A Muslim female doctor has penned a viral column backing Boris Johnson’s mocking of the Islamic face veil, arguing it is an “anti-Western” political statement and claiming Islam “certainly does mandate modesty”.

Dr Qanta Ahmed – a British-Muslim physician, author, and activist – supported the former foreign secretary’s words, after Theresa May and others demanded he apologise for saying veiled women look like “bank robbers” and “letterboxes”.

“As a Muslim woman observing Islam, I am fully supportive of Boris Johnson’s rejection of the niqab”, she wrote in the Spectator magazine.

“And I wonder how many of the former foreign secretary’s critics understand my religion, what this form of dress represents and the subjugation it implies.”

She described how growing up in the United Kingdom she was not expected to wear it. When she moved to the Middle East she encountered more radical forms of Islan, which are now spreading in the West.

“Twenty years later, while Saudi Arabia is itself liberalising, the niqab is increasingly adopted by Muslim women living in the West, often as an anti-Western pro-Islamist political statement opposing secularism.”

She continued:

“When Boris Johnson mocks the niqab, he is emphatically not mocking Muslim women because – and this is a point that we Muslims seem to be unable to get across to non-Muslims – there is no basis in Islam for the niqab. Claiming otherwise is a profound distortion of Islamic belief. “That’s why Muslim nations are themselves regulating and banning the niqab and burqa – as in both Morocco and Turkey where these coverings are seen as an invasion of Salafist affinities and a risk to national security and societal integrity.”

Mr Johnson made the comments earlier this week in a 1,000-word article on the topic, in which he actually concluded the garment should not be banned like it has been in several other European countries and some Muslim-majority countries.

He has since been reported police and senior members of his party have demand he has the whip removed and is “severely” dealt with for offending some Muslims and politically correct commentators.

Blasphemy: May Demands Boris Apologise for Burqa ‘Letterbox’ Comment, Reported to Police https://t.co/Zzuaq1o2ko — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 8, 2018