Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Wednesday has expressed dissatisfaction with the acts of insulting prophets and belittling sublime religious values, saying it hurts the feelings of millions of people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this [freedom of expression] should stop when it comes to hurting the feelings of 1.5 billion or more Muslims\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sisi\u2019s remarks come while French President Emmanuel Macron had said France would not renounce cartoons, after a French teacher was killed for showing pupils cartoons distorting the image of Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n
Macron\u2019s remarks have triggered Muslim nations\u2019 anger. Also, campaigns to boycott French products have been circulated and encouraged on social media.<\/p>\n
There are more than 1.5B Muslims; if 1% of them are extremists, that is 15M. Can you imagine what would happen to the world if there are 15M terrorists? The number isn’t like that at all, President Sisi said, as he attended a ceremony to mark the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, celebrated every year by some Muslims in the Hijri month of Rabi\u2019 Al-Awwal.<\/p>\n
Muslims should not bear the brunt of the actions of a deviated group, Sisi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet’s all agree that extremism is not exclusive to a certain religion. In all religions, sadly, there are extremists who seek to stoke up strife and ignite anger and hate,\u201d Sisi stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stature of great Prophet Mohamed in the hearts and souls of Muslims all over the world cannot be affected be a say or an act,\u201d the President said, stressing, on the other hand, complete rejection of any violence or terrorism committed under the slogan of defending religion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe essence of religion is tolerance… [The prophet] -peace be upon him- entrenched the basis of coexistence, accepting others, and believing in diversity [Let there be no compulsion in religion, 2:256],\u201d Sisi added.<\/p>\n
During his speech, the president said the message of Islam supports freedom, including the freedom of faith, choice, belief and thought. He warned, however, that these freedoms do not come absolute.<\/p>\n
\u201cFreedoms are not absolute in order for the whims of the human soul not to turn them [freedoms] into chaos that condone sabotage and destruction,\u201d the president said, adding that these freedoms \u201cmust stop at the rights of others\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat may be perceived as a restriction on freedoms protects, in exchange, the rights of others. Justifying extremism under the premise of religion could not be farther from religion,\u201d the president added.<\/p>\n
Egypt Today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi on Wednesday has expressed dissatisfaction with the acts of insulting prophets and belittling sublime religious values, saying it hurts the feelings of millions of people. \u201cI think this [freedom of expression] should stop when it comes to hurting the feelings of 1.5 billion or more Muslims\u201d. Sisi\u2019s remarks come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":200329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7863],"tags":[2484,51724,8470],"class_list":["post-200326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-section","tag-egypt","tag-rabi-al-awwal","tag-sisi"],"yoast_head":"\n