Mufti of Egypt against women presidents

Book-banning, Bahai-hating, regime bigot-in-chief Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Mufti of Egypt, has decreed that women are barred from the presidency in Egypt.

"Under Islamic sharia (religious law), a woman cannot be head of state because it is one of the duties of the position to lead Muslims in prayer and that role can only be carried out by men," said the fatwa carried by leading state daily Al-Ahram.

"If by political rights, we mean the right to vote, stand as candidate or assume public office, then the sharia has no objection to women enjoying them, but a woman cannot serve as head of state.

"Women can stand as candidates for parliament or the consultative council, in so far as they can reconcile their duties with the rights that their husbands and children have over them."

I'm afraid this AFP article rather misses the point when it ends with the following paragraph:

But in a country where the Muslim Brotherhood is the main opposition group, social pressures still limit women's political role.

This implies that the MB is behind the growing conservatism of regime clerics, even though women's representation has steadily dropped under Mubarak (partly because he removed quotas in 1987) and the ruling NDP did not give much if any backing to female in the last elections (whereas the admittedly also bigoted MB fielded one female candidate). It is becoming increasingly clear that the Mubarak regime and the NDP has its own Islamo-conservatives, and in some ways they are worse than the MB. Just look at the recent uproar in the NDP over Farouq Hosni's veil remarks, the agitation of "clash of civilization" issues, and Mubarak's own pronouncements over Shias' loyalty to Iran.

Who will rid us of these turbulent priests?

Comments

[nisse]

Who will rid us of these turbulent priests?
You, me and all others who care. The real question is how can we do it?

[Joe]

Since when does Hosni lead the nation in prayer?

[Someone Honest]

I do not believe in waged clerks. As long as the govenment pays his salary is is biased no matter what, in his opinion. So his Fatwa is rated as a personal opinion not to be taken as an islamic reference for Muslims

[Tim Seah]

Um, are presidential elections scheduled any time soon? Has any woman stepped forward to run? Where's the fire, Sheikh Ali?

PS Issandr, I think AFP might have been hinting that the regime, though its little ventriloquist-doll Sheikh, is trying to compete with the Brotherhood for conservative credentials... even as it freezes the assets of the group's most senior members and Habib al-Adly laughingly threatens to put 2,800 more of them in jail.

[Issandr El Amrani]

Tim,

where's the fire? The fire is that while there may currently be no credible female presidential candidates, the Mufti has now decreed (with the full power of his position) that women cannot apply for the top position, making it much more difficultfor any future candidate to run. Imagine Mubarak dies tomorrow and an election is called. Ayman Nour wants to make a statement by getting Gameela Ismail to run since he's in prison. She now finds herself getting attacked for going against the Mufti's fatwa. That she stands no chance is besides the point.

Also this highlights the regrettable backwardness of the Arab world towards women in politics compared to non-Arab Muslim-dominated countries.

Finally, with regards to AFP, that last paragraph is extremely ambiguous. I don't think this regime is pretending to be conservative to compete with the MB (I would venture that most followers of the MB like it because it is hardworking, honest and actually does stuff). This regime is, or has become, fundamentally conservative in a way that is more dangerous than the ikhwan's conservatism.

[Me Myself and I]

so does this mean that relegion sanctions a despotic corrupt man to lead the prayer rather than a women..what does this sheikh smoke

[Tim Seah]

Yes, yes, no argument, the fatwa is outrageous... particularly so since it was so completely unnecessary. That was the only point I was trying to make.

Re. the reasons for the government's false piety: who knows what they're thinking? Agree that the MB's appeal isn't limited to the unibrowed, misogynist set, but that doesn't speak to what the gov' is thinking. They've been wrong before.

Suspect that if the government really wanted to take the wind out of the Brotherhood's sails, they could start by cleaning up corruption, improving healthcare, cancelling summits with Olmert when they coincide with bloody Israeli military ops in Ramallah, and and...

And feinik, ya Suzanne, O Vanguard of Arab Women's Rights? Time to put the fear of the Pharoah into the puppet sheikh and to show him from whence truly cometh his help.

If we must live under a despot, let's at least have an enlightened despot.

[PS]

For what it's worth, that last paragraph was added by a desk editor in Nicosia, it did not come from the Cairo bureau.

[Ms .45]

This article at Ikhwanonline (written by a US journalist) suggests that the MB actually asked about 25 women to run in the last elections. The women refused because they risked jail and, as a result, sexual assault. I don't know how credible the claim is, I'll leave it to you guys to evaluate it.

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=4279