Rabat – A Saudi scholar came under fire over the weekend after he stated on a television program on the Saudi MBC channel on Saturday that women are not required to wear the veil in Islam. To make his point, he appeared with his wife, who did not wear a veil.
Echoing a series of tweets he has been posting on his Twitter account over the past couple of weeks, the controversial Saudi scholar and former head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Makkah Ahmed bin Qassim al-Ghamidi said, “Islam doesn’t require women to wear the veil.”
Citing some of the hadiths (sayings) of the Prophets, he said, “we should not require women to cover their faces.” He pointed out that during the time of the Prophet and his companions, “Muslim women did not cover their faces.”
The Saudi scholar went on to add that, contrary to many Muslims’ beliefs, only the wives of the Prophet “were required to wear Hijab so that adult males outside of their immediate family couldn’t see them.”
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To support his claim, he said that the Prophet did not urge other Muslim to wear the hijab (veil).
“The hijab was required only for the wives of the Prophet, and its validity ended with their death,” he pointed out.
However, the overwhelming majority of Saudis did not welcome his claim. They rejected it and took to social media to denounce him, insult him, and even threaten him.
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Others attacked him for allowing his wife to appear unveiled on a primetime TV show, something uncommon in the conservative country.
But while the majority chose to attack the scholar rather than debate his ideas and refute them with strong evidence, others supported him and praised his courage.
