On the 12th of September, the BBC reported that the Egyptian government has banned female students from wearing the niqab, a face-covering veil, at schools, according to state-owned media. Education Minister Reda Hegazy’s statement, released on Monday and quoted by the government-owned Ahram Newspaper, said students have an “optional” right to choose if they will cover their hair at school. The statement, however, added that the hair covering could not cover their face. The decision will be enforced starting from the academic year on September 30 and continue until June 8, 2024.
Comment:
The fact that security threats and the need to identify dangerous people are used as a reason to humiliate and marginalise Muslim women is a fake cover story hiding anti-Islamic agendas. The women forced out of education and public services face zero support from the government that should be protecting them and overwhelming support from the people who see no threat in the righteous practising women of the country.
The same BBC report interviewed several fellow women who were forced to keep their names anonymous due to fear of their governments.
Writer “F A”, 45, from Cairo, thinks the government’s decision is the latest case of how women are used as “punching bags … socially, politically and economically”. She is quoted as saying the following;
“It doesn’t matter under what pretext, or none … females always pull the short straw, it’s a story as old as time and one that continues to be written, and many applaud/decry it depending on which lens they have slapped on to see the world. With France banning the abaya and the burkini, Egypt following suit…….the policing of women’s bodies continues.”
“I A”, a 33-year-old civil engineer, also supported women wearing niqab at schools. The danger is the lack of an Islamic system to protect women from the haram of a social system based on secularism and liberal values and a government ruling enslaved to the colonial masters seeking to destroy the Islamic identity.
Women in Islam do not face oppression from any form of Islamic law; the only oppression that exists is the man-made interpretations that force them to lose the choice to worship Allah (swt) and insist that they bow to a modern-day Pharoah that makes Allah (swt) obsolete- Astaghfirullah!
Our pious sisters in Egypt need the modern-day Umar Ibn Al Khattab to liberate them from this forced humiliation and return their dignity so they can share their noble talents in places of learning so they raise the next generation of Khalid Ibn Walid’s.
Hudhaifah bin Al-Yaman narrated that the Prophet (saw) said:
«وَالَّذِي نَفْسِي بِيَدِهِ لَتَأْمُرُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَلَتَنْهَوُنَّ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ أَوْ لَيُوشِكَنَّ اللَّهُ أَنْ يَبْعَثَ عَلَيْكُمْ عِقَابًا مِنْهُ ثُمَّ تَدْعُونَهُ فَلاَ يُسْتَجَابُ لَكُمْ»
“By the One in Whose Hand is my soul! Either you command good and forbid evil, or Allah will soon send upon you a punishment from Him, then you will call upon Him, but He will not respond to you.”
Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir