AFP: CAIRO — A Islamist lawmaker called on Wednesday for the head of the most prestigious centre of religious learning in the Sunni Muslim world to resign after he told a schoolgirl to remove the veil covering her face.
The demand to step down came as about two dozen students, wearing the face veil, known as a niqab, protested outside the state-run Cairo University, which has banned the veils from its residence hall.
Mohammed Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar University, told a schoolgirl to remove her niqab when he spotted her during a tour of an Al-Azhar affiliated school, the independent Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported this week.
He also said he intended to ban the niqab at Al-Azhar and made an unflattering remark about the girl's appearance when she took off the veil, the newspaper said.
"And you look like this; what would you do of you were a bit pretty," he reportedly asked, adding "I know more about religion than your parents."
Al-Azhar spokesman Ahmed Tawfiq confirmed Tantawi had asked the girl to remove the niqab, but said he spoke to her in a kindly way.
He said Tantawi, who insists the niqab is not an Islamic practice, wanted to ban the niqab from Al-Azhar classrooms on religious grounds.
"The imam always bases his decision on religious grounds," said Tawfiq.
Hamdi Hassan, an MP with the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, said "Tantawi cannot stay in his post; he hurt's Al-Azhar every time he says something.
"I believe the niqab is not an obligation, but it is a benefit," he added. "Why ban it from Al-Azhar? It's a religious institution, not a belly dancing academy." >>> Samer al-Atrush (AFP) | Wednesday, October 07, 2009
ARAB TIMES: KUWAIT CITY: A Kuwaiti hardline Salafist MP on Wednesday blasted Egypt’s leading cleric Mohammed Tantawi for reportedly saying that wearing a face veil was not an obligation under Islam for women. “Tantawi’s statements against the niqab (face veil) are shameful,” Mohammad Hayef told reporters. “He is known for his bizarre and abnormal fatwas (religious edicts).” Tantawi, head of the Islamic Al-Azhar University, reportedly asked a student to take off her niqab when he spotted her in a classroom at an institute run by the university. The cleric reportedly said the niqab was a tradition, not an Islamic obligation.
The niqab has come to be associated with Salafism, a brand of ultra-conservative Islam practised mostly in Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states. Al-Mutairi, who is also the Al-Thawabet Bloc Secretary General — asserted this statement defies the actions of Islamic clerics and the spirituality code of scholars. Islamists in Egypt and the whole world launched a scathing attack against Al-Tantawi immediately after the publication of these reports. “The public has grown familiar to the appalling statements of Al-Tantawi who has continued to brandish his idiosyncrasies to the whole world,” said Al-Mutairi. [Source: Arab Times] Dahlia Kholaif, Arab Times Staff and Agencies | Wednesday, October 07, 2009
