"Aren't there men in politics that we need women?" asks Shahi Imam

The Shahi Imam of Ahemdabad’s Jama Masjid Shabbir Ahmed Siddiqui in Gujarat made controversial remarks on December 4 saying those who give election tickets to Muslim women are against Islam and weakening the religion.

“If Islam allowed women to show up in public like this, they wouldn’t be prohibited from mosque premises, they are not allowed in mosques because women hold a certain position in Islam.” He said.

Aren’t there men in politics that you need women? if you keep making women MLA councilor,  it will weaken our religion. we’ll not be able to protect hijab.” , he added. 

Notably, Shahi Imam of Ahmedabad Jama Masjid has time and again made inflammatory remarks. On December 3, he urged Muslim voters to vote for a single party rather than splitting their votes as they did in 2012.

Earlier Siddiqui had said that Muslims are messaging each other on WhatsApp and reminding each other of the 2012 elections. During the 2012 elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate won the Muslim-majority seat of Jamalpur because Muslim votes were divided, he said. 

Interestingly, on  December 2, making extremely shocking comments, Assam MP  Badruddin Ajmal today said that Hindus must marry off their daughters at the age of 18-20 years to 'copy Muslim formula of population growth'. Ajmal said that Hindus have a problem - that their population is not growing at the speed of Muslims.

However , A day after making the controversial remarks Badruddin Ajmal on December 3  expressed ‘apology’ saying that he had no intention of hurting anyone’s sentiments.