(IPS) They were popular as women fighting for freedom — not just for their fraternity, but for the whole country. They were known to be active, determined, intelligent, and most famous for removing their veil.

But that was about 80 years ago. Today, all the members of the Hoda Sharawi Association (HSA) are better known, among other things, for having kept up the fight for women's issues, with their veils on.

For outside observers, the extent of the use of the veil is often the crudest indicator of the degree of conservatism in an Islamic society.

Unlike Saudi Arabia or Iran, where women are obliged to cover themselves in black, Egypt is very liberal, and more so for women.

One hardly sees any Egyptian woman with the naqab , a face-covering veil. Egyptian women can also inherit and own land, contest a will and fight for her legal rights in court, a far cry from the ground realities elsewhere in the region.

But while over a decade ago it was hard to find women on the streets of Cairo who veiled, today veiling is back with a vengeance. Women of all ages are covering up #&212 not all wear the full veil but most wear a headscarf called the hejab .

A matter of duty and choice

Does being "covered" then necessarily mean Islamic tradition, religious extremism and growing nationalism? Could it also be due to diverse social, economic and political factors, as well as personal preferences?

"Every era has its goals," HSA member Shadiah Hussein says. "At the time of Hoda Sharawi, the founder of the HSA, women had no voice. Now they do, so we have moved to helping the economic issues rather than political and social issues.''

Indeed, women today have seats in parliament and they have a place in businesses and offices.

Defending the veil, Shadiah says: "It is our duty as Muslims. This is what God has asked us to do. We don't involve ourselves in personal matters. If a woman is wearing a full veil, we don't say anything #&8212 it's something personal."

Ragheb Soueif, a teacher in Alexandria, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and headscarf, says: "Someone asked me about the status of women in Egypt, and their assumption was that it was taking a backward step because the veil had become widely used again.

''But if by moving forward what you mean is that you are more free to make your own decisions and to implement them, then women are much better off than they were 100 years ago. Taking to the veil is a decision.''

The use of headscarf "is by choice", says Dr Kamilia Shoukry, a senior official of the Alliance for Arab Women.

But she adds that the question of the veil is in many ways a distracting one. Shoukry believes there are far more pressing issues to focus on ̶ expanding employment opportunities for women, ensuring they are not discriminated against in the race for high-level jobs, and making divorce laws more equitable.

Extremism and security concerns

But threats from extremism and security concerns are also conditions that influence the veiling practice.

On the first day she wore the full veil to the American University in Cairo (AUC), Heba al Shabrawi was refused entry by the guards because they could not confirm her identity after she refused to oblige by lifting the naqab .

"How can they teach us public freedoms, and then restrict my personal freedom to dress as I wish?" Shabrawi asks. "Even if it is not dictated by religion, the issue is still one of personal freedom."

The AUC authorities say they did not have an official policy on veils prior to this incident, but learnt that a 1994 regulation laid down by the Ministry of Education prohibited students wearing the naqab from attending university classes for security reasons.

Apart from ensuring liberal education, the university administration has now decided that a full veil is unacceptable because it hides a person's identity and hence is a grave security risk.

"The veil is indivisible from the rise of extremism in the Arab world, and the economics which underpin it,'' Soueif said, adding that ''extremism gained a foothold'' in Egypt after President Anwar Sadat changed the country's orientation from socialism to capitalism.

''(He) changed the country around from a socialist regime, where everyone in theory could get ahead by being good at what they did, and introduced a capitalist policy, which basically closed the door on the majority of people, so that those who previously could count on a reasonable future found themselves becoming poor,'' Soueif added.

Egyptian Islamists have become more vocal this decade, analysts say. Their declaration of war on tourism in 1992 resulted in clashes with security forces and many deaths, notably the 1997 massacre of 58 tourists at the temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor.

President Hosni Mubarak, completing nearly two decades in power, has been responsible for a number of crackdowns on purported Muslim activists, prompting protests from human rights groups. The actions have ensured that political Islam is checked, but encouraged the ''Islamisation'' of society.

"Extremism is a protest against being swept into the global market with a handicap, so that you end up being one of the poor of the world having no say,'' Soueif adds. ''Extremism says we don't want to be like that, and the veil is an expression of wanting to hold on to whatever it is that makes us who we are.''

Unique model

Geneive Abdo, a western correspondent based in Cairo during the mid-1990s, suggests in her book No God but God that a very unique model of Islamisation has emerged in Egypt.

She suggests that the religious transformation of Egyptian society has happened peacefully in the form of a popular movement from below that does not want to return to the medieval ages. Instead, it believes Islamic principles are compatible with the demands of the modern world.

The changing equation between the secular state and the religious establishment is best illustrated by the growing influence of the Al Azhar university in Egypt, the most important learning centre in the Islamic world that is about a thousand years old.

On the issue of donning the veil, deputy head of Al Azhar Sheikh Mahmoud Ashour says Islam only demands that women fully cover their body except the face and hands, and that covering the face with the naqab is "not obligatory". But wearing the headscarf may not be a matter of choice, but a "duty", he says.