Senior Muslim scholar calls on Saudi to stop supporting coup in Egypt

Senior Muslim scholar Shaikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi has called upon Saudi Arabia to stop subsidising the military coup in Egypt. He said that the government in Riyadh “committed a mistake” when it decided to support the coup, “which has been crushing Egyptians” since July last year.

“It is a strange position for Saudi Arabia to pay billions to support the coup which is the farthest from Islamic principles,” added the Egyptian-born and Al-Azhar educated Shaikh. “The coup leaders do not believe in the Sharia as a system to rule people as they are secularists; this means that they are basically against the Saudi way of life.”

Coup leader Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, alleged Shaikh Al-Qaradawi, is using the Saudi money “to kill innocents” and he called on the people and government of Saudi Arabia to stand by the people of Egypt against their killers: “To stand beside virtue against vice; beside the oppressed against their oppressor.”

A number of rulers in the Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, felt threatened by the electoral success of the Muslim Brotherhood which won parliamentary and presidential elections in Egypt. They have showered the coup government with billions of dollars in “aid” since the coup last July which ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi.

Shaikh Al-Qaradawi defended the Muslim Brotherhood against accusations that it was behind the explosions which rocked Egypt on the eve of the third anniversary of the 25 January Revolution last week. Denouncing the bombers, he insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood does not adopt such tactics. “The bombings were orchestrated by the Egyptian security services,” he claimed.