Despite Egypt-Iran tensions, the Shiite-dominated Islamic republic has made an unprecedented request for Cairo’s Al-Azhar University — Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning — to open a branch in Tehran.
The overture has, however, sparked speculation in Egypt that Iran, increasingly embattled over its controversial nuclear program, is merely seeking Arab support in its standoff with the West.
“We have asked officially, but so far we have had no response,” said Karim Azizi, spokesman at the Iranian interests section in Cairo where there has been no Iranian embassy since diplomatic relations were cut almost 30 years ago.
Azizi said the request to Al-Azhar — founded in 975AD — was aimed at “reinforcing Iranian-Egyptian relations and bringing closer together the different Islamic confessions, especially Sunnis and Shiites.”
The surprise move comes amid anger in Sunni-majority Egypt after Iranian television screened a film reportedly calling assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat a traitor and hailing his executed killer as a martyr.
After Assassination of a Pharaoh was shown, Egypt last month canceled a soccer match, summoned Iran’s envoy in Cairo and closed an Iranian satellite TV channel’s office.
Officially Iran has sought to distance itself from the broadcast, saying it does not represent Tehran’s position and instead hailing relations between the two Middle East heavyweights as “based on friendship and brotherhood.”
In a region increasingly riven with Sunni-Shiite tensions and amid fears of a so-called Shiite crescent running from Beirut to Tehran, Egypt’s soured relations with Iran have little to do with sectarianism, however.
Diplomatic ties were severed in 1980 a year after Iran’s Islamic revolution in protest at Egypt recognizing Israel, hosting the deposed shah and supporting Baghdad during the 1980 to 1988 Iran-Iraq war.
Relations warmed recently, with both states signaling a willingness to restore ties. In January, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met Iranian parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hada Adel, the first such high-level talks in almost three decades.
Sheikh Ali Abdel Baqi, the head of Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Center, said the Iranian request for a university or faculty was unofficial and came from Iran’s 5 million-strong Sunni minority, most of whom are members of ethnic minority groups living in the country’s borderlands.
He said Iranian Sunnis want to “teach their children the Sunnism that’s taught at Al-Azhar because it is moderate and open, and this is Al-Azhar’s message all over the world.”
Mohammed Sayed Said, editor of the independent Al-Badil newspaper, called the initiative “a very smart move. Iran keeps reaching out to Egypt and Mubarak’s Egypt is not responsive and has not been for the past 10 years. It’s political. It’s not even diplomatic because I don’t think it will be approved by the state.”
“The general feeling at the moment is that we [Muslims] are the target of destruction, so we should do whatever is necessary to restore unity,” he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition