DALIL BOUBAKEUR
While most Islamic fundamentalists supported the lower court decision, there were many who saw the tradition as having nothing to do with Muslim theology. While fornication is a serious sin, it is equally sinful for a man before marriage as a woman, yet the same clerics who rail against a woman committing such a sin, assume that a man’s similar act is “natural.” Modern Muslim clerics such as Boubakeur not only refused to use the religion to justify old tradition, but was particularly critical of civil law being used to support religious customs. The French Justice Minister appealed the case but the French left and right politicians who were secular were pitted against the French minority which saw the decision as the state finally giving respect and credence to the culture and religion of minorities.
Dalil Boubakeur is a physician, a Mufti, and current rector of the Great Mosque of Paris. He is also the president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith. He was born on 2 November 1940 in the Algerian city of Skikda, to Hamza Boubakeur. He studied at Lycées Bugeaud in Algiers, before moving to France and studying at Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He graduated from the Faculty of Sciences et Medicine of Paris and holds degrees in Quranic studies, theology and Muslim civilization.
