Deoband flip-flop: No fatwa against working women

New Delhi, May 13: After the recent fatwa on working women stirred up a storm, the Darul Uloom, Deoband, has clarified that the controversial decree did not forbid women from working but just laid down certain ground rules on how they should dress and behave.

"We had only given an opinion based on Sharia that women need to be properly covered in government and private offices," a DNA report quotes Maulana Adnan Munshi, spokesman for the seminary in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh as saying.

“No new fatwa was issued," Maulana Munshi added, clarifying that the remarks came in response to a query on if women could go to work without a veil.

The fatwa issued by the conservative Deobandi Islaimist school of thought raised a lot of eyebrows and invited sharp criticism from the women and social activists as an attempt to put unwanted and unjustified restrictions on the Muslim women.

OneIndia News