Everyone in the Western media and government establishment has already imbibed the dogma that Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism; only the Islamic terrorists haven’t gotten the message. But al-Tayyeb isn’t talking to them: he is one in an apparently endless succession of Muslim authorities who call upon the West to stop linking Islam to terrorism, ignoring the fact that Islamic jihadists, not Western analysts, are the ones making that link.
Meanwhile, al-Tayyeb is playing the moderate here, but over the years he has justified anti-Semitism on Qur’anic grounds; called for the Islamic State murderers of the Jordanian pilot to be crucified or have their hands and feet amputated on opposite sides (as per the penalty in Qur’an 5:33 for those who make war against Allah and his messenger or spread “mischief” in the land); and broken off “dialogue” with the Vatican after Pope Benedict XVI dared to criticize the jihad massacre of 21 Christians in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve 2011. Al-Azhar was also revealed to be offering free copies of a book that called for the slaughter of Christians and other Infidels.
“Top Egypt cleric urges disassociating Islam from attacks,” AFP, November 21, 2015:
Cairo (Egypt) (AFP) – Egypt’s top Muslim cleric issued an impassioned appeal Saturday to disassociate Islam from extremist attacks, saying Muslims themselves had suffered most from “the catastrophe of terrorism.”
Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, head of Egypt’s prestigious Islamic Al-Ahzar institution, also appealed for an end to anti-Muslim violence in Western countries, such as attacks on mosques.
“Those who have burned Korans or houses of God (mosques) in the West should know that these acts are also terrorism by any standard,” Tayyeb said at a meeting of senior Muslim clerics.
“So don’t respond to terrorism with terrorism,” he said in a speech.
Al-Azhar, which operates a university, has regularly denounced violence by the Islamic State group and other extremists that this month struck Beirut, Paris and Mali….
“We expect from all — especially intellectuals and men of religion — not to be swayed by the might of these shocks from the obligation of putting things in their context regarding the complete separation of Islam… and a small minority that does not constitute a fraction of Muslims.”
“We Muslims have been through, and still undergo many times more these terrorist attacks,” he said.