Meet Cairo's own Dark Knight
Qahera, a superhero in a black hijab, protects the city she's named after from petty thieves, misogyny and even FEMEN activists.
She first appeared on the Egyptian streets in 2013.
She swoops from panel-to-panel, a lithe dark shadow, much like Bruce Wayne. A hometown superhero, Qahera keeps watch over the city she was named after.
Like the Dark Knight, Qahera's fight is centred in one of the world's largest metropolitan centres — in her case, Cairo. But as a Muslim woman, she must face ideological foes of the type that the billionaire Batman and the Man of Steel rarely have to contend with.
There are the obvious societal ills; 99.3 percent of Egyptian women say they face daily harassment, according to a 2013 United Nations survey.
Then there are the more insidious issues, such as the Islamophobia that plagues millions of Muslims around the world.
Qahera - the Arabic name for Cairo - was also created as a challenge to a belief among some feminists that any Muslim woman in a hijab must be "saved" from "oppression" through the machinations of Western democracy.
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Author: Ali M Latifi