This question has been asked many times on this sub. The point is that almost inevitably these photos are of an urban elite with more money, education, and a greater proximity to dictatorships (communist, capitalist, or somewhere in-between) that were ideologically committed to secularism.

At the same time that Hoda Sharawi was taking off the veil in Egypt, Hassan al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood was spreading like wildfire from city to city. One was visible and photogenic, one was not.

Cultures are complicated things, and photos of particular enclaves of urban society are rarely representative of that society.

This submission has been removed because it is soapboxing, promotion of a political agenda, or moralizing. We don't allow content that does these things because they are detrimental to unbiased and academic discussion of history.