CAIRO -- Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, is under fire over ordering a school girl to remove her niqab and vowing to ban the face-veil in schools affiliated to the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world. "Tantawi cannot stay in his post; he hurt's Al-Azhar every time he says something,” Hamdi Hassan, an MP with the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, October 7.
During a visit to a school earlier this week, Sheikh Tantawi ordered a school girl to remove her niqab, telling her the face-veil is “a tradition and has nothing to do with Islam.”
Tantawi, the Muslim-majority country’s top religious authority, vowed to ban the niqab all schools linked to Al-Azhar.
Established in 359 AH (971 CE), Al-Azhar mosque drew scholars from across the Muslim world.
Over the years it grew into a university, predating similar developments at Oxford University in London by more than a century.
The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar is appointed by the president of Egypt and is treated, in terms of protocol and salary, on equal footing with the prime minister.
Why Ban?
Tantawi’s critics are not necessarily contesting his view on niqab, but rather his decision to ban it.
"I believe the niqab is not an obligation, but it is a benefit," said MP Hassan.
But MP Hassan still does not understand why Tantawi wants to ban it.
"Why ban it from Al-Azhar? It's a religious institution, not a belly dancing academy."
Sheikh Ali Abu al-Hasan, the former head of the Fatwa Council at the Islamic Studies Institute (ISI) in Cairo, agrees.
He contends that although it was not required by Islam for women to cover their faces, Al-Azhar University should allow women to choose what they want to wear.
"No official has the right to order a young lady to remove a form of dress that was sanctioned by none other than Umar ibn al-Khattab, except for the purposes of identification for security reasons," Abu al-Hasan told Al-Jazeera
"The niqab is not in contravention of Shari’ah or Egyptian law."
A researcher prevented from using the library at the American University in Cairo in 2001 because of her niqab took her case to the Supreme Court and eventually won.
The court ruled a total ban on the niqab to be unconstitutional.
Husam Bahgat, of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, accused the government of "arbitrary" measures against women who wear the niqab.
"They are barred from government subsidized housing and nutrition because they are considered extremists."
About two dozen students, wearing the face veil, protested outside the state-run Cairo University on Wednesday for being denied access to the dormitory because of their dress code.
"I have exams in two weeks. I haven't found a house and I can't study," one student who gave her name as Fatin told AFP.
"What happened to individual freedom? Cosmetics are freedom, but not the niqab?"
Source: IslamOnline
| Home | Daily News | We Are On... |
