In 1899, a man named Qasim Amin published the first feminist manifesto in the Arab world, “The Liberation of Woman.” The pamphlet advocated for girls’ education and demanded reform of marital laws. These ideas were relatively uncontroversial at the time, but it was Amin’s argument against the veil and in favor of European culture that provoked angry criticism. More than a century later, Egypt continues its public and private debate on women’s rights and roles. Traditions shaping women’s lives are not only religious but also cultural. For example, a 2000 study that estimated a staggeringly high rate of female genital mutilation in Egypt — 97 percent of women who had ever married — found that the practice was no more common among Muslims than among Coptic Christians. (Copts constitute between 5 and 10 percent of the country’s population.) Though labor laws require equal pay for equal work, most women face strong social pressures against working outside the home.

In some cases, women’s rights have been affected by largely unrelated political developments at home and abroad. For example, a 1967 proposed law would have granted women equality in family matters; before it could be passed, Egypt went to war against Israel, and the proposal withered away. In 1980, a year after Anwar Sadat signed a peace accord with Israel that infuriated Islamic fundamentalists, the parliament voted to impose Islamic Sharia law as Egypt’s “chief source of legislation.” (Passage of the law did not legitimize Sadat in the eyes of Islamists, who assassinated him a year later.) The codification and enforcement of Sharia law means that women have limited familial rights, with matters of divorce, inheritance, and citizenship all favoring men.

Yet Sharia law has not stopped girls and women from making substantial progress in Egypt. In 1970, only 50 percent of girls attended primary school; by 1998, the rate was up to 72 percent. In 1976, only 6 percent of women worked outside the home; in 1995, 23 percent did. In 2004, women held only 11 out of the People’s Assembly’s 454 seats and two of the 32 cabinet posts. In 2003, Tahany al-Gabbani became the first woman to serve on Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court.