Maḥram

Public business sector company Benzion said it is currently negotiating with some U.S. companies to export a photo of deceased Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III in his last farewell. [Muhammad ‘Abd al-‘Ātī, al-Misrī al-Yawm, May 12, p. 20] Read original text in Arabic

The under-secretary of the People’s Assembly Dr. Zaynab Radwān has called for the fatwás of Imām Mālik to be avoided as they pervert society.

The author is warning against a plan to eradicate the Islamic and Egyptian identity in the west, by some dubious organizations. Those organizations try to rip apart the Egyptian families there and separate the father from his children so that they can control them more easily.

Clerics in Egypt and in Arab and Islamic countries spare no efforts to deliver innovative Fatwás that aim at modernizing religious thought and proving that Islam is the religion of progress and is in line with modernity.

The article provides a listing of articles on two controversial Fatwás issued by the Muftī of Egypt and a professor at the Azhar University. The first fatwá says that the prophet’s urine used to be given to his companions for blessings. The second one urges working women to breastfeed their male co-workers in order for them to be considered their nominal mothers and be allowed to be with them in closed places without the need of mahrams.

The author presents viewpoints of six girls that represent three samples of young women in Egyptian society today. Viewpoints about life, religion, and sex vary from one to another. The young women are chosen from different social and educational levels.

The author of Rose al-Yūsuf presents samples of what she calls “random weird fatwás” that spoil Muslims’ lives. Football is ḥarām, a woman sitting on a chair is adultery, and learning English is an ugly identification with West, the “enemy of the Islamic Nation!”

Most contradictory fatwás claim to be based on God’s word; some fatwás allow women to do certain things while others prohibit them. Conflicting fatwás are a serious problem that does not appear to have an end in sight.

Exchanging greetings between men and women is allowed in Islām, Shaykh al-

Qaradāwī states, indicating that the voice of a woman is not cawrah. The

wives of the prophet, with all the constraints imposed on them, were permitted to talk to men and to respond to

their questions from behind a curtain.

The article deals with a niqāb-wearing university professor in the University of al-Minyā with different views by other professors as to whether her niqāb would have an impact on the educational process.