RNA – In an effort to clarify and explain the facts about “true Islam”, Egypt’s Grand Mufti headed to Europe Sunday.
Sheikh Shawki Allam who is also the head of Egypt’s foremost religious authority for issuing fatwa is scheduled to have high-level meetings with political and executive leaders in Europe, including the Dutch Foreign Minister. He will also visit the Dutch Parliament and the French Senate.
The meetings come within the efforts to modify the image of Islam, which the Mufti believes has been distorted by “terrorist groups”.
The Grand Mufti reiterated his condemnation of radical Islam and extremism on several occasions, as the ideologies of radical Islam are on the rise, especially with the spread of “Islamic State” (IS) and its affiliates worldwide.
On January 7, gunmen attacked the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people and wounding 11 others. The attack, which was later claimed by al-Qaeda terrorist group, was largely believed to have been launched over the weekly’s blasphemous cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
The incident was followed by a series of sieges and shootings across Paris, resulting in the killing of more people and an extensive sense of insecurity in the country.
The rising wave of anti-Muslim hate attacks comes while Muslims across the world condemned both the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s office as well as the weekly’s sacrilegious cartoons that insulted Prophet Muhammad.
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