Cairo, December 03: Muslims in Cairo — once dubbed the City of a Thousand Minarets — have slammed a referendum in Switzerland banning new minarets as intolerant, but few have called for a boycott of Swiss goods.
At the prestigious Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s main seat of learning, authorities were dismayed after more than 57 percent of Swiss voters on Sunday approved the right-wing motion to ban minarets on mosques.
Sheikh Mohammed Abdel Aziz, secretary general of Al-Azhar’s Fatwa Council which issues religious edicts, described the vote as an attack on religious freedom.
“European countries are supposed to be democratic and free. If there is freedom, why ban the construction of minarets? Will they also ban church bells?,” Abdel Aziz told said in an interview.
“Why is this ancient symbol of Islam, a simple monument from where the imam tries to call as many people as possible to pray, disturbing?” he asked.
Cairo’s landscape is dotted with the minarets of at least 4,700 government mosques in all their shapes and sizes.
The minarets are not themselves necessary for prayer because as far as the Prophet Mohammed was concerned, “the whole world is a prayer area,” said Abdel Aziz.
“If non-Muslims are allowed to build church towers, and nuns are allowed to wear the veil, Muslims should be allowed to establish places of worship and Muslim women allowed to hide their hair,” said Sheikh Mohammed Saleh Shedeed, an imam at Al-Azhar, in reference to the debate in Europe on the freedom to wear the Islamic headscarf.
“My message to the Swiss government is that if it’s about banning minarets and not other places of worship, then it’s unfair. My message to the (right-wing) Swiss People’s Party is that you have the right to express your point of view, but let Muslims express theirs,” Shedeed said.
Egypt’s grand mufti — the country’s most senior Islamic scholar — denounced the referendum result as an “insult” to Islam, but nonetheless called for dialogue between the religions.
At the main tourist bazaar of Khan al-Khalili in Cairo, Mohammed Fawzi who sells miniature sphinx replicas and golden Cleopatras, says dialogue could help make the Swiss understand Muslims.
“It’s on the relationship level that one must act, dialogue to change people’s mentality,” said the 22-year-old.
Sheikh Abdel Aziz agrees but notes “Each Muslim in Switzerland must try to change the mentality.”
—Agencies