Islam's View On Physical Activity and Sport: Egyptian Women Interpreting Islam

International Review for the Sociology of Sport
http://irs.sagepub.com Islams View on Physical Activity and Sport: Egyptian Women Interpreting Islam
Kristin Walseth and Kari Fasting International Review for the Sociology of Sport 2003; 38; 45 DOI: 10.1177/10126902030381003 The online version of this article can be found at: http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/1/45
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 38/1(2003) 4560 Copyright ISSA and SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com [10126902 (200303) 38:1;4560; 031727]
45
ISLAMS VIEW ON PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND SPORT

Egyptian Women Interpreting Islam
Kristin Walseth and Kari Fasting The Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education, Norway
Abstract The questions asked in this study were: what kind of views do Egyptian women have on the relationship between Islam and physical activity/sport, and what consequences do different interpretations of Islam have for Egyptian womens involvement in physical activity and sport? The data were gathered during a four-month field-study in Egypt, and consist of 27 qualitative interviews in addition to many hours of field-observation. The results show that the women in the study agreed that Islam encourages sport participation for women. The women who most strongly emphasized the fact that they had to participate in some sporting activities were supporters of the fundamentalistic interpretation of Islam. Some Muslim women therefore find a non-secular relationship between sport and religion. The study further revealed that the different interpretations of Islam had consequences for the informants participation in sport. These were related to the use of the veil, gender segregation, the concept of excitement (non-sexual movements) and the power relationship between women and men. Most of these barriers seem to be products of Muslim societys view of women and their sexuality. The data further support the opinion that power strategies get internalized into peoples bodily practice. Key words Egypt Islam religion sport women
Introduction
This article presents some results from a study done in Egypt. Its main purpose was to create more knowledge about the influence of Islam on some Muslim womens participation in sport. In this introduction the relationship between sport and religion is first commented upon. Second, Islams influence on the Egyptian society is briefly mentioned. Third, to put the lives of the Muslim women participating in the study in their social-cultural context, a short description of womens situation in Egyptian society and in sport is presented. Concerning the relationship between sport and religion, a popular point of view has been that sport is a kind of religion (Sands, 1999), though there are also references to the place of religion inside sport (Coakley, 1994; Dunn and Stevenson, 1998; Gidman and Turkingston, 1997; Hoffman, 1992; Macdonald and Kirk, 1999; Stevenson, 1997). Hoffman (1999) exemplifies religions place inside sport by looking at the relationship between modern evangelicalism and
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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORT 38(1)
sport as a symbiotic partnership in which each party exploits the other for material gain. Examples of this are how players pray to God for support prior to sport competitions, and how some Christian churches build gymnasiums to attract young people to their church. There seems, however, to be little written about the place of sport in religious texts. As Eisen (1999: 231) states: The fact that religious philosophies and attitudes have something to do with how we view and administer our leisure activities through history is one of the best-kept secrets of modern sport scholarship. He says further that every religion creates certain priorities about the desirability or undesirability of various human endeavors in life. Where sport fits in this list of priorities is based on a given religions perception of its importance in human existence. This article will look at the place of sport in Islam. A central focus will be on the different ways of interpreting Islam. Hjrpe (1983) has divided Islam into four different ideological tendencies depending on how Muslims interpret Islam, and dependent on what function religion should have in the society (Figure 1).
