Order Suspended Requiring Divorce

Fri., Dec. 20, 1996

Compiled From Wire Services

An appeals court on Thursday suspended indefinitely a ruling that an Egyptian professor must divorce his wife because his writings insulted Islam.

The decision by Judge Salah Mahgoub of the Giza Emergency Appeals Court upheld the Sept. 25 ruling by an emergency court staying the order against Nasr Abu Zeid, an Arabic literature professor.

Abu Zeid’s lawyer, Abdel-Moneim el-Sharkawy, said the latest decision clears the way for Abu Zeid and his wife, Ibtihal Younis, to return to Egypt. The couple fled their native country after the original June 1995 ruling against them, and both are teaching at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The legal battle has come to symbolize the fight between activists intent on installing Islamic law in Egypt and secularists who fear such a move would infringe on intellectual and religions freedom.

The Islamic lawyers brought the case against Abu Zeid on grounds that his writings made him an apostate - one who has renounced his faith - and therefore he could not remain married to a Muslim woman.

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Order Suspended Requiring Divorce

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