Al-Azhar University Professor Sabri Abd Al-Raouf: It Is Okay for Bridegroom’s Mother to Smell Bride’s Armpits before Wedding
MEMRI
Following are excerpts from an interview with Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf of Al-Azhar University, which aired on Dream 2 TV on May 1, 2009.
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: The mother [of the bridegroom] and other female relatives may look at the bride’s hair and neck, and may smell her private parts.
Interviewer: Smell what?!
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: Her armpits, for example. Some women and girls sweat, and there are men who are nauseated by this.
Interviewer: So the mother may check to make sure…
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: The mother may go near the bride, in order to check whether she smells good or bad. There is nothing to prevent this. But the groom is forbidden to look at any part of her except her face and hands.
Interviewer: But there is a fatwa that permits him to see whatever his female relatives may see.
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: He is not allowed to see what the female relatives see.
[…]
The khimar is the piece of cloth that women use to cover their heads and the protruding part of their breasts. This is what Islamic law requires.
Interviewer: So what this woman is wearing is not a hijab?
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: Pardon me?
Interviewer: What she and many other girls wear is not a proper hijab?
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: I am only looking at you. I’m not looking in her direction.
Interviewer: So you avert your gaze. But what will you do when you watch a re-run of this show?
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: I don’t know…
Interviewer: You are trying to tell me that when you watch TV, and there are women wearing this kind of veil, you avert your gaze?
Prof. Sabri Abd Al-Rauf: I concentrate on my listening, not on my looking. I listen to hear whether what they say is proper or not.
From the RoP:
Iranian clerics object to women as cabinet ministers: “there are religious doubts over the abilities of women when it comes to management”
Quoth Ali, the rightful successor to Muhammad according to the Shi’ites:
“O’ ye peoples! Women are deficient in Faith, deficient in shares and deficient in intelligence. As regards the deficiency in their Faith, it is their abstention from prayers and fasting during their menstrual period. As regards deficiency in their intelligence it is because the evidence of two women is equal to that of one man. As for the deficiency of their shares that is because of their share in inheritance being half of men. So beware of the evils of women. Be on your guard even from those of them who are (reportedly) good. Do not obey them even in good things so that they may not attract you to evils.” -Â The Peak of Eloquence, sermon 80.
On the Sunni side of the street (sorry), this quotation is in accord with Bukhari 1.6.301:
The women asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?” He said, “Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?” They replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn’t it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?” The women replied in the affirmative. He said, “This is the deficiency in her religion.”
“Iran Islamists object to women ministers,” from Agence France-Presse, August 24: