The head of Egypt’s Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, said on Monday that jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were “criminals” serving a “Zionist” plot to “destroy the Arab world.”
“These criminals have been able to transmit to the world a tarnished and alarming image of Muslims,” Sheikh Ahmed Al Tayyeb said.
“These fundamentalist terrorist groups, whatever their names, and their backers are colonial creations that serve Zionism in its plot to destroy the Arab world.”
Al Azhar is Egypt’s top religious authority and runs a university long seen as the most prestigious centre of Sunni Muslim learning. It espouses a different school of theology within Sunnism than the radical Salafi views of the ISIS and other jihadist groups, and has backed a government crackdown on Islamist opposition.
The bitter condemnation followed the release of a video last week purportedly showing American journalist Steven Sotloff beheaded by the militants.
It was the second such beheading in the past week, following that of another US journalist, James Foley, by the same group.
Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh has also urged Muslims to take up arms against the militant group’s members as aggressors who abuse people’s lives, possessions and honour.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz condemned Al Qaeda and the ISIS jihadists as “enemy number one” of Islam.
Earlier this month, Egypt’s Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam had condemned the militants for atrocities they have been perpetrating in the countries and their violation of principles and teachings preached by Islam.
