CAIRO: The head of Egypt’s Al-Azhar university, one of the world’s leading Islamic seats of learning, has been replaced after labelling a controversial Muslim reformer an apostate, the institution said.
The development came as Al-Azhar is pressured by critics who say the venerable Sunni Muslim authority has not done enough to counter Islamist extremism.
Ahmed Hosni Taha, the acting university president, had been forced to apologize on Thursday after saying reformer Islam Al-Behairy was an “apostate” for attacking some of the founding scholars of Islamic law.
His apology was followed by a statement on Friday from Al-Azhar saying that Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb, who heads the institution that runs the university, had replaced Taha.
Taha had made the remarks about Behairy during a television interview.
“My response...was incorrect and it contradicts the way of Al-Azhar,” Taha said in an apology posted on the university’s website.
Behairy was a talk show host who had infuriated Al-Azhar’s traditional clergy with attacks on canonical religious books and some of Sunni Islam’s most important scholars.
He was sentenced to a year in prison for “insulting religion” and released in late 2016 in a presidential pardon.
Egypt Azhar university head replaced after ‘apostacy’ remarks
Egypt Azhar university head replaced after ‘apostacy’ remarks
Somali president visits city claimed by breakaway region
MOGADISHU: Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Friday visited a provincial capital claimed by the breakaway region of Somaliland -- the first visit there by a sitting president in over 40 years.
The visit to Las Anod, the administrative capital of the Sool region, comes amid heightened diplomatic tensions in the Horn of Africa after Israel officially recognised Somaliland, drawing strong opposition from Mogadishu.
Mohamud was attending the inauguration of the president of the newly created Northeast State, which became Somalia's sixth federal state in August.
It was the first visit by a Somali president since 1984.
Somalia is a federation of semi-autonomous states, some of which have fraught relations with the central government in Mogadishu.
The Northeast State comprises the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, all territories Somaliland claims as integral to its borders.
Somaliland had controlled Las Anod since 2007 but was forced to withdraw in 2023 after violent clashes with Somali forces and pro-Mogadishu militias left scores dead.
Mohamud's visit "is a symbol of strengthening the unity and efforts of the federal government to enforce the territorial unity of the Somali country and its people", the Somali president's office said.
