Home
Politics
Cairo University students wearing the niqab in 2009
The administrative court's decision, which may be appealed, came after more than 50 students filed a petition against the ban.
The row over the niqab has intensified in recent months after Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's main seat of learning, banned the niqab in all residences and schools affiliated to Al-Azhar.
The only exception made is in classrooms where the teacher is male.
The ministry of health has tried to ban it among nurses and the ministry of religious endowments distributed booklets saying the practice of wearing the niqab has no basis in Islam.
Most Muslim women in Egypt cover their hair, but the full face veil is associated with the ultra-conservative Salafi school of thought, which is based mostly in Saudi Arabia, and is gaining popularity in the country.
Salafism has inspired such militants as Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Most of its practitioners, however, shun politics.
The niqab trend has worried Al-Azhar, whose theology Salafis generally view with contempt.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The row over the niqab has intensified in recent months after Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's main seat of learning, banned the niqab in all residences and schools affiliated to Al-Azhar.
The only exception made is in classrooms where the teacher is male.
The ministry of health has tried to ban it among nurses and the ministry of religious endowments distributed booklets saying the practice of wearing the niqab has no basis in Islam.
Most Muslim women in Egypt cover their hair, but the full face veil is associated with the ultra-conservative Salafi school of thought, which is based mostly in Saudi Arabia, and is gaining popularity in the country.
Salafism has inspired such militants as Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Most of its practitioners, however, shun politics.
The niqab trend has worried Al-Azhar, whose theology Salafis generally view with contempt.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
