Who secures 6,000 mausoleums after Rawdah Mosque attack

CAIRO – 27 November 2017: The number of Sufi mausoleums in Egypt has increased in recent years to 6,000 shrines visited by hundreds of thousands of citizens, according to statistics from the Ministry of Culture.

After the deadly terrorist attack targeting a North Sinai mosque during Friday prayers, which resulted in the death of more than 300 innocent worshippers, some voices demanded posting guards at all mosques.

Major General Gamal Abou Zekry, a former assistant to Egypt's interior minister and a former senior National Security Agency officer, stated to Egypt Today that it is impossible to post guards at all places of worship, but that it could be done for the most famous places.

“The best way to improve the security performance nowadays is to help them with any information we know about terrorists, because terrorists could live among us in several places,” added Zekry.

Major General Mohammed al-Ghobashi, assistant of the president of the “Hamat Al Watan” (Protectors of the Nation) Party, said that the attack on Rawdah Mosque in North Sinai is the first organized attack of its kind, so we have to confront this intellectually as well as through security.

Al-Azhar has to cooperate with security services through a joint project to expose their misleading thoughts and protect our youth and our country, added al-Ghobashi.

Major General Magdi Bassiouni, a security expert and former interior minister assistant, said that the security services have a big role in this current period, so they have to choose the main places of worship, including large mosques, cathedrals or public institutions.

“The Ministry of Endowments has a great role in cooperating with security forces to get inventory of mosques, because the mosque has become a place of polarization, we do not fight just terrorist elements, but we fight extremist thought,” added Bassiouni.

This is not the first instance that the Sufi stream, along with its mosques, mausoleums and followers, has been targeted in North Sinai by terrorist groups that have become increasingly active since the Muslim Brotherhood were deposed from power, but it is by far the bloodiest of these attacks.


The armed attack was highly organized and executed by 40 terrorists who rode in eight four-wheel vehicles and began their attack soon after the second call for the Friday prayer was announced and the imam had started his khutbah (sermon).

In the Islamic month of Rabi’ al-Awwal and just one week before the Mawlid al-Nabawi (celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), a deadly terrorist attack targeting a North Sinai mosque during Friday prayers resulted in the death of more than 300 innocent worshippers, horrifying Egyptians and people throughout the world – something anathema to the very essence of Islam.

In a time when Muslims are celebrating the Prophet (peace be upon him), about whom God says: {We have not sent you but as a mercy to the worlds} [Quran 21:107], terrorists are seeking to spread mercy’s opposite – malice, malevolence, destruction and chaos.

Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb stated that “the shedding of blood, the violation of the sacred houses of God and the terrorizing of worshippers are acts of corruption on earth.”

Previously, in an August meeting with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Tayeb said that “moderation, intellectuality and logic will always remain the main features of Al-Azhar's message, which represents the right form of Islam.”