Suad Saleh

Suad Ibrahim Salih is an Egyptian professor of comparative fiqh at Al-Azhar University and a television preacher, born in 1945. ^{1 2}

She headed the comparative fiqh department at Al-Azhar's Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for Girls and served as the faculty's dean, having earlier been dean of the women's faculty of Islamic and Arabic studies at Mansoura University. ^{3 1}

She was nicknamed "the women's mufti" (Muftiyat al-Nisa) and "the woman's jurist" (Faqihat al-Mar'a), and is known for her media presence and her controversial positions on women's questions. ³

Suad Saleh studied at Al-Azhar University and graduated from it. ⁴

She worked as professor and head of comparative fiqh at the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies for Girls, and was rapporteur of Al-Azhar's permanent scientific committee for the promotion of professors in the specialisation of fiqh. ³

In 1998 she led a campaign calling for women to be allowed to serve as muftis, and petitioned the Grand Mufti, Nasr Farid Wasil, to that end. ¹

She presented a television programme titled Fiqh al-Mar'a ("Women's Fiqh"), dealing with the rulings that concern women, the programme with which her name became associated in the media. ³

In 2010 she appeared in the documentary film Veiled Voices, among Muslim women speaking about questions of hijab and identity. ¹

She has written books that include legal analysis of gender questions, and her academic writing is concentrated in her own specialisation, comparative fiqh. ¹

Alongside university teaching, her public work includes media fatwa-giving through television programmes and press interviews in which she treated the rulings of worship and transactions that concern women and the family. ³

This section presents what the sources report about her views and the responses they drew; it is not the museum's verdict on her or on her opinions.

She holds that the niqab is neither an obligation nor a sunna, but a custom going back to traditions earlier than Islam, and that the hijab is what is religiously required. ³

She holds that women may serve as judges and as muftis, arguing from the positions of Abu Hanifa, al-Tabari and Ibn Hazm, and that women may also head a state, reading the well-known hadith on the question as confined to its context. ³

Among her positions are that polygyny without cause is an injustice to women, that female circumcision is forbidden, and that a husband may not travel without his wife's consent because he remains bound by her rights. ³

In 2025 her remarks in promotional clips for the podcast Al-Sirr ("The Secret") caused wide controversy: she said that cannabis does not take away the mind as wine does and that there is no explicit Qur'anic text forbidding it, whereupon Al-Azhar University suspended her from work and referred her to investigation for breaching the university's ban on giving fatwas in the media without permission. ⁵

Egyptian researchers and writers criticised her remarks, affirming that the fatwa institutions forbid narcotics of every kind and that her statements contradict the scientific and medical evidence on the harms of cannabis. ⁵

• "Arabic Wikipedia: Suad Saleh", revision 74473647. ³
• "English Wikipedia: Suad Salih", revision 1346262245. ¹
• "Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia: Suad Saleh", revision 10016028. ⁴
• "Wikidata: Suad Saleh (Q2361335)". ²
• "RT Arabic: Egyptian backlash against the Al-Azhar professor behind the 'cannabis is permissible' fatwa". ⁵