Religious authorities banned an Egyptian cleric from preaching in Friday sermons after issuing a controversial religious edict that urges Muslims to kill "any Zionist anywhere at the time of war." Safwat el-Higazi issued the edict, or fatwa, on July 13, the second day of Israel's offensive in Lebanon when he spoke on a program on a private Islamic network, Al-Nas television.
Al-Azhar, the most prominent clerical institution in the Sunni Muslim world, issued a counter-fatwa forbidding the killing of Israelis in Egypt. "Provoking the killings of Israelis inside Egypt is the ultimate terrorism," the head of al Azhar's edicts committee, Abdel Hamed el-Atrash, said in an interview published Monday in the daily Rose Al-Youssef newspaper. Al-Azhar did not address the killing of Israelis outside Egypt.
Israel Embassy spokesman Yaacov Setty commented by saying the al-Azhar fatwa "is clear ... I don't want to elaborate on that."
El Higazi's license to preach at the al-Haq mosque in Cairo's Giza district was revoked, newspapers reported. El-Higazi confirmed the license was revoked but defended his fatwa, telling The Associated Press on Tuesday that "any Israeli Zionist is a reserve in the Israeli defense army during the time of war." |