Conflans attack: for the grand imam of Al-Azhar, insulting religions is "a call to hatred"

The Egyptian Sunni Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, on Tuesday condemned the beheading of a professor in France, "a heinous criminal act", while maintaining, however, that insulting religions in the name of freedom of The expression constitutes "an appeal to hatred".

He spoke from a distance in a speech read in Rome, on the famous Capitoline Square.

"A heinous criminal act"

"As a Muslim and Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, I declare that Islam, its teachings and its prophet have nothing to do with this heinous criminal act," said the Grand Sunni Imam in Arabic in this speech.

“At the same time, I insist that insulting religions and attacking their sacred symbols in the name of freedom of expression is a double intellectual standard and a call to hatred,” he added. 

The Secretary General of the Higher Committee of the Human Fraternity, Mohamed Abdelsalam Abdellatif, read the speech of Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb before a prestigious audience of religious leaders of Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism - including Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew or the chief rabbi of France Haïm Korsia - who met on Tuesday to sign a common appeal for peace.

They also observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the pandemic and all wars. 

"This terrorist does not represent the religion of the Prophet Muhammad"

Samuel Paty, a history and geography professor, was beheaded Friday near the college of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north-west of Paris.

According to the French Minister of the Interior, he was targeted by a "fatwa" issued by a student's parent and a preacher for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a course on freedom of expression.

The assailant, Abdoullakh Anzarov, an 18-year-old Chechen Russian, was killed by French police.

"This terrorist does not represent the religion of the Prophet Muhammad," commented the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, in his speech translated from Arabic by AFP.

Condemnation of religious extremism

Pope Francis co-signed in February 2019 in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) a "document on human fraternity" with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb.

They jointly condemn religious extremism and support for terrorists.

In his speech on peace delivered Tuesday to other religious leaders, the sovereign pontiff for his part considered that "religions are at the service of peace and not inert spectators of the evil of war and hatred", while deploring that "terrorism or radicalism are sometimes perpetrated in the name of religion".

 The Sunni Islamic institution had qualified at the beginning of September as a "criminal act" the republication in front page of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo of the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on the occasion of the trial of the jihadist attacks of January 2015 in France.

And in October she had deemed "racist" the speech of French President Emmanuel Macron against "Islamist separatism", denouncing "accusations" against Islam.