"According to the majority of Muslim scholars and Islamic schools of thought, the niqab is not a requirement of Islam; however a minority of Muslim scholars assert that in their view the niqab is required, especially in the Hanbali Muslim faith tradition. ...

It is "a custom imported from Najd, a region in Saudi Arabia and the power base of its Salafi fundamentalist form of Islam. Within Muslim countries it is very contested and considered fringe."[1]"

(In Pakistan) "In 2015, the constitutional Council of Islamic Ideology issued the fatwa that women are not required to wear niqab or cover their hands or feet under Shariah.[45]"

" On 8 October 2009, Egypt's top Islamic school and the world's leading school of Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar, banned the wearing of the niqab in classrooms and dormitories of all its affiliate schools and educational institutes."

Etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niq%C4%81b