Egypt’s everywoman finds that her place is in the presidential palace

Naglaa Ali Mahmoud wears an Islamic head covering that drapes down to her knees, did not attend college and never took her husband’s last name, because that is a Western convention that few Egyptians follow. She also refuses the title of first lady, in favor of simply Um Ahmed, a traditional nickname that identifies her as the mother of Ahmed, her eldest son.

Egypt has a new leader, Mohamed Morsi, the first president to hail from the Muslim Brotherhood. And it also has Ms. Mahmoud, 50, whose profile is so ordinary by contemporary Egyptian standards as to make her elevation extraordinary. Ms. Mahmoud could hardly be more different from her predecessors, Suzanne Mubarak and Jihan el-Sadat: aloof, half-British fashion plates with well-coiffed hair and advanced degrees.

With her image as a traditionalist everywoman, Ms. Mahmoud has come to symbolize the dividing line in the culture war that has made unity an elusive goal since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. For some, she represents the democratic change that the revolution promised. She is a woman in the presidential palace who looks and lives like their sisters and mothers.

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