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Egypt’s Al-Azhar pressed to call Muslim Brotherhood terror group

Religious institutions in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, increasing pressure on Al-Azhar to do likewise.
A few people walk in the vicinity of the closed Al-Azhar mosque in Egypt's capital Cairo on March 20, 2020, after the country's Muslim religious authorities decided to put the Friday prayers on hold, in order to avoid gatherings and the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 disease. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP) (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)

CAIRO — During an interview on the local Sada al-Balad satellite TV channel on Nov. 27, Egyptian Grand Mufti Shawki Allam presented testimonies of Al-Azhar scholars, reading from their books that the Muslim Brotherhood has “a deviant ideology” that led to the killing of innocent people, assassinations, acts of destruction and sedition.

Some observers see Allam’s statement as an attempt to show that the religious authorities in Egypt are in alignment with those of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which recently classified the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Al-Azhar did not follow suit.

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