Disgraced Al-Azhar’s Top Scholar, Tantawi, calls for ban on Niqab

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 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 claiming to her it was merely a tradition, with no connection to religion or the Quran.

Shaykh Abu Qatadah said about Tantawi:

“…This is a man who is a failure in every sense – in terms of his character, his faith, and his knowledge. In fact, he is also a failure in terms of his manhood. He is a lowly man, and I cannot find it within myself to say except what Allah has Said regarding his likes: {“Indeed, those who turned back after the Guidance was made clear to them have been deceived by Satan…”}…and here, I put on the record the obligation of faith for the scholars of al-Azhar to declare their disavowal from this lowly, despised Sayyid Tantawi, and to establish for themselves a spirit that is far from him and his authority…

I mention this judgement upon this man because I know that the Muslim who follows his verdicts and actions will not be surprised at what I’m saying, as the proofs for passing this judgement upon him cannot be contained in a single volume. Rather, this requires many volumes of books. However, in case there is a reader who has not followed his history, he might request of me some examples displayed by this man known as Shaykh al-Azhar…”

Egypt purges niqab from schools and colleges

Egypt has embarked on a campaign to restrict the most conservative forms of Muslim dress after one of Islam's most respected clerics ordered a schoolgirl to remove her niqab, or veil.

Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi was reportedly angered during a tour of a Cairo school when he saw a girl wearing a niqab, the full veil worn by some devout Muslim women which covers the entire body except for the eyes.

Sheikh Tantawi, who was awarded  the job at al-Azhar university due to his upmost loyalty to the dictator brutal Mubarak. Al-Azhar university use to be Sunni Islam's foremost spiritual authority,

Tantawi asked the teenage girl to remove her veil falsely claiming : "The niqab is a tradition, it has no connection with religion."

Tantawi instructed the girl, a pupil at a secondary school in Cairo's Madinet Nasr suburb, never to wear the niqab again and promised to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against its use in schools. The ruling will not affect use of the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by most Muslim women in Egypt.

Although definitions vary, the niqab is generally distinct from the burka, a garment which covers the entire body and allows only a mesh material in front of the eyes.

Shekih Tantawi's order is likely to resonate throughout the Islamic world even though, ironically, the schoolgirl had only worn the niqab in honour of his visit to the school.

Following the imam's lead, Egypt's minister of higher education is to ban female undergraduates from wearing the niqab from the country's public universities, Cairo's Al-Masri Al-Yom newspaper reported.

The Egyptian government has become increasingly uneasy about the growing popularity of the niqab, seeing it as another manifestation of the religious puritanism it has long sought to suppress.

While undoubtedly influential, Sheikh Tantawi has plenty of detractors who deplore his treachery in many fields.

He has been criticised for shaking hands with Shimon Peres, the Zionist president, backing France's ban on wearing the hijab in schools.