Narrowed concept of religion Traditionalism Secularism
Fundamentalism A wider (more total) concept of religion Islam as political ideology
Modernism
Figure 1
Different Interpretations of Islam
Secularism and fundamentalism are two opposite views on the function of religion. Secularism looks at religion as a private matter while fundamentalists are of the opinion that Islam is a way of governing society. An example of fundamentalism is the Muslim brotherhood that wants Egypt to become an Islamic state. Traditionalists and modernists represent different views on how Islam should be interpreted. Traditionalists want to look at tradition and how Islamic scholars have interpreted Islam during past centuries. Modernists believe that societys laws should be inspired by Islamic values and principles. Islamic principles, not the traditional detailed rules, should guide society. This often implies radical reinterpretation of Islam. Islams influence on Egyptian society is less than in Islamic states like Iran and Saudi Arabia because Egypt is a secular state where Islam is under the administration of the state. This is in contrast to Islamic states where the states
WALSETH AND FASTING: ISLAMS VIEW ON PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND SPORT
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The Supreme Council of youth and sport
The President of the executive council of youth and sport
The NOC
The Federations
Sport for all

e.g. aerobics, no age limits, sport members in the board
Youth
e.g. camping, seminars, Youth centers, political members in the board
Sports
National, International teams, Club teams, talent centers, responsible for elections in clubs
Figure 2
The organization of sport in Egypt
are governed by the Islamic law, Sharia (Vogt, 1995). The Egyptian national law is built on Sharia, but Egypt has for a long time practised a solution between where Sharia is used as fundamental in family law, and where it is less used in economic situations (Hjrpe, 1983). It is still men who control and dominate the economic and political situation in Egypt. Even though women got universal suffrage in 1956, there are few women in leading political positions. According to the United Nations Statistics Division, 46 percent of women aged 1524 are illiterate, compared to 29 percent of men in the same age group (Internet, 2002). In addition, women do not have the same rights as men. The Islamic law Sharia states that the testimony from one man is of equal rank to the testimonies of two women. This is true for business, marriage and in court (De Knop et al., 1996). Egypt has also major reservations to the UN conventions relative to abolishing all kinds of discrimination against women (Grannes, 1993). Feminism in Egypt is complex and includes secular, Muslim and Islamic feminists. What they have in common is the struggle for Muslim womens rights. Simplified one can say that secular feminists have a secular interpretation of Islam as the point of departure. Muslim feminists have a modern interpretation of Islam as the point of departure and Islamic feminists have a fundamentalistic interpretation of Islam as a point of departure. Muslim and Islamic feminists differ from western feminists and other secular feminists because they are looking to Islam for arguments and answers. They believe that women and men are of equal worth and that Islam should define womens position and role in society (Svensson, 1996). The Supreme Council of Youth and Sport is the highest organ of sport and is a political organ where President Mubarak has nominated the members. This is set out in Figure 2.
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Competitive sport is mainly practised through sport clubs, which are expensive and therefore mainly for the middle and upper classes. Due to the secular organization of sport in Egypt, competitive sport is not gender segregated so men can be present when women play, such as during a basketball game. Egypt does send female athletes to the Olympic Games, while they do not participate in the Solidarity Games, which are games for Muslims who believe that female participation in Olympic Games is not in accordance with Islam. Egypt does however have committees for sport for all. Through sport for all it is possible for women to do aerobics in gender-segregated arenas. There exist no statistics of womens participation in sport in Egypt. The information we have indicates that the pattern is the same as in most countries, i.e. that more men than women participate in sport. There are in Egypt today some women who are central in the work and development of womens sport in Egypt. Dr Nabilah Abdelrahman must be mentioned since, at the time of the fieldwork, she was the only woman represented in the Supreme Council of Youth and Sport. She organizes international scientific conferences on women and sport, and has established the Arab Women and Sport Association. In relation to the different interpretations of Islam, Abdelrahman can be seen as working for womens right to do sport inside the context of Islam (Muslim feminism). In this way she can be seen as belonging to those seeking a modernistic interpretation of Islam. Another central woman in Egyptian Sport is Sahar El-Hawary. She was the first woman from the continent of Africa selected to the FIFA committee (Hargreaves, 2000) and has, on her own, financed and started a football league for women in Egypt. Mrs El-Hawary represents a secular interpretation of Islam. Despite their different interpretations of Islam, Abdelrahman and El-Hawary have both been successful in their work for female sport participation in Egypt.
Previous Studies
Previous research in this area can be sorted into two different categories. First, literature about Islams positive attitude toward sport (Abdelrahman, 1992; Alogleh, 1986; Daiman, 1995; Gellaish, 1981; Ibrahim, 1982; Sfeir, 1985; Walseth, 1998; Zaman, 1997): these articles show how the Prophet Muhammad encouraged Muslims to participate in sport. This was exemplified by the hadith1 where the Prophet encouraged his wife to run. Despite the fact that Islam encourages Muslims to practise sport, there are low participation rates among Muslim women in Muslim countries. This is exemplified in the research in the second category. These studies focus on womens sport participation in Muslim countries (Balboul, 2000; Brooks, 1996; Hargreaves, 2000; Navabinejad, 1994; Sfeir, 1985) and explains why Muslim women are less involved in sport than Muslim men. These studies also reveal that women in these countries do participate in sport under different conditions than women in the West (Abdelrahman, 1992; Balboul, 2000; Brooks, 1996; Hargreaves, 2000; Navabinejad, 1994; Pfister, 2000; Sfeir, 1985). For example, in some countries men must be excluded from the sports arena if women are going to compete in sports clothes where they show
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part of their skin. This is illustrated at the Solidarity Games arranged by Iran. These are games where only women are allowed to be inside the sports facilities when women are competing (Brooks, 1996; Pfister, 2000). A general feature of most of this research on Islam and sport is that the researchers do not discuss in depth what kinds of cultural and religious limitations these women face and why these limitations exist. The purpose of this study was therefore to seek an understanding of the religious influence on Muslim womens sport participation. The questions raised in this article are therefore: What views do Egyptian women have on the relationship between Islam and physical activity/sport? What consequences do different interpretations of Islam have for Egyptian womens involvement in physical activity and sport?
