Al-Azhar scholars call for grand shaikh to resign

Al-Azhar Scholars’ Front has said that the legal president of Egypt is the freely-elected Mohamed Morsi. It called for Al-Azhar University and Mosque’s Grand Shaikh Ahmed al-Tayyip, who offered a religious cover for the coup against Morsi, to leave his post immediately.

“It was a clear military coup against a just president who was elected freely by his people,” the Front said in a statement. Denouncing what it called the “massacre of worshippers” in front of the Republican Guard Palace, the Front said, “What increased our pain is that some political and religious leaders tried to cover the severity of the crime and justify it.”

One of those religious leaders was Al-Azhar’s grand shaikh. “What he did was a coup against his own main duties, which are working to protect the legitimacy of the country.”

Calling for the Azhari head to step down, the Front added: “Considering that the bloodshed took place because of his fatwa, as well as calls to disobey the legal president of the country, we call for him to correct his position by tendering his immediate resignation to President Mohamed Morsi.”

Meanwhile, the head of Al-Azhar Scholars’ Front, Dr Yahya Ismail, said that he is not going to recognise the military coup because Morsi is the sole legal president of Egypt.

While speaking to the crowds gathered in Rabaa Al-Adawiyya Square he said, “Massacres will increase our insistence on Morsi as our president. Such massacres reveal the falsehood of the corrupt.”

Dr Ismail congratulated the Muslim Ummah on the occasion of the month of Ramadan, and he sent his congratulations to Morsi, calling him “the servant of the Arabic, Muslim and Egyptian peoples”.

The shaikh concluded his speech by calling for a continuous peaceful protest. He said that the slogan of the protest is the verse from the Holy Qur’an, which reads: “If you extend your hand to me aiming to kill me, I will not extend my hand trying to kill you.”