Cairo, September 02: The impression Omayma Mansour got from her last visit to Egypt was that Islam could also be unwelcome even in one of its lands.
The Egyptian-American mother of two was staying at the Moevenpick in El Gouna resort in Hurghada when she received a shock that might take her months to recover or understand.
Seeing her youngest son, 2, struggling in the swimming pool, she went into the pool with her burkini, a waterproof swimsuit that covers most of the body, to help her kid.
Mansour was immediately asked by a swimming pool attendant to exit the pool.
The man told her she was not allowed to use the swimming pool with her burkini, an outfit consisting of a headscarf, a tunic and trousers.
“The policy to ban veiled women from the pool is discriminatory to all practicing Muslim women,” Mansour told.
“This is definitely a violation of our religious freedom as Muslim women.”
Having endured this humiliation, Mansour headed straight to the office of the hotel manager but got nothing back expect what she calls “nonsensical excuses”.
“I think people at these hotels view it [the Islamic dress] as perhaps low-class,” she said.
“So they don’t want that image portrayed in their five-star resorts.”
The burkini, derived from the words burqa (a head-to-ankle dress) and bikini, resembles a wetsuit with built-in hood.
The three-piece covers the whole body except for the feet, hands and face.
The full-length lycra suit is not too figure hugging to embarrass, but is tight enough to allow its wearer to swim freely.
Around 90 percent of Egypt’s 80-million population are Muslim.
Common
Mansour, the American-Egyptian woman, is not the only one to have endured such inconvenience because of her Islamic dress.
Some hotel workers told her that some of their colleagues lost their jobs because they allowed burkini-wearing women into the swimming pool.
This led many to suspect an organized campaign against Islamic dress codes, particularly at hotels and resorts frequented by foreigners.
Nadia El-Awadi, an Egyptian journalist, had a similar experience when she went to Ain Sukhna, a famous resort about 200 kilometers east of the capital Cairo.
As she entered one of the hotels, she was given papers to sign. But she noticed that one of the papers stated that Islamic swimsuits were not allowed in the swimming pool.
“I couldn’t understand what was happening,” El-Awadi, 40, told.
“I felt so sad about it. Nobody should tell anybody what to wear. What to wear and what not to wear is everybody’s personal freedom.”
El-Awadi had to take her luggage and her two children out of the hotel again to seek another place where she could enjoy swimming while being covered.
She discovered that was a really hard catch.
It took the tour operator who organized her journey a long time to find a place that allows covered Muslims into its swimming pools.
“How can this happen in Egypt?” she asked.
Some suspect an organized campaign against Islamic dress codes, particularly at hotels and resorts frequented by foreigners, is in full swing.
“Listen, we don’t have any problem with Islamic swimsuits, but the problem is that some of these suits contain materials not good for the skin of their users,” the Egyptian manager of a five-star hotel told, requesting anonymity.
“These materials aren’t hygienic.”
But the argument is refuted by those who wear the burkini.
“This whole notion that long swimsuits are ‘not hygienic’ is quite offensive and absolutely absurd,” insists Mansour, the American-Egyptian woman.
“The Islamic swimsuit I wore was composed of a lycra, waterproof, polyester material just as any other swimsuit is.”
Clash
Manal Youssef, a researcher in Islamic laws, believes such incidents best reflect the clash between secularism and religiosity in Egypt, home to al-Azhar, the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world.
“What happens in this regard shows the clash between secular and religious Egypt at its strongest,” Youssef told.
“The government doesn’t tell people what to wear and what not to wear, but at the same time it leaves the owners of hotels and private places to do whatever they want with their clients.”
Egypt has not officially acted against the burkini, the hijab or the niqab.
But some officials, including those linked to the state-run religious establishment, have spoken against them.
Some say hotel and resort owners in Egypt, a country that boasts beautiful beaches on both the Mediterranean and the Red seas, shun the Islamic dress to satisfy foreigners who come in their millions every year.
“Hotel officials do this to please the non-Muslims who come to their hotels,” contends El-Awadi.
“But at the same time, they allow these people to go topless to the swimming pools without getting angry.”
Last year, Egypt received more than 11 million tourists.
Tourism earned the country $10.5 billion in the fiscal year through June, according to the Central Bank figures.
The strange thing though is that while Muslim Egypt does this, many Western countries allow Muslim women to use swimming pools while wearing the burkini.
Earlier this week, authorities in the Norwegian city of Oslo allowed Muslim women to use municipal swimming pools with their burkinis.
The Muslim swimming dress is also allowed in Australia, Britain and the United States.
-Agencies