Egypt cleric ‘to ban full veils’ & Shaykh Yasir Qadhi’s reply to this issue
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.
“All I can say is: with scholars like these….who needs the French?!” Shaykh Yasir Qadhi . Read his complete reply to this issue
Well, I am glad that they are doing this because it does cause a henderance in many things, such as driving, working in public, and even buying things. I have met many women that are almost impossible to hear because of niqab. I also think that driving is hard. I have put a niqab on and it poses a problem with seeing periphal as well as causes problems with people knowing who i am when i travel etc… I think it should be banned as a part of everyday life, publically in schools and in professional setting however if you choose not to work and want to wear it AL7AMDULILLA7 i AM ALL FOR IT… way to go
hmmmmm….. won’t agree. Things become a norm to the society after sometime…. Not at all a hindrance, I have taught people who wear it how to drive…. they did just as good as someone who does not wear it. If you can go to colleges and school with Niqaab why can’t you work? Freedom of speech and religion right… i mean people are allowed to go in public wearing whatever they want sometimes almost down to nothing so why should our sister who have adopted modesty be stopped! for traveling…. they make every one take their shoes off anyways and they pull most of the Muslims to the side so they can take the niqaabi sister to the side and we have every right to request for a women guard and flip over the niqaab and they can be blessed to look upon the lovely faces. :)
My dear sisters and brothers Niqaab is a blessing. it truly is once you look at its essence
stahlblu, on so many levels, banning anything that is an aspect of the religion can’t be good, and it’s much worse when the ban occurs in a Muslim country, from supposedly Muslim authorities.
Muslim women have been wearing niqab for centuries, and it obviously doesn’t get in their way, as evidenced by their defense of niqab and their insistence to wear it despite the ban – they’d rather be stopped at the doors of the university than take it off.
Besides, all the things you mentioned are really “excuses” people may use to justify the ban (and none of which change the Islamic ruling on niqab). Many of these niqab-wearing sisters in Egypt attend all female schools/universities – so when they get into the classroom, or areas where only females are present, they’ll lift their niqabs up. So banning niqab at these universities only makes the ban more infuriating.
Would it be fair to ban a person who has a very thick accent from the work area, just because people have a hard time understanding what they’re saying? They have every right to be in the work force, so it is not fair to say that they shouldn’t work just because it’s impossible to understand them. So why should the niqaab be banned, just because it’s impossible to hear women through them?
I think both the women who wear the niqaab and the people who have to deal with them need to understand the sacrifices the niqaab poses for both parties. For the Muslim woman, we need to understand that we live in a society where the niqaab is not normal, and that we have to sacrifice a lot of liberties that others are not subject to, like extra security at the airport.
As for the other party, they should understand that wearing the niqaab is a freedom that us women take advantage of, and enjoy, and that we wear it for no other reason but that it pleases us to please our Lord. There really is no need for any ban. Just more compassion and understanding.