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Taking hijab off at school gates is an adopted practice in many countries.
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“What
will we do if legislation banning hijab (Islamic headscarf) in schools is
issued?” This question is asked by many veiled French women and pondered
by the different leaders of the Muslim community. The pressing need for an
answer to this question is intensified whenever the Stasi Commission, which
observes compliance with secularity in
France
, interviews a new guest about whether they support legislation barring
girls from wearing hijab in schools. Unprecedented media coverage is being
given to the views of the commission’s guests on hijab, secularism,
religious signs, and the consequences of passing the ban law.
The
Tough Task
Finding
an Islamic juridical gateway for dealing with the ban reality in schools and
for adapting it to the situation of the Muslim community in
France
seems to be a tough task for French Muslim leaders. Dr. Abdul-Majid Al-Naggar,
chairman of the Studies and Research Institute, subsidiary to the European
Institute for Anthropology in
Paris
, states that answering a legislative question on whether it is possible to
religiously put up with the ban reality is only the job of the European
Council for Fatwa and Research.
Al-Naggar,
who is one of the few specialists in the jurisprudence of Muslim minorities,
stated to IslamOnline.net that, in answering exceptional questions
concerning the special reality of Muslim communities in the West, the
jurisprudence of minorities does not transgress the general measures,
limits, and conditions necessary for issuing every fatwa (religious ruling).
The hijab-ban reality has to be juridically dealt with by the supreme fatwa
authority in
Europe
, the European Council for Fatwa and Research, whose president is Sheikh
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
It
is hoped that the hijab issue will be on the council’s agenda in the next
December meeting, as calls to introduce laws banning hijab in
France
and many other European countries are on the increase. Dr. Hassan Halawa,
commissioner to the council, informed IslamOnline that the issue had been
raised before and that the council forwarded a message last year to the
French government asking it to respect the right of Muslim girls in
France
to practice their religious right to wear the Islamic headgear. Dr. Halawa
affirms that not only is it a religious right, but it also represents
compliance of the French politics with the maxims of the French Revolution
and the international conventions of human rights. On the possibility of
religiously bearing with the legislative ban, Halawa said that the council
can provide a decisive judgment in this respect only if fatwa requests were
received. Mr. Halawa considers that wearing hijab is a religious obligation,
not a supererogatory practice that may be dealt with leniently without
seeking an official fatwa issued by the European Council for Fatwa and
Research.
The
Religious Purpose
The
leaders of the Muslim community have expressed many times their repudiation
of the introduction of such ban legislation. Even the most liberal of
leaders, Mr. Dalil Abu Bakr, head of the French Council for the Islamic
Faith, explicitly declared before the Stasi Commission last September that
he was against a law banning hijab in schools despite his reservations
toward exploiting the issue by political Islam in
France
. On the far left of Dalil Abu Bakr, Mr. Ammar Al-Asfar, one of the most
outstanding Muslim leaders in France and imam of the Lille Mosque in
northern France, expressed his belief that hijab has been a scapegoat for
what has really been happening and that the Muslim community would condemn
such legislation if issued and would behave freely and democratically to
express its denunciation of a law denying the simplest of human rights, the
right of a person to wear whatever costumes he or she feels appropriate. Mr.
Al-Asfar explained to IslamOnline that hijab is not a religious sign like
the crucifix or the Jewish skullcap because the religious purpose of the
Islamic dress is to protect women.
Facing
the Secular Extremism
On
the possibility of reaching a compromise satisfying both the French laws and
Muslim creed, Al-Asfar pointed out those Muslim females had ironically been
banned from wearing hijab in some schools even without official legislation
requiring so. Secular extremism, he added, has not accepted any compromises,
though French Muslims have proved, on several occasions, that they were
capable of getting out of the troubles and difficulties they faced by wise
methods that preserved their religious rights. The search for a compromise,
he said, has, however, become the job of many Muslim leaders in
France
.
Mr.
Al-Tohami Ibriz, head of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, which
won the majority of seats in the local elections, indicated that Muslims in
France feel victimized because they have been drawn into a debate whose
background is chiefly political. Ibriz elucidated to IslamOnline that if
Muslims were forced to comply with a hijab-ban law, Muslim girls would take
off their headscarves at school gates and put them on after the end of the
school day, a reality already maintained at schools banning the headscarf
even without a ban-legislation. The truth is that the Council of State, the
highest juridical authority in
France
, has not banned the Muslim headgear since the first hijab issue raised in
1989. Al-Tohami Ibriz explained that many parties had tried to undermine the
efforts of Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior, especially after the
establishment of the French Council for the Muslim Faith this year. Some,
Ibriz added, had wanted to embarrass Sarkozy, who had previously promised
that no law banning hijab in schools would be introduced.
Mr.
Ibriz has also called for a dialogue among representatives of
France
’s religions to discuss whether hijab really represents a problem in
schools. The real problem, in fact, Ibriz elaborates, lies in
misinterpreting secularism which, in its essence, protects and tolerates
religious creeds. Ibriz also said that Muslims in
France
would convince the government not to issue the ban-legislation and that, if
such a law were introduced, they would obey it but with a continuous demand
for change because they would consider it unjust. They would be forced to
comply with any law issued in
France
so that they would not become a source of disturbance in this country, he
resumed.
In
fact, taking hijab off at school gates is an adopted practice in many
countries, such as
Turkey
, which banned the Islamic headgear by legislation or decree. It is a
solution that is neither ideal nor comfortable but is adopted under coercion
to obey the law and satisfy fundamental secularism.
