Boycott of Secular Hall

A local “progressive” political group has decided not to use Secular Hall as it believes that the Society had been “displaying gratuitously Islamophobic material” when it publicised a talk on Sunday 1st February 2025 “No Hijab Day: The Lived Experience of Female Ex-Muslims”. An edited response from the Society’s chairman and a member from a Muslim background appear below.

We are very sorry that *** decided to not use the Secular Hall. We note that whilst you have chosen to move to a venue which serves alcohol, groups of local Muslim women continue to book the Secular Hall. They wear Hajibs and Niqabs and probably engage in the occasional prayer on our premises.

The Secular Society will continue to support a woman's right to choose, and it will no doubt continue to offend the sensibilities of the religious, especially those who have misogyny at the core of their theology. On a worldwide scale, the number of women being forced to wear Niqabs, Hijabs etc dwarfs the number of those being harassed for doing so in the UK. Whilst we condemn such harassment, it should not be used to prevent criticism. As you know, the stance of the LSS is to support those women who discard such attire whilst recognising their right to wear it if they so wish.

It is interesting that the LSS membership is becoming much more diverse, and I think this reflects the Society's willingness to confront some of the more obnoxious aspects of all religions. I understand that there is something of a debate within *** on how to attract support from Muslim voters. It would be a disaster for *** to go down the path of the Your Party & SWP and concede ground to those loosely labelled as 'socially conservative Muslims.' 

Kind regards
Ned Newitt
Chair of Leicester Secular Society

Please find below an additional letter from a fellow member which is self-explanatory:

Both of my parents are Muslim, as were their parents and grandparents before them. You stated that *** decided to stop holding meetings at LSS because LSS was “proud of displaying gratuitously Islamophobic material”. I must respectfully disagree. There was nothing Islamophobic in what was displayed. In fact, there is no verse in the Quran that directly instructs women to cover their heads.

The discussion of women's hijab within South Asian Muslim communities is largely shaped by Bahishti Zewar (Heavenly Ornaments), written by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi (1864–1943). The book's arguments are rooted in Hanafi Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), Taqlid (adherence to established scholarly precedent rather than independent reasoning), and Hadith literature. Crucially, its rulings on women have no explicit Quranic basis and rest entirely on Hadiths and jurisprudential interpretation. This includes rulings such as a woman's voice being considered awrah (something that must be concealed), women being prohibited from travelling without a male escort, and women being required to cover their heads. Many of the book's rulings on women's conduct, ritual purity, prayer, marriage, and social interaction are derived directly from Hadith narrations rather than the Quran itself.

This framework is actively promoted by the Saudi Salafi clerical establishment, which is deeply preoccupied with the covering and concealment of women, and goes so far as to argue that a woman's voice itself constitutes awrah.

Regarding the niqab and head covering specifically, I would like to bring the following to your attention.

A leading scholar at Al-Azhar University, Sheikh Abdel Muti al-Bayyumi a member of its influential Council of Clerics applauded France's 2010 ban on the face veil, stating that the niqab "has no basis in Islamic law and there is nothing in the Quran or Sunna that supports it." He added: "I personally support the ban, and many of my colleagues in the Islamic Research Academy share this position. My stance against the niqab predates France's decision."

In October 2009, Al-Azhar's Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi ordered an eleven-year-old pupil to remove her niqab during a school visit, stating that "the niqab is only a custom and has no connection to Islam." The Al-Azhar Supreme Council subsequently passed a resolution banning the niqab in all Al-Azhar girls' classrooms and dormitories.

The current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, has similarly stated that the niqab is neither a religious obligation nor an established Sunnah in Islam.

The participants at the LSS event were Muslim women who had left Islam because of the regressive theology currently being promoted in the UK — theology that is, troublingly, being defended by certain left-wing groups. LSS's promotion of No Hijab Day was not Islamophobic. It was part of a legitimate and ongoing debate that is already taking place within Muslim-majority countries themselves.

For centuries, progressive Muslim voices — most notably the Mutazilites, who championed reason, justice, and rational inquiry — have been suppressed by the Asharite theological tradition, which rose to dominance from the twelfth century onwards and has contributed to an intellectual crisis within Islam, of which modern Islamist extremism is only one manifestation.

The *** must decide which side of this debate it stands on: with progressive Muslims who are fighting for reason, rights, and pluralism, or with regressive forces that have historically used violence, suppressed free thought, and denied rights to religious minorities and dissenters alike.

Islamists do not speak for the Muslim community, nor do they represent Muslim people as a whole. Muslim identity and Muslim politics have been hijacked by a coalition of Islamists and their apologists on the left. It is a profound failure that much of the European left has chosen to align itself with Islamist movements — an alignment that has brought harm, not liberation, to Muslim communities.

As a member of Leicester Secular Society, it is my firm belief that LSS should not allow groups such as *** to provide cover for ideologies that promote intolerance and division in the name of religion.

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay