CAIRO: Egyptian Sheikh Omar Stouhi, the secretary general of the Calling Commission at Al-Azhar, issued a fatwa prohibiting women from marrying former members of the former President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). He said that former members of the NDP are responsible for corruption in Egypt, and thus Muslim women should not be allow to marry them. “If a girl were to marry such a bad person, she would certainly be affected and influenced by his beliefs and this is something unacceptable,” he said. “I did not say that girls should not get married. I rather said that if the groom does not respect the Islamic principles and if he has hurt the Egyptian people as a member in the banned National Democratic Party, than the father of the young woman should not allow the marriage to take place,” he later explained. The Sheikh said that he issued the fatwa because a man came to him, asking whether his daughter should be able to marry a former member of the party. The activist community in Egypt has called to ban all members of the former regime from politics, with the reactivation of a 1952 “Treason Law.” However, many members of the formerly ruling party registered as candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections, set for the end of November. BM
