Jamia Al-Azhar on October 8 decided to ban niqab in all its affiliate girls-only schools, educational institutes and dormitories. “The Supreme Council of Al-Azhar has decided to ban students and teachers from wearing the niqab inside female-only classrooms,” said Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi. Reading out from a written statement, he said niqab would not be allowed in schools where both the students and teachers are females. Tantawi added that the same rules would apply in university dormitories where the residents and the supervisors are also all females.
During a visit to a school earlier last week, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi ordered a school girl to remove her niqab, telling her the face-veil is “a tradition and has nothing to do with Islam.”
The Supreme Council asserted that Al-Azhar does not oppose the niqab in the homes, streets or the work place. But Tantawi asserted that they are against over exaggerations. “Women cover their faces so as not to be seen by stranger men. But it makes no sense to use niqab in a women-only environment,” he contended. “Insistence on covering the face in the presence of women only is a form of extremism which Islam opposes.”
Tantawi told the state television Tuesday that although he considers the niqab as a tradition, he does not oppose it and deals normally with women who cover their faces. The majority of Muslim scholars believe that a woman is not obliged to cover her face or hands. They believe that it is up to every woman to decide whether to take on the face-cover or not.
Most Muslim women in Egypt wear the hijab, which is an obligatory code of dress in Islam, but an increase in women putting on the niqab has apparently alarmed the government. The ministry of religious endowments has recently distributed booklets in mosques against the practice. The Education Ministry has reportedly banned students who wear the niqab from being accepted in state-run Cairo University’s dormitory.
Tantawi is under fire over ordering a school girl to remove her niqab. “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 reporters.
In fact, the Al Azhar’s decision to ban burqa in girls-only classrooms and residences came after Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi, the country’s Imam and Sunni Islam’s foremost spiritual authority, openly spoke against the full veil during a tour to a Cairo school recently.
“Egypt is heavily influenced by European countries like the UK and France. Men in Egypt don’t wear beards or follow the Islamic dress code. So it is not surprising that the Al-Azhar University has taken such a decision. But we are of the view that it is against the Shariah,” Islamic scholar of Deoband Maulana Nadimul Wazdi said.
Wazdi, who heads a girl’s madrasa at the Darul Uloom Deoband, hoped that the Arab world would speak out against the University’s decision. The university, he felt, was moving away from the age-old Islamic traditions and tenets under the influence of Europe.
Jamiat-UIema-e-Hind leader Maulana Abdul Hameed Nomani and Qari Mohammad Usman, former pro-vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom, shared the opinion that it’s a Shariah rule that Muslim women should wear hijab in public and no one should tinker with this sacred religious code.
Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind Ameer (president) Maulana Jalaluddin Umri felt that the Cairo university was interfering with the personal laws of the community by imposing ban on face veils. Interestingly, he was of view that women need not wear burqa in female-only enclosures. “But one cannot ban it or deprive the women of their right to wear burqa,” he said. “If they (women) venture out into public places, like markets or offices, they should wear hijab. The shariah says it clearly. But then again there are two views on whether they should cover their faces also or not,” he said.