Ekip
28 July 2016•Update: 28 July 2016
By Sobhy Mujahid
CAIRO
Al-Azhar, Egypt’s top religious body, has voiced its rejection of a government decision to standardize Friday sermons countrywide.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Awqaf (religious endowments) said preachers at the nation’s mosques would henceforth be obliged to read out standardized, pre-written sermons before Friday prayers.
Al-Azhar’s senior scholars’ council, however, in a statement issued earlier this week, declared that such a move would serve to hinder religious discourse.
Rather, the council asserted, mosque preachers should be given "training" with a view to helping them avoid "radical ideas".
The Awqaf Ministry, for its part, said that only preachers at ministry-affiliated mosques had been asked to adhere to pre-written sermons.
According to Ministry Undersecretary Jaber Tayea, the initiative had yet to be applied.
"The ministry has left the issue up to the preachers themselves," he said, arguing that the pre-written sermons were simply meant to provide preachers with "guidance".
"Distinguished preachers who want to speak their minds will not be prevented from doing so, as long as they adhere to the essence of the [pre-written] sermon," he said.
Egyptian authorities say they want to "modernize" religious discourse in a country that has been roiled by turmoil since 2013, when Mohamed Morsi -- Egypt’s first freely-elected president and a leader of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group -- was ousted in a military coup.
