Al-Azhar scholar being investigated for visiting Iran

Rehmat

Posted on November 4, 2014 | 

Sheikh Ahmad Karima, professor of Islamic Law at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University is being investigated by his peers for attending a Shia Seminary on Islamic Jurisdiction held in Iran in in September 2014. Al-Azhar, built by Shia Fatimid rulers, is a government controlled religious institution since Nasser took power in a military coup.
Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyeb, head of Al-Azhar University has condemned Karima for giving a lecture on Sunni version of Islamic jurisdiction at a Shia seminary. He also temporarily suspended Karima from the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs at Al-Azhar. The Iranian General Secretariat of Seminaries had sent an invitation to professor Karima, a Sunni scholar from Azeri region of Iran, to attend the seminar. Al-Azhar did not send an official delegate to represent Egypt or the University.

Karima told privately-owned Mehwar television channel that he went to give a lecture in Iran’s Suni Kurdistan area in order to mobilize against what he described the increasing influence of Wahhabi/Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood thought in Egypt and the rest of the Muslim world.

“The conflict between Egypt and Iran is political and not religious. We are not in direct animosity with the Iranians, who are not infidels. I went for a scientific mission, and the supporting documents are in front of Al-Azhar management,” he said.

On Tuesday, Egyptian tourism minister Hesham Zaazou announced that Iranian tourists may not be welcomed in Egypt for security reason. I bet Netanyahu is pleased to hear that.

Hoda Badri interviewed Sheikh Ahmad Karima for Egyptian Daily News, published on September 24, 2014 in which Karima accused both Muslim Brotherhood and Wahhabi (Saudi Arabia) behind his character assassination. Karima had been a critic of Muslim Brotherhood since formerly elected president Dr. Morsi took power. He blamed both Brothers and Saudis for fueling Shia-Sunni conflict for the benefit of the western colonial powers.

Iran broke diplomatic relation with Egypt in 1979 when Egyptian military dictator Anwar Sadat recognized the Zionist entity in return for $1.3 billion annual bribe. Since then, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, became the first Iranian president to visit Egypt in February 2013 to attend World Islamic Summit in Cairo. During the visit Ahmadinejad received a red-carpet treatment from Morsi government. He also visited Al-Azhar and held a meeting with Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyeb.

Egypt’s deposed president Dr. Morsi visited Tehran to attend NAM summit in August 2012. It was a first visit of an Egyptian president to Iran in more than three decades.

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