Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi wrote an open letter to Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, warning him about the dangers of the recent anti-Shiite activities at the university.

Makarem Shirazi wrote that Al-Azhar has been a “bright spot” in the history of Islam, but he said that recent activities risk a “deviation at Al-Azhar from its moderate path.” He cited a number of recent events as the reason for his letter, such as an essay competition organized by the university to combat the spread of Shiite Islam in Muslim countries, comments by Tayeb that there was no need to have Shiites in parliament because there were no Shiites in Egypt “except a few peddlers of religion,” and the media attributing false beliefs to Shiite Muslims.

Makarem Shirazi asked, “According to Sharia and reason, is the path to resolving the challenges between the Islamic religion a scholarly discourse between the leaders of the religion or media wars and competitions against one another?”

Makarem Shirazi added that since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, there has not been one grand ayatollah to criticize Sunni Islam on state television, nor have there been essay competitions against Sunni Islam organized by the center for Shiite seminaries. He continued, saying that in Afghanistan and Iran, Sunni and Shiite officials work alongside each other with no difficulty.