Centre for Egyptian Women Legal Assistance receives sexual harassment complaints against self-proclaimed Giza sheikh

The Centre for Egyptian Women Legal Assistance (CEWLA) said in a statement on Tuesday that it received complaints from three women about online and physical harassment they were subjected to by a popular Giza community figure publicly claiming to be a Sufi sheikh of the Tijaniyya order.

According to CEWLA, the women sought legal assistance and immediate intervention by the center after receiving continued threats from the sheikh and his followers. 

Two other testimonies about the sheikh were shared on social media platforms by individuals who made similar allegations against him, with one asking for the online testimony not to be shared. 

The women who approached CEWLA were varied in age, with at least one under the age of 21, CEWLA lawyer Nada Nashaat told Mada Masr. She described commonalities between those affected, saying that they recounted the sheikh using “the same ways of luring them in and talking to them.” In the interests of the victims’ privacy, no further information could be shared, Nashaat said.

Nashaat said that the center is in the process of working to provide lawyers to the victims, adding that it is currently gathering the necessary evidence in order to be able to take legal action in the coming period.

In response to CEWLA’s statement, the Sheikhdom of the Tijaniyya Order in Egypt issued a statement distancing itself from the accused sheikh, stating that he is considered a normal Muslim who is not a scholar and who claims sheikhdom and deceives young Muslims in the Imbaba district of Cairo. 

In Sufism, each order reflects a variant interpretation of religious text and theory by various sheikhs, who hold authority in the community as spiritual guides, teachers and role models. 

The sheikhdom’s statement stressed statements from 2018 and 2019 in which it had denied the sheikh’s affiliation with the order and said the sheikh did not have permission to practice any related activity, given the proven “corruption of his belief” and “his deviation from the order and distortion of its principles.”

Women in Egypt are frequently exposed to various types of sexual harassment in public and private spaces, with 99.3 percent of Egyptian women and girls reporting having been subject to a form of sexual harassment in their lifetime, according to research conducted by the United Nations in 2013.