EU Workplace Headscarf Ban

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gra­cious, the Most Merciful.

As-salā­mu ‘alaykum wa-rah­mat­ul­lāhi wa-barakā­tuh (Peace, Bless­ings & Mer­cy of Allah be upon You).

This state­ment is being issued on the 14th of March 2017 and super­sedes all pre­vi­ous state­ments on the subject.

We find the rul­ing of Euro­pean Court of Jus­tice (ECJ) that head­scarves can be banned at work­place dis­ap­point­ing and an increas­ing encroach­ment upon per­son­al lib­er­ty and free­dom. We sub­scribe to plu­ral­ism and affirm that an indi­vid­ual should have the right to prac­tise their belief. Rul­ings from ECJ in the last few years have been nar­row­ing some of the rights borne out of Arti­cle 9 of the Euro­pean Con­ven­tion of Human Rights. We also find it dis­ap­point­ing that this rul­ing will over­whelm­ing affect the Mus­lims of Europe.

Full court rul­ing can be read here.

If you are a British Mus­lim and affect­ed by this Ban, con­tact (Solic­i­tor) Yunus Lunat on 07974 645 014.

Wifaqul Ula­ma was one of the many Mus­lim pub­lic organ­i­sa­tions which backed “Remain” dur­ing the Brex­it ref­er­en­dum. Many Mus­lims in this coun­try were dis­ap­point­ed at the out­come of the ref­er­en­dum. This rul­ing from ECJ comes on the eve of our coun­try on the brink of leav­ing Euro­pean Union and tak­ing steps to (legal­ly) dis­en­gage our con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work from Europe. It is pos­si­ble, that we (for the time being) will remain unaf­fect­ed by this rul­ing. We should pon­der upon the verse of the Qur’aan and it should rein­force our belief that some­times that there are things which we dis­like but from the dis­liked mat­ters comes an out­come which may be favourable to us.

We sub­mit to the divine wis­dom and Mer­cy of Allah Ta’ala.

Nev­er­the­less, we should also realise that this rul­ing from ECJ is built upon a blan­ket ban on all reli­gious and polit­i­cal sym­bols. There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that British Par­lia­ment or Courts may attempt to bring this “blan­ket ban” to our coun­try. Sim­ply leav­ing the Euro­pean Union is no guar­an­tee that our per­son­al lib­er­ties will be pro­tect­ed. We also strong­ly believe that Mus­lims in this coun­try should stand up and speak out on these issues oth­er­wise there is a chance that prej­u­dices against faith com­mu­ni­ties will be nor­malised in UK.

Tol­er­ance and accep­tance are British val­ues and we believe that Mus­lims in this coun­try should work tremen­dous­ly hard to ensure that these British val­ues are not only stren­u­ous­ly pro­tect­ed but also vig­or­ous­ly advo­cat­ed and prac­tised. We (Mus­lims) should take a prin­ci­pled stance and active role in pro­mot­ing these val­ues because these are (inher­ent­ly) Islam­ic values.

Wifaqul Ula­ma there­fore urges all Mus­lims to redou­ble their efforts in reach­ing out to our fel­low British cit­i­zens in show­ing them the beau­ti­ful teach­ings of our religion.

Thank You