Fatwa kiosks at universities? Would it work or backfire?

CAIRO – 24 September 2017: Al-Azhar-sponsored fatwa kiosks are stirring controversy that universities, schools, and youth centers are officially announced to be the new hub for these kiosks, in a further move by Al-Azhar to fight extremism and head off untrustworthy, extremist fatwas (religious edicts).

”You have given me hard time,” President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said addressing an Al-Azhar sheikh, Ahmed al-Tayyeb, in the national police day speech on January 23, 2017. President Sisi has consistently reiterated in his speeches the significance of revolutionizing religious discourse following a spate of deadly attacks that hit Egypt in the past few years.

Answering Sisi’s calls, al-Azhar off-shoot the Islamic Research Center launched an initiative to set up fatwa kiosks at metro stations that officially went into effect last July. The kiosks aim to provide the metro‘s one million daily commuters the opportunity to ask different religious inquiries and receive on-the-spot responses.

Trying to delve deeper in the potential implications of the trailing of fatwa kiosks on campuses, Researcher Sabrah al-Qasmi, who is specialized in Islamist movements, told Egypt Today that it may be a good idea on the surface, but “it carries within traditional and out-of-date attempts that don’t go in line with modern-day technology.”
“Islam is greater and more sublime than to be treated like a commodity sold in a kiosk giveaway. Defending Islam could be done in a more sublime and elevated way,” he argued.

He further concurred that people on campus won’t resort to such kiosks to get fatwas, when they can get easily exposed to dubious ones that are being disseminated through social networking, which terrorist groups are manipulating. “Taking to social media to counter the spread of terrorism online could be more efficient,” Qasmi concluded.

“We find it a must to stretch the activities of the religious campaigns into university campuses, given that the significance of having ‘face-to-face’ discussion to further get to know what exactly spirals on their minds and try to help figure them out in candid way,” Islamic Research Center member Muhammad Shehata el-Gendi told Egypt today.

“Such campaigns are inherently discriminatory; the public spheres should be no place for them. They have enough of the mosques that can be used for the very same goal,” MP Mohamed Abu Hamed said, pledging that he will officially request that the head of the parliament scrap these kiosks out during the upcoming parliamentary round.

Such a move is “defiance to the good reason and logic,” Islamist Researcher Hisham al-Naggar told Egypt Today, “Once again we are evading the root cause of the problem, and hold on to treat the symptoms. We have to troll through the original scriptural doctrines, heritage books, and texts that are full of extremism and misconnections.”

Almost 5,000 anti-terrorism books drafted by the top prestigious Islamic authority, Al-Azhar, have been reportedly distributed by the clerics of the booth on commuters.

Aligning with Abu Hamed, setting up fatwa kiosks in universities can spew discrimination amongst the university society that is already a powder keg, encompassing diverse social, religious, and political backgrounds.

In response, Shehata said “No way can we accuse the imitative of being discriminatory; all religions have common ‘determinants‘, and we are only trying to address the emerging plagues that has currently afflicted our society and religion, and help promote tolerance, country-loving and co existence, such issues that Christianity is concerned with too.”

“We are only allowing young men in the opportunity to ask questions that could prompt further discussions,” Shehata concluded.