Tantawi comes to agreement with Vatican to carry out 'cleanup' of Islamic textbooks

Al-Azhar's head Tantawi comes to an agreement with Vatican to carry out 'cleanup' of Islamic textbooks

Publication time: Today at 09:55 Djokhar time

[URL="http://imgs2.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2009/03/06/10586_1.jpg"]Picture[/URL]: On photo: Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar University, had given a secret order on "cleanup" of Islamic textbooks a long time.

According to sources from Egypt, the head of the oldest Islamic university Al-Azhar, which is more than 1000 year old, Tantawi has promised Vatican to rewrite the Islamic textbooks. The formal ground for "cleaning" of Islamic books has become a idea of the need to "respect the other world religions".

This Tantawi's decision angered Egyptian scholars.

"Muslims respect all other religions," Sheikh Youssef el-Badri, a preacher and a former official from Al-Azhar, says. "I challenge anybody to find any such offensive materials in our school books."

According to IslamOnline the officials from Al-Azhar met with cardinals from the Vatican in Rome on February 24-25 to discuss the so-called "steps for building world peace and friendly relations".

"Scholastic books should be revised in order not to contain material which may offend the religious sentiments of other believers at times through the erroneous presentation of dogmas, morals or history," said in the joint statement of the Vatican and the official spokesman of Al-Azhar.

However, the document did not say how exactly they intend to do that.

This "agreement" has aggravated the anger of Egypt's religious scholars, including some from al-Azhar.

"Muslims are in no need to rewrite their books," says Taha Riyan, a professor of religious principles at al-Azhar University.

Meanwhile, Al-Azhar officials say Grand Imam Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi had ordered a revision of school textbooks a long time ago.

Based on this fact, the textbooks have not have a single word insulting other religions, Ulema concerned that the main purpose of "cleanup" of textbooks is an attempt to dilute the main provisions of Islam, that enemies of Islam has been unhappy 1430 years already.

We would like to remind that last year the Vatican issued a formal statement and called on the followers of Islam to "reform their religion". In particular, the Vatican demanded Muslims to abandon the Jihad.

Pope Benedict's adviser "on Islam" (yes, there is such a position in the Vatican) said that the provision of Jihad should be deleted from the Koran.

He stated that "Muslim leaders must speak against Jihad" and recognize the Jihad as "violence".

Last year Tauran complained that "theological debate with Muslims was difficult as they saw the Koran as the literal word of Allah and would not discuss it in depth".

In Christianity there is no problem with the word of God. Dozens of versions of the Bible are printed. And even the same version may be subjected to additional correction for any reason.

The Christians are correcting the word of "their" God depending on the circumstances or their worldviews.

An interesting debate on the topic - "Is the Bible True Word of God?" - between Ahmed Deedat and Christian preacher Pastor Stanley Sjoberg can be viewed at this [URL="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4058605158253427977"]link.[/URL]

As far as the Muslims go, they really firmly believe that each word of the Koran is sacred, and not a single word or a single letter can ever be removed from the holy text.

Meanwhile Tauran advised Muslims to establish "their own Vatican", a "united center of Islamic religious authority", with whom one could do negotiate.

We would like to mention in this regard that religion and life are inseparable in Islam. Islam is a comprehensive law and way of life which does not imply division into secularism and religious.

While in the Christian (or Western) way of thinking reigns the formula of "Render unto Ceasar... render unto God...", in Islam other formula is approved - "all render unto God".

The primary objective of the enemies of Islam - to separate the religion from secular life at any cost.

As a part of this war, for example, the Zionists opened a pseudo-Muslim website - "Muslims against Sharia", which has declared the need to "correct" the word of Allah (Subhana va Taala), and remove from the Koran all that the enemies of Islam view as "incompatible with norms of modern society".

In an editorial appeal the Zionists write:

"Sharia Law must be abolished, because it is incompatible with norms of modern society. We need to remove outdated verses from the Koran". And according to the Zionists, who declared themselves as "Muslim reformers", such verses are contained in almost half of the Koran. Here you can read the list of verses that are not liked by the enemies of Islam and which, in their opinion, should be removed from the Koran

According to their squalid views, the Most High did not take some things into consideration and turned out to be wrong on certain points (subhanulLah).

Besides, some Chechen Democrats publicly express solidarity with the enemies of Islam and actively play into their hands.

Thus, former Foreign Minister of former CRI (Chechen Republic of Ichkeria) Ahmed Zakayev, who lives in London, works closely with the most odious Zionist anti-Islamic periodicals. On March 19 he gave an interview to Front Page Magazine, as well as to the already mentioned website "Muslims against Sharia", which are waging frenzied informational war against Islam, calling the religion of Allah "Islamo-Fascism", demanding to ban Jihad, to reduce the Koran, to abandon the Sharia and to demonstratively publish offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

Kavkaz Center

Absolutely despicable...Tantawi is scum....