There is a land beyond the realm of outrage, where one is automatically (and mercifully) transported when faced with an atrocity that surpasses one's worst expectations and fears. There is a silent space where the mind retreats, numb and stunned, until it regains its faculties and is able to furnish some reaction against the perpetrator, or defend itself. I realized this, when horror-struck, I read the first reports of the incident involving the current head of Al-Azhar University at Cairo, Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi and his verbal abuse of a veiled girl student during a tour of her school in Nasr city, which subsequently made headlines all over the world earlier this week. Apparently, the Sheikh believes that the face-veil is a cultural construct and has no basis in Islam. In an attempt to convey his opinion (and perhaps convince the student of its validity), he allegedly had the hapless girl's teachers forcibly remove her face-veil in front of him after she refused to do so on her own, while he lectured her on the redundancy of wearing a face-veil in an all-girls class; blithely ignoring the fact that she was wearing a face-veil only on that particular day since she was in the presence of a non-Mahram male stranger – the Sheikh himself. Following the global reaction to the incident, Sheikh Tantawi has denied reports in the Arabic press that he had commented negatively on the girl's physical appearance, or said that he knows Islam “better than those who begot her,” but by then, the damage was done – not so much to the validity of the Islamic face-veil – but to his own credibility as the ostensible “highest authority for over a billion Sunni Muslims”. The incident does not raise questions regarding the status of the face-veil in Islam – the opinion of Muslim jurists unambiguously ranges from considering it Wajib (obligatory, as in the Hanbali, Shafi'I and Maliki schools of jurisprudence) to Mustahabb (recommended, in the Hanafi school of jurisprudence), to Mubah (permissible) according to the Ijtihad (individual interpretation) of some of the more liberal modern scholars. What emerges is proof of the speciousness of the claims that an individual or an organization can be the “mouthpiece” of Islam. Muslims are not, and have never been a monolithic nation, who blindly follow the opinions of scholars – no matter how venerable or knowledgeable – if their opinions contradict the words and spirit of the Qur'an and the Sunnah (tradition) of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). And in this instance, by issuing an opinion that places the face-veil outside the pale of Islam, which goes against the agreed upon exegesis of the Qur'anic verses of Hijab (Islamic covering); the historically recorded practice of the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the women Companions; the collective understanding and consensus of the Companions; and the opinion of a majority of Islamic jurists, Sheikh Tantawi has done just that. While those familiar with the Sheikh's propensity for harboring and voicing “strange” opinions (he has in the past supported a ban on the Hijab in public schools in France) may find it easy to brush off his latest faux pas, the incident has undoubtedly provided fresh fodder for neo-cons, Islamophobes and “modernist” Muslims. These groups have long targeted the face-veil as a symbol of “separation”, “oppression” and “debasement,” and to their delight, they can now quote a Muslim scholar – the head of a world-renowned and esteemed Islamic university, no less – in support. Many European leaders are quickly taking advantage of the much-publicized incident and Sheikh Tantawi's proposal to ban the face-veil in girls' hostels and schools associated with Al-Azhar in Egypt, to call for a ban on the face-veil at public institutions across the continent. On Tuesday, only one day after news of Tantawi's possible ban hit the media, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his right-wing coalition presented a proposal to ban the niqab, or burqa. The anti-immigration Northern League party is leading the charge, and Italian politicians are now quoting Tantawi in support of their goal. The party's proposal would amend an anti-terrorism law of 1975 that forbids anyone in the country from making their identification impossible. The current interpretation of the law allows for religious reasons as a “justified cause” to cover the face, but the possible law could end such interpretation. A party member, Roberto Cota was quoted as saying “we are not racist and we have nothing against Muslims, but the law must be equal for everyone.” People of Freedom Member of Parliament, Barbara Saltamartini, said that “banning the burqa cannot be considered anti-Muslim because it is not obligatory in Islam,” echoing Tantawi's sentiments. In Canada, the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) is adding its voice to the clamor for banning “the wearing of masks, burqas and niqabs in public” and has urged Ottawa to introduce legislation to this effect. In a gloating opinion piece titled ‘Burn your Burka' published in the National Post on Oct. 9, Tarek Fatah, the erstwhile head of the organization urged the country to outlaw this “terrible tribal custom” and “insult to the female gender,” which “reflects a mode of male control over women” and is a practice whose “association with Islam originates in Saudi Arabia, which seeks to export the practice of veiling – along with other elements of its extremist Wahhabist brand of Islam.” Capitalizing on the general ignorance regarding Islamic injunctions, he urges his readers who “have any doubt about this issue, they should take a look at the holiest place for Muslims – the grand mosque in Makkah. For over 1,400 years, Muslim men and women have prayed in what we believe is the House of God. And for all these centuries, female visitors have been explicitly prohibited from covering their faces” – conveniently forgetting to add that this is an explicit exception allowed for Umrah and Haj – not the norm! Certainly, this is not the first time that the face-veil has been the subject of public attack and debate and one doesn't expect it to be the last. In Egypt alone, the history of polemicists exchanging verbal punches goes back to over a century, with Kasim Amin's Tahrir el-Mara'a (Liberation of Woman) and the counter argument of Talat Harb's Tarbiet el-Mara'a wal-Hijab, (Educating Women and the Veil). But unlike the past, where even detractors of the face-veil assumed a respectful demeanor while engaging Muslims, one gets the impression that modern attacks are triggered by frustration at the increasing numbers of Muslim women who are discovering and adopting the precepts of their religion, despite the aggressive propaganda against it. Sometimes this frustration masquerades as “fear” of spreading extremism in society; at other times it wears the mask of solicitude and concern for “oppressed women”. It is only very rarely that the real face – of boorish hatred and bigotry – peeps out from behind the charade of veiled intentions and words, and when it does, it is an appalling sight, one that we should be prepared to confront in the frequent face
