Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

A few weeks ago, news came in that the former head of the

Azhar’s Interfaith Dialogue Committee, Shaykh Fawzī al-Zifzāf, had signed a

document on religious rights with a visiting U.S. delegation of Christian clerics, calling itself

“Ambassadors for

Peace” [http://www.ambassadorsforpeace.info/] Nabīl ‘Abd al-

‘Azīz writes. [See

AWR 2006, 15, art. 4, 16, art. 2]

The 17-item document

indicated that “violence of any kind to

exercise a religious point or to cause conversion is unacceptable,”

and that “each religion lived out by

individuals or an organization has the right to peacefully represent

its view of theology, people and the

hereafter.”

Citing the sixth item of the document, which read,

“All nations and religious entities have the

right to proclaim their religious beliefs and to debate them in

any open forum without violence,” ‘Abd

al-‘Azīz argues that the document allowed

missionary activity in Egypt.

Following heated

debate over the document, the Religious Affairs

Committee at the People’s Assembly, headed by Dr. Ahmad

‘Umar Hāshim, met with

representatives of the Azhar. Both sides decided to cancel the

document and to inform the American

side of the decision. Moreover, Dr. Hāshim asked the grand

imām of the Azhar,

Shaykh Muhammad Sayyid Tantāwī, to send the document

to the People’s Assembly to be torn up

in a public session after Tantāwī had denied all knowledge of

the document, disclaiming the

Azhar’s responsibility for it.

Contrary to the expectations of Dr.

Hāshim, Shaykh

Tantāwī did not send the document to the committee. Instead, he

dissolved the Interfaith Dialogue

Committee and formed a second committee, headed by the deputy of the

Azhar, Shaykh

‘Umar al-Dīb, with the purpose of making an inventory of the dialogue

committee. More

surprisingly, the author adds, the newly-established committee did not find either the

controversial

document of religious rights or a number of other significant papers. Shaykh

Tantāwī

preferred not to involve the Public Prosecution in the investigation, but to assign the task

to his legal

advisor, Jamāl Abu al-Hasan.

Al-Maydān publishes a picture of Dr.

Tantāwī and

Shaykh cAmr al-Bastawīsī, the former head of the office

of the grand imām,

shaking hands with members of the delegation.