Methodology
The findings, about Islams influence on womens involvement in sport, are not meant to be representative for all Muslim countries. One of the reasons for choosing Egypt is that it is a complex country in which one can find different attitudes about the issues. In addition Egypt is often seen, intellectually and culturally, as a mirror of the Arab world in the modern age. This is especially the case when analysing the Arabic worlds view of women (Ahmed, 1992). The data were gathered during a four-month field-study in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1997, and consist of 27 qualitative interviews and many hours of fieldobservations.2 The interviews took place at the university campus. The interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. Interview Objects This study is based on interviews with Egyptian female university students between 18 and 26 years of age, representing five different faculties. None were married but some were engaged. It was our desire to sample both physically inactive and physically active women. It was further our aim that the female students should represent different socioeconomic backgrounds, and be able to communicate in English. Some of the informants participated in competitive sports such as basketball and handball. Others participated in gender-segregated sports like aerobics in sports clubs or weight training at home. Some of these interviewees had also participated in competitive gender-segregated sport at primary school. With reference to the main question asked in the study it was also important to get informants with different interpretations of Islam. Literature read previous to the field-study suggested that a particular kind of veil often was used as a sign of a fundamentalistic interpretation of Islam (Christiansen and Rasmussen, 1994). This assumption was confirmed during the first part of the field-study. Different types of veils therefore became a criterion when searching for further informants. Among the 27 informants 3 used nikab, 7 krimar, 9 hijab and 8 did not use any veil (Figure 3).
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Hijab
Krimar
Nikab
Figure 3
Different veils
In the Islamic literature the different types of Muslim veils have many different names and women are not always consistent in the use of these names. In this article the different veils are given the names which most of the informants used. The participants were accordingly divided into four groups, based on how much the veil covered the body: The first group consists of those women who did not use a veil. The second is the hijab-veil, a veil which covers only the hair. The third group is for those women who used a krimar-veil, which in addition to covering the hair also covers the breasts. This veil is often referred to as the Islamic uniform, and is used by many women who support more fundamentalistic interpretations of Islam (Christiansen and Rasmussen, 1994). The last category is nikab-veil, which means face veil. The face veil is used in addition to the krimar, and sometimes is also used with gloves. The informants were divided into different groups because the different kinds of veils seemed to be a sign of different interpretations of Islam. These were found to have consequences for the participants attitudes to sport. Accessing the Field The researcher was warmly welcomed at the university, but this friendliness created some challenges in the selection of the informants. The deans and some of the teachers wanted to help finding suitable informants, with the result that the informants was introduced primarily to potential informants with hijab. These represented the official interpretation of Islam, i.e. that religion is a personal belief in a secular society. At some faculties the interviewer was set up with guides who would help her with practical problems at the university. This was often a woman who used hijab, or who did not use a veil at all. It turned out that those female students who did not use veil seldom mixed with women who used nikab. The interviewer was therefore met with scepticism from women who used nikab and krimar since she was both from the West and was accompanied by women who did not use a veil. When the researcher first made contact with
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women who used krimar or nikab, the snowball sampling technique was used. This made it easier to recruit informants from these other groups. InsiderOutsider How native a researcher should go is a common problem for people doing fieldwork. We have, for example, had questions from fellow researchers whether this project would have been better if the interviewer had tried to convert to Islam. This question was also important for the informants. It is illustrated by the following example from the field-notes:
I went to the Y faculty and met X. It is difficult because she always tries to convert me. She says that she does it because she likes me so much, and because God prefers those who immediately believe in Islam. She is probably a little bit concerned that I will not end up in heaven.
