Egyptian gov introduces unified Friday prayer guidelines, MB 'Godfather' Qaradawi Replaced at Friday prayer

Egyptian gov introduces unified Friday prayer guidelines, MB 'Godfather' Qaradawi Replaced at Friday prayer.(AA).

The Egyptian authorities and the Muslim Brotherhood are parties to the ongoing conflict on many tracks — in the streets, in universities, in the courts, in some state agencies — and now the conflict has moved to houses of worship.

The country’s mosques are the scene of one of the episodes of the conflict between the Ministry of Religious Endowments, which represents the state, and some clerics who represent the Muslim Brotherhood’s position of opposing “the coup and defending legitimacy.”

The Brotherhood’s tools inside the mosques do not differ from their tools outside: a harsh discourse that incites the masses against the current regime and that also calls on crowds to gather. Mosques sometimes act as outposts for Muslim Brotherhood snipers.

Some have said that this is what happened to the Fatah Mosque when the Rabia al-Adawiya Square sit-in was broken up on Aug. 14, 2013.

The tools of the regime, on the other hand, are represented by the decision to enforce the laws, after they were amended to impose stiffer penalties. The authorities have dispatched clerics from the Ministry of Religious Endowments to the mosques that slipped from government control. Lately, the ministry has imposed harsh penalties for whoever deviates from its religious discourse.

As is usual in most conflicts between the two sides, human rights activists and those not affiliated with either side criticize both the Muslim Brotherhood and the authorities’ decisions.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdel Razek, the proxy of the Ministry of Religious Endowments, told Al-Monitor that the “idea of a unified sermon came because of the critical situation experienced by Egypt, which needs to unite. … So we decided to address a particular issue every Friday throughout Egypt. And this is done in coordination with the associations, which we repeatedly call to adhere to moderation because we are the only ministry responsible for reviewing religious discourse.”

Abdel Razek added that for the unified sermon the topic and its cornerstones are set and whoever does not adhere to them is prevented from rising to the pulpit until a ministry investigation is completed. That is if he was affiliated with the ministry, but if he was affiliated with an association, the mosque is placed under the direct supervision of the ministry or is sent an imam from the ministry to replace the imam from the association.

Amr Ezzat, the official responsible for the issue of freedom of conscience for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told Al-Monitor that the unified sermon has existed for a long time but it was nonbinding and there was no penalty for those who departed from it. But now, according to Ezzat, the legal framework was toughened. That framework is how the ministry supervises the Friday sermons in mosques. The framework imposes a fine or jail time for those who depart from the unified sermon.Read the full story here.