The ambiguity surrounding a recent decision granting Al-Azhar search and seizure powers has provoked much speculation, misinterpretation and anger. Gihan Shahine reports The commotion surrounding Justice Minister Farouk Seif El-Nasr's decision to grant Al- Azhar's Islamic Research Academy (IRA) search and seizure powers continued to reverberate this week, even after Seif El-Nasr clarified the IRA's new mandate. While many critics had interpreted the 1 June decision as providing the IRA with the right to confiscate literary works it deemed immoral, the minister made clear that the power to search and seize material was actually restricted to illegitimate copies of the holy Qur'an and hadith (Prophet Mohamed's sayings). Human rights organisations and intellectuals were quick to denounce the 1 June decision as "a blow to freedom of expression". Press reports of alleged Al-Azhar raids on bookstores and publishing houses claimed that hundreds of books, audio and videotapes had been confiscated. Even when officials from both Al-Azhar and the Interior Ministry denied having made any confiscations, speculation continued to persist. "The IRA will drag us back to the inquisition courts era," thundered Supreme Council for Culture Secretary-General Gaber Asfour. Adel Hamouda, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly newspaper Sawt Al-Umma, called it "the beginning of a religious police in Egypt". Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) Secretary-General Hafez Abu Se'da said the decision was "unconstitutional" because it "violated freedom of expression and creativity". Al-Azhar has traditionally played a consultative role, with no executive legal powers, when reviewing cultural material deemed sexually explicit or religiously unacceptable. When Al-Azhar receives reports that a book, for instance, is blasphemous, a committee of IRA scholars is usually formed to study the publication in question. If the scholars decide the book is indeed blasphemous, they recommend banning it. It was always up to the authorities and the Ministry of Culture to impose the ban. The fury that erupted over Al-Azhar's new executive powers was mainly fuelled by the fact that the government did not make it clear from the beginning that the decision only concerned the Qur'an and hadith. Documentation of the ministry's decision was not made available to either the Writers' Union or the press, and ministry officials were not prepared to talk to reporters. The grand imam of Al-Azhar, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, in welcoming the decision, also opted not to provide details, asserting only that Al-Azhar "supports creativity and liberty". Speculation was stoked further by the decision's timing, coming, as it did, on the heels of an IRA-driven ban of a 1987 novel by controversial feminist writer Nawal El-Saadawi. The group said The Fall of the Imam allegedly violated Islamic precepts. Appealing for calm, Al-Ahram columnist Salama Ahmed Salama said, "we should take the minister's words for granted, and accept that Al- Azhar be empowered with its legitimate role of protecting Qur'an and hadith." At the same time, Salama blamed a general shortage of transparency, creative freedom and political liberty for the public's reaction. Writer's Union Head Farouk Khorshid insisted that Seif El-Nasr needed to be even clearer about the entire matter. One way to do that, he said, would be to send the union a copy of his decision. "If the decision only concerns the Qur'an and hadith, then it should be none of our business," Khorshid said. "But if Al-Azhar's executive powers expand to literary works, then the decision would be a true blow to freedom and creativity, at a time when writers are -- ironically -- enjoying a larger margin of liberty than ever before." Since there is no legal precedent to expand Al- Azhar's executive mandate to include literary works, said historian and former State Council judge Tareq El-Bishri, there was no chance of it legitimately occurring. According to El-Bishri, the minister's decision was based on Law 102/ 1985, which grants Al-Azhar the legal powers of searching and seizing unlicensed copies of the Qur'an and hadith. That law, however, was made ineffective in the absence of a mechanism to enforce it. El-Bishri said the minister's decision was only meant to provide that mechanism. "The decision only gave Al-Azhar its legitimate power, which has nothing to do with freedom of expression," he said. "The issue has been blown out of proportion, distracting people from more pressing issues." Ahmed Kamal Abul-Magd, a member of the IRA and the deputy chairman of the National Council for Human Rights, agreed. "All this fuss over the minister's decision is unfounded," Abul-Magd said. "It's no more than a storm in a teacup." Sheikh Abdel-Zaher Abu Ghazala, general manager of the IRA's research and translation department, blamed bureaucratic delays for the nearly 10 years it took for the 1985 law to get its implementation mechanism. Abu Ghazala told Al-Ahram Weekly the matter had become urgent now that "there is much unauthorised religious material on the market." Others continued to theorise as to why, when the minister's decision was actually issued in August 2003 (as subsequently revealed), it was kept under wraps until last month's official announcement. Abu Se'da's interpretation was that the government was trying to counter balance the potential negative reaction amongst conservative Muslims to its recent clampdown on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, by publicly announcing Al-Azhar's "extra powers" at this particular time. According to Abu Se'da, the government wants to present itself as a legitimate alternative to Islamists, by showing it is more keen on protecting Islam than its rivals -- a dynamic that, in Se'da's opinion, would "threaten the establishment of a civil government and a new Islamic discourse". There was no link between empowering Al- Azhar "to carry out its legitimate role in protecting the Qur'an and hadith " and the recent crackdown on the Brotherhood, argued Diaa Rashwan of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. Rashwan said that with many more unauthorised and potentially inaccurate copies of Qur'an on the market these days, it was only logical that clerics would press for the enforcement of already existing laws to protect the original scripts. Abu Se'da, however, argued that police authorities could have easily continued to detect unauthorised versions of the Qur'an on their own, since all legitimate copies must have Al- Azhar's approval printed on them. "There is absolutely no need for Al-Azhar scholars to go to bookshops and publishing houses to search for illegal copies and arrest the violators," Abu Se'da told the Weekly. "It's degrading for scholars to do so." Which is why Abu Se'da also suspected that Al-Azhar's new powers were "only meant to provide clerics with better access to printing houses and bookstores to track down and confiscate [other] books that they think contradict the teachings of Islam." Abu Se'da said the State Council issued a fatwa (religious edict) in 1994 granting Al- Azhar the right to ban audio and video materials that contradict Islam. He recalled Al- Azhar's reported crackdown on the 2002 Cairo International Book Fair, confiscating literary works they deemed contradictory to Islamic tenets, as a case in point. While Abu Se'da said the fatwa also included the banning of printed material, El-Bishri said it didn't. The former judge did, however, say that authorities usually go along with Al-Azhar's rulings on such matters. Al-Azhar scholars were unapologetic about the recommended bans. "Writers should not be allowed to defame religion and violate Islamic precepts under the pretext of creativity and freedom," said the IRA's Abu Ghazala. In 2001, three state-published novels were banned for alleged indecency after being attacked in parliament by Islamist MPs. In the mid-1990s, the IRA recommended that renowned Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's Al-Mohager (The Emigrant), a story loosely based on Prophet Joseph, and author Alaa Hamed's Voyage into the Human Mind, a philosophical reflection on faith and atheism, be banned. Three years ago, after the publication of Syrian writer Haider Haider's A Banquet of Seaweed, massive student protests erupted when the novel was deemed blasphemous. "Islam condones freedoms and creativity," said Abul-Magd, "but liberty is usually granted within the limits of public order and ethics." In the end, Abul-Magd said, the IRA, "which includes different schools of thinking, would never stifle creativity or make itself a supervisor over people's consciences." According to Khorshid, however, "only those in the writing profession should have the final say on creative works."
