Coronavirus punishment for ‘West forcing women to take off hijab’: Houthi scholar

A Houthi scholar is being criticized after saying that the coronavirus pandemic was a punishment from God on the Western world for forcing women to take off the hijab or head veil, according to a video of a Friday sermon earlier this month.

“Take a look at France, Britain, Italy, and Europe in general. Take a look at the West, the United States, and China. Take a look at the countries of east Asia, and in other countries. They legislate laws concerning the hijabs of Muslim women. The decreed that these hijabs must come off and that the faces of Muslim women must be revealed, even though Allah ordered women to cover their faces,” Houthi Islamic scholar Ibrahim al-Ubeidi said during a Friday sermon on April 3 at the al-Ansi mosque in Yemen’s capital Sanaa.

“They made these women reveal their faces, and lo and behold, Allah has covered their faces with those masks that both women and men are wearing. They are all hiding behind these masks, terrifies of the disease. This is all because they have become arrogant and forgotten Allah,” al-Ubeidi said.

Read more: Watch: Houthis say they will shoot and kill people with COVID-19 coronavirus

The Houthi scholar made the statements during a 22-minute Friday sermon before ending it with the Houthi rallying chant of “Allah is greater, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.”

The resurfaced video, which was posted in full by the al-Yman television channel on its YouTube page, comes days after another video showed Houthi militants vowing to shoot and kill anyone suspected of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Yemen reported its first case of the coronavirus last Friday in the Hadramout province south of the country.

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