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In both Egypt and Iran the forces of the secular state and the Islamic Republic, respectively, challenge the everyday lives and rights of women, creating a troubling conflict between Islamic tradition and contemporary society. I will compare the implications of the opposing nature of the Islamic forces in Egypt and Iran as they pertain to the suffrage of women’s rights. Women in Egyptian and Iranian History In general, the fundamental discord between the movement for women’s progress and their attempt to maintain cultural authenticity is a conflict that pits modernity/Western value systems against tradition/Islam. In studying the relationship, it is important to consider the players in the context of their historical development. Women were important to the nationalist struggle for Egyptian independence in 1922 (Badran, 13) as women’s rights were at the center of nationalist debates, a “manifestation of polarization between secularists and religionists, between reformers and revolutionists, and between internally and externally directed women (Badran, 111).” Yet after the 1922 independence from Britain, the feminists in Egypt found that the nationalist leaders were not as like-minded as they had thought – the nat