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Shiite Iran woos branch of Egyptian Sunni school

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.
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