CAIRO, Jan 24 (KUNA) -- The Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb said Monday the defamation campaign targeting Islam in the West is politically motivated.
"The campaign spearheaded by western media moguls aims to promote unfair stereotypes about Islam in contradictions of the true Islamic values of tolerance and moderation being advocated by Al-Azhar," a statement issued by Al-Azhar Sheikhdom quoted him as saying.
Al-Tayyeb made the remarks during his meeting here with a delegation from the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
"Muslims have a long history of friendly relations with non-Muslims over the last 14 centuries," he noted.
Dr. Al-Tayyeb decried "the malicious" western plans aiming to fragment the Arab world, citing as examples the situations in Iraq, Sudan and Lebanon as well as the Maghreb countries.
He also condemned strongly the purported plots to divide Egypt, "the world's oldest country with coherent society," into three Muslim, Christian and Noban states.
"There is a Zionist plot aiming to defragment the Arab world with a view to posing Israel as the sole dominant power in the Middle East," he stressed.
Acknowledging that there are "wise voices" in the west, the grand sheikh said these voices are "less loud and less influential" than the hostile ones.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPubl ... anguage=en
Oh, and speaking of unity between Egyptian Muslims and Christians, HRW has come out with a report claiming Christians are suffering rampant abuse in Egypt:
(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, JANUARY 24 - Egypt is facing criticism from Human Rights Watch (HRW), whose annual report accuses the authorities in Cairo of "widespread discrimination" against Coptic Christians and other religious minorities.
"Despite the fact that the Egyptian Constitution guarantees the equality of rights, there have been reported cases of widespread discrimination against Egyptian Christians and intolerance towards heterodox Islamic sects," the report states. (ANSAmed).
http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME.XEF49155.html
The timing of the HRW report, along with the allegations that Egyptian Christians face discrimination in tolerant Egypt, seems very suspicious to me.
Hopefully, many other voices for moderation will join the Sheik in condemning the Zionist orchestration to discredit Egypt as an intolerant nation with discriminatory laws and practices against religious minorities.
Any report Western human rights groups and governments can throw at Egypt showing her as discriminatory only serve as proof to the existence of these plots.
