What are wearers of the niqab supposed to do?
” For devout Muslims who wear the niqab out of conviction, the Egyptian ban is tantamount to a defeat, even if it is restricted to universities. They have become accustomed to the fact that action is taken against the headscarf or veil in western countries. And perhaps also in the few secular countries where most of the population are Muslims, such as in Turkey or Tunisia. But now the veil, a piece of clothing that has so often had to be defended against criticism, is being declared un-Islamic by members of the Muslim community, and furthermore by one of the most senior legal scholars in Sunni Islam. The result is helplessness. “What are we supposed to do?” asks Sadaf Farooqi in the Saudi-Gazette newspaper. “What’s really unsettling is the swift global impact of this development,” writes the columnist, who lives in Karachi. “Within a few days after Mohammed Sayed al-Tantawi’s comments, all kinds of groups from Italy to Canada began calling for a ban on the niqab.” Farooqi writes that s
