My mother died from Alzheimer’s disease three years ago. While deeply religious, she disapproved of the veil and never veiled. I remember a time when she, defiantly, remained the only unveiled woman in her apartment building. When my parents moved to that building in the early eighties, few of the women in this five story building were veiled. By the late nineties, my mother was the only unveiled woman there. She received advice and other forms of proselytization from some of the other women in the building and invitations to attend religious lessons. Group religious lessons were the primary way many women in the urban centers of Egypt became veiled. In her last years, my mother became increasingly confused because of the Alzheimer’s. She’d often start prayers and forget that she had just finished, so she’d start again and go into endless cycles of prayers. At times she became extremely confused, unsure whether she was veiled or not. In her last two years, on the rare occasions when she went out of her apartment, she asked for a veil and I would assure her that she wasn’t veiled. A couple…
