Al-Azhar Grand Imam, Prof. Ahmad At-Tayyeb, received, today, Thursday, at the headquarters of Al-Azhar, Lord Tariq Ahmed, British Minister of State for North Africa, South and Central Asia, the Commonwealth and the United Nations.

The Grand Imam welcomed the British Minister and the accompanying delegation, praising the strength and development of Egyptian-British relations, especially in the areas of combating extremism and terrorism, as well as in the field of solidarity to recover from the effects of the Corona pandemic. The Grand Imam emphasized that we suffered in the East from the ideas and evils of extremist groups, as these groups tried to sabotage the normal relations between the East and the West. He also stressed that terrorist groups are not a product of Islam, Christianity, or any particular religion, but rather of political agendas that empowered them to grow and stand until they have become dangerous the way we see them today.

During the meeting, the Grand Imam stated, "There is no list of human rights on which all people agree, but there are some general rules on which everyone agrees. However, there are many issues on which visions may differ completely between the East and the West, such as Western slogans concerning the freedom of expression, which are promoted as human rights on the one hand, and then exploited to explicitly abuse religious sanctities and symbols on the other. This is unacceptable.”

His Eminence added, "The clear example of this is allowing the extremists with terrorist ideology in Sweden to burn the Holy Qur'an, allowing them to provoke the feelings of the Muslims around the world, placing them in a reactionary position. Then, the West describes the Muslims as extremists and terrorists when they demonstrate peacefully to express their rejection of these provocative acts! For us, this is the dictatorship of chaos. Similarly, the West regards the Palestinian resistance as terrorism, but we consider it a legitimate resistance and a genuine right for the defenseless Arab people who have suffered a lot for more than seventy years.

Lord Tariq Ahmed, for his part, congratulated the Grand Imam on the blessed month of Ramadan and the approaching ˁEid ul-Fiṭr, expressing the UK’s appreciation for the role of Al-Azhar in promoting the correct image of the Islamic religion, which some extremist groups seek to exploit for in a way that serves their own interests. He affirmed the UK's position on ensuring the freedom of religion and belief, and the role of religious leaders in clarifying the true religion to confront extremist ideas and groups.

The British Minister presented an official invitation from the United Kingdom to Al-Azhar Grand Imam to attend and participate in the proceedings of the ministerial conference on freedom of belief, to be held in the British capital this year, under the direct supervision of Mr. Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister. In addition, the Grand Imam is supposed to take part in the activities and events planned by civil society organizations in Britain, which will be held alongside the official ministerial conference.