A clean heart likes clean clothes’
Cleanliness customs and conversion in Egypt (1900–1956)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9354731 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samir Boulos (a Oriental Institute , University of Zurich , Switzerland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 315-330 |
| Publication date | 2010-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0959-6410 • E-ISSN: 1469-9311 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09596410.2010.529661 |
| OpenAlex | W2092564429 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 22 |
The topic of personal hygiene and domestic cleanliness occupied Protestant missionaries working in Egypt during the first half of the twentieth century. Remarks on hygiene can be found not only in writings published for the interested public but also in personal documents such as diaries. This article illustrates that, in missionary sources, descriptions of cleanliness appear mainly in the female sphere, implying a deficient domesticity. The causes of this shortcoming were seen in the crisis of the Egyptian – and in particular the Islamic – family, in which, in the missionaries' perception, the husband ruled despotically over his wife and impeded a healthy family life. Missionaries tried to impart a new female role model – their ideal of a competent housewife and wise mother – and thereby aimed to empower women by teaching them habits of cleanliness. This paper examines the missionaries' methods and arguments for spreading ideas and practices related to hygiene and shows how cleanliness was closely linked to values such as orderliness, discipline and punctuality. It also explores the role of cleanliness in missionary accounts of Egyptian converts and examines how conceptions of personal hygiene and domestic cleanliness were linked to moral and religious purity
Clothing · Family medicine · Housewife · Islam · Perception · Personal hygiene · Political science · Sociology · Wife · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Medicine · Psychology
The Women's Awakening in Egypt
Purity and Danger
American Evangelicals in Egypt
Nurturing the Nation
Egypt as a Woman
Die Ordnung des Diskurses
Nurturing the Nation
Missionary Legacies
Creating the New Egyptian Woman
Der reinliche Bürger
Creating the New Egyptian Woman
American Evangelicals in Egypt
Empire and Muslim conversion
Purity and Danger
Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition
Lives at Risk
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2024 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |