Parliament slams anti-Semitism
The People's Assembly's debate of a report on religious extremism turned into an unprecedented parliamentary indictment of anti-Semitism. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
A recently completed parliamentary report about "the necessity of innovative religious discourse in the Islamic world" came up for debate at the People's Assembly on Monday. The debate featured a clash between several MPs regarding whether Islam should be the only religion singled out for criticism.
Based on 18 months of discussions by senior officials and religious leaders, the report calls for religious teachings to promote ideas of tolerance, rationality, openness, enlightenment, freedom and respect for human rights. According to Mohamed Ali Mahgoub, chairman of parliament's Religious, Social and Waqf (Religious Endowments) Affairs Committee, "it is a source of great pride for the Egyptian parliament to take the initiative of producing this report." Addressing the assembly, El- Mahgoub said "it is quite unreasonable for Islam, which is being called a religion of terrorism and violence in the West, to stay clear of an enlightened discourse calling for tolerance and renouncing extremism and dogmatism."
Zakaria Azmi, a prominent deputy from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), said it was "the right time" to debate the report. "I hope, however, that several concrete steps will soon be taken to effectively upgrade religious discourse in Egypt, by barring poor-quality imams (religious preachers) from delivering sermons in mosques, and making sure the Waqf Ministry properly trains imams so that they are more aware of modern sciences and international developments." Azmi also argued that an important element of this training programme should ensure that Muslim clerics stop mixing religion with politics.
Wafdist MP Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, a Coptic Christian, said, "all Egyptians, including Muslims and Copts, believe that all religions convey a message of respect for human values, rights and freedoms."
But while Abdel-Nour and Azmi's comments were meant to orchestrate the debate towards the necessity of spreading a culture of enlightenment and tolerance both in Egypt and all over the Islamic world, the comments proffered by Ahmed Abu Zeid, chairman of parliament's Arab Affairs Committee, ended up doing the exact opposite.
Given the floor to deliver a word on the report, Abu Zeid said the discourse of Egypt's three religions -- Islam, Christianity and Judaism -- must convey a message of tolerance. According to Abu Zeid, accusations of extremism must not just be levelled at Islam. "There are a lot of extremist Christians and Jews in America and Israel, and both are defaming the messages of Christianity and Judaism," Abu Zeid said.
Abu Zeid's comment immediately angered Mohamed Mursi, a prominent deputy from the banned Muslim Brotherhood. "As long as we are discussing a report about Islam in Egypt," Mursi said, "I insist that there is no Jewish discourse in Egypt."
At this point, several MPs began arguing with Mursi, and parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour himself stepped in to blame Mursi for ignoring "the fact that several Jews live in Egypt and most of them go to Jewish synagogues". Sorour said, "Mursi's words contain an element of extremism which he must renounce."
An angry Mursi told the speaker that he had "an obligation to support my argument instead of describing me as an extremist."
Sorour, however, continued in the same vein, describing as highly regrettable the fact that "Mursi's extremist words were voiced in the Egyptian parliament while it is discussing a report about the necessity of an innovative religious discourse in Egypt and the Islamic world. I will never provide anyone with the opportunity to accuse the Egyptian parliament of extremism or anti- Semitism," Sorour said.
Several other MPs, including Mahgoub and a few appointed MPs who are also religious clerics, then joined forces with Sorour, blaming Mursi for "his extremist argument".
Mahgoub said, "by discussing this report, we aim to convey a message of tolerance and enlightenment to the outside world. We want to bring back Egypt's image as a land of moderate and civilised Islam."
According to Mahgoub, "we have to differentiate between Judaism and Zionism. We condemn Zionism as a political movement which manipulated Judaism in order to expel Palestinians by force from their land, and wreak havoc on their everyday lives."
In this same vein, leftist MP Abul-Ezz El-Hariri denounced the fact that several extremist imams and clerics have described Jews "as the worshippers of monkeys and pigs", in their Friday prayer sermons.
Another religious cleric, MP Abdel-Rahman El-Adawi, said Islam bestows tremendous respect on Christianity and Judaism. Judaism's Prophet, Moses, said El-Adawi, enjoys even more respect in Egypt "because he was born here and led the Jews in their revolt against the Pharaoh."
According to Waqf Minister Hamdi Zaqzouq, "there is a relatively small number of Jews in Egypt, but they are Egyptians, enjoying their full rights, including the right to own property." As an example of this, Zaqzouq mentioned that his ministry had recently handed over -- to a group of Egyptian Jews -- "a building it found was rightfully theirs".
Zaqzouq also said his ministry was intensely involved in organising training courses meant to raise imams' cultural awareness. Graduates of Al-Azhar and other faculties of Islamic studies must now pass strict exams to be appointed by the ministry, Zaqzouq said. "Although we desperately need more than 6,000 new imams every year, we only appoint between 1000-1500 of the 15,000 who apply," Zaqzouq said.
The training programme requires the new imams to learn foreign languages such as English, and attend courses on topics such as birth control, banking and interest rates, the role of women in society, and the Islamic world's relationship with the West. "We also teach them how to use computers and the Internet," Zaqzouq said.
"Our efforts have begun to bear fruit. We have begun sending enlightened imams to deliver sermons in European and American mosques. One of them is a 26-year- old imam who is now delivering Friday sermons at a London mosque. The Egyptian ambassador in England told me he is terrific and that we need a lot more like him to dispel the image that Egypt is a breeding ground of extremist and militant Islam."
