Al-Azhar: ‘Blasphemous’ parody of Last Supper at 2024 Olympics ‘normalizes insult’ to religion

CAIRO – 28 July 2024: Al-Azhar, Egypt’s top Sunni Islamic institution, condemned blasphemous scenes that depicting the Last Supper of Jesus Christ- Peace and blessing be upon him (pbuh)- at the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris.

“The scenes portray Jesus ‎Christ (pbuh) in an offensive image that involves disrespect to his person and to the high ‎status of prophecy, in a barbaric, reckless manner that vexes believers in religions and ‎travesties morals and noble human values,” said Al-Azhar in a statement on Sunday.

Al-Azhar underscored its permanent rejection of all attempts to disrespect any of Allah’s ‎prophets, the statement added.

“The prophets and the Messengers are the best of Allah’s creation. He chose them ‎and preferred them over all other creation to carry the message of goodness to the ‎worlds,” the statement read.

“Al-Azhar, and nearly two billion Muslims behind it, believe that Jesus (pbuh) is the ‎Messenger of Allah. The Quran reads, Jesus is Allah’s “Word through Mary and a spirit ‎from Him” (4: 171),” the statement continued.

Allah also described Jesus in the Noble Qur’an as “honored in this world ‎and the Hereafter, and he will be one of those nearest (to Allah)” (3: 45). Allah counted him ‎among the Messengers of Resolve.

Muslims believe that disrespecting Jesus (peace and blessing on him) or ‎any other prophet (peace be upon them all) is a sin and a shame on the perpetrators of ‎this heinous abuse and those who accept it.‎

Al-Azhar warned against the danger of exploiting global events to “normalize insults” to religion and promote homosexuality and transgenderism

It also calls for unity which is necessary to ‎confront this deviant and low trend that aims to exclude religion and deify lowly sexual ‎desires that spread health and moral diseases, impose an animalistic lifestyle that ‎contradicts sound human nature, and thus forcibly normalize it in societies by all ‎possible and impossible means and methods.‎

A group of drag queens and dancers performed a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Super,” at the opening ceremony of Olympics Games in Paris, a scene that stirred the controversary and angry of Christians and Muslims worldwide. The ceremony organizers apologized for the Catholic Church and other Christian churches for this scene.