Al-Azhar condemns media’s ‘unjust’ attack

Egypt’s top religious institution, Al-Azhar, issued a statement yesterday condemning the fierce media campaign against it in the aftermath of the twin bombings against two Coptic churches in Alexandria and Tanta.

The statement said the media campaign has included insults to Islam and challenged the intellectual heritage of Muslims.

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“This unjust campaign coincided with the emergence of Islamophobia in the West which surpassed all legitimate methods of criticism to reach the level of challenging the fundamentals of Islamic heritage and Sunni traditions by calling for its heritage to be burned and insulting its imams.”

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The statement added: “In the framework of this unjust campaign, we saw satellite channels describing the books of Islamic heritage which are based on the Quran and Sunnah as the books of human waste, which constituted a curse on the nation that must be burned and buried.” The campaigns have claimed that Islamic heritage is based on hypocrisy, lies and fraud, he explained.

“These satellite channels have also described the main centuries of Islam as being marked by terrorism, murder, bloodletting and terror, the great catastrophe that has afflicted our lives.”

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT – APRIL 10 : People attend a funeral ceremony for the victims of the blast of a bomb attack near St. Mark’s Cathedral, at St. Menas Church, in the coastal city of Alexandria, Egypt on April 10, 2017. ( Ahmed Abd Alkawey – Anadolu Agency )