http://www.ennaharonline.com/en/international/2195.html
…
A security official also told The Associated Press that police have standing verbal orders to bar girls covered from head to toe from entering al-Azhar’s institutions, including middle and high schools, as well as the dormitories of several universities in Cairo.The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak to the press, said the ban was for security reasons.
The moves appear to be part of a government campaign cracking down on increasingly overt manifestations of ultraconservative Islam in Egypt….
Islam doesn’t change. But Muslims are changing.
Bismillahir Rahmaanir Rahiim
Asalaamu alaikum.
A friend sent me an article yesterday (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8290606.stm):
“Egypt’s highest Muslim authority has said he will issue a religious edict against the growing trend for full women’s veils, known as the niqab.
Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.”
SubhanAllah. It’s one thing to say that niqab is not required. But to issue an edict against it, isn’t that basically declaring it haram? And how can it be haram if we know the Mothers of the Believers (may Allah be pleased with them) wore it? The Sheikh is further quoted as telling a student ” it was merely a tradition, with no connection to religion or the Koran”. Which is mighty odd considering that tradition (hadith) makes up half of Islam.
Shaykh Abdur Rahman ash-Shaghouri called anyone who told women to remove their niqabs a Shaytan.
Muslim women are getting hit quite hard, from many directions. This is a time to become stronger in our faith and make a lot of du’a’. May Allah assist us. Ameen
السلام عليكم
Don’t forget that Tantawi has a history of dishonouring Muslim women – we all remember Yvonne Ridley getting flack for refusing to shake his hand, and he also supported the French hijab ban. In this case, he asked why the girl was wearing niqab in front of her female classmates, conveniently forgetting that he was in the room and wasn’t female himself!
He is also a liar, as he well knows, having studied all those books, that Muslim scholars supported niqab and that it was the norm in Cairo until well into the British occupation. It’s not “cultural” at all, and all this stuff about it being a Wahhabi invention is nonsense as well.
Actually many respected scholars say niqab has nothing to do with Islam. There is a hadith about the Companions being surprised at seeing a woman coming to visit the Prophet wearing niqab. They asked her why she was wearing it.
Auzubillah. This so called sheik needs to be stripped of his tittle then flogged 1000 lashes lol. Not really. Let’s get serious. He’s wrong absolutely. First all, he violated islamic Law, he violated religious freedom, he violated her privacy. All these are understood in the west but the newspapers today (in the west) support his moves for their own interests. They claim it’s for security reason meanwhile they forgot that so called sheik violates “Bill Of Rights” that they believe in. I actually care less about so called Bill Of Right.
My concern here is Quran and Suuna. It’s understand for centuries that Niqab is not Fard but it’s not Haram either. If a woman chooses to wear it, she gets reward for it. If she chooses not to, she’s not punished for it as long as she meets minimum dress code requirements.
But for anyone to rule agaisnt or ban Niqab is ruling against Shariah Law. Therefore such is apostate. He acts just like Jews of old and now. I understood it when I was 6 that Niqab is voluntary but no sin in wearing or not wearing it but to ban it is haram. The sheik needs to be perfected
InshaAllah you will write and share our effort to support our sisters who wear niqaab:
http://loga-abdullah.blogspot.com/2009/10/ban-niqaab.html
BarakAllah fiikum