Isfahan Imam Condemns Holding Hands in Public

Ayatollah Seyed Abolhassan Mahdavi, the imam in charge of Isfahan’s Friday Prayers, announced in early August that he disapproved of men holding their wives’ hands in public.

“The act should only be allowed in the privacy of one’s own home,” Ayatollah Mahdavi told an audience. “But, unfortunately, most men aren’t aware of that fact.”

The influential cleric said that it was proof that the men guilty of  were “indifferent to society’s problems.”

“When we ask these men why they hold their wives’ hands in the street, they tend to respond with irrelevant answers,” the Ayatollah said, Parham News reported. “But the inappropriate cover of women will ruin society.”

The comment chimed somewhat with his recent comment that crime rates were connected to women who did not wear the Islamic headscarf in line with acceptable Islamic values. The latest announcement showed his focus turning his attention more squarely on to the responsibilities of men.

Wearing"proper hejab" is never long out of the headlines across Iran, and is regularly espoused by commentators affiliated with Iran’s hardliners. In early June, a Friday imam in Gachsaran said a traditional festival in the region encouraged "bad hejab" and immoral behavior. More recently, an influential cleric in Qom said police must enforce Islamic dress, and acknowledged that officers may sometimes have to "go beyond the law."

“Although bad hejab is not religious haram, it’s a mark of immorality in society,” Ayatollah Mahdavi said. “Those not wearing proper hejab commit all sorts of sins in society.

He added, “And when people are willing to sin publicly, they’re willing to do the same everywhere else.”

Read the original article in Persian

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Related articles:

The Art of Love Making, According to Qom’s “Family Expert”

Cleric Claims Bad Hejab Incites Crime

“Police Must Enforce Good Hejab”

“Forced Hejab is a Mistake”

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