Super-rich Muslim women who shop at luxury boutiques wearing black burkas are to be targeted by the French government in a clampdown on Islamic veils, it emerged today. As parliament adopted a formal motion declaring such dress to be ‘an affront to the nation’s values’, French MPs made it clear that they were not stigmatising the poor. Many have criticised the anti-burka lobby, which includes President Nicolas Sarkozy, for focusing on poor Muslim housewives living on housing estates.

I came across this hadith when reading through my Quran one morning, and I immediately thought of a video I had seen the night before. It was a heartbreaking video about the niqab ban in Egyptian universities, the treatment our sister were receiving, and their iron-clad determination not to take off their niqabs or be refused the right to equal education for covering their faces. I ended up racking in sobs with tears gushing down my face. My heart felt like it was shredded to pieces and put back together and cradled with love. I was a mess with my Quran half on the pillow on my lap and in my hands.

A round-up of some niqab-related news for anyone interested in keeping up (in France, Denmark and Italy and Egypt).

A Massachusetts college has modified a controversial security policy after criticism it infringed on the religious rights of students, a school official said Friday.