Designers, stylists, boutiques and fashion magazines make up a booming new industry serving...
...veil after the Sept. 11 attacks set off Muslim-Western tensions. As often as not, the pressure to veil is as much social as religious, with unveiled women increasingly the target of peer comments like, "You are a good person. It is a pity you just need the hijab...
...worn in Saudi Arabia, where religious police enforce the ultra-conservative Wahhabi brand of Islam. Anthropologist Huda Lutfi, who is unveiled, says that in the Egyptian context, the trend is not as regressive as it might seem to Westerners. "Women feel that as long as they are wearing the hijab, they are respected on the street in the eyes of men," she explains. "The hijab is not a movement for women to go back home, but to be comfortable and move more freely in public...
...really are naked, or nearly. Sabila Ahmed, 24, has spent the evening getting zipped in and out of costumes that are not really her thing. Like the other models, whose diamond belly button studs and henna tattoos are exposed between outfit changes, she shows no interest in donning the hijab herself - except when professional duty calls, of course. "I love revealing clothes," she explains, before squeezing back into her own tight jeans, skimpy top and 2-inch heels. As she struts outside to hail a taxi, her short brown hair blows free in the wind, marking her as a member...