President Mubarak On Religious Tolerance

As a follow up on the previous post regarding the highly anticipated speech of Egypt's President Mr. Hosni Mubarak given on 19 October 2006, the following are excerpts from a report on the speech. For the full article on Reuters website, please click here.

To view a complete video recording of the speech, please click here.







Egypt's Mubarak blames Muslims for faith's bad image

By Alaa Shahine

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak questioned on Thursday whether Muslims had done enough to change the West's "wrong perceptions" about Islam, which he said was under "ferocious attack".

He also said Islam needed a fresh religious discourse to promote tolerance and uproot extremist views.

"The Muslim world is facing a ferocious attack, describing Islam wrongly and offending Muslims' sacred (symbols and figures) and beliefs," Mubarak said in a speech marking Lailat al-Qadr, the night Muslims believe God started the revelation of the Koran to Prophet Mohammed more than 1400 years ago.

"Don't we Muslims share part of the responsibility for the wrong perceptions about Islam? Have we done our duty in correcting the image of Islam and Muslims?" he said.

"Isn't it the time for a new religious discourse, that teaches people the correct things in their religion ... and promotes the values of tolerance against those of extremism and radicalism?" he said.

It was the most detailed remark yet by the president on the need to reform Islam's jurisprudence to accommodate more moderate views, although critics say the state's control of religious institutions in Egypt has harmed their credibility.

Egypt has been battling radical Islamists since before Mubarak took office. His predecessor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamist militants.

Also, this Associated Press (AP) article regarding the speech was reported in the New York Times, and excerpted here: Muslims have strayed from the essence of Islam and need to return to its principles of "forgiveness, righteousness and reform," he said.