When the name of Sheikh Muhammad Metwally Al-Shaarawy is mentioned, many remember what he once said during a television program that when he was in Algeria, the 1967 setback occurred, and when he was in Saudi Arabia, the victory of October 1973 occurred, and both times he prostrated to God after he received the news, albeit for motives. different.

Many criticized the famous preacher because of the first prostration, and among them was Ibn al-Sheikh himself, but he responded to him with what he repeated later in a television interview with the journalist Tariq Habib, saying, “I was happy that we did not win, while we were in the arms of communism, because if we were victorious while we were in the arms of communism, we would have been afflicted with sedition in Our religion, so may we go out.”

Al-Shaarawy added, explaining the motives of the second prostration, saying that the "October victory" came and Egypt is far from communism, and that victory began with the slogan "God is great", as it occurred in the month of Ramadan, which reminded him of the victory of Muslims on the day of the Battle of Badr.

Interestingly, this story still raises controversy about one of the most important and brightest sheikhs in Egypt, whose death anniversary comes today, as he died on June 17, 1998, and his television programs were the most famous religious programs broadcast by Egyptian official television, starting with the “Nour on Nour” program. In 1973, then his most famous program, which was broadcast every Friday, in which he presented his thoughts on the Noble Qur’an.

Al Shaarawy says that his thoughts about the Qur’an are not an interpretation, but rather “pure gifts that come to the heart of a believer in a verse or a few verses. If the Qur’an could be interpreted, the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, would have been the first to explain it, because it was revealed to him and he was moved and he reached He has knowledge and action, and his miracles have appeared, but the Messenger of God, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, contented himself with making clear to people the extent of their need of worship by showing them the provisions of assignment in the Noble Qur’an, which they do and do not do. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jamal Abdulnasser

Opinions differ and controversy erupts over the personality of Al-Shaarawy, as well as controversy over his relations with the presidents of Egypt, and his recognition of his prostration after the setback may be evidence, in the opinion of some, of his hatred for the era of the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who died in 1970, and as stated in the book “Memoirs of the Imam of Preachers,” which was issued by Dar Al-Shorouk in 1998, Al-Shaarawy tells that Sheikh Abdul Rahman Hassan, Sheikh of Al-Azhar, brought him a picture of Gamal Abdel Nasser while he was praying to put it in his office, and asked him to write something for him under the picture, and Al-Shaarawi was at the time director of Al-Azhar, so he asked him to write the following:

Tomorrow is

hidden in the

basements of the

past


and goes that comes to Srdopkm certainly


will not stand the

wheel of

God and lasting


Fletkm because of

what they remember him

The novel adds that Sheikh Hassan refused to write these verses, knowing that this did not prevent Al-Shaarawy lamenting Abdel Nasser after his death, saying, "Jamal has died, and it is not surprising that he died, for all people die, but it is amazing that he is dead to live with us, and few living people live." The best of death is that the lost does not disappear, and the worst of life is death in the cemetery of existence.

With Sadat and Mubarak

In the era of President Anwar Sadat, who succeeded Nasser, and took over the presidency until 1981, his relationship with Sheikh Al Shaarawy strengthened, until the latter became Minister of Endowments in 1976, but this did not prevent some disputes between them from time to time, especially while Al Shaarawy attended official events, but Sadat He refused the Israelis' demands later to stop Shaarawy's television programs, in which he explained the verses of jihad in the Holy Qur'an, according to what was published by Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper.

At a time when the tapes of Salafist sheikhs spread in the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century, and the Egyptian government did not prevent them or support them directly, they allowed Sheikh Shaarawy to occupy a prominent position among the sheikhs of the nation, especially with the overwhelming popularity of his television programs.

Al-Shaarawy topped the scene of celebrating former President Hosni Mubarak after his assassination attempt in Addis Ababa in 1995, as the sheikh appeared in the midst of a group of senior Al-Azhar sheikhs and Christian clerics, and said to Mubarak, “If you surrender, all people have surrendered, and I, Mr. President, stand on the threshold of my world to receive yes.” By God, I will not end my life with hypocrisy, but I will say a brief word to the whole nation, government, party, opposition, men, and people, sorry to be negative.

Al-Shaarawy concluded his speech to Mubarak by gently placing his hand on his shoulder, and said to him, “Mr. President, the last thing I would like to say to you is: If you are our destiny, may God grant you success, and if we are your destiny, may God help you to bear.”

Despite the spread of this passage from Al-Shaarawy after the January 2011 revolution, many consider it unfair to compare with the time when Al-Shaarawy said this, as Mubarak had reasonable popularity in the mid-nineties, and he had not been involved in the trap of trying to bequeath his son Or the corruption cases that marred the last decade of his rule.

Controversial

The opinions (fatwas) of Al-Shaarawy provoked great controversy, and discussion raged about them among religious scholars, especially his opinion on the law of transferring or donating the organs of the deceased. The gift, and if a person possessed his organs, God would not have punished the suicide by eternity in the fire.

Al-Shaarawi also issued a fatwa that the one who neglects prayer must be killed if he denies the ruling.

opinions about him

In the front of Shaarawy’s memoirs, published under the name “The Imam of Preachers,” the former Minister of Awqaf Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq says that Al-Shaarawy was friendly, modest, simple, cheerful, loyal, and sincerity was the secret of his greatness, and at the same time the secret of his success, his giving extended for more than half a century, in the era of Concepts were mixed in him, religious visions were disturbed in him, and he continued to strive with his thought, knowledge and pen until the last breath of his life.

As the professor of hadith at Al-Azhar University Ahmed Omar Hashem said about him that Al-Shaarawy has all the characteristics of the Imamate undisputedly, his council attracts you as his speech attracts you, and his silence and decency affect you even if he does not speak, and God gave him a strong portfolio, abundant knowledge, and radiant intelligence, “We saw to what extent you reach His scientific and analytical capabilities which are manifested in his interpretation and analysis.

As for the journalist writer Hussein Al-Zanati, he wrote in Al-Ahram newspaper that history did not find a position for Sheikh Al-Shaarawy to say that he was a non-national figure, justifying this by being the author of the famous saying “Egypt, which exported the science of Islam to the whole world, exported it even to the country in which Islam was descended, and Egypt will remain Always so."