Under government pressures, Egypt’s state television has scrapped plans for hosting prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi following his Friday prayers sermon from Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
“Some government officials considered the Friday sermon too strong,” Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told OnIslam.net in exclusive statements. “They would not bear a second powerful speech.”
Qaradawi delivered the weekly sermon on Friday, February 18 from Tahrir Square, where nearly five million Egyptians gathered to celebrate the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The sermon was broadcast by the state television, Qaradawi’s first appearance on the Egyptian TV in decades.
During the sermon, the prominent scholar called on Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians, to be proud of their country after ousting Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years. He also praised the armed forces’ position on protecting the revolution, calling on them to open Rafah border with Gaza strip.
After the sermon, Qaradawi, an Egyptian, was invited to appear on the Egyptian television on Sunday on the prime-time program “Egypt Today”. But shortly, the prominent scholar received a phone call from the program’s anchor apologizing for not shooting the program.
“I don’t know who was exactly behind banning Sheikh Qaradawi from appearing on the state television,” a source close to the prominent scholar said. A source in “Egypt Today” program cited “procedural reasons” for banning Qaradawi’s appearance.
Qaradawi dismissed accusations that his weekly sermon aimed at establishing a religious state in Egypt. “On the contrary, my speech supported establishing a civil state with a religious background,” he has told Al-Ahram newspaper. “I am totally against theocracy. We are not a state for mullahs.”
Some critics compared the return of Qaradawi, who has been living in Qatar, to Egypt as Ayatollah Ruhollah Ghomeini to Iran from France after the 1979 revolution. “I only came to celebrate the revolution,” said Qaradawi.
Qaradawi dismissed claims that he was still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “I’ve totally defected from the Muslim Brotherhood and have rejected many calls to be appointed as the group’s general guide,” he said. “I hope to serve as a guide for the whole nation and not for a certain group.”
The prominent scholar denied reports that his “guards” had prevented Google executive and activist Wael Ghonim from taking the podium in Tahrir Square. “I have no guards, I only brought my sons with me,” Qaradawi said. “I rejected many requests by scholars to send guards to protect me. Allah is my guard.”
Media reports claimed that Ghonim, who emerged as a leading youth figure in the Egyptian revolution, had been prevented by Qaradawi’s guards from speaking to the celebrators. Qaradawi said he neither organize the celebration nor prevent anyone from going on stage.
“I was surrounded by youth who cordoned me to protect me from the huge crowds,” he said. “I would have been glad if I met this young man [Ghonim] who initiated the 25 January revolution. I have praised him in a TV program when he was released from the prison. So how can I prevent him? I was only a guest in the celebrations.”
Meanwhile, over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is outraged that Qaradawi has called on the Libyan armed forces to turn their guns on Gaddafi rather than the Libyan people.
Update: Spencer has a piece on Qaradawi at Human Events (“Egypt’s Islamic supremacist is man of the hour”). The depth of Spencer’s knowledge of Qaradawi can be gauged by the reference to “his website IslamOnline.com (which publishes many of his fatwas)”. It has apparently escaped the attention of this self-styled expert on all things Islamic that last year a strike and sit-in took place at the IslamOnline offices in Cairo. Qaradawi intervened on the side of the strikers and as a result the Qatari government removed him from his position as chairman of the Al-Balagh Cultural Society which owns the website. The IslamOnline strikers subsequently launched the OnIslam website (“From the creators of IslamOnline”) which is where the above interview with Qaradawi was published. Qaradawi now has no links with IslamOnline.