There are also some categoricalists who believe that one can only do research on individuals who belong to the same group/category as oneself (Ball, 1990). Examples of such categories are: gender, sexual orientation, and in this case religion. We do not agree that the researcher has to be a Muslim to conduct interviews with Muslims. On the contrary, it might be that the researcher as a nonMuslim can raise questions about the practice of the religion, which could never had been done if she had been a Muslim. The experience from the field-study was that many Muslims seem to have learned that they should not query or be critical to aspects of the Koran or the hadiths. As a Muslim one should obey and not reflect upon these issues. A Muslim, for example, would rarely question whether a saying from the Koran is fair, because God is fair. If the interviewer had become a Muslim, the informants would perhaps not have accepted her querying different aspects of Islam. By not becoming a Muslim, she had this option. The informants looked upon her as ignorant, and it was therefore important for them to give her information and answer her questions, because this could lead her to realize that Islam was the true religion. In addition to the factors mentioned here, we believe there is a limit of how native one should go. One finds support for this from Bernard (1995), who says that participant observation means that you try to get experiences from the lives of your informants to as great a degree as possible. Participant observation does not mean that one should be a fully accepted member of a culture which is not ones own. Analysing the Data The analysis started in the field, and the process of collecting and analysing the data was concurrent. The goal was to create an understanding of the meaning Islam has for Egyptian womens sport participation, by organizing the data into categories. The explanations and the discussion of the results of the study are of an ideographic form. The study therefore did not have the goal of explaining the meaning Islam has for Muslim womens sport participation in general, because it focused on one specific case/place (Bernard, 1995).
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Trustworthiness It was important to think about the credibility (Marshall and Rossman, 1989) of the data during the data collection process. Trust is a key word in this connection. It is believed that a confident atmosphere was created partly due to the motivation that was given for carrying out the interviews. The researcher presented the project by saying that in Norway there were some Muslim immigrants, and that we had some problems in relation to physical education in the school systems because Norway did not have single-sex classes. The researcher explained that it was important to learn more about Islam and what Islam says about physical activity and sport. This may have given them a feeling that they were teaching the researcher, and that she was there because she wanted to learn. We believe this was important because many informants dislike the West because the West always wanted us to follow them. This was explained by saying that the West always tried to preach to them what was right and wrong. Ones credibility is also dependent on how long one has been in the field. For practical reasons a four-month period was chosen. It seemed to be enough time for saturation to occur, the point in time where one has collected enough data (Henderson, 1991). The language might be a potential source of error during this field-study. Undoubtedly, more precise, richer and nuanced information would have been available if the interviews had been carried through in Arabic, the informants own language. The informants English knowledge varied considerably. Using a lot of time, repeating and explaining if something was unclear, usually reduced the language problem. Economic limits did not give us the option to use authorized and professional interpreters. We were also critical of the use of an interpreter because this might destroy some of the confidence and the closeness which is so important in an interview situation. An interpreter, who was one of the employees at the university, was used for one interview. This was not a success. The interpreter became very busy giving the correct answers to the questions, as if there existed one right or correct opinion of the question asked or subject discussed.
