“When religion becomes a servant of the regime…”“This second fatwa was released on the 8th of November, a few days after a small bus used by the police killed a girl that tried to hold onto the car to prevent it from moving with her brother’s wife inside of it - so the officer ordered the bus to move quickly and thus ran over the girl. During his news conference, one of the Mufti’s responses to his critics and to what one of the internet bloggers described as the “Mufti at the service of the police” was that this specific fatwa was not issued after the incident, since it came out last June, i.e. four months before the girl’s death. But this argument doesn’t explain why the Mufti publicized this fatwa on such a large scale at this time. For the Mufti sent telegrams about this fatwa to all the news agencies because no one would have heard of it otherwise given that the Mufti issues about a 1,000 fatwas per day. A such, publishing this fatwa at this time was specifically aimed at responding to the accusations against the police officer who killed the girl.
“The Mufti might not be under any political or governmental pressure, as he keeps saying, but then we would like to know why the absolute majority of his fatwas conform to the needs and interests of the regime? Why did he say that the young men who drowned “went for material greed” thereby disregarding all the reports in the newspapers about the circumstances of the lives of these young men - some of whom were responsible for supporting families of ten people or more? Why didn’t he blame the circumstances that forced them to leave in search of work? Was he being nice to the government (without any pressure being exercised on him since he, as he keeps saying, can’t be pressured) by trying to protect it from embarrassment in front of its people and the Italian government and by trying to protect the Egyptian shores against the drainage of young Egyptian men trying to support their families?
“In other words, as Dr Jalal Amine was wondering in his commentary on this fatwa, “is he the Mufti of Egypt or of its regime - or of Italy?” If he isn’t under any pressure, then why does he keep issuing these fatwas that absolve the government of its responsibility for dealing with the problems wracking Egyptian society? Why do the majority of these fatwas lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of the citizens and prohibit them from using the means available to them to try to get out of the crises confronting them - crises that result from the absence and ineffectiveness of the official institutions? Take as one example the fatwa prohibiting the burning of any hay remaining from the rice harvest - a practice that causes a black cloud over Cairo around this time of the year. This fatwa completely ignores the fact that this is the only path available for the farmers to get rid of the hay in order to plant a new harvest - the result of the absence of recycling plants that turn this hay into fertilizer.
“Why did the Mufti present fatwas allowing large telecommunication companies to use the minarets of mosques as antennas to strengthen their signals and their mobile phone networks - only after the outbreak of protests in several villages - protests that were suppressed violently by the police - against the installment of these antennas because they might cause cancer? Do we deduce from all of the above that the Mufti, since he doesn’t need any political pressures to issue such extremely biased fatwas, shares the same state of mind with the government? He even goes beyond the government in his attacks on the opposition whom he describes as “disease-ridden imbeciles” and the opposition as a whole as a “rabid movement against the government”…
“Thus we will not be surprised if the Mufti issues a fatwa next time prohibiting sit-ins, protests, and strikes - all of which have proliferated recently and which might threaten some of the vital government institutions. But if we want to call him by his true name then we must address him as the “president’s Mufti”. It only remains for him to issue a fatwa sanctioning the passing-on of power from President Husni Mubarak to his son Jamal, but of course without any government pressure.” - Al-Akhbar Lebanon, Lebanon
