Why ironic? To this day the Hijab is not required in Egypt.

Why should someone not in a religion care how that religion defines things? I'm not quite clear what you're trying to say here.

You need to be aware of how the religion defines things because that definition has teeth for people actually living in those countries. The punishment for leaving (apostasy) is generally death. A third of people in the country where I’m from believe that really should be the punishment. (And it’s one of the “moderate” ones—in Egypt it’s about 2/3.) It’s a self-perpetuating system, which goes to the soundness of OP’s counting methodology above.

In Egypt, the rate of wearing some form of veil went from almost zero in the middle of the 20th century to 90% today. For the most part, that trend is enforced through various degrees of social coercion.

>A third of people in the country where I’m from believe that really should be the punishment. //

It's not just apostasy that's considered punishable by death though, "encouraging it" is too, AIUI. So what proportion of those people are just scared that their objection to death penalties will be considered to be support for apostasy and so they'll die. I mean who would answer "no" if there's any possibility that it might lead to your death or even just the persecution of you and your family?

"There's no compulsion in Islam" every Islam supporter online tells me.

Social coercion goes both ways

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44411333

In those countries there is a big divide between the liberal elite, which tends to be more secular, and everyone else. But any “coercion” caused by classist attitudes pales to the coercion on the other side. To put that article in context for our American readers: it’s like someone writing an article about how someone from rural Georgia went to Atlanta and someone mocked their accent. Except it’s written against the backdrop of the state passing the heartbeat abortion law.

On another note, when does influence become coercion? Is it only when it results in choices that the forces of global hegemony disagree with? Too many people are convinced that decision to wear a hijab can not be an authentically free one. It's very patronising.

Wow, it's almost as if Muslim women have a variety of opinions on the subject.

I don't see how this is relevant to the point. So Islamic law says that these people who are increasingly not praying, not attending mosque and don't support Sharia law and to the point don't believe apostates should be killed, are still Muslims.

So what? Why should I care? What point are you trying to make?