Results
Islam Encourages Sport Participation With reference to the Koran and different hadiths the women in the study stated that Islam is positive towards physical activity and sport. They agreed that the reasons for this were the health, recreational, and war aspects of sport. Many of the women made references to the health concerns of Islam. One informant stated for example: Islam says that all Muslims have to do something for their bodies, to take care of them. One way to do this would be through sport (hijab). There is also, according to the Muslim female researcher, Abdelrahman (1992: 3), a hadith saying: Your body has certain needs that you have to fulfil. Interview with an imam in Norway confirmed that this hadith made reference to the body and that physical activity, because of this, was important. Concerning the recreational aspect of sport, the informants made special
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reference to two strong hadiths which demonstrate the importance of sport and physical activity. One of these hadiths, which is referred to by the Muslim author (Qaradawy, 1992), tells about Handala and the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who came to the Prophet because they felt so hypocritical. They told Muhammad that they acted differently when they were at home with their families than when they were with Muhammad. When they were at home they played with their children, and were not as concerned with serious questions as when they were with the Prophet. The Prophet then said: There is a time for this and a time for that (Qaradawy, 1992: 291). The informants, the imam and al-Qaradawy (1992) each interpreted this hadith to mean that the lives of Muslims should consist of both seriousness and play, and that we all ought to have some leisure time. The Islamic literature also tells us that the second caliph, Umar Ibn Khattab, stated: Teach your children swimming and archery, and tell them to jump on the horses back (Qaradawy, 1992: 296). There is, in addition, according to the informants and al-Qaradawy (1992), another strong hadith that tells the story of the Prophet who raced with his wife Aisha in order to please her, to enjoy himself and to set an example for his companions. Aisha said:
I raced with the Prophet and beat him in the race. Later, when I had put on some weight, we raced again and he won. Then he said: this cancels that [draw], referring to the previous occasion. (Qaradawy, 1992: 293)
This last example seems to be especially important for Muslim women because it explicitly shows that Muhammad requested women to run. As mentioned by the informants, physical activity and sport can also be seen as important because Islam emphasizes the importance of being in good physical condition in case of war. Some informants made reference to one sura (verse) in the Koran, which says: Against them make ready all your strength to the utmost of your power (Koran, 1998: sura 8: 62, translated by Abdelrahman, 1992). This sura in the Koran is often referred to in relation to Allahs wishes for having strong Muslims. There is also according to the informants, Abdelrahman (1992: 9) and al-Gellaish (1981: 37), a hadith where the Prophet Muhammad says: A strong Muslim is better and more beloved by God than a weak one, but both are good. All the informants believed that Islam encourages women to participate in sport. Even though these women participated in different aspects of sport, they did not have different views about sport as a positive activity for them. The analysis of the interview transcripts revealed a verbal nuance between the women who used nikab and krimar, and the other women, i.e. those who used hijab or didnt use the veil at all. Some of the informants who wear nikab or krimar emphasized that they were instructed by God to do sport:
Islam tells us that we have got the body as a gift from God, and that we should take care of it. God tells us to do a lot of things. How much we do of these things, is what decides our place in heaven. (nikab) I do more than God instructs us to, because I want to satisfy Him. After you die, you go to
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heaven or hell. There are different levels in heaven. The highest level is only for Muhammad and his warriors, or others who did much to satisfy him. You have to do sport. I play soccer with my brothers in the garden after it gets dark. (nikab)
This woman meant that God ordered her to participate in physical activity/sport, and that she plays soccer with her brothers because of this. Different Interpretations of Islam: Consequences for the Informants Participation in Sport Due to the informants positive attitudes toward physical activity and sport, one might believe that they all were physically active. The results following show however that this is not the fact. The interviews uncovered other interpretations of Islam that seem to function as practical barriers to womens sport participation. These were related to the use of the veil, gender segregation, the concept of excitement (non-sexual movements) and the power relationship between women and men. All the informants noted that Islam preferred that Muslim women wear the veil. Some of the informants thought this was a barrier for their sport participation, because they used a kind of veil (krimar and nikab) which in addition to covering the hair also covered the chest. It is, according to these informants, almost impossible to do sport with this veil on. The consequences are that these women have to do physical activities at home, or in sex-segregated training studios. The informants with krimar and nikab also thought that the concept of excitement (that women should not do sport movements which could be sexually exciting for men who watched them) made sport participation difficult. Women can, according to the informants in this study, create fitna (which means chaos or temptation) by participating in sport activities where men can watch them. Interviews with religious authorities (ulamas) state that women can practise sport if they cover their bodies, and if the sport movements are not exciting for the men who watch them (Abdelrahman, 1992). The women in our study agreed with the religious authorities, but their opinion of what exciting movements were differed considerably. The informants who use hijab thought that most sports, except activities with music (aerobics, gymnastics, dancing), were OK to perform in front of men if the womans body was covered. One of the informants said for example:
