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November 11, 2006

Egypt: Court Says No-One Can Ban Muslim Veil

The issue of the wearing of the veil has taken on political dimensions in Egypt. The religious affairs minister, Mohammad Hamdi Zaqzouq, said on October 14 that the face-covering veil was not a religious object. He said: "or is the niqab a duty deriving from the Sharia. I know I will be criticised for my words but I think some Muslims are committing a fundamental error, focusing on external and superficial aspects, without exploring more relevant themes, and hence providing a distorted image of Islam."

He was speaking as a row was then brewing over the decision by Abdel Hay Ebeid (Abdel al-Hadi Ebaid), dean of Helwan University in Cairo, to ban female students from entering their dormitory areas of the university while wearing the niqab, or face-veil.

The decision was met with guarded approval from Sheikh Sayed Al Tantawi, who said that as long as the women in Helwan University did not have to remove their hijabs (Muslim headscarves), there was no violation of Islamic values. Tantawi is from Al-Azhar University, the largest Sunni theological college in the world, which is based in Cairo.

Until very recently, the dean of the women's faculty of Islamic studies at Al-Azhar was Soad Saleh, who still lectures on Islam. She recently told AFP that: "I don't agree that the veil should be compulsory, and I don't like it." Saleh said she wishes to "purge Islam of false concepts: the Quran does not say women have to cover their faces, it's an old Bedouin tradition."

The face-veil, as argued by Amnah Nousir, a female professor of Islamic philosophy was "common in the Arabian Peninsula centuries before Islam and was not imposed by this religion. The face is one's mirror. So why should the woman hide herself behind this black veil?"

Mahmoud Refaat, a director at Helwan University, said of the decision to ban face-veils in halls of residence: "The university will not rescind this decision because it would be blamed if a man, veiling his face behind the niqab, walked into the female-only dormitories."

Abdel al-Hadi Ebaid, the dean of Helwan University said: "What I want is to protect students against those individuals who might worm their way in, disguised under a face veil. Their parents would kill me if a man infiltrated the women's halls."

Another university official said: "The niqab has been grossly misused by criminals and even terrorists. We should not forget that over a year ago two veiled women were involved in a foiled attack on a tourist bus in Cairo."

There were demonstrations last month against the ban. One student, 21-year old Rihan Sami, said: "This ban restricts my freedom. The veil is my choice, and that of Islam, in battling against the shamelessness that abounds here."

Soad Saleh recently fell foul of the country's Islamists when on the privately owned satellite channel Egyptian Dream she said that she felt disgusted each time she saw a face-veil. As a result of this comment, Yussef Badri, a member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, filed a lawsuit against her. Dream TV is also being sued. As is so often the case in matters of Islamic criticism, Saleh has also received death threats from Muslims for making her remarks.

Ebrahim Zakaria, a member of the banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood and one of its 55 MPs in the government, filed a complaint with the Prosecutor-General questioning the legality of women wearing niqabs being excluded from government-run universities.

Yesterday, AKI reported that an administrative court has issued a binding ruling, which effectively prevents anyone banning a woman from her "right" to wear the face-veil. Judge Abdel Qadeer Qandil, deputy president of the Council of State, has ruled that: "Wearing a niqab is a woman's right and noone can therefore ban her from entering a certain area. Behind the choice of a woman to wear the full veil there are personal and ideological principles that cannot be violated according to the law."

Qandil's ruling continued: "The civil law code does not ban the niqab nor does Sharia Islamic Law disapprove of it. The constitution, which protects all citizens, does not force anyone to dress in a certain way, nor deprive of their rights those who are opposed to the niqab or the hijab."

The ruling came after the American University in Cairo, which imposes a face-veil ban its library, asked for clarification. Judge Qandil is of the opinion that a woman in a face-covering veil is still recognisable. He stated that women attendants should check on the identities of women wearing veils.

Despite this, there are still some Muslim scholars in Egypt who think, like Soad Saleh, that the face-veil has nothing to do with Islamic obligation. Jamal Al Bana, a liberal Muslim thinker, recently said in an interview that "the niqab is an insult and he who calls for it is backward."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 11, 2006 11:04 AM

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