Colonial discourse assigning the veil a key role drives its political salience

Evidence

As Leila Ahmed points out in her seminal study of the discourse on the veil in the colonial and early nationalist periods in Egypt, the practice of veiling acquired a new valence for Egyptians as the British made it a key signifi of “Muslim backwardness” and the Egyp. tian elite mobilized for its banishment (1992, 127-68). One might argue that the fact that the veil was assigned such a key place in the colonial discourse better_ explains its salience within contem.. porary Egyptian politics than does a general theory of the objectifi of devotional practices. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 391

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the reader’s published essay ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — colonial power politicizing dress as civilizational signifier is the same mechanism writ large. — connects to: Forced unveiling in colonial Algeria backfired by politicizing the veil — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 302; Enforced unveiling converts the veil into a symbol of anticolonial resistance
• ADDENDUM: Pairs with ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’: adds the key insight that Western imposition of the veil as a symbol of backwardness is what made it politically charged in the first place.
• SEED: Article angle: how a colonial signifier’s political charge can invert — the veil went from target of imperial banishment to symbol of resistance, a case study in repurposed symbols.