Wednesday 10 March 2010

Pharaoh mouthpiece, Tantawi dies in Saudi Arabia

Via Friday-Lunch-Club


"... Tantawi, the head of al Azhar, has died on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Al Jazeera television reported on Wednesday ..."
Posted by G, Z, or B at 6:59 AM


Al-Azhar Top Cleric Tantawi Dies of Heart Attack


10/03/2010 Al-Azhar top cleric Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, a controversial figure in Egypt, died on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia of a heart attack suffered while boarding a plane, state media said. Tantawi was in Riyadh to attend the King Faisal awards ceremony, the official MENA news agency said.

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, 81, was boarding a plane early Wednesday morning when he suffered severe pain and fell on the stairs, Egyptian television said. He was rushed to the Amir Sultan hospital in Riyadh where doctors pronounced him dead. An Egyptian official confirmed to AFP that Tantawi had died of a heart attack.

Immediately after the announcement of his death, somber music played on Egyptian television to footage of Al-Azhar mosque.

Tantawi's family decided to bury him in Al-Baqie, "the family has decided that since God chose for him to die on Saudi land, he will be buried in Al-Baqie" cemetery in Islam's second holy city of Medina, his son added.
Tantawi was appointed mufti of Egypt in 1986, then a decade later, in 1996. He was appointed head of Al-Azhar by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Tantawi, who has three children, was born in 1928 in the village of Salim in Sohag province, about 290 kilometers south of the capital, Cairo. In 1966 he graduated from the faculty of theology at Al-Azhar.

The cleric has long been a controversial figure in Egypt. But many saw him as an employee of the state who moved Al-Azhar in line with government policy. In January, a council of leading Muslim clerics, directed by Tantawi, supported the government's construction of an underground barrier along the border with the Gaza Strip. Once completed, the steel barrier would cut off blockaded Gaza's last lifeline and — by slicing through hundreds of smuggling tunnels under the nine-mile Gaza-Egypt border — could increase pressure on 1.5 million Palestinians living there.

The top cleric also sparked controversy in 2008 after shaking hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres at a religious conference in New York. Pictures of the handshake during the UN-sponsored religious dialogue caused a furor in Egypt. He said at the time he did not know Peres.


In 2007, he urged Egyptian Muslims to vote on a series of unpopular constitutional amendments put forward by the ruling National Democratic Party and boycotted by many. In June last year, Tantawi also backed France's decision to ban women from wearing the face-veil, saying a non-Muslim country had the right to take such a stand. In October last year, a national row broke out after Tantawi banned the niqab, or full face veil, in all residences and schools affiliated to Al-Azhar, except in classrooms where the teacher is male.
River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

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