CAIRO: Mohammed Salim Al-Awa, an Islamic thinker said at an open meeting at a Cairo bookstore on Friday that “women are an important element in making the change and the significance of women in society” cannot be understated. He also praised women's attitudes to the process over life. Awa added that he is one of the “strongest advocates for dialogue in general and for Islamic-Christian dialogue in particular, as the idea of dialogue is not only in the face of conflict, but also in facing the isolation,” explaining that the political dialogue with the West is “useless, but dialog individually is different, and is the only category that may not be a dialogue with the Zionist obsession that kills our children.” Awa denied being an extremist, saying that he adheres to faith and a “return to religion.” He said that if this labels him as a “radical extremists, I am the first.” On issues of contempt of religion, he said author Youssef Zeidan – who has come under fire from Christians who accuse him of blasphemy in his award-winning Azazeel novel – “is my best friend and it is not he who disdains anything. “It is not known to look down upon a cockroach,” he added. “Youssef is poor and is like all poor innovators in our country.” He attributed the presence of sectarian strife in Egypt to the weakness of the state in the face of the Egyptian church. He added, on the subject of women that when two Egyptian women, Wafaa Constantin, Marie Abdullah, have “raised their Islam and 72 Muslims could not protect them and they were jailed by the church, without any interference.” He confirmed that he wants to eliminate the discord that comes with what he called the fulfillment of Constantine and Abdullah, and leave the freedom to choose religion open to all in Egypt, “whether Islam or Christianity.” BM
