Arab and Muslim countries are voicing growing outrage at French President Jacques Chirac's support for a ban on the headscarf even if a few intellectuals dispute claims Muslim women are bound by duty to wear it.
Weighing in on the issue of the headscarf, or hijab, are Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, influential Qatari-based cleric Yussef al-Qaradawi and the muftis of Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.
"I hope the French government, which claims to be avant-garde in liberty, equality and fraternity, will cancel this wrong decision," Khatami told reporters in Tehran.
He said the "hijab is a religious necessity and its restriction is a sign of a kind of extreme nationalistic tendency."
After months of heated debate, a committee of French experts last week recommended banning "conspicuous" religious insignia -- including the hijab, the Jewish kippa, or skullcap, and large crucifixes -- from state schools, which are secular.
In a speech Wednesday, Chirac came out in favor of the ban, which he wants written into law by the start of the next academic year.
A Muslim cleric in Qatar urged Muslims Friday to petition French President Jacques Chirac to "reverse his decision" backing a ban on the Islamic headscarf in French state schools.
Sheikh Qaradawi, an Egyptian who has lived in Qatar for years, urged Muslims during prayers last Friday to petition Chirac to "reverse his decision" backing a ban on the hijab.
Syria's mufti, the highest Sunni Muslim figure in the country, wrote to Chirac expressing his "surprise at the ban".
"The Muslim nation sees the veil as one of the foundations of its religion," Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro wrote, asking the French president to reverse his support for the ban in order to be "in harmony with the glorious history of France."
In neighboring Lebanon, female members of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah criticized Chirac in a statement that said the headscarf was an act of faith rather than an act of political defiance.
Lebanon's Sunni mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, described the French move as amounting to "hatred of Islam" after saying the hijab is "a religious duty mentioned in the Koran."
The French leader's move also brought a denunciation from one of Lebanon's leading Shiite figures, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who called it an "attack on Muslim human rights."
Fadlallah said last week that "wearing the veil is not a symbol of Islam, but is as much a religious commitment as other religious duties, and not to wear it is a sin."
He praised France for its record in supporting human rights, and Chirac in particular for his stand on behalf of Arab and Lebanese causes, but said banning the veil "confiscates the freedom of Muslim women in schools, in society and in public administration."
Criticizing secularism, he said it had sunk to "such a level of weakness that its patrons fear that a wisp of fabric or a kippa on the head, or a cross on the breast will harm it. That is an argument that has no sense."
The mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose spiritual guide, Maamoun al-Hodeiby, also criticized Chirac's move.
"The headscarf is a religious duty and not a simple insignia," Sheikh Gomaa said in remarks published in Egyptian newspapers.
The Muslim Brotherhood, some of whose activities are tolerated despite a ban in Egypt, elevated the hijab to the importance of fundamental duties such as fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
However, some Muslim intellectuals denied it was a duty.
Gammal Banna, brother of the Brotherhood's founder, Hassan al-Banna, and author of several works on the rights of Muslim woman, is categorical. "The headscarf is not an obligatin," he told AFP.
"Neither the Koran, nor the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed) require women to wear a headscarf," the writer said.
"The headscarf mentioned in the Al-Ahzab surat (chapter) of the Koran meant a curtain or a door and not a scarf to cover the head," while the "Al-Nur surat asks women to cover their chests."
"Wearing the headscarf or not is part of a debate on morals and not on religious obligations," he said. "An erroneous interpretation of the Koran leads one to believe that women are obliged to cover their head."
However, Banna did not support the French president.
"Chirac is a courageous man who has taken favorable stands toward the Arabs but I think he was wrong because the issue of dress is a very personal affair," he said.
"Whether a woman wears a scarf or a mini-skirt is a matter of individual liberty," Banna said.
The sheikh of al-Azhar, Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, avoided being caught up in the debate, telling an Arabic newspaper this week that "it is an internal French affair."