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An increase in women putting on the niqab has alarmed the government. (Google) |
CAIRO — Students in government-run higher educational institutions are decrying restrictions on the wearing of face-veils in the Muslim-majority Arab country.
"I don't understand their point of view," Heba, a Cairo University student, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, October 6, after being denied access to the university’s girls hostel for wearing the niqab.
She insisted that the restrictions, which are not yet declared as an official ban, are justifiable.
"If it's for security, we can lift the niqab for security and show them our IDs."
Outside one the university's female residences, students said they had been stopped at the gates when they tried to enter wearing face veils.
Some have written an official complaint and planned to lodge it with the university authorities.
"From a security standpoint, the niqabs weren't a problem for us," a security guard who has been ordered to bar women from entering the residence wearing a niqab told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"They would show their faces when asked. I was surprised by the decision," he added.
"If you want reasons, ask the education ministry."
But an Education Ministry spokesman insisted there was no such ban.
“There is absolutely no ban against students wearing the niqab," Adli Reda told AFP.
He said the orders were to have the students show their faces when asked for identification.
Concerns
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| "There is a secular trend in government, and the niqab is against that," Rashwan said. (Google). |
But Hossam Bahgat, of the rights watchdog the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said he had received complaints from students banned from entering Cairo University residences because they were wearing the niqab.
Analysts believe that the government’s stance on niqab is not simply based on security concerns.
"There is a secular trend in government, and the niqab is against that," Diaa Rashwan, a leading expert on political Islam in the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, a local think tank, told AFP.
Most Muslim women in Egypt wear the hijab, which is an obligatory code of dress in Islam, but an increase in women putting on the niqab has apparently alarmed the government.
The ministry of religious endowments has recently distributed booklets in mosques against the practice while the health ministry reportedly wants to ban doctors and nurses from wearing it.
"There are (also) government concerns about Salafism," Rashwan notes.
Salafis put the emphasis on spreading the puritan creed of emulating the practices and beliefs of early Muslims.
They are reportedly gaining more grounds in many Muslim countries, particularly Egypt, and have major theological differences with Al-Azhar, the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world.
"Al-Azhar has always had a cautious dislike towards other trends that challenge its legitimacy," Rashwan said.
Al-Azhar, like the majority of Muslim scholars, says a woman is not obliged to cover her face or hands while Salafis insist she must.
Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, Egypt’s top religious authority, earlier this week vowed to ban niqab in all schools affiliated to Al-Azhar.
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