Egypt’s al-Azhar has denounced calls by several prominent French figures to omit versus from the Quran.

Several French figures, including former president Nicolas Sarkozy and former prime minister Manuel Valls, published an open-letter French Daily Le Parisien urging verses of the Quran calling for the “murder and punishment of Jews, Christians and disbelievers” to be removed.

In response, Al-Azhar University’s deputy during a sermon on Saturday said that the Quran does not call for murder but it calls for fighting back against hostile people instead.

Al-Azhar’s deputy warned of the attempts that emerges every now and then and added that the Quran does not include verses that orders killing anyone without committing one of the crimes that requires killing a criminal, like the intended murder or raising of weapons, indicating that Islam is not responsible when others misunderstand the verses.

He asserted that the verses in the Quran in question regarding fighting are all referring to defense of oneself in cases of being attacked and not to attack others.

According to Egypt Independent, the country’s Dar al-Iftaa-affiliated Observatory of Islamophobia denounced “such dangerous calls launched by some from time to time, causing attacks and antagonism against Muslims there, and creating a conflict among the people [of France]”.

Last Update: Wednesday, 20 May 2020 KSA 09:53 - GMT 06:53