An Islam of Her Own: Reconsidering Religion and Secularism in Women’s Islamic Movements

6. Development and Social Change: Mehmeit

| 127 6 Development and Social Change Mehmeit The sounds of animated conversation filtered in from the outside as one after another a group of women walked into al-Hilal’s spacious, freshly painted and carpeted meeting room. It was bright, with sunlight coming in through two big windows that faced the doorway . A long meeting table with a lace imitation plastic tablecloth surrounded by white plastic chairs dominated the room. On the walls, embroidered Islamic verses hung in gilded wooden frames, and in the corner, a three-panel screen propped against the wall caught my attention. The panels were decorated with ribbons of various colors, and someone had arranged a bouquet of artificial flowers in the center of each panel. The screen looked older than the rest of the furniture and appeared to have seen much use over time. Later I observed that it was used as a partition when more than one meeting was being held in the room. While I stood admiring the handiwork, a number of women came in and sat down around the long meeting table. As they settled in, greeting one another, some of them put down their cellphonesonthetablein frontof them. Then everyone’sattentionturned to Hagga Rabi’a. In her mid-fifties, she had been working at al-Hilal for more than four years. Hagga Rabi’a started the meeting by asking, “How will we get there?” There was no written agenda or summary of what was tobecovered,aseveryonealreadyknewthepurposeofthemeeting:organizingavisittoagroupofelderlypeopleatahomeinthecountryside . Hagga Nadia, who sat at the other end of the table, replied that they would rent a bus to take them there. “A bus?” asked Hagga Rabi’a. “I 128 | Development and Social Change haven’t rented a bus.” As she talked, she looked through a notebook and began calling someone on her cell phone. She spoke in muted tones into her phone while the others continued the conversation. In a few minutes, Hagga Rabi’a had rented a bus and began planning the excursion. She did not go around the table, nor did anyone raise their hands or take turns. Soon they had finished their plans. Laila, who also was attending the meeting, sat at a desk working on sending three thousand blankets to Aswan, an upper Egyptian city two hundred miles south of Cairo. During a cell phone conversation, she called out some suggestions to the women at the table. I had never been to a meeting like this, I thought to myself. Within fifteen minutes, the meeting was over. Some of the activists lingered behind to continue conversations ; others finished their prayers in the corner; and a few talked to Laila at her desk. I was puzzled, knowing that it had taken so little time to organize what would have taken us three meetings to accomplish where I worked. I realized that these women’s social networks enabled them to plan these events in the shortest amount of time possible. Still, the casual atmosphere and the lack of apparent structure—even though a structure was obviously in place—left me wondering. This meeting brought to my attention women’s Islamic activism that goes beyond the gam’iyah to the spaces and people in need of assistance. In the following, I discuss al-Hilal’s work in a village that I call Mehmeit . There I saw how modern liberal principles of development and the imbricated values of the secular modern are applied on a grassroots level. I accompanied a group of women who worked at Mehmeit to observe how they interacted with the village women, the nature of their projects, and their vision of development. The work of two women, Amal and Samira, at Mehmeit was proudly described by the rest of the activists at al-Hilal as selfless kheir (good) for God’s blessing. The older activist women, most of whom had visited Mehmeit, often discussed admiringly the efforts of these two to eradicate poverty in Egypt’s rural areas. Mehmeit, a Village of Many Possibilities Twenty miles down the Nile from Cairo lies the village of Mehmeit. The rural areas surrounding Cairo are sites of human hardship, where poverty reigns and people struggle to survive without always having Development and Social Change | 129 access to such basic necessities as food, clothing, and decent housing. Except for its interest to al-Hilal activists, it is like many such villages along the river. Mud-brick houses line the dirt roads of...