We have a number of reservations of the role that should be performed by Egypt's Azhar in the Egyptian community during the current critical period of Egypt's history. We have repeated and written our reservations many times before. However, what we witness currently is not just reservations on the performance of national organization that performed a major role in the history of the country and the region as whole. We currently witness a suspicious and organized campaign that came from every direction to undermine the role performed by Azhar and its grand imam. We strongly refuse such a brutal campaign against the important and historic Islamic institution. We also strongly express our support for Azhar's Grand Imam, Sheikh Ahmed Al Tayeb. We call the country's scholars and intellectuals for supporting this ancient scientific school against the campaigns aiming to serve the interests of the extremists. We have to remind of the initiatives adopted by Egypt's Azhar in different occasions since January 25 Revolution and presented a number of papers to pave the way for reforming the religious discourse not only in Egypt but also in the Arab and Islamic world. It drafted a number of principles and a clear map for the renewal process based on the principle of citizenship and respect of freedoms. However, these initiatives have been ignored from some people, while others took the opposite way by extending their hands to Salafists. They provided them with the opportunity to appear in media channels to talk about reconciliation and to promote their extremist ideas that violated the principle of citizenship and insulted the Coptic citizens. These ideas performed a major role in the incidents witnessed in the country during the recent period, including what happens currently in Minya's village of Kom Al Lofi in front of the government.
