Australian cleric blasted over dress comments

updated 8:04 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2006

SYDNEY, Australia - Australia's most prominent Islamic cleric will not give sermons for two or three months, but will not face censure from his mosque for a sermon comparing women who do not wear head scarves to "uncovered meat," the mosque's spokesman said Friday.

The board of the Lakemba Mosque Association met late Thursday with Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali and decided afterward to accept his apology for the comments, which triggered a storm of protest.

Association president Toufic Zreika said the board was "basically satisfied with the notion that certain statements made by the mufti was misrepresented and the mufti was misinterpreted."

"Obviously those comments have been made, but he provided us with an unequivocal apology for saying so," Zreika told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

The decision prompted further condemnation.

"I think this is a slap on the wrist," said Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner Sue Goward on Friday, a day after she accused Hilali of inciting rape.

Hilali apologized for any offense he had caused in making the comments a month ago during a sermon marking the holy month of Ramadan, after they were printed in The Australian newspaper.

Al-Hilali has long been a lightning rod in strained relations between the government and the Muslim minority. He said he had no intention of stepping down.

Howard condemns statements
Prime Minister John Howard and others denounced al-Hilali’s remarks as blaming women for rape.

The controversy comes amid tense relations between Australia’s estimated 300,000 Muslims and the rest of the mostly Christian-heritage population of about 20 million. Last December, the nation was gripped by riots that often pitted gangs of white youths against youths of Middle Eastern decent.

Howard recently offended parts of the Muslim community by singling out some Muslims as extremists who should adopt Australia’s liberal attitudes to women’s rights.

After last year’s deadly London transit bombings, Howard accused Australian Islamic leaders of not doing enough to condemn extremism and offered government money to train local imams and reduce dependence on migrant clerics. The government has also introduced tough counterterrorism laws and is proposing tighter citizenship rules.

Debate in Europe
The issue of how Muslim women should dress has caused debate in Britain since former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, now leader of the House of Commons, said this month that Muslim women visiting his office should remove their veils. Similar passions raged when France banned head scarves and other religious symbols in public schools two years ago.

Al-Hilali, 65, is the top cleric at Sydney’s largest mosque, and is considered the most senior Islamic leader by many Muslims in Australia and New Zealand, having been appointed mufti by Australia’s top Islamic body.

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