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It is a phenomenon that has become startlingly visible over the past year in Cairo. Along the city's crowded sidewalks, on university campuses and in offices, young Egyptian women who once wore the latest in Western fashion are turning to Islamic dress. Many of them cover their heads with either a long scarf or a knitted "helmet" that descends from the head to the shoulders. Others shield the entire face, leaving only two eye openings in the veil. Despite temperatures that commonly range up to 95DEG F, the women wear gloves and stockings.

Males could increasingly be seen in flowing robes called gallabiya--that is, until the robes were forbidden by President Sadat last week. Devout young Muslims also favor trim beards, which some men were hastily shaving to escape detection in the roundup of religious dissidents. By adopting these modes of traditional attire, young Egyptians are manifesting a new Islamic fervor that is symptomatic of the opposition to Sadat's secular, pro-Western regime.

Many of the young opponents of Sadat belong to a loose network of Islamic societies known as El Gamaa El Islamia, which have become the predominant social and political force at the country's universities. The dissidents are angered by their bleak job prospects after graduation and the fact that Sadat has opened the country to Western investment, products and personnel. The young fundamentalists are active proselytizers, prodding conventional Muslim students to take Islam more seriously and disrupting "decadent" activities like dancing and coeducational parties.

Ironically, it was Sadat who first encouraged the formation of the Islamic groups back in the early 1970s to counter the influence of Marxists and other leftists on the campuses. Since then, however, the Islamic students have repeatedly clashed with his regime, notably over Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and Sadat's hospitality to the Shah of Iran last year.

Many Egyptian officials believe that the sort of militant Islam now enjoying a renaissance is not sufficiently attractive to the majority of Egyptians to pose a danger to Sadat's rule. But observers caution that should the religious militants ever link up with secular dissidents, they could prove to be a potent challenge indeed to the President.

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