CAIRO – Al-Azhar, the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world, decided on Thursday, October 8, to ban niqab in all its affiliate girls-only schools, educational institutes and dormitories. "The Supreme Council of Al-Azhar has decided to ban students and teachers from wearing the niqab inside female-only classrooms," said Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi.

Reading out from a written statement, he said niqab would not be allowed in schools where both the students and teachers are females.

Tantawi added that the same rules would apply in university dormitories where the residents and the supervisors are also all females.

During a visit to a school earlier this week, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi ordered a school girl to remove her niqab, telling her the face-veil is “a tradition and has nothing to do with Islam.”

The Muslim-majority country’s top religious authority also vowed to ban the niqab all schools linked to Al-Azhar.

Niqab in Focus (Folder) Established in 359 AH (971 CE), Al-Azhar mosque drew scholars from across the Muslim world and grew into a university, predating similar developments at Oxford University in London by more than a century. Al-Azhar, which means the "most flourishing and resplendent," was named after Fatima Al-Zahraa, daughter of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The first courses at Al-Azhar were given in 975 CE and the first college was built 13 years later.

Al-Azhar first admitted women students in 1961, albeit in separate classes.

Also in 1961, subjects in engineering and medicine were added to classes on Shari`ah, the Noble Qur’an and the intricacies of Arabic language.

Not Anti-Niqab

The Supreme Council asserted that Al-Azhar does not oppose the niqab in the homes, streets or the work place.

But Tantawi asserted that they are against over exaggerations.

“Women cover their faces so as not to be seen by stranger men. But it makes no sense to use niqab in a women-only environment,” he contended.

“Insistence on covering the face in the presence of women only is a form of extremism which Islam opposes.”

Tantawi told the state television Tuesday that although he considers the niqab as a tradition, he does not oppose it and deals normally with women who cover their faces.

The majority of Muslim scholars believe that a woman is not obliged to cover her face or hands.

They believe that it is up to every woman to decide whether to take on the face-cover or not.

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.

The Education Ministry has reportedly banned students who wear the niqab from being accepted in state-run Cairo University’s dormitory.