CAIRO: A top official of Cairo’s Al-Azhar university, which US President Barack Obama referred to as a "beacon of learning" in an appeal for reconciliation with Muslims, warned Wednesday that a Florida church’s plan to burn copies of the Quran risks destroying ties.
"If the government fails to stop this, this will be the latest manifestation of religious terrorism, and it would ruin America’s relations with the Muslim world," said Sheikh Abdel-Muti Bayyoumi, who sits on the Sunni Muslim seat of learning’s highest council, the Islamic Research Academy.
"This will give an opportunity to terrorism. Are they trying to fight terrorism or encourage it?" Bayyoumi asked.
The Dove World Outreach Center, a small church in Gainesville, Florida, has vowed to mark Saturday’s ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by burning Qurans as they remember the almost 3,000 people killed by Al-Qaeda hijackers.
Essam Al-Erian, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s politburo, said on Wednesday that burning Qurans would fan Muslim hatred of the United States.
Al-Erian said the outdoor ceremony planned by the Dove World Outreach Centre would be a "barbaric act, reminiscent of the Inquisition."
"It will increase hatred towards the United States in the Muslim world," he warned.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Wednesday dubbed the Florida pastor a "fanatic" and urged Americans to oppose his plans.
Moussa, who heads the 22-member pan-Arab body based based in Cairo, said: "There is an increasing majority in the United States against this fanatic.
"We want to see the reaction of the educated in the United States against this fanatic’s destructive approach," he told AFP.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has denounced the plans of the church’s pastor, Terry Jones, as "disgraceful."
It was from Cairo that Obama gave a keynote address to world Muslims in June 2009, seeking to end a sharp downturn in US relations with the Islamic world during the administration of his predecessor George W. Bush.
