Covering all the angles?

The Ministry of Islamic Endowments' plans to bring all the country's mosques under its authority have triggered controversy in religious quarters. Rania Khallaf reports
Cairo has been known as the city of a thousand minarets. Today, although the minarets might not have increased dramatically in number, the city's mosques definitely have.
Building owners began setting up small mosques in the first floor chambers of their residential blocks since the early 1970s. These small mosques or zawaya, which are very small chambers for prayer used by the residents of a number of apartment blocks, now crowd Cairo's districts. The motivation behind many building owners' decision to set up these mosques is the government's issuance of a 1970s law exempting residential buildings that house mosques from water and electricity payments.
The zawaya, however, have increasingly become a source of intense aggravation to neighbours. Ragaa Ibrahim, a television announcer who lives in an area surrounded by five mosques, said her sleep is regularly interrupted during night prayers, as the muezzin's (prayer announcer's) voice, amplified by loudspeakers, pierces her bedroom quiet.
In an attempt to address this problem and a number of others arising from the proliferation of these unsupervised mosques, the Ministry of Islamic Endowments (Awqaf) is implementing a national plan to bring all the mosques and zawaya, which were built by non-governmental organisations or individuals, under its control. "A 1981 presidential decree put forth a plan bringing all the country's mosques under the ministry's authority. At that time, about 5,600 mosques were brought under the ministry's umbrella. In 2002, the total number reached 56,344, in addition to 14,000 zawaya. The plan will end by the end of this year," said Sheikh Mohamed Zeidan, chairman of the ministry's mosques and Islamic- preaching department.
Although the aims of the move are clear -- to spread enlightened Islamic discourse and assert peaceful Islamic principles through supervision of the content of the messages disseminated at mosques -- the plan has evoked controversy within the country's religious circles.
"Developing the content of Islamic speeches in mosques, especially those delivered during Friday's noon prayers, and improving the image of Muslims in and outside the country were among the major aims of this plan," announced Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, minister of Awqaf.
However, Mansour Refai, a former official at the Ministry of Awqaf, argued that the ministry has too much on its hands, and committing its officials to supervising the country's mosques would be too burdensome.
Gamal Qutb, chairman of the Islamic Preaching Administration of Al-Azhar, also opposes the ministry's decision. "The plan will cost the state more than LE600 million just to replace the bad imams with good ones," he said.
Reflecting on the history of antagonism between the Ministry of Awqaf and Al-Azhar administration over the authority of the state's religious organisations, Qutb said the Ministry of Awqaf was merely an executive body that should not be involved in the management of private mosques. "Issues related to the da'wa, or Islamic preaching, should be under the supervision of Al-Azhar," he said.
Apparently, the Awqaf Ministry also has an axe to grind with the directors of several local NGOs, according to Mohamed Abu Zeid, an imam of Zamalek Sports Club's mosque, and former chairman of the non-governmental organisations' department at the Ministry of Social Affairs. "In many cases, the ministry seizes the properties of the mosques affiliated to NGOs, creating a host of administrative problems," he said.
Abu Zeid cited the example of El-Fath Mosque in the working class Cairo suburb of Manshiet Nasser, which the ministry decided to bring under its jurisdiction in 1996 allegedly because it was a hotbed of Islamist militancy. "The ministry's officials fired all the mosque workers and preachers and replaced them with their own," Abu Zeid said.
Zeidan told Al-Ahram Weekly that in the early 1980s, some private mosques were a breeding ground for extremists, adding that many Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Morocco, had adopted similar control plans to stem such a threat.
Replacing unqualified preachers with competent ones will be no easy task. Al-Azhar University does not produce enough graduates to cover the vacancies that will arise, Refai argued. "Some of these graduates do not want to work as preachers because of the low salaries they are given," he said.
Nevertheless, Refai pointed to a number of advantages the move will entail. In addition to the channelling of mosque donations to one specific fund, workers at ministry-run mosques will be offered the kind of job security and compensation they did not receive in private mosques. The ministry will be hiring three officials in every private mosque -- an imam, a library secretary and a cleaning person. All three will receive social and medical insurance.
The huge growth in the number of zawaya was partly due to the shortage of bigger mosques to accommodate the faithful, especially during Friday's prayers. Pharmacist Abdel- Aziz El-Zoua'ibi, who supervises the activities of El-Ola Mosque in Al-Haram district, believes the government should be building big mosques of its own instead of seizing private ones.
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