Basketball is OK in front of men, if you are covered, but in aerobics you have to be segregated from men. Aerobics demands that you have to lift your legs high and so that can be exciting for men. (hijab)
Those informants using nikab and krimar differed from the other women in their views on excitement. They looked upon all kinds of physical activities and sport as dangerous because they believed these sport movements could provoke excitement among the men who looked at them. As one of the women said: Running is not OK in front of men. You should only run if there is a danger. Your body shakes when you run, and men can be attracted (krimar). In addition
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to the commands relative to using the veil and the concept about excitement, the same informants thought that participation in sport became almost impossible because of the way sport is organized in Egypt today. Since there are very few sex-segregated sport arenas, these women cannot participate in competitive sport. But it was not the requirements about veil and sex segregation that limited their sport participation. It is, according to these women, Egyptian societys secular organization of sport that sets the limits. Islam is only a barrier to Egyptian womens possibility to play sport and participate in competitions because Egypt, as a secular society, has not adjusted sport participation for those who have a wider or more total concept of religion and who look at Islam as a political ideology.3 The informants in the hijab and no-veil categories may participate in sport competitions because they interpret Islam in such a way that neither the veil, sex segregation nor the concept of excitement raised any practical barriers to their sport participation. The informants in the hijab and no-veil category however encountered other barriers, such as the power relationships between men and women, which they experienced differently from the informants in the krimar and nikab category. If one examines the Koran, the main source of Islamic thinking and practices, one will find a few verses that treat the gender issue. These verses have been interpreted in different ways, depending on the writer. There is for example a great difference in interpretations done by fundamentalists and by modernists. There is also an ongoing debate among Muslims, especially Muslim feminists, about gender issues in Islam (Ahmed, 1992; Mernissi, 1991; Roded, 1999). Based on different sura, among others, 33: 35 and 3: 193 in the Koran, Muslim feminists believe that Islam has an egalitarian message: I waste not the labor of any that labors among you, be you male or female the one of you is as the other (sura 3: 193). Despite the apparent message of sura 3: 193 in the Koran (1998), which prescribes gender equality, there is today a dominant interpretation of Islam in the Egyptian Muslim society saying that men should have a dominating position over women. This interpretation is mainly based on the following verse in the Koran:
Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for Gods guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them. If they then obey you, look not for any way against them; God is All-high, All-great. (sura 4: 38)
Based on these verses, a central question was whether Islam legitimates mens control over women. Most of the informants who use hijab or no-veil answered yes to this question. Example:
If we disagree we should discuss it first, but in the end it is up to the husband to decide whether his wife can participate in sport or not. Islam says that the man should decide in this way. (no-veil)
The informants in the nikab and krimar category were more negative about mens control over women. One of the informants who used nikab answered:
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We should not obey anyone else than God. We should look to Islam for answers. If someone [a man] says that women should not do sport, it is because he does not know Islam. I am playing sport to get a higher position in heaven.
In this way the informants in the nikab/krimar category had something in common with Muslim feminists in general who believe that women and men are of equal worth, and that Islam, and not men, should define womens position and role in society (Svensson, 1996). The results show that the informants who look at Islam as a political ideology, and who hoped that Egypt would become an Islamic state, were the ones who interpreted Islam to not advocate mens control over women. This was surprising and a paradox to us because it seems that the implementation of Sharia often leads to an increased control over women (Ahmed, 1992; Hargreaves, 2000). These informants do however believe that an Islamic state based on the right interpretation of Islam (not patriarchy) would increase their possibility of participating in sport.
Discussion
The study revealed a common opinion about Islams positive attitude to sport. It further found that the informants who most strongly emphasized the fact that they had to participate in some sporting activities, were those who looked at Islam as a political ideology. While the informants who did not use veil or who used hijab said that God encouraged them to do sport, the informants with nikab or krimar veils emphasized that they had to participate in exercise and sport. Concerning the relationship between sport and religion today, both Guttmann (1985) and Lammer (1987) make the comparison to the ancient Olympic Games. They agree that the ancient Olympic Games were holy games in which the athletes participated in order to worship the gods. Lammer (1987) says further that there is an important difference between the ancient and the modern Olympic Games because the first ones were a part of a religious festival, while the modern Games have no religious connection. Concerning the role of sport in society today, Guttmann (1985: 306) states that:
Modern sports are activities partly pursued for their own sake, partly for other ends which are equally secular. We do not run in order that the earth be more fertile. We till the earth, or work in our factories and offices, so that we can have time to play.
