The Minority Report: al-Azhar's anti-Shia essay competition
The Minority Report: al-Azhar's anti-Shia essay competition
Egypt's al-Azhar University has asked students to take part in an essay competition on countering the spread of Shia Islam.
2 min read
21 Dec, 2015
Shia Egyptians form only a small minority of the 90-million-strong population [Getty]
Sunni Islam's leading seat of learning has organised a student essay-writing contest on ways to stop the spread of Shia Islam.
An announcement, which seems to have been taken down, on the al-Azhar University's website called on foreign exchange students to submit papers on "the spread of Shia Islam in Sunni society, its causes, dangers and how to combat it".
Local media said the first place winner of the contest would take home $600 for their essay, which also has a requisite creative arts component that can include poetry, plays and speeches.
The minority Shia Muslim community in Egypt has long faced discrimination from authorities and ultra-conservative members of the Sunni community.
Shia leaders and human rights groups say that Egyptian Shia are banned from practising their rituals freely and publically and have said they are prevented from building mosques or congregation halls of their own.
The Grand Imam of al-Azhar said last week that recent calls for the Shia community to have a seat in the newly elected parliament were "absurd" because "there were no Shia in Egypt except for a couple of peddlers of religion and sectarian strife".
In 2013, a Shia cleric was killed along with three members more members of the minority community in a mob attack on his home in a village outside of Cairo.
There are no official records on Egyptian Shia but their numbers are estimated to be between 800,000 to 2 million.
The prestigious Islamic university's essay competition strangely comes at a time of seemly improved relations with the Shia-led Syrian government.
Egypt has supported Russian intervention in the war-torn country against opposition rebels and the Islamic state group.
An announcement, which seems to have been taken down, on the al-Azhar University's website called on foreign exchange students to submit papers on "the spread of Shia Islam in Sunni society, its causes, dangers and how to combat it".
Local media said the first place winner of the contest would take home $600 for their essay, which also has a requisite creative arts component that can include poetry, plays and speeches.
The minority Shia Muslim community in Egypt has long faced discrimination from authorities and ultra-conservative members of the Sunni community.
Shia leaders and human rights groups say that Egyptian Shia are banned from practising their rituals freely and publically and have said they are prevented from building mosques or congregation halls of their own.
The Grand Imam of al-Azhar said last week that recent calls for the Shia community to have a seat in the newly elected parliament were "absurd" because "there were no Shia in Egypt except for a couple of peddlers of religion and sectarian strife".
In 2013, a Shia cleric was killed along with three members more members of the minority community in a mob attack on his home in a village outside of Cairo.
There are no official records on Egyptian Shia but their numbers are estimated to be between 800,000 to 2 million.
The prestigious Islamic university's essay competition strangely comes at a time of seemly improved relations with the Shia-led Syrian government.
Egypt has supported Russian intervention in the war-torn country against opposition rebels and the Islamic state group.
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