The niqab isn't even wholly endorsed in the Quran even. it stems from the pre-Islamic Arabian culture (and it wasn't always just this black thing, you can find colored ornate ones around the entire Arab world prior to the rise of fundamentalism).
prior to that rise in the 70's (to what we are dealing with now).
of the three verses (which for some reason i cannot find them argh....) that has anything to with women garments. Nothing states mandatory for the niqab. it explictly states women to cover their 'ornaments' (if you can't figure this out well....) from non-related family. it explicitly states to cover their bosum's with their garments (which in most societies isn't hard to ask). and lastly, only implicitly calls for the hijab.
There is a difference between niqab and hijab if people don't know.
(girls wearing the hijab are actually friends of mine...)
Not even in conservative Saudi Arabia do they require the niqab. they do require hijab and abaya for women though... so it's not like there is a hell of a lot of options for women yet, but they don't require the niqab.
I don't know though as far as the bill goes. I've never been a fan of the niqab myself, and i've teased my cousins who wear it with the joke "who are you?" when i'm back in Saudi. I have an aunt in-law, who wears the hijab, niqab, gloves the whole thing, and she refuses to come to the US unless she can wear that the whole time on her trip. My mother, my father and I were telling her it'd only create more unwanted attention for her in the West if she came dressed like that (which is true). but she wouldn't have it and she insisted what she was doing was correct.
My problem with the bill is that right now in France the secular-thumpers are railing against anything the Muslims ask for. There was an article on Yahoo a while back talking about has French dialog become Anti-Muslim and they were citing instances in France recently. in one case a group of vegetarians were asking the schools for alternative choice of food to eat at the schools. One of the members deciding on it railed against it because if they gave the vegetarians what they want it would be construed (somehow) as a victory to Muslims who have asking for halal food options at the school.
As far as the niqab goes, i don't care it's not Islamic despite what other Muslims may tell you. if the estimates are right and France's 10% are Muslims, then the less then 2000 female members who wear the niqab are told they can't. I'm not a magician but it makes me wonder how in the US the vast majority of Muslim communities i've been to assimilate (while retaining their cultural and religious heritages in some capacity) a lot better, then i've ever read or watched of Europe.
It could open the way for a more liberal Islam to take root in Europe, or it could backfire. I would rather be the optimist but i really don't know.
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