The Shifting Politics of Identity 277opposition, Muslim states registered their identity in relation to international
treaties. In 1948, Saudi Arabia expressed its reservation in signing the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights on the basis of Islamic law.^6 In an interesting con-
tribution to the human-rights debate, Donna Artz (1990: 217) has documented
the long history of Muslim states registering their reservations with respect to a
host of human-rights legislation. Such an analysis shows that Muslim identity
was employed by Muslim states before the rise of populist Islamist opposition
movements. And, after the rise of Islamist movements, Muslim states contin-
ued to turn to Islamic identities in order to prolong their hold onto power on
the domestic front. Algeria turned increasingly to Islamic symbols in the early
1970s, long before the emergence of Islamist opposition at the end of the 1980s,
in an effort to obscure its failure in delivering the promises of independence.
The Egyptian president Sadat (1970–81) styled himself ‘the believing president’
to distance himself from the socialist groups in the ruling party.
In the pursuit of clearly different agendas, Muslim identity was employed
in politics by a diverse set of actors. Established states appealed to a reformist
style of Muslim politics, but they were not averse to resorting to traditional-
ist or Islamist approaches on particular issues like human rights. The military
regimes of Zia-ul-Haq (1977–88) and Nimeiry (1969–85) of Pakistan and the
Sudan respectively should be seen as part of this broader pattern. They did not
abandon their secular policies to join the Islamist camps but did what other
Muslim political actors had mastered. They employed both modernist and
Islamist approaches and symbols to articulate their political practices.^7 Islamist
religious politics, which I see as identity politics, is not limited to opposition
movements. All political actors draw freely on the Islamic styles of action to
construct identities.
Another striking example that illustrates Muslim identity in public life has
been the adoption of the headscarf by women in different societies. Since the
1970s, women have increasingly donned the headscarf as a statement of their
faith, identity and/or public engagement. The headscarf has become a highly
contested and controversial symbol, representing for some the true return of
Islamic devotion, but for others the undeniable erosion of women’s basic human
rights. The visibility of the headscarf suggests that it is donned in conformity
with either Islamist or traditionalist inclinations. At the same time, Islamist
governments have used the body of women as the most readily available map
on which to draw their ideological designs. It is often the fi rst piece of legislation
introduced by Islamising states, and the most visible sign of Islamic movements
(Shehadeh 2003: 241). While this is undeniable, a number of detailed studies
have expanded our understanding of this turn to the headscarf. In one of the
earliest ethnographic studies on the headscarf, El Guindi showed that women
were putting on headscarves for a variety of reasons. Though sometimes con-
fl icting with each other, they range from family pressure to personal choice.