The response of Al-Azhar to reports that US interrogators desecrated the Quran has caused as much confusion as anger, writes Gihan Shahine While reports of the alleged desecration of the Qur'an at Guantanamo Bay provoked storms of protest across the Muslim world the response from Al-Azhar, Islam's oldest seat of learning, was muted. As riots erupted as far apart as Afghanistan and Palestine Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, Sheikh of Al- Azhar, condemned the sacrilege and called for "a rapid investigation into the case". It was a response that disappointed many. Earlier this month, in a story it later retracted, Newsweek reported that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet. The report sparked massive riots around the world at which the burning of the American flag became a common scene. Last Friday the protests finally reached Egypt when 12,000 Muslim Brotherhood activists and supporters rallied in front of the headquarters of Alexandria's Lawyer's Club, carrying banners reading "Oh arrogant America, the Quran is our constitution". On the same day 1,000 demonstrators gathered in Downtown Cairo, demonstrating in front of the Bar Association, though they were heavily outnumbered by riot police. "It's high time Muslims rose up to defend the Quran," Sheikh Ahmed El-Mahallawi told the demonstrators in Alexandria. "Muslims must unite in the face of such challenges." The crowds called on Tantawi to demand an American apology. "The Quran is the word of God and any abuse of it a humiliation of Muslims. The US must take immediate action to stop such abhorrent crimes. People are boiling over with anger," said Ibrahim El-Zaafarani, secretary-general of Alexandria's Doctors' Syndicate and a Muslim Brotherhood member of the Shura Council. US investigators, conceding last Thursday that the Quran had been mishandled, contended that the mishandling was unintentional and denied that a copy had been placed in a toilet. At the same time Tantawi received a letter from the US government pledging immediate action against practices that could be construed as anti-Islamic. Though Newsweek was forced to retract the story that sent seismic waves across the Muslim world, allegations about the abuse of the Quran have been corroborated by Red Cross reports and the testimony of released Guantanamo prisoners. The US Akron Beacon Journal, quoting a recent FBI report, said "prisoners at the US-run detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, told FBI interviewers as early as April 2002 that guards abused them and repeatedly desecrated the Quran." The paper went on to say that "FBI files show a consistency to the allegations" and that Justice and Defence Department officials were aware of the allegations as early as 2002. Which goes some way to explain why statements by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who assured reporters that "disrespect for the Holy Quran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States" were met with disbelief. "The defilement of the holy book is no secret: Al-Jazeera broadcast interviews with released Guantanamo prisoners confirming the reports," El-Zaafarani told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We do not accept that the US is innocent. The US killed thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan and is supporting Israel's massacres of Palestinian civilians." By abusing the holy book, El-Zaafarani said, "the US is escalating tension to a dangerous point". While many vent their anger towards US policy and, by association, the leaders of Arab regimes who have remained silent over the matter, it is Al-Azhar that has borne the brunt of the most scathing criticism. Sheikh Gamal Qotb, former head of Al-Azhar's fatwa committee, said Tantawi's "passive attitude fell short of Muslims' expectations and compromised the prestige of Al-Azhar". Tantawi's response, said El-Zaafarani, "came too late and was far milder than that of scholars in other Islamic countries". The result, he said, is that "Al-Azhar is increasingly losing its credibility and its place in the hearts of Muslims". Tantawi has been repeatedly lambasted as a government official willing to compromise the principles of Islam for the sake of state policies. In the run-up to Egypt's 25 May referendum on the amendment of Article 76 of the constitution, Tantawi surprised many by issuing a controversial edict that equated the boycotting of elections with "withholding a testimony". Last year, in response to French legislation banning the hijab, he issued a similarly controversial ruling insisting that "no country has the right to interfere in French lawmaking". That decision came hot on the heels of Tantawi's retraction of a fatwa issued by a senior Al-Azhar cleric urging Muslim and Arab states to boycott the Iraqi governing council. Tantawi abjured the earlier edict, which bore Al-Azhar's official seal, 10 days after it was issued and, more embarrassingly, immediately after meeting with David Welch, then US ambassador to Egypt. "No Egyptian cleric has the right to pass verdict on the affairs of another country," Tantawi said by way of explanation. "Tantawi has turned himself into a government mouthpiece," says Brotherhood MP Hamdi Hassan. "Al-Azhar scholars are now effectively civil servants and cannot oppose the government. It would be more convincing if he condemned the rigging of elections and police abuse of voters." Hassan slammed Tantawi's "passive attitude towards important issues including the recent jailing and beating of 28 Azhar scholars and the arbitrary detention and torture of many Brotherhood activists and students". Qotb believes the Sheikh of Al-Azhar "miscalculated when he volunteered to support the government." "This does the state more harm than good," he said. "While Al-Azhar busies itself with side issues the court is left open for those seeking power under the guise of religion." The Sheikh of Al-Azhar is appointed by the government while Al-Azhar itself has been funded by the state since the 1950s.
