CAIRO — The Salafist Call in Egypt announced Jan. 24 that banking interest is forbidden by Sharia, reviving the controversy over prohibiting or legitimizing banking interest in Egypt.

However, the Islamic Research Academy, Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah and Al-Azhar officially ruled that the practice is not forbidden. This comes after a number of leaders of the Salafist Call in Egypt opposed the 2014 purchase by Egyptians of new investment certificates in the Suez Canal project, stressing that they represent a form of usury and that the state should have funded the project publicly.

This wave of controversy over banking interest emerged once again following a media debate Jan. 24 between Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa and prominent figures from the Salafist Call, namely the vice president of the group, Yasser al-Borhamy. The latter accused Gomaa of renouncing his own fatwas prohibiting bank interest in response to Gomaa questioning the Salafist religious doctrine.

The crisis was not confined to the prohibition of banking interest as a form of usury. The Salafist Call also opposed the National Housing Project prepared by the Egyptian government for middle and low-income households. The group issued a Jan. 10 fatwa prohibiting mortgage loans, the type of loans the housing project is mainly funded by.