Excerpt:
The Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the late Dr Tantawi, famously, and provocatively made female students remove the face-veil in the classroom. This was a brave thing to do at the premier place of Sunni Muslim learning. Was he right to do it?
It is clear that the fundamental principle of freedom of belief and of the right to manifest one's own belief must continue to be upheld in a free society, whether for Christians, Muslims or anyone else.
Such a principle does not, however, exist in isolation and has to be balanced against other considerations of the common good and of public order.