Guttmann (1985) emphasizes in this way his view of sport as a totally secular phenomenon. There is, according to him, nothing today which tells us that someone is doing sport to satisfy God. In light of the results that have been presented here, it is obvious that we have to dissent from his opinion. It is easy to see the parallel between the ancient Olympic Games and the opinions of the Egyptian women participating in the study. The results indicate that some Egyptian women, particularly those who interpret Islam to be a political ideology, participate in physical activities and sport because they want to please God. For these women it is important to do as God wants them to do because it increases their
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chance of getting a high place in heaven. It therefore seems that physical activity and sport has a place in Islam and that some Muslims find a non-secular relationship between sport and religion. This means that people may participate in physical activities and sport to get closer to God, as opposed to the better-known phenomenon that athletes use religion or God to perform better in sports. Through this study some barriers to Egyptian womens participation in physical activities and sport have also been revealed. The results show that different interpretations of Islam produce different barriers. The informants who do not use veil or use hijab point to patriarchy, i.e. that the men in their families decide whether they are allowed to do sport. This is a primary barrier. Women with krimar and nikab point to the Egyptian societys secular organization of sport as a major barrier for their participation in competitive sport, because Egypt does not practise gender segregation in the sport arena. Most of the barriers the informants referred to seemed to be directly or indirectly related to Islams view of women and their sexuality. According to Islam, women have a strong sexuality. Compared to men, women are more often viewed as less moral, because they are believed to have less control over their sexuality (Astad, 1993). She is therefore seen as a seducing being, at the same time she is easy to tempt. Due to this idea women can easily create fitna (chaos or temptation) in the society. Participating in sport with men would be an example. Since women are seen as less moral than men, they are at the same time seen as less capable of making decisions, including deciding about their own leisure activities. In this way the control of women, including their own body movements, is legitimized by saying that women have a tendency to be immoral (Astad, 1993). According to Dahl (1992), the social order, i.e. the hierarchy of gender, is a product of religious and cultural ideas about sexuality, and an opinion of how sexuality best can be organized and controlled. The body can in this way be seen as a prolongation of womens sexuality. To run or scream is a body language reserved for men in a Muslim society (Astad, 1993). In the western world competitive sport has for a long time been looked upon as a hegemonic masculine activity dominated by masculine values (Messner, 1994). It is the same phenomenon that seems to occur in this study from Egypt. The barriers the informants met, in regard to which kind of movements they could perform in front of men, can be interpreted as Egyptian societys attempt to control womens self-determination, opportunities and power. The data therefore support the opinion that power strategies get internalized into peoples physical activities. The debate about Egyptian womens sport participation is controversial. There were, for example, disagreements among the informants in relation to where (gender-segregated or not), when (do men decide when they can do sport) and in which way (non-exciting movements) Egyptian women can participate in sport. The multiple ways Egyptian women do participate in sport has shown to be influenced, directly or indirectly, by different interpretations of Islam. In conclusion it therefore can be stated that Islam influences Egyptian womens sport participation.
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Notes
We would like to thank the deans of the different faculties involved in this project for their hospitality. We also want to thank the informants who have participated in this study. 1. The hadith collections are the Islamic stories about what Prophet Mohammad should have said, done or accepted (Oppsal, 1994). The hadiths, which we make reference to here, are also referred to by the informants. We have however presented these hadiths as quotes from different Islamic literature so that they are presented as precisely as possible. Since the informants represent a culture very different from the researchers, it was found necessary to live in that culture for a certain amount of time. This was the main reason for gathering data through staying in the field where the informants lived. The field-observations and the qualitative interviews were carried through by the first author as a part of her masters study (Walseth, 1998). Qualitative interviews were used for different reasons. First of all, because of the possibility of the interviewer to go into more depth than would have been possible by for example using a questionnaire (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). Secondly this was looked upon as particularly important because the data gathering could not take place in the informants own language. The possibility of asking questions, using body language and asking the same questions in another way were therefore also major factors in the decision taken to use qualitative interviews. In carrying through the interviews a semi-structured interview guideline was used. This implied that all informants were asked the same questions as starting points for the different themes that were discussed during the interviews. In Iran, the use of veil and the request that women should not move excitingly do not raise the same barriers to womens sport participation because Iran, as an Islamic state, has sexsegregated training places (Navabinejad, 1994).
2.
3.
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Kristin Walseth is research fellow at the Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education. Her current research is on immigrants, sport and gender in Norway. Kari Fasting is professor and a former rector of the Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education, where she teaches sociology of sport and research methods. Her area of research is sociological and socialpsychological aspects of gender and sport. Kari Fasting is past president of The International Sociology of Sport Association. Address: Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education, Postbox 4014 Ullevl stadion, N-0806 Oslo, Norway. Email: kristin.walseth@nih.no, kari.fasting@nih.no

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