Egyptian cleric to ban face veils in schools

October 06, 2009|Associated Press

CAIRO - Egypt’s top Islamic cleric is planning to ban students who are wearing the face veil from entering the schools of al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s premier institute of learning, an independent daily newspaper reported yesterday.

A security official said police have standing verbal orders to bar girls covered head to toe from entering al-Azhar’s institutions, including middle and high schools, as well as dormitories of several universities in Cairo.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said the ban was for security reasons.

The moves appear to be part of a government campaign against increasingly overt manifestations of ultraconservative Islam in Egypt.

While a vast majority of Egyptian women wear the headscarf, only a few wear the niqab, which covers the face and is common in neighboring Saudi Arabia, which practices the more conservative Wahhabi Islam.

There is no uniform religious opinion across the Muslim world about whether a headscarf - much less a face veil - is required.

The majority of Islamic scholars say the face veil is not required but is merely a custom that dates to tribal, nomadic societies living in the Arabian desert before Islam began.

The plans by the sheik of al-Azhar, Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, came to light when he told a middle school student in a class he was visiting to take off her niqab.

Tantawi told the girl that the niqab “has nothing to do with Islam and is only a custom.’’ He then announced he would soon issue an order banning girls from wearing the niqab.