PARIS, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- France's controversial bid to ban Muslim headscarves in public schools has received approval from the head of the biggest university in Islam.
Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Mufti of the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo and the foremost authority in Sunni Islam, said France had the right to pass a law banning all "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools and institutions, Britain's The Telegraph reported Wednesday.
Wearing the headscarf was "a divine obligation for all Muslim women" that no governing Muslim could deny, he said in a joint press conference with Nicolas Sarkozy, France's interior minister.
However, he added, that obligation only applied "if the woman lives in a Muslim country."
His words will greatly reassure President Jacques Chirac, whose recent call for a new law banning headscarves, skullcaps or large crosses, received popular support in France but was greeted with anger throughout the Islamic world, the newspaper said.
Chirac has received letters of protest from the muftis of Syria and Lebanon.
