The dean of al-Azhar University has issued a fatwa stating that the full-faced veil, or niqab, is a “custom that has nothing to do with Islam”.
The BBC reports:
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.
Although most Muslim women in Egypt wear the Islamic headscarf, increasing numbers are adopting the niqab as well.
The practice is widely associated with more radical trends of Islam.
The niqab question reportedly arose when Sheikh Tantawi was visiting a girls’ school in Cairo at the weekend and asked one of the students to remove her niqab.
The Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yom quoted him expressing surprise at the girl’s attire and telling her it was merely a tradition, with no connection to religion or the Koran.
Well he is right of course, the niqab is only a custom. However it is only right that individuals should still be given the choice to practice that custom.
So I sincerely hope that this edict is not used by the Egyptian State to enforce a ‘No-niqab’ policy.
32 Comments
Oh please. Since Nasser nationalized it in the 50s Azhar has been an organ of the Egyptian state and doesnt say anything different from what that state requires.
What you and Tantawi say about the niqab is simply false.
It was worn by the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wasalaams wives so to say it has nothing to do with Islam is false.
Here are the opinions just of the Hanafi and Shafi schools (the two most followed schools of Islamic law-but what do they know?)
“As for wearing niqab (the face veil), this was considered necessary (wajib) by the classical scholars of the Hanafi school, as well as other Sunni schools such as the Shafi`i school. However, this is often not reasonably possible to follow for many people, given their personal, family, or social situation. ”
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=10&ID=1334&CATE=88
“According to the Shafi’i School, it is obligatory for women to cover all of their bodies when they go out, including the face and hands. Most Hanafi scholars concur.
However, as Reliance of the Traveller, a Shafi’i text, mentions: some Hanafi scholars make a dispensation that permits a woman to uncover her face and hands.”
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=3&ID=7123&CATE=328
It’s okay Munir, a quick glance at a face won’t harm you, just remember they are human beings as well.
Actually this has been the function of al-Azhar since its foundation in 975 CE.
Tosh.
“Actually this has been the function of al-Azhar since its foundation in 975 CE.”
Absolutely. It’s funny how Islamists conveniently forget that when they re-use the arguments of Sheikhs of al-Azhar, who were shilling for King Faruq, when they attempted to personally discredit Ali Abd al-Raziq and ban his thesis Usul al-Hukm (Islam and the Principles of Governance).
good G!D. or perhaps i should say Allahu akbar. i am quite surprised.
stand by for reasons why people shouldn’t pay any attention, which will no doubt be arriving any minute.
b’shalom
bananabrain
“What you and Tantawi say about the niqab is simply false.
It was worn by the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wasalaams wives … .”
You were there, were you?
It actually doesn’t matter if it was worn by the Prophet’s wives since, like the Prophet himself, they were exceptions and different rules applied to them. The Niqab was worn by a whole variety of women in those days, in fact the ancient Greeks and Romans wore it too.
Grand Shaykh Tantawi is at home to quite a few ideas that deeply upset The Bruvvers and assorted Islamist fellow-travellers:
http://bikyamasr.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/bm-news-donating-to-churches-ok-says-egypt-sheikh-tantawi/
For examples of mind-numbingly ignorant (and sub-literate) angry-teen-cum-wannabe- Islamist responses to the good shaykh’s views, check out this deranged thread on MPACuk’s forum:
http://forum.mpacuk.org/showthread.php?s=440c3799fb143ffdfb158daa288aad56&p=659469#post659469
Islamism’s intellectual elite this lot are not.
For a further dose of Islamist utter bilge from “Da Bruvverz”, check out:
http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3463268#post3463268
If you can stomach it, that is.
And I just found this hilarious “condemnation” of the Shaykh from one of the regulars on the bonkers Ummah.com site:
Ooo errrr, shunned by Yvonne Ridley!
He’s one lucky dude.
The beardless Sheikh Muhammad Tantawy bin Husni Mubarak, off with the hijab in France and now with the veil in Egypt, similar to the ‘fatwa’ his theological prodigy Zaki Badawi gave before he keeled over, telling British Muslim women to whip of their hijabs…go their ‘Sheikh’ we are all ears!!!
re Mustapha – See what I mean about Islamist idiots?
I suppose he prefer cars to camels as well, how dare he!
BTW Zaki Badawai was a great individual, please don’t speak ill of the dead.
