Egyptian president’s advisor for religious affairs warns of googling fatwas, Islamic rulings

CAIRO – 1 September 2022: The Egyptian President’s Advisor for religious affairs, Osama Al-Azhari, warned of searching fatwas or Islamic decisions on the Google search engine, where hardline fatwas issued by Salafists or Muslim Brotherhood can commonly be found.

In comments to the Egyptian DMC channel on Wednesday, Azhari said, "Whoever takes Sharia rulings from Google will find it directly on the [websites promoting] Salafi and Brotherhood ideologies."

He added that Salafi and Brotherhood websites have been working for a long time on a specific method to make their pages and websites friendly to the search engine.

On August 12, 2021, the Egyptian authorities put the banned Muslim Brotherhood on the list of terrorist entities for a period of 5 years.

The official gazette Al-Waqa'i al-Misriyya published on August 11, 2021 a Cairo criminal court ruling of blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood for a period of 5 years. The decision came into force on the following day, August 12.

The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed in Egypt and designated a terrorist group. Late Mohamed Morsi, who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guidance Bureau, had been president for one year before his regime got toppled over mass protests on July 30, 2013.