The Zebiba: Signs of division on Egypt's brow

By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC News, Cairo

The zebiba used to be the mark of an elderly Muslim man, the fruit of
a lifetime's devotion, but it is increasingly seen on the faces of
young Egyptians.

Literally meaning "a raisin", the zebiba is a patch of hardened skin
where the forehead touches the ground during Muslim prayers.

Some welcome the trend as a sign of devotion, others say it is
ostentatious piety.

Worse still there are fears public displays of faith like the zebiba
and the hijab, or headscarf, are spilling over into vigilantism.

Liberals or Christians who don't conform in the workplace or on the
street say they are being harassed.

Gift from God

A practising Muslim's forehead is meant to touch the ground at least
34 times a day - in symbolic submission to God's will - which could
add up to more than a million prostrations in a lifetime.

But over the past few decades, as more and more Egyptians turned to
religion, the zebiba began appearing among young men as the veil did
among young women.

But not every Muslim gets one, and opinions vary as to where it comes
from. It could something to do with skin-type, or created
artificially, or come from particular kinds of matting. Others believe
it is a gift from God.

Many young Egyptians I asked believe some kind of light will emanate
from the prayer mark on their foreheads on the Day of Judgment,
marking them out as truly devout.

One of Egypt's greatest living and most popular poets, Abdelrahman
al-Abnoudi, has another explanation - in times of crises people turn
either to drugs or to religion.

Egyptians have always been religious, he adds, but since being
religious has also become fashionable, people now press their
foreheads against the ground a little harder to acquire the appearance
of a devout Muslim.

Dalia Ziada of the American Islamic Congress - an non-governmental
organisation based in Cairo - says some men deliberately pray on straw
mats, and rub their foreheads until they eventually develop the zebiba.

Relentless rise

The increased public display of religious devotion is part of a wider
phenomenon, affecting what women wear, and what people read or watch
on their television screens.

The relentless rise of political Islam over the past few decades has
succeed in rolling back significant parts of Egypt's secular tradition.

For radical Islamist politicians, like Magdi Hussein, that is a move
in the right direction, away from the Westernisation which started
over two centuries ago with the French and British invasions.

He sees the the zebiba phenomenon in the context of
government-inspired "darwasha", an atmosphere of unpolitical religious
devotion which goes against the Islamists' self-professed aim of
reforming society and fighting corruption and despotism.

But Mr Hussein refuses to acknowledge that the increased public
display of piety has had any downsides.

Intimidation

Egyptian women and Liberals I spoke to tell a different story. A
Coptic [Christian] doctor, who did not want to be named, told me she
had been spat upon in broad daylight for not wearing the veil.

A young Muslim engineer, Shahinaz, who refuses to cover her hair, said
she has become scared of intimidation.

"I was driving home one evening and had to stop next to a girls'
school. Suddenly the girls - all of whom were veiled - surrounded the
car and start banging on the windows and screaming: 'Infidel!
Apostate!' I was terrified."

Dr Sayyed al-Qimni, one of Egypt's best known liberal writers and
historians, says society has been hijacked by a very conservative
brand of religion, which he characterises as Saudi Wahhabi Islam.

"There are now 13,000 religious schools [in Egypt] that produce
terrorists, like the Taliban madrassas in Pakistan. At religious
schools they teach children that Muslims who do not pray should be
killed."

There is no doubt that in one way the Islamists are winning their
struggle to increase the role religion plays in social life and public
debate in this country.

The question now for Egypt is what kind of Muslim society it is going
to be - one that is at peace or at war with modern values.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7469221.stm

Published: 2008/06/23 12:59:31 GMT

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