The satellite television project debuted this summer, and the women who work for it say they hope their images on TV will empower like-minded women across the region who adhere to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam known as Salafism.
But there is also a big role for men at the channel. Maria TV’s owner, Ahmed Abdallah, is a prominent Salafi preacher, well known in Egypt for his anti-Christian rhetoric. Abdallah and his son Islam, the channel’s chief executive, were arrested last month for burning a Bible during a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Sept. 11.
And while the women who work for Maria TV said they want to promote their belief that all Egyptian women should be covered, the channel also serves as a vehicle for what the CEO said was an effort to dim the influence of Christianity in the Muslim-majority region.
Those views would have met strong resistance during the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, who kept a tight lid on fundamentalist ideologies until his ouster in February 2011. But Islamists have perhaps reaped the most benefit from the country’s revolution, and with a new Islamist president, varying segments of society, including Salafis like Abdallah, are competing to define the role of religion in Egypt.
In September, a woman wearing a cream-colored head scarf read the midday news on state television, as officials here lifted a decades-old ban on veiled female presenters on state TV. » | Henry Shull | Wednesday, October 03, 2012
