Al-Azhar to sue France over prophet cartoons
During a visit to Cairo by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb rejected any form of insults to the Prophet Muhammad and vowed to sue France over the publication of controversial cartoons.
CAIRO — Egypt’s Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, met Nov. 8 with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at Al-Azhar amid a dispute between France and the Muslim world over the publication of derogatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Tayeb said Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni Muslim world, rejects freedom of expression if it protects insults to the prophets.
"I'm the first to protest freedom of expression if it offends any religion and not only Islam," he said in a statement about his meeting with Le Drian, adding, “Insulting the Prophet Muhammad is unacceptable and we will pursue whoever does it in court, even if we spend the rest of our lives doing so.”
Tayeb also dismissed statements by French and Western officials linking Islam to terrorism and rejected the term “Islamic terrorism.”
