" For European colonialists like Alfred, Lord Cromer, the British consul general to Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century, the veil was a symbol of the “degradation of women” and definitive proof that “Islam as a social system has been a complete failure.” Never mind that Cromer was the founder of the Men’s League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage in England. As the quintessential colonialist, Cromer had no interest in the plight of Muslim women; the veil was, for him, an icon of the “backwardness of Islam,” and the most visible justification for Europe’s “civilizing mission” in the Middle East. "

― Reza Aslan , No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam