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Hard-line groups inside the Azhar are launching a fierce campaign against Grand Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib and members of the Azhar's powerful Islamic Research Academy due to a fatwa sanctioning the making of statues for tourist and trade purposes.

 

The Salafīst (traditional) mainstream inside the Azhar was angered by the fatwa and called for a decision rendering this industry as harām (religiously impermissible).

 

"Several members of the Academy have warned Tayyib of what they termed as 'expected impertinence' on the part of the dissolved Azhar Scholar Front against the Sheikh and the Academy members over this fatwa," a source from within the Academy said.

 

He added that the Front had severely attacked the late Sheikh of the Azhar Muhammad Sayyid Tantāwī after he gave a similar fatwa.