I have always struggled to understand “da Bruvvers” with their extra short trousers and beards around the sides and their desire to dress like they are 7th Century goat herders… especially as they stand beside their shiny new landcruisers, fiddling with their Thuriya satellite phones…
yeah, i’d like to see another figure of zaki badawi’s stature, credibility and humanity emerging, but so far there have been only ideological midgets, shouty peanut-throwers and tribalist nincompoops.
b’shalom
bananabrain
This is a welcome initiative from the Sheikh. The recent proliferation of the Niqab in Muslim and Non-Muslim countries is certainly an odd trend, especially considering the “direction” the rest of the world is taking. Nonetheless, I do understand that there is some Ikhtalaf on the issue of the Niqab and any female should feel perfectly within her right to adorn it should she so choose.
As far as I am aware, the Grand Shaykh has not suggested that women be denied the right to wear the niqab. He has, rather, pointed out that the wearing of the niqab is a tradition not rooted in the Qur’an nor the Islamic faith.
Interestingly, the suggestion that the Grand Shaykh is advocating the banning of the niqab in Egypt is a smear presently being spread by al-Ikhwaan (MB) in Egypt and beyond (via the Muslim Brothers’ extensive support and media networks in the wider world).
Here in the UK we call it Islam Channel.
Someone here once called it, quite accidentally, the Inayat Channel.
Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi IS A AMERICAN DOG , FED BY BRITISH , LET LOSE BY ZIONIST JEWS
King786
You have got the dosage wrong again, haven’t you?
Remember – its two lithium in the morning, not seven………
Get a a grip Old Fruit.
Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi IS A AMERICAN DOG , FED BY BRITISH , LET LOSE BY ZIONIST JEWS
Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi IS A AMERICAN DOG , FED BY BRITISH , LET LOSE BY ZIONIST JEWS
These kind of epithets have an embarrassing way of backfiring especially when most of the ‘bruvvas’ who dish them are living on British State benefits or council housing and are therefore “FED BY BRITISH” themselves.
Glass houses and all that…
Abu Faris,
Out of interest, would you support a ban on Niqab? In Egypt, Sudan or elsewhere?
Hassan,
In short, no.
If people want to strut about in gold lame hot-pants, tassled cowboy boots and Viking helmets that is no concern of the state. If people want to wear face masks made out of Hessian sacking then it is of no concern to me (although it may be of concern to those involved in the security of banks, borders and the such like).
On the other hand, I strongly disapprove of pseudo-religious authorities that insist that anyone should dress according to certain codes more or less against their will. I strongly disapprove of the misogynist yearning, as exhibited by Islamists, to force women to spend their lives in a deep and often humiliating state of enforced seclusion and anonymity.
If a women freely adopts the niqab, for religious or other reasons (and there are other reasons women sometimes wear the niqab) , then that is no business of mine or anyone else. However, if the woman has been cajoled, harried or otherwise pressurised to dress in such a manner, the this is surely of concern to everybody who believes in liberty of conscience and freedom of expression.
I am not convinced of the so-called religious pretexts for the wearing of the niqab – and clearly the Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar is not so convinced either. I am repelled by the persistent stories of women being persecuted in some communities for not so “covering up”.
It strikes me that those men that believe that one is allowed to force others down one’s own religious interpretation are in breach of the injunction that there shall be no compulsion in religion – and in the process do great harm to the Faith and the good name of the vast majority of its Believers.
That was a truly disgusting remark by some one calling themselves mustapha, also sadly i think he meant progeny rather than prodigy, which latter epithet in fact suits my late father rather well, islamists my butt another name should be applied to those who insist on spouting about things of which they are utterly ignorant and inhumanly angry about situations that have not botherred to educate themselves about, womens clothes have nothing to do with islam.
MPACuk, with their usual dedication to smearing opponents of Islamism, have run the following incredibly distorted account of this story. In part:
http://www.mpacuk.org/story/081009/im-scholar-so-dont-dare-challenge-me-you-ugly-niqabi.html
They link to a story carried on muslimmatters.org written by that well-known Islamist “authority”, Yasir Qadhi – who at least, in an update, has the good sense to indicate that this is only a [hostile] interpretation of events, that may not be true!.
And so the smearing of the good Shaykh continues…
Oh, the link to the muslimmatters.org article:
http://muslimmatters.org/2009/10/07/with-scholars-like-these/
@La/Ali/Muslim/Munir
“What you and Tantawi say about the niqab is simply false.
It was worn by the Prophet sallAllahu alayhi wasalaams wives … .”
O Wives of the Prophet! You are not like any of the other women.
33:32