Al Azhar bans the Niquab 10, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Egypt, Islam.Tags: Al Azhar, Al Azhar Niqab ban, Egypt terrorist attacks, Niqab, Niqab ban, Sayed Tantawy
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The Islamic World’s oldest, most revered and preeminent seat of higher education has banned women from wearing the Niqab, as pictured above, in their dormitories and in women only classrooms.
The Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar Mohammed Sayed Tantawy decided to enforce the ban did as the Niqab is not mandated at all by Islam but is instead only a regional custom. However, there is also the very real and practical result of this ban that female students now have to show their faces to male security guards.
Such a move is unsurprising in security conscious Egypt. One one level, the legion of state security organs are ever vigilant in maintaining Mubarak in power. Keeping a closer eye on their preeminent seat of Islamic learning and preventing it from radicalizing is one aspect of this. Those wearing the Niqab are thought to be – ipso facto – of a more austere and extreme Islamic persuasion. This is not so say that they are necessarily extremists: of course they are not; but those wearing it “tends [sic] to be adopted by the most radical elements” as Dunn puts it. Additionally, Egypt’s vast security apparatus is there to protect Egypt’s economic lifeline – tourism – from debilitating terrorist attacks such as devastating attacks in 1997 in Luxor and in 2005-6 in Shark El Sheikh and in Dahab respectively.
The Gulf blog 
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