by SARAH EL DEEB
CAIRO (AP) — The head of Al-Azhar, the pre-eminent institute of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world, put forward a Bill of Rights on Tuesday upholding freedom of expression and belief ahead of the drafting of Egypt’s new constitution.
The bill, which was in the works for three months in collaboration with secular and Islamist thinkers, is a bid by Al-Azhar to assert its role as the voice of moderate Islam in the face of growing political power of more conservative Islamic groups in Egypt following the February ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
The conservative Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most organized political force, and the more radical ultraconservative Salafis, have won a majority in the country’s first elected post-Mubarak parliament. Both call for an Islamic basis for the state, raising worries among Egypt’s liberal and Christian groups that conservative religious teachings will dictate the shape of the new constitution. In theory, parliament is to be in charge of nominating who will draft the document.
The Al-Azhar document is the latest in a series of moves by the institution to raise its profile as Islamists rise to political prominence — and to rehabilitate its own image after decades of being seen as a tool of Egypt’s regime. Secular Egyptians, liberals and Christians, in turn, have welcomed its role, hoping it will give religious support for preserving broader democratic rights that they fear conservatives will try to limit. A previous document by Al-Azhar, also backed by intellectuals, supported the Arab revolutions and the public’s rights to democratic change.
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