Qahera is a webcomic produced by 22-year-old art student Deena Mohamed. The eponymous protagonist, a hijab-clad superheroine, is an Egyptian superhero. The series, which began as a joke amongst friends but soon became a viral phenomenon, has dealt with issues such as sexual harassment and misogyny, and Islamophobia and Islamist cultural attitudes, all often within the context of on-going Egyptian protests.
Contents
Development
"Qahera", the feminine version of "qaher", means conqueror, vanquisher, or triumphant; القاهرة (al-Qāhirah or al-Qahera) is the Arabic for the city Cairo itself, where the story takes place. Mohamed named the character as such because of its powerful meanings and because of its direct reference to Egypt. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Mohamed said that the name struck her very fitting "because it has so many powerful meanings: vanquisher, destroyer, omnipotent. It's a great name for a superhero, honestly, especially one who faces as many challenges as she does." Mohamed was inspired to start creating Qahera out of frustration with misogyny, but stated that one "can't critique [Egyptian] society without someone else trying to co-opt it and claiming they want to save you, or that you live in a backwards society." Mohamed described the character Qahera as "someone who was willing to take a stand against both the problems we have and people who try to impose their own views onto us." The character was initially intended to combat Islamophobia as well, and Mohamed gave her the hijab for that reason.
In the commentary for the first Qahera comic, Mohamed wrote that "an evening of reading the most awful misogynistic articles on dumb Islamic websites has lead [her] to this." The majority of the themes and events in the webcomic are based on Mohamed's own experiences with street harassment. She said of Qahera that she is "everything I'd have liked to be," and that the character is partially modeled after the many women around her. Aimed at a Western audience, Qahera is published primarily in English and translated into colloquial Egyptian Arabic.
Success
Between September and November 2013, Mohamad's website had nearly 500,000 unique visitors, with an average of 10,000 hits per day. Mohamed had been contacted by local publishers to create a printed version of the webcomic. Mohamed has also reported to get daily messages from Arab women who say that Qahera has been an inspiration for them.